Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.
The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling;the comic and the witty story upon the matter.
People who live in an age of corruption are witty and slanderous; they know that there are other kinds of murder than by dagger or assault; they also know that whatever is well said is believed.