Passages in literature and oratory thus become
unintentionally ludicrous. A dignitary, well known for his
conversational and anecdotal powers, told me that he once heard a very
flowery preacher exclaim, when alluding to the destruction of the
Assyrian host. "Death, that mighty archer, mowed them all down with the
besom of destruction." Another clergyman, equally fond of metaphor,
enforced the consideration of the shortness of life in the words,
"Remember, my brethren, we are fast sailing down the stream of life, and
shall speedily be landed in the ocean of eternity."
Johnson says that wit is "a _discordia concors_, a combination of
dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things
apparently unlike." Many have considered that humour consists of
contrast or comparison, and it is true that a large portion of it owes
much to attributes of relation. This kind of humorous complication is
generally under the form of saying that a thing is _like_
something--from which it is essentially different--merely because of the
existence of some accidental similitude. There are many kinds and
degrees of this, and some points of resemblance may be found in all
things. We say "one man is like another," "a man may make himself like a
brute," &c. Similitudes in minute detail may be pointed out in things
widely different; and from this range of significations the word _like_
has been most prolific of humour.
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