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HUMOUR (Latin humor)
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See also:HUMOUR (Latin humor) , a word of many meanings and of See also:strange See also:fortune in their See also:evolution. It began by meaning simply liquid." It passed through the See also:stage of being a See also:term of See also:art used by the old physicians—whom we should now See also:call physiologists—and by degrees has come to be generally understood to signify a certain " See also:habit of the mind," shown in speech, in literature and in See also:action, or a quality in things and events observed by the human intelligence. The word reached its full development by slow degrees. When Dr See also: Yet no dictionary-maker has been more successful than Johnson in giving the See also:literary and conversational meaning of an See also:English word, or the See also:main lines of its See also:history. It is therefore instructive to See also:note that in no one of his nine clauses does humour See also:bear the meaning it has for See also:Thackeray or for See also:George See also:Meredith. " General turn or temper of mind " is at the best too vague, and has more-over another application. His list of equivalents only carries the history of the word up to the beginning of the last stage of its growth.
The limited See also:original sense of liquid, moisture, See also:mere wet, in which " humour " is used in Wycliffe's See also:translation of the See also:Bible, continued to attach to it until the 17th See also:century. Thus See also:Shakespeare, in the first See also:scene of the second See also:act of See also:Julius See also:Caesar, makes Portia say to her See also:husband:
" Is See also:Brutus sick? and is it See also:physical
To walk unbraced and suck up the humours
Of the dank See also:morning?"
In the same scene See also:Decius employs the word in the wide metaphorical sense in which it was used, and abused, then and afterwards. " Let me See also:work," he says, referring to Caesar
" For I can give his humour the true See also:bent,
And I will bring him to the Capitol."
Here we have " the general turn or temper of mind," which can be flattered, or otherwise directed to " present disposition." We have travelled far from mere fluid, and have been led on the road by the old physiologists.. We are not concerned with their See also:science, but it is necessary to see what they mean by " See also:primary humours," and " second or third concoctions," if we are to understand how it was that a name for liquid could come to mean " general turn " or " present disposition," or " whim " or " jocularity." See also:Part I., See also:Section 1, Member 2, Subsection 2, of See also:Burton's See also:Anatomy of Melancholy will See also:supply all that is necessary for literary purposes. " A humour is a liquid or fluent part of the body comprehended in it, and is either See also:born with us, or is See also:adventitious and acquisite." The first four primary humours are—" Blood, a hot, sweet, tempered, red humour, prepared in the meseraic See also:veins, and made of the most temperate parts of the chylus (chyle) in the See also:liver, whose See also:office it is to nourish the whole body, to give it strength and See also:colour, being dispersed through every part of it. And from it See also:spirits are first begotten in the See also:heart, which afterwards in the See also:arteries are communicated to the other parts. Pituita or phlegm is a See also:cold and moist humour, begotten of the colder parts of the chylus (or See also: " Choler is hot and dry, begotten of the hotter parts of the chylus, and gathered to the See also:gall. It See also:helps the natural See also:heat and senses. Melancholy, cold and dry, thick, See also:black and sour, begotten of the more feculent part of nourishment, and purged from the See also:spleen, is a bridle to the other two hot humours, blood and choler, preserving them in the blood, and nourishing the bones." Mention must also be made of serum, and of " those excrementitious humours. of the third concoction, sweat and tears." An exact See also:balance of the four primary humours makes the justly constituted man, and allows for the undisturbed See also:production of the " concoctions " —or processes of digestion and assimilation. Literature seized upon these terms and definitions. Sometimes it applied them gravely in the moral and intellectual See also:sphere. Thus the Jesuit See also:Bouhours, a See also:French critic of the 17th century, in his Entretiens d'Ariste et d'See also:Eugene, says that in the formation of a See also:bed esprit, " La bile See also:donne le brillant et la penetration, la melancolie donne le bon See also:sens et la solidi* le sang donne 1'agrement et la delicatesse." It was, in fact, taken for granted that the