Unterrified by her proximity to such dangerous engines.
Look out, child, look out, don't get too near the Bernard Shaw
rheostat or the Walt Whitman fly-wheel.--_Christopher Morley_.
"May I take this book home please, or isn't it a _running_ book? Oh,
I'm so glad, I thought it might be 'for reference only.'"
MAN--"I'd like a book on dramatic expression."
LIBRARIAN--"Oral, of course?"
MAN--"Yes, I don't like poetry."
LIES
Sin has many tools but a lie is the handle that fits them all.--_O.W.
Holmes_.
LIFE
As viewed by the
OPTIMIST PESSIMIST
Love Lies
Independence Ingratitude
Fun Foolishness
Endeavor Exertion
In traveling along a road in a motor car, there will be several cars
ahead of you going your way, and there will be several cars coming
toward you. Also ahead of you, going your way, there may be a hay
wagon or a farmer in a buggy. As you speed along, you look ahead and
declare to yourself that there is no logical way in which you can
get through the spaces thus created. Yet the vehicles always form
themselves into the right combination, and you pass through easily.
This is the way with life. There are always obstacles that you do not
see how you can pass without a smash-up. But you always get by.
"Stop, look, listen!"
The reflective man stopped to read the railroad warning.
"Those three words illustrate the whole scheme of life," said he.
"How?"
"You see a pretty girl; you stop; you look; after you marry her, and
for the rest of your life, you listen."
_The Magician_
Life has such a subtle way
Of forming roses out of clay;
Of taking tears that seemed in vain
And making of them April rain;
Of getting from a heedless rafter
Echoes of dead bits of laughter;
Of welding in a sunset sea
Lost loveliness and imagery;
Of making out of crawling things
Butterflies with airy wings.
Life has such a subtle way
Of turning darkness into day;
Of bringing music, ocean-old,
To newness of a tale untold;
And then, grown jealous of its trust,
Of changing roses back to dust.
--_Vivian Yeiser Laramore_.
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon
as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, begin it well and serenely, and
with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This
day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and
invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.--_Emerson_.
_Life Is No Problem_
Life is no problem to the heart
That understands itself,
That does not sit above, apart
Upon some higher shelf.
And moralize on destiny
And other things obscure,
But has no more philosophy
Than changeless love and pure.
Life is no problem to the mind
That knows the way to live
The habit just of being kind,
The joy of just to give.
Life is no mystery at all
To those who do not doubt
But take this life as life befall
And smile and live it out.
Do not with theories concern
Yourself as on you go;
There is but little we can learn,
But little we can know.
Life is to live, to take the sweet
The hidden fates have sent,
To live each day the day you meet
And try to be content.
So do not seek to tear the veil
And read the heart of God.
Enough that He is in the gale
And in the velvet sod.
Enough that He has given you
The boon of days and years,
The world of green, the sky of blue,
And sunshine after tears.
--_Douglas Mallock_.
_The Match Box_
Life is a Match Box, and the Matches
Ambitions, and unstruck desires;
Youth the material that catches
And kindles in the darkness fires.
And Love is like an idle fellow
Who sets the match box in a blaze,
And sees the blue flames and the yellow
Shoot up and die beneath his gaze.
But Age is like a man returning
Late homeward. Creeping in his socks
He tries to get a candle burning,
And finds he has an empty box.
The seven ages of man have been well tabulated by somebody or other on
an acquisitive basis. Thus:
First age--Sees the earth.
Second age--Wants it.
Third age--Hustles to get it.
Fourth age--Decides to be satisfied with only half of it.
Fifth age--Becomes still more moderate.
Sixth age--Now content to possess a six-by-two strip of it.
Seventh age--Gets the strip.
_Wisdom_
When I have ceased to break my wings
Against the faultiness of things,
And learned that compromises wait
Behind each hardly opened gate,
When I can look life in the eyes
Grown calm and very coldly wise,
Life will have given me the Truth
And taken in exchange--My Youth.
--_Sara Teasdale_.
LISPING
A young lady who lisped very badly was treated by a specialist,
and learned to say the sentence: "Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts for
Soldiers."
She repeated it to her friends, and was praised upon her masterly
performance.
"Yeth, but ith thuth an ectheedingly difficult remark to work into a
converthathion--ethpethially when you conthider that I have no thither
Thuthie."
LOGIC
"Sedentary work," said the college lecturer, "tends to lessen the
endurance."
"In other words," butted in the smart student, "the more one sits the
less one can stand."
"Exactly," retorted the lecturer; "and if one lies a great deal one's
standing is lost completely."
