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THE WIT OF WOMEN
by
KATE SANBORN
* * * * *
"The Wit of Women," by Miss Kate Sanborn, [Funk &
Wagnalls,] proves that the authoress is one of those
rare women who are gifted with a sense of humor.
Fortunately for her, the female sense of humor, when it
does exist, is not affected by such trifles as
"chestnuts." Therefore, women will read with pleasure
Miss Sanborn's choice collection of these dainties.
There are, however, many new anecdotes in Miss
Sanborn's collection, and, taken as a whole, it may
fairly be said to establish the fact that there have
been feminine wits not inferior to the best of the
opposite sex.
[Newspaper clipping pasted into front cover]
* * * * *
THE WIT OF WOMEN
by
KATE SANBORN
Fourth Edition
New York
Funk & Wagnalls Company
London and Toronto
1895
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, by
Funk & Wagnalls,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D.C.
Miss Addie Boyd, of the Cincinnati "Commercial," and
Miss Anna M.T. Rossiter, alias Lilla M. Cushman, of the
Meriden "Recorder," will probably represent the gentler
sex in the convention of paragraphers which meets next
month. They are a pair o' graphic writers and equal to
the best in the profession.--Waterloo Observer.
[Newspaper clipping pasted into book]
INTRODUCTION.
It is refreshing to find an unworked field all ready for harvesting.
While the wit of men, as a subject for admiration and discussion, is now
threadbare, the wit of women has been almost utterly ignored and
unrecognized.
With the joy and honest pride of a discoverer, I present the results of
a summer's gleaning.
And I feel a cheerful and Colonel Sellers-y confidence in the success of
the book, for every woman will want to own it, as a matter of pride and
interest, and many men will buy it just to see what women think they can
do in this line. In fact, I expect a call for a second volume!
KATE SANBORN.
HANOVER, N.H., August, 1885.
My thanks are due to so many publishers, magazine editors, and personal
friends for material for this book, that a formal note of acknowledgment
seems meagre and unsatisfactory. Proper credit, however, has been given
all through the volume, and with special indebtedness to Messrs. Harper
& Brothers and Charles Scribner's Sons of New York, and Houghton,
Mifflin & Co. of Boston. I add sincere gratitude to all who have so
generously contributed whatever was requested.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
THE MELANCHOLY TONE OF WOMEN'S POETRY--PUNS, GOOD
AND BAD--EPIGRAMS AND LACONICS--CYNICISM OF FRENCH
WOMEN--SENTENCES CRISP AND SPARKLING 13
CHAPTER II.
HUMOR OF LITERARY ENGLISHWOMEN 32
CHAPTER III.
FROM ANNE BRADSTREET TO MRS. STOWE 47
CHAPTER IV.
"SAMPLES" HERE AND THERE 67
CHAPTER V.
A BRACE OF WITTY WOMEN 85
CHAPTER VI.
GINGER-SNAPS 103
CHAPTER VII.
PROSE, BUT NOT PROSY 122
CHAPTER VIII.
HUMOROUS POEMS 150
CHAPTER IX.
GOOD-NATURED SATIRE 179
CHAPTER X.
PARODIES--REVIEWS--CHILDREN'S POEMS--COMEDIES BY
WOMEN--A DRAMATIC TRIFLE--A STRING OF FIRECRACKERS 195
TO
G.W.B.
In Grateful Memory.
_"There was in her soul a sense of delicacy mingled
with that rarest of qualities in woman--a sense of
humor," writes Richard Grant White in "The Fate of
Mansfield Humphreys." I have noticed that when a
novelist sets out to portray an uncommonly fine type of
heroine, he invariably adds to her other intellectual
and moral graces the above-mentioned "rarest of
qualities." I may be over-sanguine, but I anticipate
that some sagacious genius will discover that woman as
well as man has been endowed with this excellent gift
from the gods, and that the gift pertains to the large,
generous, sympathetic nature, quite irrespective of the
individual's sex. In any case, having heard so
repeatedly that woman has no sense of humor, it would
be refreshing to have a contrariety of opinion on that
subject._--THE CRITIC.
