Quips and Quiddities Part 14

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 G.o.ddesses 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 t.i.tle 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-sh.e.l.ls, 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 Parna.s.sum,"

because it was steps for the _muses_.

J. R. PLANCHe, _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 chimere de l'amour.

VAUVENARGUES, _Reflexions_.

_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 n.o.bler 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, Aga.s.siz _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.