Wit is a lean creature with sharp inquiring nose, whereas humor has a kindly eye and a 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. Wit keeps the season's fashions and is precise in the phrases and judgments of the day, but humor is concerned with homely eternal things. Wit wears silk, but humor in homely-spun endures the wind. Wit sets a snare, whereas humor goes off whistling without a victim in its mind. Wit is sharper company at the table, but humor serves better in mischance and in the rain. When it tumbles wit is sour, but humor goes uncomplaining without its dinner. Humor laughs at another's jest and holds its sides, while wit sits wrapped in study for a lively answer.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The real pleasure of being Mick Jagger was in having everything but being tempted by nothing ... a smouldering ill will which silk... clothes, fine food, wine, women, and every conceivable physical pampering somehow aggravated ... a drained and languorous, exquisitely photogenic ennui.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Her fortune, too, lies there, Converted into cool hard steel... And right red velvet lining; While over her tan impassivity Shot silk is shining.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Now you courtly dames and knights, That study only strange delights,... Though you scorn the home-spun gray And revel in your rich array; Though your tongues dissemble deep And can your heads from danger keep: Yet for all your pomp and train, Securer lives the silly swain.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I heartily wish you, in the plain home-spun style, a great number of happy new years, well employed in forming both your mind and ...your manners, to be useful and agreeable to yourself, your country, and your friends.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
O sinewy silver biplane, nudging the wind's withers! There, from Kill Devils Hill at Kitty Hawk... Two brothers in their twinship left the dune; Warping the gale, the Wright wind wrestlers veered Capeward, then blading the wind's flank, banked and spun.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,... Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »