dairy, an' wonder what she's come after.
_Mrs. Poyser_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.
I called him Selim, to express
The marked s(e)limness of his form.
_Songs of Singularity._
"Yes," he exclaimed, "as the sublime Tyndall tells
us, let us struggle to attain to a deeper knowledge
of matter, and a more faithful conformity
to its laws!"
The professor would have proceeded, but the weather
had been rapidly growing rough, and he here became
violently sea-sick.
"Let us," he exclaimed hurriedly, "conform to the
laws of matter and go below."
W. H. MALLOCK, _The New Paul and Virginia_.
What can Tommy Onslow do?
He can drive a curricle and two.
Can Tommy Onslow do no more?
Yes, he can drive a phaeton and four.
ANON., in GRONOW's _Recollections_.
Hicks and Thackeray, walking together, stopped
opposite a doorway, over which was inscribed in
gold letters these words: "Mutual Loan Office."
They both seemed equally puzzled. "What on earth can
that mean?" asked Hicks. "I don't know," answered
Thackeray, "unless it means, that two men, who have
nothing, agree to lend it to one another."
J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.
A clod--a piece of orange-peel--
An end of a cigar,--
Once trod on by a princely heel,
How beautiful they are!
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
In the onion is the hope of universal brotherhood.
Look at Italy. In the churches all are alike;
there is one faith, one smell.
C. D. WARNER, _My Summer in a Garden_.
He was "free to confess" (whence comes this phrase?
Is't English? No--'tis only parliamentary).
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
"Ah!" says my languid Oxford gentleman, "nothing
new, and nothing true, and no matter."
R. W. EMERSON.
He dropt a tear on Susan's bier,
He seem'd a most despairing swain;
Yet bluer sky brought newer tie,
And would he wish her back again?
The moments fly, and when we die
Will Philly Thistletop complain?
She'll cry and sigh, and--dry her eye,
And let herself be woo'd again.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
One 'ud think, an hear some folks talk, as the
men war 'cute enough to count the corns in a
bag o' wheat wi' only smelling at it. They can
see through a barn door, they can. Perhaps that's the
reason they see so little o' this side on't.
_Mrs. Poyser_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.
Thy flattering picture, Phryne, 's like to thee
Only in this--that you both painted be.
JOHN DONNE.
Without black velvet breeches, what is man?
JOHN BRAMSTON, _Man of Taste_.
_A KISS._
Rose kissed me to-day,--
Will she kiss me to-morrow?
Let it be as it may,
Rose kissed me to-day.
But the pleasure gives way
To a savour of sorrow;--
Rose kissed me to-day,--
_Will_ she kiss me to-morrow?
AUSTIN DOBSON, _Proverbs in Porcelain_.
Humility is a virtue all preach, none practise,
and yet everybody is content to hear.
SELDEN, _Table Talk_.
Some say that the primitive tongue
Expressed but the simplest affections;
And swear that the words said or sung
Were nothing but mere interjections.
_Oh! Oh!_ was the signal of pain;
_Ha! Ha!_ was the symptom of laughter;
_Pooh! Pooh!_ was the sign of disdain,
And _Hillo!_ came following after.
Some, taking a different view,
Maintain the old language was fitted
To mark out the objects we knew,
By mimicking sounds they emitted.
_Bow, wow_, was the name of a dog,
_Quack, quack_, was the word for a duckling,
_Hunc, hunc_, would designate a hog,
And _wee, wee_, a pig and a suckling.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
_A PRACTICAL MAN._--One whose judgment is
not distracted by the power of seeing far before
him.
ANNE EVANS, _Poems and Music_.
For conversation well endued,
She thinks it witty to be rude,
And, placing raillery in railing,
Proclaims aloud your greatest failing.
SWIFT, _A Woman's Mind_.
I have always been more or less mixed up with
Art. I have an uncle who takes photographs--and
I have a servant who takes anything he can
get his hands on.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
If a man who turnips cries
Cry not when his father dies,
'Tis a proof that he would rather
Have a turnip than a father.
