Part 11

The meaning of this expression is clear. It is again the expression of something which cannot be represented directly. In what way does this “indirect expression” come about? By a series of very obvious associations and conclusions let us work backwards from the verbal setting.

The query, “where is the Savior?” or “where is the picture of the Savior?” arouses the conjecture that the two pictures have reminded the speaker of a similar arrangement familiar to him as it is familiar to us. This arrangement, of which one element is here missing, shows the figure of the Savior between two other figures. There is only one such case: Christ hanging between the two thieves. The missing element is emphasized by the witticism, and the similarity rests in the figures at the right and left of the Savior, which are not mentioned in the jest. It can only mean that the pictures hanging in the drawing-room are likewise those of thieves. This is what the critic wished to, but could not say, “You are a pair of scoundrels,” or more in detail, “What do I care about your portraits? You are a pair of scoundrels, that I know.” And by means of a few associations and conclusive inferences he has said it in a manner which we designate as “allusion.”

We immediately remember that we have encountered the process of allusion before. Namely, in double meaning, when one of the two meanings expressed by the same word stands out very prominently, because being used much oftener and more commonly, our attention is directed to it first, whereas the other meaning remains in the background because it is more remote—such cases we wished to describe as double meaning with allusion. In an entire series of examples which we have hitherto examined, we have remarked that their technique is not simple and we realized that the process of allusion was the factor that complicated it. For example, see the contradiction-witticism in which the congratulations on the birth of the youngest child are acknowledged by the remark that it is remarkable what human hands can accomplish (p. 77).

In the American anecdote we have the process of allusion without the double meaning, and we find that the character of this process consists in completing the picture through mental association. It is not difficult to guess that the utilized association can be of more than one kind. So as not to be confused by large numbers we shall discuss only the most pronounced variations, and shall give only a few examples.

The association used in the substitution may be a mere sound, so that this sub-group may be analogous to word-wit in the pun. However, it is not similarity in sound of two words, but of whole sentences, characteristic combinations of words, and similar means.

For example, Lichtenberg coined the saying: “New baths heal well,” which immediately reminds one of the proverb, “New brooms clean well,” whose first and last words, as well as whose whole sentence structure, is the same as in the first saying. It has undoubtedly arisen in the witty thinker’s mind as an imitation of the familiar proverb. Thus Lichtenberg’s saying is an allusion to the latter. By means of this allusion something is suggested that cannot be frankly said, namely, that the efficacy of the baths taken as cures is due to other things beside the thermal springs whose attributes are the same everywhere.

The solution of the technique of another one of Lichtenberg’s jokes is similar: “The girl barely twelve modes old.” That sounds something like the chronological term “twelve moons” (i.e., months), and may originally have been a mistake in writing in the permissible poetical expression. But there is a good deal of sense in designating the age of a feminine creature by the changing modes instead of by the changing of moons.

The connection of similarity may even consist of a single slight modification. This technique again runs parallel with a word-technique. Both kinds of witticisms create almost the identical impression, but they are more easily distinguishable by the processes of the wit-work.

The following is an example of such a word-witticism or pun. The great singer, Mary Wilt, who was famous not merely on account of the magnitude of her voice, suffered the mortification of having a title of a play, dramatized from the well-known novel of Jules Verne, serve as an allusion to her corpulency. “The trip around the Wilt (world) in eighty days.”

Or: “Every fathom a queen,” which is a modification of the familiar Shakespearian quotation, “Every inch a king,” and served as an allusion to a prominent woman who was unusually big physically. There would really be no serious objection if one should prefer to classify this witticism as a substitution for condensation with modification (cf. tête-à-bête, p. 25).

Discussing the hardships of the medical profession, namely, that physicians are obliged to read and study constantly because remedies and drugs once considered efficacious are later rejected as useless, and that despite the physician’s best efforts the patient often refuses to pay for the treatment, one of the doctors present remarked: “Yes, every drug has its day,” to which another added, “But not every Doc gets his pay.” These two witty remarks are both modifications with allusion of the well-known saying, “Every dog has his day.” But here, too, the technique could be described as fusion with modification.

If the modification contents itself with a change in letters, allusions through modifications are barely distinguishable from condensation with substitutive formation, as shown in this example: “Mellingitis,” the allusion to the dangerous disease meningitis, refers to the danger which the conservative members of a provincial borough in England thought impended if the socialist candidate Mellon were elected.

