The
kind of people one is speaking or listening to will also make a
difference. Evidently here also there is both an excess and a
deficiency as compared with the mean. Those who carry humour to excess
are thought to be vulgar buffoons, striving after humour at all costs,
and aiming rather at raising a laugh than at saying what is becoming
and at avoiding pain to the object of their fun; while those who can
neither make a joke themselves nor put up with those who do are
thought to be boorish and unpolished. But those who joke in a tasteful
way are called ready-witted, which implies a sort of readiness to turn
this way and that; for such sallies are thought to be movements of the
character, and as bodies are discriminated by their movements, so
too are characters. The ridiculous side of things is not far to
seek, however, and most people delight more than they should in
amusement and in jestinly. and so even buffoons are called
ready-witted because they are found attractive; but that they differ
from the ready-witted man, and to no small extent, is clear from
what has been said.
To the middle state belongs also tact; it is the mark of a tactful
man to say and listen to such things as befit a good and well-bred
man; for there are some things that it befits such a man to say and to
hear by way of jest, and the well-bred man's jesting differs from that
of a vulgar man, and the joking of an educated man from that of an
uneducated.
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