Two men were hotly discussing the merits of a book. Finally, one
of them, himself an author, said to the other: "No, John, you can't
appreciate it. You never wrote a book yourself."
"No," retorted John, "and I never laid an egg, but I'm a better judge
of an omelet than any hen."
LONDON
A teacher asked her class to write an essay on London. She was
surprised to read the following in one attempt:
"The people of London are noted for their stupidity."
The young author was asked how he got that idea.
"Please, miss," was the reply, "it says in the text-books the
population of London is very dense."
"Hiram writes that the first day he was in London he lost £12."
"Great Cæsar's ghost! Ain't they got any health laws in that town?"
LOST AND FOUND
OLD GENTLEMAN (in street car)--"Has anyone here dropped a roll of
bills, with a rubber elastic around them?"
"Yes, I have!" cried a dozen at once.
OLD GENTLEMAN (calmly)--"Well, I've just picked up the elastic."
"Cohn, I've lost my pocketbook."
"Have you looked by your pockets?"
"Sure, all but der left-hand hip pocket."
"Vell, vy don't you look in dot?"
"Because if it ain't dere I'll drop dead!"
The following exchange of courtesy was recently chronicled in a German
paper's advertisements:
"The gentleman who found a brown purse, containing a sum of money, in
the Blumenstrasse, is requested to forward it to the address of the
loser, as he is recognized."
A couple of days later appeared the response, which, altho courteous,
had an elusive air, to say the least:
"The recognized gentleman who picked up a brown purse in the
Blumenstrasse requests the loser to call at his house at a convenient
day."
A small boy came hurriedly down the street, and halted breathlessly in
front of a stranger going in the same direction.
"Have you lost half a crown?" he asked with his hand in his pocket.
"Y-es, yes, I believe I have!" said the stranger feeling in his
pockets. "Have you found one?"
"Oh, no," said the small boy. "I just want to see how many have been
lost today. Yours makes fifty-four!"
The young lady from New York was inclined to belittle things.
"Why," she remarked, "I could find my way up this mountain path
alone."
"Wal," responded the native, "a young couple went up this path last
year and never came back."
"Oh, my! Were they lost?"
"Nope," was the reply, "they went down the other side!"
The other day when the beach was crowded, a small boy, looking rather
bewildered, approached a police officer and said, "Please, sir, have
you seen anything of a lady around here?"
"Why, yes," answered the officer, "I've seen several."
"Well, have you seen any without a little boy?"
"Yes."
"Well," said the little chap, as a relieved look crossed his face,
"I'm the little boy. Where's the lady?"
One does not mean to be personal, but, if the young man who sat in
the chair where a lady had left a dish of maple sugar to cool at
the festival the other evening, will return the saucer, he will save
himself further trouble.
LOVE
_Outwitted_
He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win,
We drew a circle that took him in.
--_Edwin Markham_.
DAUGHTER--"Oh, father, how grand it is to be alive! The world is too
good for anything. Why isn't every one happy?"
FATHER--"Who is he this time?"
EDITH--"How does Fred make love?"
MARIE--"Well, I should define it as unskilled labor."
MAG.--"Wot is 'platonic affection,' Liz? Is it love?"
LIZ.--"Well, no;--it ain't _true_ love! Dere ain't no quarreling in
it, ner no fighting, ner worrying, ner hocking, ner drinking,
ner getting arrested fer non-support, ner _nuthin'_ wot's really
passionate!"
_Why_
Do you know why the rabbits are caught in the snare
Or the tabby cat's shot on the tiles?
Why the tigers and lions creep out of their lair?
Why an ostrich will travel for miles?
Do you know why a sane man will whimper and cry
And weep o'er a ribbon or glove?
Why a cook will put sugar for salt in a pie?
Do you know? Well, I'll tell you--it's Love.
--_H.P. Stevens_.
PAPA--"Why, hang it, girl, that fellow only earns nine dollars a
week!"
PLEADING DAUGHTER--"Yes; but, daddy, dear, a week passes so quickly
when you're fond of one another."--_Judge_.
"Love makes the world go 'round," quoted the Parlor Philosopher.
"Yes, but it has to be cranked," replied the Mere Man. "It isn't a
self-starter."
_Cupid_
Why was Cupid a boy,
And why a boy was he?
He should have been a girl,
For aught that I can see.
For he shoots with his bow,
And a girl shoots with her eye;
And they both are merry and glad,
And laugh when we do cry.
Then to make Cupid a boy
Was surely a woman's plan,
For a boy never learns so much
Till he has become a man.
And then he's so pierced with cares,
And wounded with arrowy smarts,
That the whole business of his life
Is to pick out the heads of the darts.