DR. JOHNSON.
The greatest happiness of the greatest number is
best secured by a prudent consideration for
Number One.
_Kenelm Chillingly_, in LORD LYTTON's novel.
"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"
"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure my brain;
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."
LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.
When the question arose how the title of Herold's
charming opera, "Le Pré aux Clercs," should be
rendered into English, [Beazley] quietly suggested
"Parson's Green."
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.
When I left the man in gaiters,
He was grumbling, o'er his gin,
At the charges of the hostess
Of that famous Flemish inn;
And he looked a very Briton
(So, methinks, I see him still)
As he pocketed the candle
That was mentioned in the bill!
JOHN GODFREY SAXE, _Poems_.
Morality--keeping up appearances in this world,
or becoming suddenly devout when we imagine
that we may be shortly summoned to appear in
the next.
HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.
_ON PATRONS' PROMISES._
A minister's answer is always so kind!
I starve, and he tells me he'll keep me in mind.
Half his promise, God knows, would my spirits restore--
Let him keep me, and, faith, I will ask for no more.
LORD HOLLAND, in MOORE's _Diary_.
I know there's a stage of speculation in which a
man may doubt whether a pickpocket is blameworthy--but
I'm not one of your subtle fellows
who keep looking at the world through their own legs.
_Felix Holt_, in GEORGE ELIOT's novel.
"A knock-me-down sermon, and worthy of Birch,"
Says I to my wife, as we toddle from church.
"Convincing, indeed!" is the lady's remark;
"How logical, too, on the size of the Ark!"
Then Blossom cut in, without begging our pardons,
"Pa, was it as big as the 'Logical Gardens?"
"Miss Blossom," says I, to my dearest of dearies,
"Papa disapproves of nonsensical queries;
The Ark was an Ark, and had people to build it,
Enough we are told Noah built it and fill'd it:
Mamma does not ask how he caught his opossums."
--Said she, "That remark is as foolish as Blossom's!"
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human
race. Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense,
and the clever books are the refutation of
that nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell
man was the invention of printing.
Phoebus, in LORD BEACONSFIELD's _Lothair_.
We can't assume, so Comte declares, a first or final cause, sir;
Phenomena are all we know, their order and their laws, sir;
While Hegel's modest formula, a single line to sum in,
Is "Nothing is, and nothing's not, but everything's becomin'."
F. D., in _Pall Mall Gazette_.
If you wish particularly to gain the good graces and
affection of certain people, men or women, try
to discover their most striking merit, if they have
one, and their dominant weakness, for every one has his
own. Then do justice to the one, and a little more than
justice to the other.
LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Letters to his Son_.
Tender ten may dote on toys,
While for twelve jam tarts have joys,
Feat fourteen's in love with boys--
Not a few.
J. ASHBY STERRY, _Boudoir Ballads_.
Juliet was a fool to kill herself. In three
months she'd have married again, and been glad
to be quit of Romeo.
CHARLES BUXTON, _Notes of Thought_.
A cornet waltzes, but a colonel weds.
ALFRED AUSTIN, _The Season_.
In the days when Pam retained the wheel,
We knew the men with whom we had to deal;
Then sucking statesmen seldom failed in seeing
The final cause and import of their being.
They dressed; they drove a drag; nor sought to shirk
Their portion of the matrimonial work.
They flocked to rout and drum by tens and twelves;
Danced every dance, and left their cards themselves,
While some obliging senatorial fag
Slipped their petitions in the Speaker's bag.
_Lady Matilda_, in G. O. TREVELYAN's _Ladies in Parliament_.
Monk Lewis was a great favourite at Oatlands.
One day after dinner, as the duchess was leaving
the room, she whispered something in Lewis's
ear. He was much affected, his eyes filling with tears.
We asked him what was the matter. "Oh," replied
Lewis, "the duchess spoke so _very_ kindly to me!"