PROEM.[A]
We are coming to the rescue,
Just a hundred strong;
With fun and pun and epigram,
And laughter, wit, and song;
With badinage and repartee,
And humor quaint or bold,
And stories that _are_ stories,
Not several aeons old;
With parody and nondescript,
Burlesque and satire keen,
And irony and playful jest,
So that it may be seen
That women are not quite so dull:
We come--a merry throng;
Yes, we're coming to the rescue,
And just a hundred strong.
KATE SANBORN.
[Footnote A: _Not_ Poem!]
THE WIT OF WOMEN.
CHAPTER I.
THE MELANCHOLY TONE OF WOMEN'S POETRY--PUNS, GOOD AND BAD--EPIGRAMS AND
LACONICS--CYNICISM OF FRENCH WOMEN--SENTENCES CRISP AND SPARKLING.
To begin a deliberate search for wit seems almost like trying to be
witty: a task quite certain to brush the bloom from even the most
fruitful results. But the statement of Richard Grant White, that humor
is the "rarest of qualities in woman," roused such a host of brilliant
recollections that it was a temptation to try to materialize the ghosts
that were haunting me; to lay forever the suspicion that they did not
exist. Two articles by Alice Wellington Rollins in the _Critic_, on
"Woman's Sense of Humor" and "The Humor of Women," convinced me that the
deliberate task might not be impossible to carry out, although I felt,
as she did, that the humor and wit of women are difficult to analyze,
and select examples, precisely because they possess in the highest
degree that almost essential quality of wit, the unpremeditated glow
which exists only with the occasion that calls it forth. Even from the
humor of women found in books it is hard to quote--not because there is
so little, but because there is so much.
The encouragement to attempt this novel enterprise of proving ("by their
fruits ye shall know them") that women are not deficient in either wit
or humor has not been great. Wise librarians have, with a smile,
regretted the paucity of proper material; literary men have predicted
rather a thin volume; in short, the general opinion of men is condensed
in the sly question of a peddler who comes to our door, summer and
winter, his stock varying with the season: sage-cheese and home-made
socks, suspenders and cheap note-paper, early-rose potatoes and the
solid pearmain. This shrewd old fellow remarked roguishly "You're
gittin' up a book, I see, 'baout women's wit. 'Twon't be no great of an
undertakin', will it?" The outlook at first was certainly discouraging.
In Parton's "Collection of Humorous Poetry" there was not one woman's
name, nor in Dodd's large volume of epigrams of all ages, nor in any of
the humorous departments of volumes of selected poetry.
Griswold's "Female Poets of America" was next examined. The general air
of gloom--hopeless gloom--was depressing. Such mawkish sentimentality
and despair; such inane and mortifying confessions; such longings for a
lover to come; such sighings over a lover departed; such cravings for
"only"--"only" a _grave_ in some dark, dank solitude. As Mrs. Dodge puts
it, "Pegasus generally feels inclined to pace toward a graveyard the
moment he feels a side-saddle on his back."
The subjects of their lucubrations suggest Lady Montagu's famous speech:
"There was only one reason she was glad she was a woman: she should
never have to _marry_ one."
From the "Female Poets" I copy this "Song," representing the average
woman's versifying as regards buoyancy and an optimistic view of this
"Wale of Tears":
"Ask not from me the sportive jest,
The mirthful jibe, the gay reflection;
These social baubles fly the breast
That owns the sway of pale Dejection.
"Ask not from me the changing smile,
Hope's sunny glow, Joy's glittering token;
It cannot now my griefs beguile--
My soul is dark, my heart is broken!
"Wit cannot cheat my heart of woe,
Flattery wakes no exultation;
And Fancy's flash but serves to show
The darkness of my desolation!
"By me no more in masking guise
Shall thoughtless repartee be spoken;
My mind a hopeless ruin lies--
My soul is dark, my heart is broken!"
In recalling the witty women of the world, I must surely go back,
familiar as is the story, to the Grecian dame who, when given some
choice old wine in a tiny glass by her miserly host, who boasted of the
years since it had been bottled, inquired, "Isn't it very small of its
age?"
This ancient story is too much in the style of the male
story-monger--you all know him--who repeats with undiminished gusto for
the forty-ninth time a story that was tottering in senile imbecility
when Methuselah was teething, and is now in a sad condition of
anec_dotage_.