--_William Blake_.
Partake of love as a temperate man partakes of wine: do not become
intoxicated.--_A. de Musset_.
LUCK
VICAR--"Nothing to be thankful for! Why, think of poor old Hodge
losing his wife through the flu!"
GILES--"Well, that don't do me no good. I ain't Hodge."
Good luck is the gayest of all gay girls;
Long in one place she will not stay:
Back from your brow she strokes the curls,
Kisses you quick and flies away.
But Madame Bad Luck soberly comes
And stays--no fancy has she for flitting;
Snatches of true-love songs she hums,
And sits by your bed, and brings her knitting.
--_John Hay_.
YOUNG SON--"What is luck, father?"
FATHER--"Luck, my son, is something that enables another fellow to
succeed where we have failed."
MAGAZINES
_History of the Magazine Story_
July 27, 1914--Author finishes it.
Aug. 3, 1914--Rewrites, giving incidental war slant.
May 9, 1915--Rewrites; hero rescues heroine from torpedoed liner.
Apr. 7, 1917--Rewrites; hero enlists; villain, German spy.
Nov. 13, 1918--Rewrites; denouement, allied entrance into Berlin;
heroine, Red Cross nurse.
Nov. 13, 1918--Rewrites; climax, homecoming from overseas.
Aug. 15, 1919--War fiction going stale; goes back to original story,
retaining only German villain.
Jan. 1, 1923--Rewrites; takes out German villain.
Apr. 1, 1934--Author in old people's home; sells original story to
Cozy Hearth; editor features it as "charming romance of life before
the war."
EDITOR (surveying summer landscape)--"Season of mists and mellow
fruitfulness, close bosom friend of the maturing sun!"
FRIEND--"But, I say, that was written about autumn, wasn't it?"
EDITOR--"Yes, yes, I know--but you must remember that we always go to
press four months in advance!"
It was the first of January when a stranger entered the offices of
Pushup's Monthly Magazine.
"Gracious, but it is hot in here!" he remarked to a man in his shirt
sleeves, who was mopping his face with a handkerchief.
"Some," was the terse reply of the man, who was no other than the
famous editor himself.
"What are all those flowers, straw hats and palm-leaf fans scattered
about for?"
"Oh, to give a touch of realism;--we are now preparing our
great Midsummer Fiction Number," was the great editor's kindly
reply.--_E.C.H_.
MAJORITY
"You don't mean to tell me you ever doubt the wisdom of the majority?"
"Well," responded Senator Sorghum with deliberation, "what is a
majority? In many instances it is only a large number of people who
have got tired out trying to think for themselves and have decided to
accept somebody else's opinion."
MARKSMANSHIP
"Why do you compare my marksmanship with lightning?" asked the
recruit.
"Because," replied the instructor, "it never hits twice in the same
place."
OFFICER (to recruit)--"Goodness gracious, man, where are all your
shots going? Every one has missed the target."
SOLDIER (nervously)--"I don't know, sir. They left here all right."
MARRIAGE
"Hubby, if I were to die would you marry again?"
"That question is hardly fair, my dear."
"Why not?"
"If I were to say yes you wouldn't like it, and to say never again
wouldn't sound nice."
THE PHRENOLOGIST--"Yes, sir, by feeling the bumps on your head I can
tell exactly what sort of man you are."
MR. DOOLAN--"Oi belave it will give ye more ov an oidea wot sort ov a
woman me woife is."--_Jack Canuck_.
Private Nelson got his leave, and made what he conceived to be the
best use of his holiday by getting married.
On the journey back at the station he gave the gateman his marriage
certificate in mistake for his return railway ticket.
The official studied it carefully, and then said:
"Yes, my boy, you've got a ticket for a long journey, but not on this
road."
NORTH--"I see they're reviving the talk about trial marriages. Do you
believe in them?"
WEST--"Well, mine is quite a trial, but I can't say I believe in it
especially."
A young fellow took his elderly father to a football match.
"Father," he said as they took their seats, "you'll see more
excitement for your five dollars than you ever saw before."
"Oh, I don't know," grunted the old man; "five dollars was all I paid
for my marriage license."
George Washington Jones, colored, was trying to enlist in Uncle
Sam's army, and the following conversation ensued with the recruiting
officer:
"Name?"
"George Washington Jones, sah."
"Age?"
"I'se twenty-seven years old, sah."
"Married?"
"No, sah. Dat scar on mah haid is whar a mule done kicked me."
If marriage is a lottery,
As saw smiths often say,
The lucky gambler is, of course,
The one who doesn't play.
--_Tennyson J. Daft_.