"My dear fellow," said Colonel Armstrong, "pray don't
cry; I dare say she didn't mean it."
ROGERS, _Table Talk_.
Sweet is revenge--especially to women.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
A plain leg of mutton, my Lucy,
I prithee get ready at three;
Have it smoking and tender and juicy,
And what better meat can there be?
And when it has feasted the master,
'Twill amply suffice for the maid;
Meanwhile, I will smoke my canaster,
And tipple my ale in the shade.
W. M. THACKERAY.
L'amour est comme les maladies épidémiques;
plus on les craint, plus on y est exposé.
CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.
_MARRY_ (_AND_ DON'T) _COME UP_.
A fellow that's single, a fine fellow's he;
But a fellow that's married's a _felo de se_.
SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.
A brother actor, who had not exactly "taken
the house by storm" at his first appearance in
London, very stupidly asked Compton: "Was
my acting good?" "Well," was the reply, delivered
in his inimitable style, "hum! ha! _Good_ is not the
word!"
H. HOWE, in _Memoir of Henry Compton_.
So when two dogs are fighting in the streets,
When a third dog one of the two dogs meets,
With angry tooth he bites him to the bone,
And this dog smarts for what that dog has done.
FIELDING, _Tom Thumb_.
I recollect a humorous M.P. pointing out to
me a retired West Indian judge not very remarkable
for sagacity on the bench. There was a
ball at Government House, and the judge began to criticise
the dancing of a witty member of the Indian bar.
"Ah, my friend, you are a bad waltzer!" "Ah, but you
are a bad judge."
MARK BOYD, _Reminiscences_.
_Mrs. Cripps_: Things are seldom what they seem:
Skim milk masquerades as cream;
Highlows pass as patent leathers;
Jackdaws strut in peacocks' feathers.
_Captain_: Very true,
So they do.
_Mrs. Cripps_: Black sheep dwell in every fold;
All that glitters is not gold;
Storks turn out to be but logs;
Bulls are but inflated frogs.
_Captain_: So they be,
Frequentlee.
W. S. GILBERT, _H.M.S. Pinafore_.
A friend meeting Sir George Rose one day in
Lincoln's Inn Fields, with his left eye greatly
swollen and inflamed, remonstrated with him,
adding that he was surprised Lady Rose should have let
him go out of doors in such a condition. "Ah," replied
Sir George, "I am out _jure mariti_" (my right eye).
_Macmillan's Magazine._
It is no comfort to the _short_
To know you cannot love _at all_!
ROBERT REECE, in _Comic Poets_.
"Edwin and Morcar, the Earls of Mercia and
Northumbria, declared for him; and even
Stigand, the patriotic Archbishop of Canterbury,
found it advisable----"
"Found _what?_" said the Duck.
"Found _it_," the Mouse replied, rather crossly; "of
course you know what 'it' means."
"I know what 'it' means well enough, when _I_ find a
thing," said the Duck; "it's generally a frog or a worm.
The question is, what did the archbishop find?"
LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.
I've read in many a novel, that, unless they've
souls that grovel,
Folks _prefer_, in fact, a hovel
to your dreary marble halls.
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
Marriage is a Bishop, choral service, Messrs.
Hancock, and Brussels lace.
ANNA C. STEELE.
How beautifully blue the sky,
The glass is rising very high,
Continue fine I hope it may,
And yet it rained but yesterday;
To-morrow it may pour again
(I hear the country wants some rain);
Yet people say, I know not why,
That we shall have a warm July.
W. S. GILBERT, _Pirates of Penzance_.
The Dowager-Duchess of Richmond went one Sunday
with her daughter to the Chapel Royal at
St. James's, but, being late, they could find no
places. After looking about some time, and seeing the
case was hopeless, she said to her daughter, "Come
away, Louisa; at any rate we have done the civil thing."