See also:character and See also:intellect of men were produced by—were, so to speak, concoctions dependent on—the " humours." In the fallen See also:state of mankind it rarely happens that an exact balance is maintained. One or other- humour predominates, and thus we have the See also:long-established See also:doctrine of the existence of the sanguine, the phlegmatic, the choleric, or the melancholy temperaments. Things being so, nothing was more natural than the passage of these terms of art into See also:common speech, and their application in a metaphorical sense, when once they had been adopted by the literary class. The See also:process is admirably described by See also:Asper in the introduction to See also:Ben See also:Jonson's See also:play—Every Man out of his Humour: " \Vhy humour, as it is ` ens,' we thus define it, To be a quality of See also:air or See also:water; And in itself holds these two properties Moisture and fluxure: as, for demonstration Pour water on this See also:floor. 'See also:Twill wet and run. Likewise the air forced through a See also:horn or See also:trumpet Flows instantly away, and leaves behind A See also:kind of See also:dew; and hence we do conclude That whatsoe'er hath fluxure and humidity As wanting See also:power to contain itself Is humour. So in every human body The choler, melancholy, phlegm and blood By See also:reason that they flow continually In some one part and are not See also:continent Receive the name of humours. Now thus far It may, by See also:metaphor, apply itself Unto the general disposition; As when some one See also:peculiar quality Doth so possess a man that it doth draw All his effects, his spirits and his See also:powers, In their confluxion all to run one way, This may be truly said to be a humour." A humour in this sense is a " ruling See also:passion," and has done excellent service to English authors of " comedies of humours," to the See also:Spanish authors of comedias de figuron, and to the French followers of See also:Moliere. Nor is the metaphor racked out of its See also:fair proportions if we suppose that there may be a temporary, or even an " adventitious and acquisite " " predominance of a humour," and that " deliveries of a man's self " to passing passion, or to See also:imitation, are also " humours," though not primary, but only second or third .concoctions. By a natural See also:extension, therefore, " humours " might come to mean oddities, tricks, practices, mere whims, and the aping of some See also:model admired for the time being. " But," as Falstaff has told us, " it was always yet the trick of our English, if they have a See also:good thing, to make it too common." The word " humour " was a good thing, but the Elizabethans certainly made it too common. It became a hack epithet of all work, to be used with no more discretion, though with less See also:imbecile iteration, than the See also:modern " awful." Shakespeare laughed at the folly, and pinned it for ever to the ridiculous See also:company of See also:Corporal Nym—" I like not the humour of lying. He hath wronged me in some humours. I should have See also:borne the humoured See also:letter to her . . . I love not the humour of See also:bread and See also:cheese; and there's the humour of it." The humour of Jonson was that he tried to clear the air of thistledown by stamping on it. Asper ends in denunciation: ' But that a See also:rook by wearing a pied See also:feather, The See also:sable See also:hat-See also:band, or the three-piled See also:ruff, A yard of See also:shoe See also:tic, or the Switzer See also:knot On his French gaiters, should affect a humour, 0! it is more than most ridiculous." The abuse of the word was the peculiar practice of See also:England. The use of it was not confined wholly to English writers. The Spaniards of the 16th and 17th centuries knew humores in the same sense, and still employ the word as a name for caprices, whims and vapours. Humorada was, and is, the correct Spanish for a festive saying or See also:writing of epigrammatic See also:form. See also:Martial's immortal reply to the critic who admired only dead poets
Ignoscas petimus Vacerra: tanti
Non est, ut piaceam tibi perire,
is a model humorada. It would be a difficult and would certainly be a lengthy task to exhaust all the applications given