At the wedding reception the young man remarked: "Wasn't it annoying
the way that baby cried during the whole ceremony?"
"It was simply dreadful," replied the prim little maid of honor; "and
when I get married I'm going to have engraved right in the corner of
the invitations: 'No babies expected.'"
"The man who gives in when he is wrong," said the street orator, "is a
wise man; but he who gives in when he is right is--"
"Married!" said a meek voice in the crowd.
Mrs. Killifer desired that the picture be hung to the right of the
door; Mr. Killifer wanted it hung to the left. For once the husband
proved to be the more insistent of the two, and Henry, the colored
man, was summoned to hang the picture according to Mr. Killifer's
order.
Henry drove in a nail on the left. This done, he also drove one in the
wall on the right.
"Why are you driving that second nail?" asked Mr. Killifer.
"Why, boss, dat's to save me de trouble of bringin' de ladder tomorrow
when you come round to de missus's way of thinkin'," said Henry.
Mr. Brown met Mr. Jones on the street.
"Any news, Brown?" asked Jones.
"Nothing special. I've just been reading the Sunday paper. And I find
one peculiar thing in it that may be news to you."
"What is it?"
"The Sunday paper says that women in ancient Egypt used to act as
they pleased, live as they pleased, and dress as they pleased, without
regard to what the men thought. Lucky we don't live in those times,
what?"
"Mr. Brown, are you married?"
"What has that got to do with it? As a matter of fact, I'm not."
"I thought not."
"She calls her dog and her husband by the same pet name. It must cause
frequent confusion."
"Not at all. She always speaks gently to the dog."
"Pa, a man's wife is his better half, isn't she?"
"We are told so, my son."
"Then if a man marries twice there isn't anything left of him, is
there?"
_How the Row Started_
MR. BROWN--"I had a queer dream last night, my dear. I thought I saw
another man running off with you."
MRS. BROWN--"And what did you say to him?"
MR. BROWN--"I asked him what he was running for."
Uncle Josh was comfortably lighting his pipe in the living-room one
evening when Aunt Maria glanced up from her knitting.
"John," she remarked, "do you know that next Sunday will be the
twenty-fifth anniversary of our wedding?"
"You don't say so, Maria!" responded Uncle Josh, pulling vigorously on
his corncob pipe. "What about it?"
"Nothing," answered Aunt Maria, "only I thought maybe we ought to kill
them two Rhode Island Red chickens."
"But, Maria," demanded Uncle Josh, "how can you blame them two Rhode
Island Reds for what happened twenty-five years ago?"
GARDENER--"I am going to leave, sir. I can't stand the Missus!"
EMPLOYER--"Too strict, is she?"
GARDENER--"Yes, sir. She keeps forgetting that I can leave any time,
and bosses me about just as if I was you!"
"Get away from here or I'll call my husband," threatened the
hard-faced woman who had just refused the tramp some food.
"Oh, no, you won't," replied the tramp, "because he ain't home."
"How do you know?" asked the woman.
"Because," answered the man as he sidled toward the gate, "a man who
marries a woman like you is only home at meal times."
FRIENDLY CONSTABLE--"Come, come, sir, pull yourself together; your
wife's calling you."
CONVIVIAL GENT--"Wha' she call-calling me; Billy or William?"
CONSTABLE--"William, sir."
CONVIVIAL GENT--"Then I'm not going home."
HUSBAND (angrily)--"What! no supper ready? This is the limit! I'm
going to a restaurant."
WIFE--"Wait just five minutes."
HUSBAND--"Will it be ready then?"
WIFE--"No, but then I'll go with you."
"Why have I never married?" the old bachelor said in reply to a
leading question. "Well, once upon a time, in a crowd, I trod on a
lady's gown. She turned furiously, beginning, 'You clumsy brute!' Then
she smiled sweetly and said, 'Oh, I beg pardon! I thought you were my
husband! No; it really doesn't matter in the least.'
"And when I came to think it over, I decided that maybe I'd just as
well let marriage alone."
"I hear the sea captain is in hard luck. He married a girl and she ran
away from him."
"Yes; he took her for a mate, but she was a skipper."
FORTUNE-TELLER--"You wish to know about your future husband?"
CUSTOMER--"No; I wish to know about the past of my present husband for
future use."
"Do you act toward your wife as you did before you married her?"
"Exactly. I remember just how I used to act when I first fell in love
with her. I used to lean over the fence in front of her house and gaze
at her shadow on the curtain, afraid to go in. And I act just the same
way now when I get home late."
"Marriage is a lottery."
