Page:Essays in idleness.djvu/197

If men of real wit have been more numerous in the world than men of real humor, it is because discernment and lenity, mirth and conciliation, are qualities which do not blend easily with the natural asperity of our race. Humor has been somewhat daringly defined as "a sympathy for the seamy side of things." It does not hover on the borders of the light and trifling; it does not linger in that keen and courtly atmosphere which is the chosen playground of wit; but diffusing itself subtly throughout all nature, reveals to us life,—life which we love to consider and to judge from some pet standpoint of our own, but which is so big and wonderful, and good and bad, and fine and terrible, that our little peaks of observation command only a glimpse of the mysteries we are so ready and willing to solve. Thus, the degree of wit embodied in an old story is a matter of much dispute and of scant importance; but when we read that Queen Elizabeth, in her last illness, turned wearily away from matters of state, "yet delighted to hear some of the 'Hundred Merry Tales,' and to such was very attentive," we feel we have been lifted into the regions of humor, and by its sudden light