It is affirmed that "women seldom repeat an anecdote." That is well,
and no proof of their lack of wit. The discipline of life would be
largely increased if they did insist on being "reminded" constantly of
anecdotes as familiar as the hand-organ repertoire of "Captain Jinks"
and "Beautiful Spring." Their sense of humor is too keen to allow them
to aid these aged wanderers in their endless migrations. It is
sufficiently trying to their sense of the ludicrous to be obliged to
listen with an admiring, rapt expression to some anecdote heard in
childhood, and restrain the laugh until the oft-repeated crisis has been
duly reached. Still, I know several women who, as brilliant
_raconteurs_, have fully equalled the efforts of celebrated after-dinner
wits.
It is also affirmed that "women cannot make a pun," which, if true,
would be greatly to their honor. But, alas! their puns are almost as
frequent and quite as execrable as are ever perpetrated. It was Queen
Elizabeth who said: "Though ye be burly, my Lord Burleigh, ye make less
stir than my Lord Leicester."
Lady Morgan, the Irish novelist, witty and captivating, who wrote "Kate
Kearney" and the "Wild Irish Girl," made several good puns. Some one,
speaking of the laxity of a certain bishop in regard to Lenten fasting,
said: "I believe he would eat a horse on Ash Wednesday." "And very
proper diet," said her ladyship, "if it were a _fast_ horse."
Her special enemy, Croker, had declared that Wellington's success at
Waterloo was only a fortunate accident, and intimated that he could have
done better himself, under similar circumstances. "Oh, yes," exclaimed
her ladyship, "he had his secret for winning the battle. He had only to
put his notes on Boswell's Johnson in front of the British lines, and
all the Bonapartes that ever existed could never _get through_ them!"
"Grace Greenwood" has probably made more puns in print than any other
woman, and her conversation is full of them. It was Grace Greenwood who,
at a tea-drinking at the Woman's Club in Boston, was begged to tell one
more story, but excused herself in this way: "No, I cannot get more than
one story high on a cup of tea!"
You see puns are allowed at that rarely intellectual assemblage--indeed,
they are sometimes _very_ bad; as when the question was brought up
whether better speeches could be made after simple tea and toast, or
under the influence of champagne and oysters. Miss Mary Wadsworth
replied that it would depend entirely upon whether the oysters were
cooked or raw; and seeing all look blank, she explained: "Because, if
raw, we should be sure to have a raw-oyster-ing time."
Louisa Alcott's puns deserve "honorable mention." I will quote one.
"Query--If steamers are named the Asia, the Russia, and the Scotia, why
not call one the _Nausea_?"
At a Chicago dinner-party a physician received a menu card with the
device of a mushroom, and showing it to the lady next him, said: "I hope
nothing invidious is intended." "Oh, no," was the answer, "it only
alludes to the fact that you spring up in the night."
A gentleman, noticeable on the porch of the sanctuary as the pretty
girls came in on Sabbath mornings, but _not_ regarded as a devout
attendant on the services within, declared that he was one of the
"pillars of the church!" "Pillar-sham, I am inclined to think," was the
retort of a lady friend.
To a lady who, in reply to a gentleman's assertion that women sometimes
made a good pun, but required time to think about it, had said that
_she_ could make a pun as quickly as any man, the gentleman threw down
this challenge: "Make a pun, then, on horse-shoe." "If you talk until
you're horse-shoe can't convince me," was the instant answer.
* * * * *
The best punning poem from a woman's pen was written by Miss Caroline B.
Le Row, of Brooklyn, N.Y., a teacher of elocution, and the writer of
many charming stories and verses. It was suggested by a study in butter
of "The Dreaming Iolanthe," moulded by Caroline S. Brooks on a
kitchen-table, and exhibited at the Centennial in Philadelphia. I do not
remember any other poem in the language that rings so many changes on a
single word. It was published first in _Baldwin's Monthly_, but ran the
rounds of the papers all over the country.
I.
"One of the Centennial buildings
Shows us many a wondrous thing
Which the women of our country
From their homes were proud to bring.
In a little corner, guarded
By Policeman Twenty-eight,
Stands a crowd, all eyes and elbows,
Seeing butter butter-plate
II.
"'Tis not 'butter faded flower'
That the people throng to see,
Butter crowd comes every hour,
Nothing butter crowd we see.