to so elastic a word. We still continue to use it in widely different senses. " Good humour " or " See also:bad humour " are simply good temper or bad temper. There is a slight archaic flavour about the phrases " grim humour," " the humour they were in," in the sense of suspicious, or angry or careless See also:mood, which were favourites with See also:Carlyle, but though somewhat antiquated they are not affected, or very unusual. With the proviso that the exceptions must always be excepted, we may say that for a long time " humour " came to connote comic See also:matter less refined than the matter of wit. It had about it a See also:smack of the See also:Boar's See also:Head See also:Tavern in Eastcheap, and of the unyoked " humour " of the society in which See also:Prince See also: The humorist, in fact, was a mere practical joker, who was very properly answered by a See also:challenge from a military See also:gentleman of peppery temper. Indeed, the See also:pump and a horse-See also:whip would appear to have been the only effective forms of See also:criticism on the prevalent humour and humours of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. But the pump and the horse-whip were themselves humours. Carlo Buffone in Jonson's play is put " out of his humour " by the See also:counter humour of Signor Puntarvolo, who knocks him down and gags him with See also:candle See also:wax. The brutal pranks of Fanny See also:Burney's See also:Captain Mirvan, who belongs to the earlier part of the 18th century, were meant for humour, and were accepted as such. Examples might easily be multiplied. A briefer and also a more convincing method of demonstration is to take the de-liberate See also:judgment of a See also:great authority. No writer of the 18th century possessed a finer sense of humour in the See also:noble meaning than See also:Goldsmith. What did he understand the word to mean? Not what he himself wrote when he created Dr See also:Primrose. We have his See also:express testimony in the 9th See also:chapter of The Present State of Polite Learning. Goldsmith complains that " the critic, by demanding an impossibility from the comic poet, has, in effect, banished true See also:comedy from the stage." This he has done by banning " See also:low " subjects, and by proscribing " the comic or satirical muse from every walk but high See also:life, which, though abounding in See also:fools as well as the humbler station, is by no means so fruitful in absurdity Absurdity is the poet's See also:game, and good breeding is the See also:nice concealment of absurdity. The truth is, the critic generally mistakes ` humour ' for ` wit,' which is a very different excellence; wit raises human nature above its level; humour acts a contrary part, and equally depresses it. To expect exalted humour is a contradition in terms. . . . The poet, therefore, must See also:place the See also:object he would have the subject of humour in a state of inferiority; in other words,the subject of humour must be low." That no doubt may remain in his reader's mind, Goldsmith gives an example of true humour. It is nothing more or less than the absurdity and incongruity obvious in a man who, though " wanting a See also:nose," is extremely curious in the choice of his See also:snuff-See also:box. We applaud " the humour of it," for " we here see him guilty of an absurdity of which we imagine it impossible for ourselves to be guilty, and therefore applaud our own good sense on the comparison." Nothing could be more true as an See also:account of what the Elizabethans, the Restoration, the See also:Queen See also:Anne men, and the 18th century meant by " humour." Nothing could be more false as an example of what we mean by the humour of Falstaff or of The See also:Vicar of See also:Wakefield. When we pass from Goldsmith to See also:Hazlitt—one of the greatest names in English criticism—we find that " humour " has grown in meaning, without quite reaching its full development. In the introduction to his Lectures on the English Comic Writers he attempts a See also:classification of the comic spirit into wit and humour. " Humour," he says, " is the describing the ludicrous as it is in itself; wit is the exposing it, by comparing or contrasting it with something else. Humour is, as it were, the growth of nature and See also:accident; wit is the product of art and See also:fancy. Humour, as it is shown in books, is an imitation of the natural or acquired absurdities of mankind, or of the ludicrous in accident, situation and character; wit is the illustrating and heightening the sense of that absurdity by some sudden and unexpected likeness or opposition of one thing to another, which sets off the quality we laugh at er despise in a still more contemptible or striking point of view." Hazlitt's See also:definition will, indeed, not stand See also:analysis. The See also:element of comparison is surely as necessary for humour as for wit. Yet his classification is valuable as illustrating the growth of the meaning of the word. Observe that Hazlitt has transferred to wit that power of pleasing as by a flattering sense of our own superiority which Goldsmith attributed to humour. He had not thought, and had not heard, that sympathy is necessary to complete humour. He cannot have thought it needful, for if he had he would hardly have said of