R. R. HAYDON, _Diary_.
_ON NORTHERN LIGHTS._
To roar and bore of Northern wights
The tendency so frail is,
That men do call those Northern Lights
Au-ror-a Bor-ealis.
JEKYLL, in MISS MITFORD's _Letters_.
I'm forced to wink a good deal, for fear of seeing
too much, for a neighbourly man must let himself
be cheated a little.
_Parson Lingon_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Felix Holt_.
_Dulce_ it is, and _decorum_, no doubt, for the country to fall,--to
Offer one's blood an oblation to Freedom, and die for the Cause; yet
Still, individual culture is also something, and no man
Finds quite distinct the assurance that he of all others is called on,
Or would be justified even, in taking away from the world that
Precious creature himself.
_Claude_, in CLOUGH's _Amours de Voyage_.
Notre repentir n'est pas tant un regret du mal
que nous avons fait, qu'une crainte de celui qui
nous en peut arriver.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Réflexions_.
_ON AN INANIMATE ACTRESS._
Thou hast a score of parts not good,
But two divinely shown:
Thy Daphne a true piece of wood,
Thy Niobe a stone.
PALLADAS, trans. by R. GARNETT.
We as often repent the good we have done as the
ill.
W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.
The speech of Old England for me;
It serves us on every occasion;
Henceforth, like our soil, let it be
Exempted from foreign invasion.
It answers for friendship and love,
For all sorts of feeling and thinking,
And lastly, all doubt to remove--
It answers for singing and drinking.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
A compliment is usually accompanied with a
bow, as if to beg pardon for paying it.
_Guesses at Truth._
_THE TRAVELLER AND THE GORILLA._
The gifts by Nature boon supplied
This pair unequally divide:
The traveller's tale is far from small,
The monkey has no tail at all.
R. GARNETT, _Idylls and Epigrams_.
The more a man's worth, the worthier man he
must be.
_Dudley Smooth_, in LORD LYTTON's _Money_.
Now to the banquet we press,
Now for the eggs and the ham!
Now for the mustard and cress,
Now for the strawberry jam!
Now for the tea of our host,
Now for the rollicking bun,
Now for the muffin and toast,
And now for the gay Sally Lunn!
W. S. GILBERT, _The Sorcerer_.
It was in my schoolboy days that I failed as an
actor. The play was the "Ruins of Pompeii."
I played the Ruins. It was not a very successful
performance, but it was better than the "Burning Mountains."
He was not good. He was a bad Vesuvius.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
He cannot be complete in aught
Who is not humorously prone,--
A man without a merry thought
Can hardly have a funny bone.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
An actor named Priest was playing at one of the
principal theatres. Some one remarked at the
Garrick Club that there were a great many more
in the pit--"Probably clerks who have taken Priest's
orders."
ABRAHAM HAYWARD, _Essays_.
And she? she marries money and a man.
ALFRED AUSTIN, _The Season_.
A lady of my acquaintance, a brunette, happened
to show her maid one of those little sticking-plaster
profiles which they used to call _silhouettes_.
It was the portrait of the lady's aunt, whom the girl had
never seen, and she said quite innocently, "La, ma'am,
I always thought as how you had some black relations,
you are so dark-like yourself, you know!"
FREDERICK LOCKER, _Patchwork_.
He pored upon the leaves, and on the flowers,
And heard a voice in all the winds; and then,
He thought of wood nymphs and immortal bowers,
And how the goddesses came down to men:
He miss'd the pathway, he forgot the hours,
And when he look'd upon his watch again,
He found how much old Time had been a winner--
He also found that he had lost his dinner.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
Ward had been a Whig, and became ministerial.
"I wonder what could make me turn Whig
again," said Ward. "That I can tell you," said
[Lord] Byron. "They have only to _re-Ward_ you."
CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.
_DISTICH._
As the meek beasts in the Garden came flocking for Adam to name them,
Men for a title to-day crawl to the feet of a king.
JOHN HAY, _Poems_.
