“Bedad, whin I drive one of the _raal_ clargy here won’t I have the
sport out of him?”
_Not Rousseau_
The Russian poet Puschkin was plagued day after day by a certain Ivan
Iakowlewitsch (John, James’s son) to give him his autograph. Puschkin
always excused himself, but the petitioner was one of the men who never
take a hint. The poet at last consented, in no good humor; he seized the
book out of the man’s hand, and scribbled off the following lines:
Vous êtes Jean,
Vous êtes Jacques,
Vous êtes roux,
Vous êtes sot,
Mais vous n’êtes pas, mon cher,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
_Love of Specie-s_
Sydney Smith, preaching a charity sermon, frequently repeated the
assertion that of all nations, Englishmen were most distinguished for
generosity and the love of their species. The collection happened to be
inferior to his expectations, and he said that he had evidently made a
great mistake, and that his expression should have been that they were
distinguished for the love of their specie.
_His Station_
At a banquet in London Ambassador Choate sat next to a distinguished
nobleman, who during the course of the conversation had occasion to
inquire,—
“And to what station in your country, Mr. Choate, does your Mr. Chauncey
M. Depew belong?”
“To the Grand Central Station, my lord,” readily replied the diplomat,
without a quiver.
The noble Englishman’s face clouded for a moment with uncertainty.
“I’m afraid you don’t know what I mean,” added Mr. Choate, about to go
to his rescue. But milord quickly smiled a glad smile of intelligence.
“Ah! I see, I see, Mr. Choate!” he exclaimed. “Mr. Depew belongs to your
grand, great middle class!”
_Frankness_
That was a frank reply to a friend’s intimation of his approaching
marriage: “I should make my compliments to both of you; but as I don’t
know the young lady, I can’t felicitate you, and I know you so well that
I can’t felicitate her.”
_Double X_
A wealthy brewer in Montreal built a church and inscribed on it: “This
church was erected by Thomas Molson at his sole expense. Hebrews xi.”
Some wags altered the inscription so as to make it read: “This church
was erected by Thomas Molson at his soul’s expense. He brews XX.”
_Met the Emergency_
At a French provincial theatre, in a military play, the actor who was
credited with the part of a general slipped on the stage and fell
ignominiously at the very moment when he was supposed to be conducting
his troops to battle. With ready wit, however, he saved himself from
ridicule by exclaiming, “Soldiers, I am mortally wounded, but do not
stay to aid me. Pass over my prostrate body to victory.”
_A Similar Privilege_
In Carlsbad, Bohemia, is a restaurant keeper, who, when he finds any
distinguished person dining at his establishment, presents himself in a
dress coat, with many bows, and asks the honor of an autograph.
Rothschild, the banker, signed himself simply “R. de Paris.” Oppenheim,
a rich banker of Cologne, was subsequently appealed to. He looked at the
list and asked who “R. de Paris” was. “That,” said the restaurant man,
with pride, “is the Baron Rothschild of Paris.” “Ah!” said Oppenheim,
“what Rothschild did, I can do,” and signed himself “O. de Cologne.”
_Caderousse’s Wager_
The following curious anecdote is related in the _Événement_: Some young
men were conversing in a private room of the Maison d’Or. Among them was
the Duke de Gramont-Caderousse, who died at the age of thirty-two. Some
one reproached him with being too much in favor of the people, and with
being imbued with the new democratic ideas. After having replied
according to his conscience, he exclaimed, “Well, gentlemen, I’ll wager
that, without having done anything to merit it, I will get myself
arrested before an hour.” “Without having done anything to deserve it?”
“Nothing.” The bet was taken—fifty louis. Caderousse jumped into a cab,
drove to the Temple, and soon returned in a sordid costume—a tattered
cap on his head, trousers in rags, hobnailed boots, torn, muddy, down at
the heels. He rubbed his face and hands over with dirt and then begged
some one to follow him. Thus prepared, he entered a café on the
Boulevard Poissonnière, seated himself at a table, and called out,
“Waiter, a bottle of champagne!” The man hesitated a moment, and then
said in an undertone, “That costs twelve francs.” “Well,” replied De
Gramont, “I have money to pay with.” And he drew from his pocket forty
bank-notes of a thousand francs each, which he laid on the table. The
master of the establishment sent at once for some sergents de ville, and
in a few minutes the pretended vagabond was saying to the commissary of
police, “I am the Duke de Gramont-Caderousse. I had laid a wager that I
should be arrested without having done anything to deserve it.... I have
won, and I have only now to thank you.”
