[6]
The chief difficulty which confronts the orator in
this connexion lies in the fact that sayings designed
to raise a laugh are generally untrue (and falsehood
always involves a certain meanness), and are often
deliberately distorted, and, further, never complimentary: while the judgments formed by the audience
on such jests will necessarily vary, since the effect of
a jest depends not on the reason, but on an emotion
which it is difficult, if not impossible, to describe.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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