You cannot have everything, as the man said when
he was down with small-pox and cholera, and
the yellow fever came into the neighbourhood.
C. D. WARNER, _My Summer in a Garden_.
Whene'er I take my walks abroad,
How many _rich_ I see!
There's A. and B. and C. and D.
All better off than me!
R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.
At one period of his boyhood, Macaulay's fancy
was much exercised by the threats and terrors of
the law. He had a little plot of ground at the
back of the house, marked out as his own by a row of
oyster-shells, which a maid one day threw away as rubbish.
He went straight to the drawing-room, where his
mother was entertaining some visitors, walked into the
circle, and said very solemnly: "Cursed be Sally; for it
is written, 'Cursed is he that removeth his neighbour's
landmark.'"
G. O. TREVELYAN, _Life of Macaulay_.
If care were not the waiter
Behind a fellow's chair,
When easy-going sinners
Sit down to Richmond dinners,
And life's swift stream flows straighter--
By Jove, it would be rare,
If care were not the waiter
Behind a fellow's chair.
If wit were always radiant,
And wine were always iced,
And bores were kicked out straightway
Through a convenient gateway;
Then down the years' long gradient
'Twere sad to be enticed,
If wit were always radiant,
And wine were always iced.
MORTIMER COLLINS, in _The Owl_.
Building a staircase for Sir Henry Meux, [Beazley]
called it making a new "Gradus ad Parnassum,"
because it was steps for the _muses_.
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.
I cannot clear the five-bar gate,
But, trying first its timber's state,
Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait
To trundle over.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
La constance est la chimère de l'amour.
VAUVENARGUES, _Réflexions_.
_ON AN INTEMPERATE HUSBAND._
Whence comes it that in Clara's face
The lily only has a place?
Is it because the absent rose
Has gone to paint her husband's nose?
_A Collection of Epigrams_ (1727).
[Charles] Sheridan told me that his father,
being a good deal plagued by an old maiden
relation of his always going out to walk with
him, said one day that the weather was bad and rainy;
to which the old lady answered that, on the contrary, it
had cleared up. "Yes," said Sheridan, "it has cleared
enough for _one_, but not for _two_."
THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.
To Urn, or not to Urn? that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler for our frames to suffer
The shows and follies of outrageous custom,
Or to take fire--against a sea of zealots--
And, by consuming, end them? To Urn--to keep--
No more: and while we keep, to say we end
Contagion and the thousand graveyard ills
That flesh is heir to--'tis a consume-ation
Devoutly to be wished!
WILLIAM SAWYER.
_ANSWER TO AN INQUIRY._
"_Young author._"--Yes, Agassiz _does_ recommend
authors to eat fish, because the phosphorus
in it makes brains. So far you are
correct. But I cannot help you to a decision about the
amount you need to eat--at least, not with certainty. If
the specimen composition you send is about your fair
usual average, I should judge that perhaps a couple of
whales would be all you would want for the present.
Not the largest kind, but simply good, middling-sized
whales.
MARK TWAIN, _Choice Works_.
The firm of Baxter, Rose, and Norton,
Deny the plaintiffs Arthur Orton;
But can't deny, what's more important,
That he has done what Arthur oughtn't.
ANON.
Hume and his wife and several of their children
were with me. Hume repeated the old saying,
"One fool makes many." "Ay, Mr. Hume,"
said I, pointing to the company, "you have a fine
family."
CHARLES LAMB, _apud_ CRABB ROBINSON.
Plus on juge, moins on aime.
BALZAC, _Physiologie du Mariage_.
George the Third scolded Lord North for
never going to the concert of antient music:
"Your brother, the bishop," said the king,
"never misses them, my lord." "Sir," answered the
premier, "if I were as deaf as my brother, the bishop, I
would never miss them either!"
R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.
_ON A MODERN ACTRESS._
"Miss Neilson's 'benefit'," one says;
I ask to what the phrase refers;
For, sure, when such an artist plays,
The "benefit" is ours, not hers.
