Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/148

 provoke such treatment: nay, on the contrary, it generally falls on the bashfill and innocent; and when a poor creature is thus undeservedly put to the torment of feeling the uneasy sensation of shame, the raillers exult in the thoughts of their own wit. To be witty without either blasphemy, obscenity, or ill-nature, requires a great deal more than every person, who heartily desires the reputation of being so, can come up to; but I have made it my observation, in all the families I have ever seen, that if any one person in it is more remarkably silly than the rest, those who approach in the next degree to them, always despise them the most; they are as glad to find any one below them, whom they may triumph over and laugh at, as they are envious and angry to see any one above them; as cowards kick and abuse the person who is known to be a degree more timorous than themselves, as much as they tremble at the frown of any one who has more courage. Thus my sisters always treated my cousin as a fool, while they upbraided me with being a wit; little knowing, that if the term had any meaning at all, when it is used by way of contempt, they were the very people who deserved to be called so. For if I understand it, it is then used to signify a person with but a very moderate share of understanding, who from affectation, and an insatiable desire of being thought witty, grows impertinent, and says all the ill-natured things he can think of. For my part, I conceive all manner of raillery to be the most disagreeable conversation in the world, unless it be amongst those people who have politeness and delicacy enough to rally in the manner La Bruyere speaks of; that is, to fall only on such frailties as people of sense voluntarily give up to censure: these are the best subjects to display humour, as it turns into a compliment to the person rallied, being a sort of insinuation that they have no greater faults to be fallen upon.