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Test: SAT Critical Reading
Adapted from On the Difference Between Wit and Humor (1917) by Charles S. Brooks
I am not sure that I can draw an exact line between wit and humor. But, I am quite positive that of the two, humor is the more comfortable and more livable quality. Humorous persons, if their gift is genuine, are always agreeable companions, and they sit through the evening best. They have pleasant mouths turned up at the corners. But the mouth of a merely witty man is hard and sour until the moment of its release. Nor is the flash from a witty man always comforting, whereas a humorous man radiates a general pleasure and is like another candle in the room.
I admire wit, but I have no real liking for it. It has been too often employed against me, whereas humor is always an ally. It never points an impertinent finger into my defects. Humorous persons do not sit like explosives on a fuse. They are safe and easy comrades. But a wit's tongue is as sharp as a donkey driver's stick. I may gallop the faster for its prodding, yet the touch behind is too persuasive for any comfort.
Wit is a lean creature with sharp inquiring nose, whereas humor has a kindly eye and comfortable girth. Wit, if it be necessary, uses malice to score a point—like a cat it is quick to jump—but humor keeps the peace in an easy chair. Wit has a better voice in a solo, but humor comes into the chorus best. Wit is as sharp as a stroke of lightning, whereas humor is diffuse like sunlight. Humor laughs at another's jest and holds its sides, while wit sits wrapped in study for a lively answer. But it is a workaday world in which we live, where we get mud upon our boots and come weary to the twilight—it is a world that grieves and suffers from many wounds in these years of war: and therefore as I think of my acquaintance, it is those who are humorous in its best and truest meaning rather than those who are witty who give the more profitable companionship.
| 9. | What is the primary purpose of this passage? |
To predict an outcome
To lament a situation
To dismiss a categorization
To explain a distinction
To refute an argument
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