W. D. A.
Our king [William IV.] is _ultra_-popular. Have
you heard Lord Alvanley's _bon mot_ concerning
him? He was standing at the window at White's,
when the king, with a thousand of his loving subjects at
his heels, was walking up St. James's Street. A friend
said to him, "What are you staring at, Alvanley?" "I
am waiting to see his Majesty's pocket picked," was the
reply.
MISS MITFORD, _Life and Letters_.
Methinks the lays of now-a-days
Are painfully in earnest.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
Hicks was talking to Thackeray of a certain
gentleman's strange addiction to beer. "It's a
great pity," said Hicks, "that he does not keep a
check-rein on himself, for he is a marvellous fellow otherwise--I
mean, for talent I hardly know his equal."
"No," retorted Thackeray, "he is a remarkable man.
Take him for half-and-half, we ne'er shall look upon his
like again."
J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.
Pro conibus calidis, conibus frigidis,
Pro conibus mollibus, conibus rigidis,
Pro conibus senibus
Atque juvenibus,
Gratias agimus fatis,
Habuimus satis.
ANON.
One of the "Hooks and Eyes" was expatiating on
the fact that he had dined three times at the
Duke of Devonshire's, and that on neither occasion
had there been any fish at table. "I cannot account
for it," he added. "I can," said Jerrold: "they ate it all
upstairs."
CHARLES MACKAY, _Recollections_.
Veracity is a plant of paradise, and its seeds
have never flourished beyond the walls.
_Machiavelli_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Romola_.
I know not why my soul is rack'd:
Why I ne'er smile as was my wont:
I only know that, as a fact,
I don't.
I used to roam o'er glen and glade,
Buoyant and blithe as other folk:
And not unfrequently I made
A joke.
All day I sang; of love, of fame,
Of fights our fathers fought of yore,
Until the thing almost became
A bore.
I cannot sing the old songs now
It is not that I deem them low;
'Tis that I can't remember how
They go.
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
During [a] drive, Lord William L----, a man
of fashion, but, like other of the great men of
the day, an issuer of paper money discounted at
high rates by the usurers, was thrown off his horse.
Mr. and Mrs. King immediately quitted the carriage, and
placed the noble lord within. On this circumstance
being mentioned in the clubs, Brummell observed it was
only "a Bill _Jewly_ (duly) taken up and honoured."
GRONOW, _Recollections_.
She made the cleverest people quite ashamed,
And even the good with inward envy groaned,
Finding themselves so very much exceeded
In their own way by all the things that she did.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
On the elevation of some childless person to the
peerage, [Lady Charlotte Lindsay] remarked
that he was "of the new Order, which seemed
the popular one, not of the Barons, but the Barrens."
LORD HOUGHTON, _Monographs_.
Oft when petty annoyances ruffle the soul,
And the temper defies philosophic control,
The emotion is quelled, and a calm will succeed,
Through the simple device of inhaling the Weed:
Such magical power has the soothing Canaster
To bring balmy content and good humour to Gaster.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
Morgan John O'Connell had the ready
wit of his country in a remarkable degree. We
were walking by the Wey one day, when an
Oxford graduate, who had a taste for botany, plucked a
flower (_Balsamum impatiens_) from the river, remarking
that it was a very rare plant. "It is an out-of-the-_Wey_
one, at any rate," was the instantaneous reply.
W. H. HARRISON, _University Magazine_.
Oh! 'tis the most tremendous bore
Of all the bores I know,
To have a friend who's lost his heart
A short time ago.
_Bon Gaultier Ballads._
I never on any account allow my business to
interfere with my drinking.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
_NURSERY RHYME._
What is an Englishman made of?
Roast beef and jam tart,
And a pint of good Clar't,
And that's what an Englishman's made of.
What is a Frenchman, pray, made of?
Horse steak, and frog fritter,
And absinthe so bitter,
And that's what a Frenchman is made of.
SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.