The negative particles make very good allusions at the cost of very little changing. Heine referred to Spinoza as:

“My fellow unbeliever Spinoza.”

“We, by the Ungrace of God, Laborers, Bondsmen, Negroes, Serfs,” etc., is a manifesto (which Lichtenberg quotes no further) of these unfortunates who probably have more right to that title than kings and dukes have to the unmodified one.

Omission

Finally omission, which is comparable to condensation without substitutive formation, is also a form of allusion. For in every allusion there is really something omitted, namely, the trend of thought that leads to the allusion. It is only a question of whether the gap, or the substitute in the wording of the allusion which partly fills in the gap, is the more obvious element. Thus we come back through a series of examples from the very clear cases of omission to those of actual allusion.

Omission without substitution is found in the following example. There lived in Vienna a clever and bellicose writer whose sharp invectives had repeatedly brought him bodily assault at the hands of the persons he assailed. During a conversation about a new misdeed by one of his habitual opponents, some one said, “When X. hears this he will receive another box on his ear.” The technique of this wit shows in the first place the confusion about the apparent contradiction, for it is by no means clear to us why a box on one’s ear should be the direct result of having heard something. The contradiction disappears if one fills in the gap by adding to the remark: “then he will write such a caustic article against that person that, etc.” Allusions through omission and contradiction are thus the technical means of this witticism.

Heine remarked about some one: “He praises himself so much that pastils for fumigation are advancing in price.” This omission can easily be filled in. What has been omitted is replaced by an inference which then strikes back as an allusion to the same. For self-praise has always carried an evil odor with it.

Once more we encounter the two Jews in front of the bathing establishment. “Another year has passed by already,” says one with a sigh.

These examples leave no doubt that the omission is meant as an allusion.

A still more obvious omission is contained in the next example, which is really a genuine and correct allusion-witticism. Subsequent to an artists’ banquet in Vienna a joke book was given out in which, among others, the following most remarkable proverb could be read:

“A wife is like an umbrella, at worst one may also take a cab.”

An umbrella does not afford enough protection from rain. The words “at worst” can mean only: when it is raining hard. A cab is a public conveyance. As we have to deal here with the figure of comparison, we shall put off the detailed investigation of this witticism until later on.

Heine’s “Bäder von Lucca” contains a veritable wasps’ nest of stinging allusions which make the most artistic use of this form of wit as polemics against the Count of Platen. Long before the reader can suspect their application, a certain theme, which does not lend itself especially to direct presentation, is preluded by allusions of the most varied material possible; e.g., in Hirsch-Hyacinth’s twisting of words: You are too corpulent and I am too lean; you possess too much conceit and I the more business ability; I am a practicus and you are a diarrheticus, in fine, “You are altogether my Antipodex”—“Venus Urinia”—the thick Gudel of Dreckwall in Hamburg, etc. Then the occurrences of which the poet speaks take a turn in which it merely seems to show the impolite sportiveness of the poet, but soon it discloses the symbolic relation to the polemical intention, and in this way it also reveals itself as allusion. At last the attack against Platen bursts forth, and now the allusions to the subject of the Count’s love for men seethe and gush from each one of the sentences which Heine directs against the talent and the character of his opponent, e.g.:

“Even if the Muses are not well disposed to him, he has at least the genius of speech in his power, or rather he knows how to violate him; for he lacks the free love of this genius, besides he must perseveringly run after this youth, and he knows only how to grasp the outer forms which, in spite of their beautiful rotundity, never express anything noble.”

“He has the same experience as the ostrich, which considers itself sufficiently hidden when it sticks its head into the sand so that only its backside is visible. Our illustrious bird would have done better if he had stuck his backside into the sand, and had shown us his head.”

Allusion is perhaps the commonest and most easily employed means of wit, and is at the basis of most of the short-lived witty productions which we are wont to weave into our conversation. They cannot bear being separated from their native soil nor can they exist independently. Once more we are reminded by the process of allusion of that relationship which has already begun to confuse our estimation of the technique of wit. The process of allusion is not witty in itself; there are perfectly formed allusions which have no claims to this character. Only those allusions which show a “witty” element are witty, hence the characteristics of wit, which we have followed even into its technique, again escape us.