Charles Nodier—Of all the animals, cats, flies and women take the longest
time in dressing.
Chamfort—A woman is like your shower; follow her, she flies; fly from
her, she follows.
La Rochefoucauld—There are no women the merit of whom lasts longer than
the beauty.
Fontenelle—Most women prefer that one should talk ill of their virtue
rather than ill of their wit or of their beauty.
Balzac—A virtuous woman has in the heart a fiber less or a fiber more
than other women; she is stupid or sublime.
Delphine de Girardin—Nothing, after a stupid woman, is rarer in France
than a generous woman.
George Sand—Woman is stupid by nature.
* * * * *
“Piece de Resistance”
A girl was walking along a road, and a young man along another. The roads
finally united, the man and woman reaching the junction at the same time,
walked on from there together. The man was carrying a large iron kettle
on his back. In one hand he held, by the legs, a live chicken, in the
other a cane, and he was leading a goat. Just as they were coming to a
deep ravine the girl said to the young man:
“I’m afraid to go through that ravine with you, it is a lonely place and
you might overpower me and kiss me by force—!”
“How can I possibly kiss you by force,” he asked, “when I have this iron
kettle on my back, and a cane in one hand, and a live chicken in the
other, and am leading this goat? I might as well be tied hand and foot!”
“True,” replied the girl, “but if you should stick your cane into the
ground and tie the goat to it, and turn the kettle upside down and put
the chicken under it, then you might wickedly kiss me in spite of my
resistance!”
“I should never have thought of that,” he said.
And when he came to the ravine, he stuck his cane into the ground and
tied the goat to it, and, lowering the kettle from his shoulders,
imprisoned the fowl under it, and kissed the girl!
* * * * *
Bess—“Why did you let him kiss you?”
Tess—“He threatened to scream if I didn’t.”
* * * * *