The Wit and Humor of Colonial Days - 1607-1800 #267535

If there is any branch of literature in which America has excelled other modern nations, it is humor. It is doubtful, for instance, whether any other nation has produced during the last half-century a wit surpassing Josh Billings in shrewd sarcasm, Artemus Ward in ridiculous extravagance, or Mark Twain in solemn statement of the outrageously untrue. This ability in the American, however, of "seeing the point" is by no means a development of the last half-century. It is as old as the nation. The colonists had scarcely landed in Virginia before witty letters telling of ludicrous sights and mishaps in the raw settlement began to go back to England; while in New England there soon was heard a taunting satire like that of the Hebrew prophets of old. Nor has the stream of wit and humor once ceased from that day to this. Faithfully, too, this type of literature has served the nation in every crisis.