_According to Agreement_
The parson wanted to furnish hymn-books for his congregation, and was
told by a speculator that he would provide books, provided they included
with the hymns advertisements. On the first Sunday after the new books
had been distributed the congregation found themselves singing,—
Hark! the herald angels sing
Beecham’s pills are just the thing;
Peace on earth and mercy mild.
Two for men and one for child.
_A Pulpit Wager_
Many humorous stories are told of Lorenzo Dow. He preached once from the
text from St. Paul, “I can do all things.” “No, Paul,” he said, “you’re
wrong for once. I’ll bet you five dollars you can’t,” and he took a
five-dollar bill from his pocket and laid it on the desk. He continued
to read, “through our Lord Jesus Christ.” “Oh, Paul,” said he, “that’s
an entirely different thing,—the bet is off.” “This,” says an English
writer, “beats any anecdote ever told of Spurgeon.”
_Rhus Toxicodendron_
The San Francisco manufacturer of a lotion advertises as follows:
He built a bower of leafy sprays
To shield his darling from the heat.
“Would we might live thus all our days,”
He said, reclining at her feet.
Alas, poor love-blind, foolish folk,
To hold of life so crude a notion!
The bower was built of poison oak
And they had to use Blank’s healing lotion.
_Mark Twain Convinced_
A story is told that on one occasion Charles Dudley Warner, who was
neighbor and friend to Mark Twain, wanted him to go walking, and Mark,
as usual, refused. Dudley insisted, but to no purpose.
“You ought to do it,” he said finally. “It’s according to Scripture.”
“No ‘Mark-the-perfect-man’ chestnuts on me,” replied the wily humorist.
“Where’s your authority?”
“The fifth chapter of Matthew, verse the forty-first,” said Mr. Warner,
“which reads thus: ‘And whoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with
him, Twain.’”
Mr. Clemens went with Mr. Warner that time.
_Motto for a Tavern Sign_
Lockhart, in his “Life of Sir Walter Scott,” tells a story of a Flodden
boniface who asked Scott for a motto from his poems to put on the
sign-board of his house. He says:
“Scott opened the book (Marmion) at the death-scene of the hero and his
eye was immediately caught by the inscription in black letter,—
“‘Drink, weary pilgrim, drink, and pray
For the kind soul of Sybil Grey,
Who built this cross and well.’
“‘Well, my friend,’ said he, “‘what more would you have? You need but
strike out one letter in the first of these lines and make your
painter-man, the next time he comes this way, print between the jolly
tankard and your own name,
“‘Drink, weary pilgrim, drink, and PAY.’
“Scott was delighted to find, on his return, that this suggestion had
been adopted, and for aught I know, the romantic legend may still be
visible.”
_A New Light_
A widower, in his great bereavement, expressed his feelings by having
engraved on the tombstone of his wife the line, “My light has gone out.”
As he was about to marry again, he asked the advice of Bishop Henry C.
Potter as to whether or not he should have the inscription erased, as it
seemed at variance with the new conditions. “Oh, no,” said the bishop,
“I wouldn’t have it taken off; just put underneath it, ‘I have struck
another match!’”
_Schweininger’s Thrust_
When Bismarck made the acquaintance of his last doctor he was sick and
peevishly declined to answer questions. “As you like,” said the doctor;
“then send for a veterinary surgeon, as such practitioners treat their
patients without asking them any questions.” The Chancellor was
captured.
_Significant Change_
A French paper revives the story of Alexandre Dumas being one day the
guest of Dr. Gistal, an eminent medical man of Marseilles, who after
dinner requested the novelist to enrich his album with one of his witty
improvisations. “Certainly,” replied Dumas, with a smile, and drawing
out his pencil he wrote, under the eyes of his entertainer, lines which
may be imitated as follows:
“Since Dr. Gistal came to our town,
To cure diseases casual and hereditary,
The hospital has been pulled down”—
“You flatterer!” here exclaimed the doctor, mightily pleased; but the
poet went on—
“And we have made a larger cemetery.”