the Arabian Nights that they are " an inexhaustible mine of comic humour and invention," " which from the See also:manners of the See also:East, which they describe, carry the principle of callous in-difference in the jest as far as it can go." He might, and probably would, have dismissed Goldsmith's See also:illustration as " low " in every conceivable sense. He would not have added, as we should to-day, that humour does not See also:lie in See also:laughter, according to the definition of See also:Hobbes, in a " sudden See also:glory," in a guffaw of self-conceited See also:triumph over the follies and deficiencies of others. If there is any place for humour in Goldsmith's sordid example, it must be made by pity, and shown by a deft introduction of the de le fabula dear to Thackeray, by a reminder that the world is full of See also:people, who, though wanting noses, are extremely curious in their choice of snuff-boxes, and that the more each of us thinks himself above the weakness the more likely he is to fall into it. The See also:critical value of Hazlitt's examination of the See also:differences between wit and humour lies in this, that he ignores the doctrine that the quality of humour lies in the thing or the action and not in the mind of the observer. The examples quoted above, to which any one with a moderate See also:share of See also:reading in English literature could add with ease, show that humour was first held to lie in the trick, the whim, the act, or the event and clash of incidents. It might even be a mere flavour, as when men spoke of the See also:salt humour of See also:sea-See also:sand. Even when it stood for the " general turn or temper of mind " it was a form of the ruling passion which inspires men's actions and words. It was used in that sense by Decius when he spoke of the humour of Caesar, which is a liability to be led by one who can play on his weakness " for he loves to hear That unicorns may be betrayed with trees And bears with glasses, elephants with holes, Lions with toils, and men with flatterers; But when I tell him he hates flatterers He says he does; being then most flattered." It is See also:plain that this is not what Hazlitt meant, or we now mean, by the humour displayed in " describing the ludicrous as it is shown in itself." Nor did he, any more than we do, suppose with Goldsmith that a " low quality of actions and persons is inseparable from humour. It had become for Hazlitt what Addison called cheerfulness, " a habit of the mind " as distinguished from mirth, which is " an act." If in Addison's sentences the place of cheerfulness is taken by humour, and that of mirth by wit, we have a very fair description of the two. " I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of the mind. Mirth is See also:short and transient, cheerfulness is fixed and permanent." Humour is the fixed and permanent appreciation of the ludicrous, of which wit may be the short and transient expression. If now we pass to an See also:attempt to define " humour," the temptation to take See also:refuge in the use of an evasion employed by Dr Johnson is very strong. When See also:Boswell asked him, " Then, See also:Sir, what is See also:poetry? " the See also:doctor answered, " Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what See also:light is, but it is not easy to tell what it is." But George Meredith has come to our assistance in two passages of his See also:Essay on Comedy and the uses of the Comic Spirit. " If you laugh all See also:round him (to wit, the ridiculous person), tumble him, See also:roll him about, See also:deal him a smack, and drop a See also:tear on him, own his likeness to you, and yours to your See also:neighbour, spare him as little as you shun, pity him as much as you expose, it is spirit of Humour that is moving you. . . . The humourist of mean See also:order is a refreshing laugher, giving See also:tone to the feelings, and sometimes allowing the feelings to be too much for him. But the humourist, if high, has an embrace of contrasts beyond the See also:scope of the comic poet." The third See also:sentence is required to complete the first. The tumbling and See also:rolling, the smacks and the exposure, may be out of place where there is humour of the most humorous quality. Who could See also:associate them with Sir See also:Walter See also:Scott's characters of See also:Bradwardine or Monkbarns ? Bradwardine, one feels, would have stopped them as he did the See also:ill-timed jests of Sir Hew See also:Halbert, " who was so unthinking as to deride my See also:family name." Monkbarns was a man of See also:peace who loved the company of Sir See also:Priest better than that of Sir See also:Knight. But there is that in him which cows mere ridicule, be it ever so genial. He cared not who knew so much of his valour, and by that very