Butter little pushing brings us
Where we find, to our surprise,
That within the crowded corner
Butter dreaming woman lies.
III.
"Though she lies, she don't deceive us,
As it might at first be thought;
This fair maid is made of butter,
On a kitchen-table wrought.
Nothing butter butter-paddle,
Sticks and straws were used to bring
Out of just nine pounds of butter
Butter fascinating thing.
IV.
"Butter maid or made of butter,
She is butter wonder rare;
Butter sweet eyes closed in slumber,
Butter soft and yellow hair,
Were the work of butter woman
Just two thousand miles away;
Butter fortune's in the features
That she made in butter stay.
V.
"Maid of all work, maid of honor,
Whatsoever she may be,
She is butter wondrous worker,
As the crowd can plainly see.
And 'tis butter woman shows us
What with butter can be done,
Nothing butter hands producing
Something new beneath the sun.
VI.
"Butter line we add in closing,
Which none butter could refuse:
May her work be butter pleasure,
Nothing butter butter use;
May she never need for butter,
Though she'll often knead for bread,
And may every churning bring her
Butter blessing on her head."
* * * * *
The second and last example is much more common in its form, but is just
as good as most of the verses of this style in Parton's "Humorous
Poetry." I don't pretend that it is remarkable, but it is equally worthy
of presentation with many efforts of this sort from men with a
reputation for wit.
THE VEGETABLE GIRL.
BY MAY TAYLOR.
Behind a market-stall installed,
I mark it every day,
Stands at her stand the fairest girl
I've met within the bay;
Her two lips are of cherry red,
Her hands a pretty pair,
With such a charming turn-up nose,
And lovely reddish hair.
'Tis there she stands from morn till night,
Her customers to please,
And to appease their appetite
She sells them beans and peas.
Attracted by the glances from
The apple of her eye,
And by her Chili apples, too,
Each passer-by will buy.
She stands upon her little feet
Throughout the livelong day,
And sells her celery and things--
A big feat, by the way.
She changes off her stock for change,
Attending to each call;
And when she has but one beet left,
She says, "Now, that beats all."
* * * * *
As to puns in conversation, my only fear is that they are too generally
indulged in. Only one of this sort can be allowed, and that from the
highest lady in the land, who is distinguished for culture and good
sense, as well as wit. A friend said to her as she was leaving Buffalo
for Washington: "I hope you will hail from Buffalo."
"Oh, I see you expect me to hail from Buffalo and reign in Washington,"
said the quick-witted sister of our President.
In epigrams there is little to offer. But as it is stated that "women
cannot achieve a well-rounded epigram," a few specimens must be
produced.
Jane Austen has left two on record. The first was suggested by reading
in a newspaper the marriage of a Mr. Gell to Miss Gill, of Eastborne.
"At Eastborne, Mr. Gell, from being perfectly well,
Became dreadfully ill for love of Miss Gill;
So he said, with some sighs, 'I'm the slave of your iis;
Oh, restore, if you please, by accepting my ees.'"
The second is on the marriage of a middle-aged flirt with a Mr. Wake,
whom gossips averred she would have scorned in her prime.
"Maria, good-humored and handsome and tall,
For a husband was at her last stake;
And having in vain danced at many a ball,
Is now happy to jump at a Wake."
It was Lady Townsend who said that the human race was divided into men,
women, and _Herveys_. This epigram has been borrowed in our day,
substituting for Herveys the _Beecher_ family.
When some one said of a lady she must be in spirits, for she lives with
Mr. Walpole, "Yes," replied Lady Townsend, "spirits of hartshorn."
Walpole, caustic and critical, regarded this lady as undeniably witty.
It was Hannah More who said: "There are but two bad things in this
world--sin and bile."
Miss Thackeray quotes several epigrammatic definitions from her friend
Miss Evans, as:
"A privileged person: one who is so much a savage when thwarted that
civilized persons avoid thwarting him."
"A musical woman: one who has strength enough to make much noise and
obtuseness enough not to mind it."
"Ouida" has given us some excellent examples of epigram, as:
"A pipe is a pocket philosopher, a truer one than Socrates, for it never
asks questions. Socrates must have been very tiresome, when one thinks
of it."
"Dinna ye meddle, Tam; it's niver no good a threshin' other folks' corn;
ye allays gits the flail agin' i' yer own eye somehow."