_The Remedy_
Goldy’s touching lines, “When lovely woman stoops to folly,” fare sadly
in the hands of a silk dyer, who sends about a circular with this
parody:
“When lovely woman tilts her saucer,
And finds too late that tea will stain—
Whatever made a woman crosser—
What art can wash all white again?
The only art the stain to cover,
To hide the spot from every eye,
And wear an unsoiled dress above her,
Of proper color, is _to dye_!”
_Botanical Misnomer_
In one of the early comic annuals there are some amusing lines of Hood’s
describing how a country nurseryman had made a large sum out of the sale
of a simple little flower which he sold under the name of the “Rhodum
Sidus.” This charming name had proved quite an attraction to the ladies,
and the flower had become the rage of the season. At length a
pertinacious botanist, who found that the flower was a not uncommon
weed, insisted on knowing where the nurseryman had got his name from; he
elicited the following reply:
“I found this flower in the road beside us,
So christened it the Rhodum Sidus.”
_Not Interchangeable_
A rather amusing incident occurred recently at a show in Paris, where
the wonderful “Performing Fleas” were exhibited. One of the dear
creatures, which acted as coachman to the great flea-coach, managed to
hop off his box, and elected a rather stout lady, standing near, as his
first resting-place. The proprietor of the show, who had spent much time
and patience upon the education of his insect, was in despair, and the
lady was asked if she would mind making a search for the missing pet.
She accordingly retired to a private room, and in a few minutes returned
triumphant, carefully holding the captive in the most approved style.
She handed him to the showman, who started and changed color, and
returning the flea to the lady remarked: “Je vous remercie, Madame, mais
celle la est à vous, pas à moi!” (Thank you, Madame, but that’s not
mine.)
_Business Economy_
Two commercial tourists, chancing to meet in an inn of a country town,
began, after lighting their cigars, a dispute as to the relative extent
of the business of their respective houses. One, zealous to prove the
superiority of the establishment he represented, after enumerating
extraordinary instances, reached the climax with the assertion that the
business of his house was so extensive, that in their correspondence
alone, it cost them over five hundred dollars a year for ink.
“Pooh, pooh,” said the other, “why, we save that much yearly by just
omitting the _dots_ to the _i’s_ and the strokes to the _t’s_.”
_Completing an Unfinished Stanza_
It is related that Dr. Mansel, of Trinity College, Cambridge, by chance
called at the rooms of a brother Cantab, who was absent, but had left on
his table the opening of a poem, in the following lofty strain:
“The sun’s perpendicular rays
Illumined the depths of the sea.”
Here the flight of the poet, by some accident, stopped short, but Dr.
Mansel, equal to the occasion, completed the stanza in the following
facetious style:
“And the fishes, beginning to sweat,
Cried ‘Damn it,’ how hot we shall be.”
_Sonnet to a Cow_
Why cow, how canst thou be so satisfied?
So well content with all things here below?
So unobtrusive and so sleepy-eyed
So meek, so lazy, and so awful slow?
Dost thou not know that everything is mixed,
That naught is as it should be on this earth,
That grievously the world needs to be fixed,
That nothing we can give has any worth,
That times are hard, that life is full of care,
Of sin and trouble and untowardness,
That love is folly, friendship but a snare?
Prit, cow! this is no time for laziness!
The cud thou chewest is not what it seems!
Get up and moo! Tear ‘round and quit thy dreams!
_Xanthippe Vindicated_
The admirers of Sorosis have waited patiently for that sisterhood to
discuss and vindicate the character of that long maligned and grossly
misunderstood victim of history, Xanthippe. But Sorosis procrastinates,
and fails to declare that Socrates would have tried any woman’s temper.
Xanthippe has been called a shrew, a harridan, a scold, a virago, a
termagant. Her temper has been represented as hasty, and her poor,
patient husband, Socrates, has commanded not only respect for his
genius, but pity for his domestic woes. It is extraordinary that such a
misconception of the facts arose. It is remarkable that hitherto not one
apologist for Xanthippe has arisen.
But the champion of woman, of womanhood—yea, even of woman’s
rights—cannot study the facts preserved in history concerning this
ill-assorted pair without perceiving the gross injustice done to a
simple-minded and worthy dame. Reduced to its simplest terms, our
proposition is that Xanthippe lived and died a victim to the Socratic
method.