"Not exactly," commented Miss Cayenne. "When you lose in a lottery
it's an easy matter to tear up the ticket and forget it."
Lightning knocked over three men who were sitting on boxes in front of
Sawyer's store yesterday. One of them was knocked senseless; the other
two exclaimed, "Leggo! I'm comin' right home."
TEACHER--"In what part of the Bible is it taught that a man should
have only one wife?"
LITTLE BOY--"I guess it's the part that says that no man can serve
more than one master."
The trouble with most marriages is that a man always makes the mistake
of marrying the woman who carries him off his feet--instead of trying
to find one who will keep him on them.
CONDUCTOR (to passenger of Pullman)--"Excuse me, sir. Is this lady
your wife?"
PASSENGER--"I don't know. It depends upon what State we are passing
through."--_Life_.
"I'm thinking of getting married, pa. What's it like?"
"You had a job as janitor once, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"And you had a position as watchman once, didn't you?"
"And you worked a while as a caretaker, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Well, it's a combination of all three jobs--and then some."
The archbishop had preached a fine sermon on married life and
its beauties. Two old Irishwomen were heard coming out of church
commenting on the address.
"'Tis a fine sermon his Riverence would be after giving us," said one
to the other.
"It is, indade," was the quick reply, "and I wish I knew as little
about the matter as he does."--_Life_.
A young Swede appeared at the county judge's office and asked for a
license.
"What kind of a license?" asked the judge. "A hunting license?"
"No," was the answer. "Aye tank aye bane hunting long enough. Aye want
marriage license."
The young man sidled into the jeweler's shop with a furtive air. He
handed the jeweler a ring with the stammered statement that he wished
it marked "with some names."
"What names do you wish?" inquired the jeweler in a sympathetic tone.
"From Henry to Clara," the young man blushingly whispered.
The jeweler looked from the ring to the young man, and said in a
fatherly manner: "Take my advice, young man, and have it engraved
simply, 'From Henry.'"
JUDGE--"The police say that you and your wife had some words."
PRISONER--"I had some, but didn't get a chance to use them."--_Puck_.
At the end of three weeks of married life, a Southern darky returned
to the minister who had performed the ceremony and asked for a
divorce. After explaining that he could not grant divorces, the
minister tried to dissuade his visitor from carrying out his intention
of getting one saying:
"You must remember, Sam, that you promised to take Liza for better or
for worse."
"Yassir, I knows dat, boss," rejoined the darky; "but--but she's wuss
dan I took her for."
In one of the big base hospitals of the Army not long ago a new
librarian was set to work by the American Library Association. She
was a very charming young woman, and very anxious to please all of her
"customers," tho some of them didn't even wish to look at a book. In
her rounds she approached one of the patients and he declined to be
interested in her wares. At the next cot she stopped and offered its
occupant a book.
"What's it about?" the patient asked.
"Oh, this is 'Bambi,'" said the librarian. "It's about a girl who
married a man without his having anything to say about it."
"Hold on there," shouted the man who had declined all books. He raised
himself up on his elbow and reached out his hand. "Give me that book.
It's my autobiography."
Miss SNOWFLAKE--"What did Jim Jackson git married for?"
Miss WASHTUBB--"Lawd only knows;--he keeps right on workin'!"
The beautiful young woman interviewed a fortune-teller on the usual
subjects.
"Lady," said the clairvoyant, "you will visit foreign lands, and the
courts of kings and queens. You will conquer all rivals and marry
the man of your choice. He will be tall and dark and aristocratic
looking."
"And young?" interrupted the lady.
"Yes, and very rich."
The beautiful lady grasped the fortune teller's hands and pressed them
hard.
"Thank you," she said. "Now tell me one thing more. How shall I get
rid of my present husband?"
Miss Milly was rather a talkative young lady. Her bosom friend, having
missed her for some time, called to find out the reason.
"No, mum, Miss Milly is not in," the maid informed her.
"She has gone to the class."
"Why, what class?" inquired the caller in surprize.
"Well, mum, you know Miss Milly is getting married soon, so she's
taking a course of lessons in domestic silence."
Mrs. Peavish says that if it were to do over again, no man need ever
ask for her hand until he had shown his.
In London they tell of a certain distinguished statesman who is an
optimist on all points save marriage.
One afternoon this statesman was proceeding along a country road
when he saw a cottager eating his supper alone in the road before his
dwelling.
"Why, Henry," asked the statesman, "why are you eating out here
alone?"
"Well, sir, er--" the man stammered, "the--er--chimney smokes."
"That's too bad," said the statesman, his philanthropic sentiments at
once being aroused. "I'll have it fixed for you. Let's have a look at
it."