"Epigrams are the salts of life; but they wither up the grasses of
foolishness, and naturally the grasses hate to be sprinkled therewith."
"A man never is so honest as when he speaks well of himself. Men are
always optimists when they look inward, and pessimists when they look
round them."
"Nothing is so pleasant as to display your worldly wisdom in epigram and
dissertation, but it is a trifle tedious to hear another person display
theirs."
"When you talk yourself you think how witty, how original, how acute you
are; but when another does so, you are very apt to think only, 'What a
crib from Rochefoucauld!'"
"Boredom is the ill-natured pebble that always _will_ get in the golden
slipper of the pilgrim of pleasure."
"It makes all the difference in life whether hope is left or--left out!"
"A frog that dwelt in a ditch spat at a worm that bore a lamp.
"'Why do you do that?' said the glow-worm.
"'Why do you shine?' said the frog."
"Calumny is the homage of our contemporaries, as some South Sea
Islanders spit on those they honor."
"Hived bees get sugar because they will give back honey. All existence
is a series of equivalents."
"'Men are always like Horace,' said the Princess. 'They admire rural
life, but they remain, for all that, with Augustus.'"
"If the Venus de Medici could be animated into life, women would only
remark that her waist was large."
* * * * *
The brilliant Frenchwomen whose very names seem to sparkle as we write
them, yet of whose wit so little has been preserved, had an especial
facility for condensed cynicism.
Think of Madame du Deffand, sceptical, sarcastic; feared and hated even
in her blind old age for her scathing criticisms. When the celebrated
work of Helvetius appeared he was blamed in her presence for having made
selfishness the great motive of human action.
"Bah!" said she, "he has only revealed every one's secret."
And listen to this trio of laconics, with their saddening knowledge of
human frailty and their bitter Voltaireish flavor:
We shall all be perfectly virtuous when there is no longer any flesh on
our bones.--_Marguerite de Valois._
We like to know the weakness of eminent persons; it consoles us for our
inferiority.--_Mme. de Lambert._
Women give themselves to God when the devil wants nothing more to do
with them.--_Sophie Arnould._
Madame de Sevigne's letters present detached thoughts worthy of
Rochefoucauld without his cynicism. She writes: "One loves so much to
talk of one's self that one never tires of a _tete-a-tete_ with a lover
for years. That is the reason that a devotee likes to be with her
confessor. It is for the pleasure of talking of one's self--even though
speaking evil." And she remarks to a lady who amused her friends by
always going into mourning for some prince, or duke, or member of some
royal family, and who at last appeared in bright colors, "Madame, I
congratulate myself on the health of Europe."
I find, too, many fine aphorisms from "Carmen Sylva" (Queen of
Roumania):
"Il vaut mieux avoir pour confesseur un medecin qu'un pretre. Vous dites
au pretre que vous detestez les hommes, il vous reponds que vous n'etes
pas chretien. Le medecin vous donne de la rhubarbe, et voila que vous
aimez votre semblable."
"Vous dites au pretre que vous etes fatigue de vivre; il vous reponds
que le suicide est un crime. Le medecin vous donne un stimulant, et
voila que vous trouvez la vie supportable."
"La contradiction anime la conversation; voila pourquoi les cours sont
si ennuyeuses."
"Quand on veut affirmer quelque chose, on appelle toujours Dieu a
temoin, parce qu'il ne contredit jamais."
"On ne peut jamais etre fatigue de la vie, on n'est fatigue que de
soi-meme."
"Il faut etre ou tres-pieux ou tres-philosophe! il faut dire: Seigneur,
que ta volonte soit faite! ou: Nature, j'admets tes lois, meme
lorsqu'elles m'ecrasent."
"L'homme est un violon. Ce n'est que lorsque sa derniere corde se brise
qu'il devient un morceau de bois."
In the recently published sketch of Madame Mohl there are several
sentences which show trenchant wit, as: "Nations squint in looking at
one another; we must discount what Germany and France say of each
other."
Several Englishwomen can be recalled who were noted for their
epigrammatic wit: as Harriet, Lady Ashburton. On some one saying that
liars generally speak good-naturedly of others, she replied: "Why, if
you don't speak a word of truth, it is not so difficult to speak well of
your neighbor."