Ladies, put yourselves in her place. Married to an ugly man in the bloom
of her youthful beauty,—to a man conspicuously ugly, with a flat nose,
thick lips, bulging eyes, so ugly that the handsome Alcibiades compared
him to Silenus,—we see at the outset that it was clearly a _mariage de
convenance_. Think of the discoveries the poor girl made after the
wedding! Her homely husband refused to wear shoes or stockings when the
courting days had passed. He not only never dressed for dinner, but even
refused to change his clothes at all, day in and day out. Having once
secured a housekeeper he rarely stayed at home, was constantly off in
the city, loafing in the market-place, disputing with every comer. He
had given up his trade as a sculptor as soon as he had her dowry to
spend, and spent his time gadding about with young men and neglecting
the proud, fair girl at home.
It was common talk that at the banquets, for which he forsook his home,
he drank more than any one else present. The misguided man, moreover,
seems to have had a devil, or demon, constantly instigating him to some
singular deed or remark. No wonder Xanthippe’s beauty faded! No wonder
that the being looked at askance at every meeting of the Society of
Athenian Dames she attended resulted in her gradually isolating herself
from social affairs! Confined to the narrow limits of her small home,
soured by neglect, yet ever faithful to the satyr Socrates, who left
home early and drank till the wee sma’ hours at night, it is evident
that the trials she contended with were great. But, you say, she must,
as a cultivated, ambitious woman, have greatly enjoyed and as greatly
profited by the opportunities of converse, infrequent but priceless,
with the great dialectician when he actually was in the bosom of his
family. That is the very point at issue. Our contention is that
Socrates’s conversation, if he conversed with his wife at all, was the
very straw that broke the camel’s back. Imagine being kept awake every
night, say from two to four by a husband, more or less the worse for
wine, and obliged to converse with him in question and answer, and being
constantly held down to rigid logical rules of expression! What woman
could endure having to voice her complaints in logical phrase? How the
war-horse of dialectics would snort in the excitement of battle at
hearing the feminine argument “Because” advanced in answer to some
impertinent question on his part.
It is undoubtedly true, and Plato incidentally corroborates it, that one
day when Xanthippe was out of wood, and the week’s ironing was all
waiting to be done, Socrates, in sheer laziness, and from no
ascertainable motive but pure cussedness, stood still for twenty-four
hours continuously. His apologist adds that he was entranced in thought,
and a partial public has believed it. But tell me, oh twentieth century
wife, what effect it would have had on your nerves and temper if your
Thomas or Jack were to treat you so?
If he had only brought his friends home occasionally and brightened
Xanthippe’s life somewhat in that way! Even the rough, uncouth Xenophon
would have been better than nobody. But this garrulous Greek seems to
have had no redeeming domestic features—unless we except what Xenophon
records in his Memorabilia (II. 2) as to his admonishing his eldest son,
Lamprocles, to be grateful to his mother, which was only decent in the
old man, as we infer from the context that Xanthippe had furnished
Lamprocles with liberal pocket-money.
We have a profound sympathy with Xanthippe. If she became a shrew, it
was Socrates’s fault. But it does not appear that she ever failed in the
great duties of womanhood. And it ill beseems either the man or his
apologists to malign a hard-working, much-abused woman whose defects of
temper were not congenital, but created and increased by this malicious
maieutic philosopher himself.
_Democritus at Belfast_[3]
Tyndall, high perched on Speculation’s summit,
May drop his sounding line in Nature’s ocean,
But that great deep has depths beyond his plummet,
The springs of law and life, mind, matter, motion.
Democritus imagined that the soul
Was made of atoms, spheric, smooth and fiery;
Plato conceived it as a radiant whole—
A heavenly unit baffling man’s inquiry.
Indolent Gods, immeasurably bored,
Beyond the blast of Boreas and Eurus,
Too lazy Man to punish or reward,
Such was the heaven conceived by Epicurus.
If, as the wide-observant Darwin dreams,
Man be developed of the Ascidian, ·
Methinks his great deeds and poetic dreams
Scarce square with his molluscous pre-meridian.
