And you who never fell through pride,
You who in different sects were shammed,
And come to see each other damned
(So some folks told you--but they knew
No more of Jove's designs than you)--
The world's mad business now is o'er,
And I resent these pranks no more--
I to such blockheads set my wit!
I damn such fools! Go, go! you're bit!"
The unexpectedness of the conclusion here, after the somewhat solemn
preface, is entirely of the essence of wit. So, too, is the sudden flirt
of the scorpion's tail to sting you. It is almost the opposite of humor
in one respect--namely, that it would make us think the solemnest things
in life were sham, whereas it is the sham-solemn ones which humor
delights in exposing. This further difference is also true: that wit
makes you laugh once, and loses some of its comicality (though none of
its point) with every new reading, while humor grows droller and droller
the oftener we read it. If we cannot safely deny that Swift was a
humorist, we may at least say that he was one in whom humor had gone
through the stage of acetous fermentation and become rancid. We should
never forget that he died mad. Satirists of this kind, while they have
this quality of true humor, that they contrast a higher with a lower,
differ from their nobler brethren inasmuch as their comparison is always
to the disadvantage of the higher.
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