"Don't speak so hardly of ----," some one said to her; "he lives on your
good graces."
"That accounts," she answered, "for his being so thin."
Again: "I don't mind the canvas of a man's mind being good, if only it
is completely hidden by the worsted and floss."
Or: "She never speaks to any one, which is, of course, a great advantage
to any one."
Mrs. Carlyle _was_ an epigram herself--small, sweet, yet possessing a
sting--and her letters give us many sharp and original sayings.
She speaks in one place of "Mrs. ----, an insupportable bore; her neck
and arms were as naked as if she had never eaten of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil."
And what a comical phrase is hers when she writes to her "Dearest"--"I
take time by the _pig-tail_ and write at night, after post-hours"--that
growling, surly "dearest," of whom she said, "The amount of bile that he
brings home is awfully grand."
For a veritable epigram from an American woman's pen we must rely on
Hannah F. Gould, who wrote many verses that were rather graceful and
arch than witty. But her epitaph on her friend, the active and
aggressive Caleb Cushing, is as good as any made by Saxe.
"Lay aside, all ye dead,
For in the next bed
Reposes the body of Cushing;
He has crowded his way
Through the world, they say,
And even though dead will be pushing."
Such a hit from a bright woman is refreshing.
Our literary foremothers seemed to prefer to be pedantic, didactic, and
tedious on the printed page.
Catharine Sedgwick dealt somewhat in epigram, as when she says: "He was
not one of those convenient single people who are used, as we use straw
and cotton in packing, to fill up vacant places."
Eliza Leslie (famed for her cook-books and her satiric sketches), when
speaking of people silent from stupidity, supposed kindly to be full of
reserved power, says: "We cannot help thinking that when a head is full
of ideas some of them must involuntarily _ooze_ out."
And is not this epigrammatic advice? "Avoid giving invitations to
bores--they will come without."
Some of our later literary women prefer the epigrammatic form in
sentences, crisp and laconic; short sayings full of pith, of which I
have made a collection.
Gail Hamilton's books fairly bristle with epigrams in condensed style,
and Kate Field has many a good thought in this shape, as: "Judge no one
by his relations, whatever criticism you pass upon his companions.
Relations, like features, are thrust upon us; companions, like clothes,
are more or less our own selection."
Miss Jewett's style is less epigrammatic, but just as full of humor.
Speaking of a person who was always complaining, she says: "Nothing ever
suits her. She ain't had no more troubles to bear than the rest of us;
but you never see her that she didn't have a chapter to lay before ye.
I've got 's much feelin' as the next one, but when folks drives in their
spiggits and wants to draw a bucketful o' compassion every day right
straight along, there does come times when it seems as if the bar'l was
getting low."
"The captain, whose eyes were not much better than his ears, always
refused to go forth after nightfall without his lantern. The old couple
steered slowly down the uneven sidewalk toward their cousin's house. The
captain walked with a solemn, rolling gait, learned in his many long
years at sea, and his wife, who was also short and stout, had caught
the habit from him. If they kept step all went well; but on this
occasion, as sometimes happened, they did not take the first step out
into the world together, so they swayed apart, and then bumped against
each other as they went along. To see the lantern coming through the
mist you might have thought it the light of a small craft at sea in
heavy weather."
"Deaf people hear more things that are worth listening to than people
with better ears; one likes to have something worth telling in talking
to a person who misses most of the world's talk."
"Emory Ann," a creation of Mrs. Whitney's, often spoke in epigrams, as:
"Good looks are a snare; especially to them that haven't got 'em." While
Mrs. Walker's creed, "I believe in the total depravity of inanimate
things," is more than an epigram--it is an inspiration.
Charlotte Fiske Bates, who compiled the "Cambridge Book of Poetry," and
has given us a charming volume of her own verses, which no one runs any
"Risk" in buying, in spite of the title of the book, has done a good
deal in this direction, and is fond of giving an epigrammatic turn to a
bright thought, as in the following couplet:
"Would you sketch in two words a coquette and deceiver?
Name two Irish geniuses, Lover and Lever!"
She also succeeds with the quatrain:
ON BEING CALLED A GOOSE.
A signal name is this, upon my word!
Great Juno's geese saved Rome her citadel.
