Page:Essentials in Conducting.djvu/22

10 musical machinery seems to need more of this kind of lubrication than almost any other variety.

But the conductor must distinguish carefully between sarcastic wit, which laughs at, and humor, which laughs with. In a book bearing the copyright date of 1849, the writer distinguishes between the two, in the following words:

Humor originally meant moisture, a signification it metaphorically retains, for it is the very juice of the mind, enriching and fertilizing where it falls. Wit laughs at; humor laughs with. Wit lashes external appearances, or cunningly exchanges single foibles into character; humor glides into the heart of its object, looks lovingly upon the infirmities it attacks, and represents the whole man. Wit is abrupt, scornful. . .; humor is slow and shy, insinuating its fun into your heart.

The conductor with a sense of humor will ordinarily have the advantage also of being cheerful in his attitude toward the performers, and this is an asset of no mean significance. It is a well-known psychophysical fact that the human body does much better work when the mind is free from care, and that in any profession or vocation, other things being equal, the worker who is cheerful and optimistic will perform his labor much more efficiently at the expense of considerably less mental and bodily energy than he who is ill-humored, worried, fretful, and unable to take a joke. But the foreman who possesses this quality of cheerfulness and humor is doubly fortunate, for he not only secures the beneficial results in his own case, but by his attitude frequently arouses the same desirable state of mind and body in those who are working under him. It is particularly because of this latter fact that the conductor needs to cultivate a cheerful, even a humorous outlook, especially in the rehearsal. As the result of forming this habit, he will be enabled to give directions