But, even as Milton’s demons, problem tossed,
When they had set their maker at defiance,
Still “found no end, in wandering mazes lost,”
So is it with our modern men of science.
Still in the “Open Sesame” of Law,
Life’s master key professing to deliver,
But meeting with deaf ear or scorn-clenched jaw,
Our question, “Doth not law imply lawgiver?”
Betwixt the Garden and the Portico,
Thou vacillating servant, often flittest,
And when we seek the source of law to know,
Giv’st us a phrase, “survival of the fittest.”
Pray who may be the fittest to survive,
The spark of thought for coming time to kindle,
The sacred fire of science keep alive?—
Plato, Agassiz, Humboldt, Huxley, Tyndall?
If Tyndall’s last word be indeed the last—
Of Hope and Faith hence with each rag and tatter!
A black cloud shrouds our future as our past:
Matter, the wise man’s God; the Crowd’s—no Matter.
Footnote 3:
(See Report of Professor Tyndall’s Inaugural Discourse to the British
Association.)
_Christmas Chimes_
Little Penelope Socrates—
A Boston maid of four—
Wide opened her eyes on Christmas morn,
And looked the landscape o’er.
“What is it inflates my _bas de bleu_?”
She asked with dignity;
“’Tis Ibsen in the original;
Oh, joy beyond degree.”
Miss Mary Cadwallader Rittenhouse,
Of Philadelphia town,
Awoke as much as they ever do there,
And watched the snow come down.
“I’m glad that it is Christmas,”
You might have heard her say,
“For my family is one year older now
Than it was last Christmas day.”
’Twas Christmas in giddy Gotham,
And Miss Irene de Jones
Awoke at noon and yawned and yawned,
And stretched her languid bones.
“I’m sorry it is Christmas,
Papa at home will stay,
For ’Change is closed and he won’t make
A single cent to-day.”
Windly dawned the Christmas
On the city by the lake,
And Miss Arabel Wabash Breezy
Was instantly awake.
“What’s that thing in my stocking?
Well, in two jiffs I’ll know.”
And she drew a grand piano forth
From ’way down in the toe.
_The Nestling Shuttlecock_
The amusing verses of Peter Pindar (Dr. John Wolcot) on the King and the
Apple Dumplings have been so much copied in school books and collections
of humorous poetry that most readers are familiar with the monarch’s
questioning:
“Strange I should never of a dumpling dream;
But Goody, tell me, where, where, where’s the seam?”
“Sir, there’s no seam,” quoth she, “I never knew
That folks did apple dumplings sew.”
“No?” cried the staring monarch with a grin,
“Then how the devil got the apple in?”
But Pindar’s “King of France and the Fair Lady” is seldom, if ever,
found outside of his now scarce poetical works:
A king of France upon a day,
With a fair lady of his court,
Was pleased at battledore to play—
A very fashionable sport.
Into the bosom of this fair court dame,
Whose whiteness did the snow’s pure whiteness shame,
King Louis by odd mischance did knock
The shuttlecock.
Thrice happy rogue, upon the town of doves,
To nestle with the pretty little loves!
“Now, sire, pray take it out,” quoth she,
With an arch smile. But what did he?
What? what to charming modesty belongs!
Obedient to her soft command,
He raised it—but not with his hand!
No, marvelling reader, but the chimney tongs.
What a chaste thought in this good king;
How clever!
When shall we hear again of such a thing?
Lord! never.
Now were our princes to be prayed
To such an act by some fair maid,
I’ll bet my life not one would mind it;
But handy, without more ado,
The youths would search the bosom through,
Although it took a day to find it.
_Proverbial Philosophy in New Dress_
Teach not your parent’s parent to extract
The golden contents of the egg by suction.
The good old lady can the feat enact
Quite irrespective of your kind induction.
A member of the feathered federation,
A prisoner by your palm and digits made,
Is worth at least a couple of his brothers
Who in your leafy arbor seek the shade.
_Theory and Practice_
Doctor (to brother physician)—“Yes, sir, the sovereign remedy for all
ills is fresh air and plenty of it. People don’t let enough air into
their houses. Well, I must hurry off; I’m on an errand.”
Brother Physician—“Going far?”
Doctor—“No; only down to the hardware store to get half a mile of
weather-strips.”