Another drowsy Manlius may be stirred
And the State saved, if I but cackle well.
* * * * *
I recall a charming _jeu d'esprit_ from Mrs. Barrows, the beloved "Aunt
Fanny," who writes equally well for children and grown folks, and whose
big heart ranges from earnest philanthropy to the perpetration of
exquisite nonsense.
It is but a trifle, sent with a couple of peanut-owls to a niece of
Bryant's. The aged poet was greatly amused.
"When great Minerva chose the Owl,
That bird of solemn phiz,
That truly awful-looking fowl,
To represent her wis-
Dom, little recked the goddess of
The time when she would howl
To see a Peanut set on end,
And called--Minerva's Owl."
* * * * *
Miss Phelps has given us some sentences which convey an epigram in a
keen and delicate fashion, as:
"All forms of self-pity, like Prussian blue, should be sparingly used."
"As a rule, a man can't cultivate his mustache and his talents
impartially."
"As happy as a kind-hearted old lady with a funeral to go to."
"No men are so fussy about what they eat as those who think their brains
the biggest part of them."
"The professor's sister, a homeless widow, of excellent Vermont
intentions and high ideals in cup-cake."
And this longer extract has the same characteristics:
"You know how it is with people, Avis; some take to zoology, and some
take to religion. That's the way it is with places. It may be the
Lancers, and it may be prayer-meetings. Once I went to see my grandmother
in the country, and everybody had a candy-pull; there were twenty-five
candy-pulls and taffy-bakes in that town that winter. John Rose says, in
the Connecticut Valley, where he came from, it was missionary barrels;
and I heard of a place where it was cold coffee. In Harmouth it's
improving your mind. And so," added Coy, "we run to reading-clubs, and
we all go fierce, winter after winter, to see who'll get the 'severest.'
There's a set outside of the faculty that descends to charades and music
and inconceivably low intellectual depths; and some of our girls sneak
off and get in there once in a while, like the little girl that wanted
to go from heaven to hell to play Saturday afternoons, just as you and I
used to do, Avis, when we dared. But I find I've got too old for that,"
said Coy, sadly. "When you're fairly past the college-boys, and as far
along as the law students--"
"Or the theologues?" interposed Avis.
"Yes, or the theologues, or even the medical department; then there
positively _is_ nothing for it but to improve your mind."
Listen to Lavinia, one of Mrs. Rose Terry Cooke's sensible Yankee women:
"Land! if you want to know folks, just hire out to 'em. They take their
wigs off afore the help, so to speak, seemingly."
"Marryin' a man ain't like settin' alongside of him nights and hearin'
him talk pretty; that's the fust prayer. There's lots an' lots o'
meetin' after that!"
And what an amount of sense, as well as wit, in Sam Lawson's sayings in
"Old Town Folks." As this book is not to be as large as Worcester's
Unabridged Dictionary, I can only give room to one.
"We don't none of us like to have our sins set in order afore us. There
was _David_, now, he was crank as could be when he thought Nathan was a
talkin' about _other_ people's sins. Says David: 'The man that did that
shall surely die.' But come to set it home and say, '_Thou_ art the
man!' David caved right in. 'Lordy massy, bless your soul and body,
Nathan!' says he, 'I don't want to die.'"
And Mrs. A.D.T. Whitney must not be forgotten. "As Emory Ann said once
about thoughts: 'You can't hinder 'em any more than you can the birds
that fly in the air; but you needn't let 'em light and make a nest in
your hair.'"
And what a capital hit on the hypocritical apologies of conceited
housekeepers is this bit from Mrs. Whicher ("Widow Bedott"): "A person
that didn't know how wimmin always go on at such a place would a thought
that Miss Gipson had tried to have everything the miserablest she
possibly could, and that the rest on 'em never had anything to hum but
what was miserabler yet."
And Marietta Holley, who has caused a tidal-wave of laughter by her
"Josiah Allen's Wife" series, shall have her say.
"We, too, are posterity, though mebby we don't realize it as we ort to."
"She didn't seem to sense anything, only ruffles and such like. Her mind
all seemed to be narrowed down and puckered up, just like trimmin'."
But I must have convinced the most sceptical of woman's wit in
epigrammatic form, and will now return to an older generation, who claim
a fair share of attention.