Butler says of loyalty
that it is
True as the dial to the sun
Although it be not shined upon.
Now what is the difference between this and the examples from Warner and
Morris which I have just quoted? Simply that the comparison turning upon
the word _true_, the mind is satisfied, because the analogy between the
word as used morally and as used physically is so perfect as to leave no
gap for the reasoning faculty to jolt over. But it is precisely this
jolt, not so violent as to be displeasing, violent enough to discompose
our thoughts with an agreeable sense of surprise, which it is the object
of a pun to give us. Wit of this kind treats logic with every possible
outward demonstration of respect--"keeps the word of promise to the ear,
and breaks it to the sense." Dean Swift's famous question to the man
carrying the hare, "Pray, sir, is that your own hare or a wig?" is
perfect in its way. Here there is an absolute identity of sound with an
equally absolute and therefore ludicrous disparity of meaning. Hood
abounds in examples of this sort of fun--only that his analogies are of
a more subtle and perplexing kind. In his elegy on the old sailor he
says,
His head was turned, and so he chewed
His pigtail till he died.
This is inimitable, like all the best of Hood's puns. To the ear it is
perfect, but so soon as you attempt to realize it to yourself, the mind
is involved in an inextricable confusion of comical _non sequiturs_.
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