Other comic characters seem, if we approach and handle
them, to resolve themselves into air, 'into thin air'; but this is
embodied and palpable to the grossest apprehension: it lies 'three
fingers deep upon the ribs', it plays about the lungs and the
diaphragm with all the force of animal enjoyment. His body is like a
good estate to his mind, from which he receives rents and revenues
of profit and pleasure in kind, according to its extent, and the
richness of the soil. Wit is often a meagre substitute for
pleasurable sensation; an effusion of spleen and petty spite at the
comforts of others, from feeling none in itself. Falstaff's wit is
an emanation of a fine constitution; an exuberance of good-humour
and good-nature; an overflowing of his love of laughter, and good-
fellowship; a giving vent to his heart's ease and over-contentment
with himself and others. He would not be in character, if he were
not so fat as he is; for there is the greatest keeping in the
boundless luxury of his imagination and the pampered self-indulgence
of his physical appetites. He manures and nourishes his mind with
jests, as he does his body with sack and sugar. He carves out his
jokes, as he would a capon, or a haunch of venison, where there is
cut and come again; and pours out upon them the oil of gladness. His
tongue drops fatness, and in the chambers of his brain 'it snows of
meat and drink'.
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