was heartily in favor of learned stable fodder.”
The same absurd or at least conspicuous attributes, which as we are beginning to notice are the real carriers of the wit, mark other comparisons of the same author.
“This is the weatherside of my moral constitution, here I can stand almost anything.”
“Every person has also his moral backside which he does not show except under the stress of necessity and which he covers as long as possible with the pants of good-breeding.”
The “moral backside” is the peculiar attribute which exists as the result of a comparison. But this is followed by a continuation of the comparison with a regular play on words (“necessity”) and a second, still more unusual combination (“the pants of good-breeding”), which is possibly witty in itself; for the pants become witty, as it were, because they are the pants of good-breeding. Therefore it may not take us by surprise if we get the impression of a very witty comparison; we are beginning to notice that we show a general tendency in our estimation to extend a quality to the whole thing when it clings only to one part of it. Besides, the “pants of good-breeding” remind us of a similar confusing verse of Heine.
