But
the Comic is a different spirit.
You may estimate your capacity for Comic perception by being able to
detect the ridicule of them you love, without loving them less: and more
by being able to see yourself somewhat ridiculous in dear eyes, and
accepting the correction their image of you proposes.
Each one of an affectionate couple may be willing, as we say, to die for
the other, yet unwilling to utter the agreeable word at the right moment;
but if the wits were sufficiently quick for them to perceive that they
are in a comic situation, as affectionate couples must be when they
quarrel, they would not wait for the moon or the almanac, or a Dorine, to
bring back the flood-tide of tender feelings, that they should join hands
and lips.
If you detect the ridicule, and your kindliness is chilled by it, you are
slipping into the grasp of Satire.
If instead of falling foul of the ridiculous person with a satiric rod,
to make him writhe and shriek aloud, you prefer to sting him under a
semi-caress, by which he shall in his anguish be rendered dubious whether
indeed anything has hurt him, you are an engine of Irony.
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