avowal of his preference took his position sturdily in the See also:face of the world. But Meredith has given its due prominence to the quality which, for us, distinguishes humour from pure wit and the harder forms of jocularity. It is the sympathy, the appreciation, the love, which include the follies of See also:Don Quixote, the prosaic absurdities of Sancho Panza, the oddities of Bradwardine, Dr Primrose or Monkbarns, and the jovial animalism of Falstaff, in " an embrace of contrasts beyond the scope of the comic poets." It is needless to insist that humour of this order is far older than the very modern application of the name. It is assuredly present in See also:Horace. See also:Chaucer, who knew the word only as meaning " liquid," has See also:left a masterpiece of humour in his See also:prologue to the See also:Canterbury Pilgrims. We look for the finest examples in Shakespeare. And if it is old, it is also more universal than is always allowed. See also:National, or at least racial, partiality, has led to the unfortunate judgment that humour is a virtue of the See also:northern peoples. Yet See also:Rabelais came from See also:Touraine, and if the creator of Panurge has not humour, who has? The Italians may say that umore in the English sense is unknown to them. They mean the word, not the thing, for it is in See also:Ariosto. To claim the quality for Cervantes would indeed be to push at an open See also:door. The humour of the Germans has been rarely indeed of so high an order as his. It has been found wherever humanity has been combined with a keen appreciation of the ludicrous. The appreciation may exist without the humanity. When See also:Rivarol met the See also:Chevalier See also:Florian with a See also:manuscript sticking out of his See also:pocket, and said, " How rash you are! if you were not known you would be robbed," he was making use of the comic spirit, but he was not humorous. When Rivarol himself, a man of dubious claim to See also:nobility, was holding forth on the rights. of the nobles, and calling them " our rights," one of the company smiled. " Do you find anything singular in what I say ? " asked he. " It is the plural which I find singular," was the See also:answer. There is certainly something humorous in the neat overthrow of an insolent wit by a See also:rival insolence, but the humour is in the spectator, not in the answer. The spirit of humour as described by George Meredith cannot be so briefly shown as in the rapid flash of the Frenchmen's wit. It lingers and expatiates, as in Dr Johnson's appreciation of See also:Bet See also:Flint. " Oh, a See also:fine character, Madam ! She was habitually a slut and a drunkard, and occasionally a thief and a harlot. And for See also:heaven's See also:sake how came you to know her? Why, Madam, she figured in the literary world too! Bet Flint wrote her own life, and called herself See also:Cassandra, and it was in See also:verse; it began: ' When nature first ordained my See also:birth A diminutive I was born on See also:earth And then I came from a dark See also:abode Into a See also:gay and See also:gaudy world.' " So Bet brought her verses to me to correct; but I gave her See also:half-a-See also:crown, and she liked it as well. Bet had a fine spirit; she advertised for a husband, but she had no success, for she told me no man aspired to her. Then she hired very handsome lodgings and a footboy, and she got a See also:harpsichord, but Bet could not play; however, she put herself in fine attitudes and drummed. And pray what became of her, Sir? Why, Madam, she See also:stole a See also:quilt from the man of the See also:house, and he had her taken up; but Bet Flint had a spirit not to be subdued, so when she found herself obliged to go to See also:gaol, she ordered a See also:sedan See also:chair, and bid her footboy walk before her. However, the footboy proved refractory, for he was ashamed, though his See also:mistress was not. And did she ever get out of gaol, Sir? Yes, Madam, when she came to her trial, the See also:judge acquitted her. ' So now,' she said to me, 'the quilt is my own, and now I'll make a See also:petticoat of it.' Oh! I loved Bet Flint."
The subject is low enough to please Goldsmith. The humour may be of that mean order which has only a refreshing laugh, and gives tone to the feelings, but it is the pure spirit of humour.
We need not labour to demonstrate that a kindly appreciation of the ludicrous may find expression in art as well as in literature. But humour in art tends so inevitably to become See also:caricature, which can be genial as well as ferocious, that the reader must be referred to the See also:article on CARICATURE for an account of its manifestations in that See also: Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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