Quips and Quiddities Part 25

_Landlord_: He's only a genus.

_Glavis_: A what?

_Landlord_: A genus!--a man who can do everything in life except anything that's useful--that's a genus.

LORD LYTTON, _The Lady of Lyons_.

First love is a pretty romance, But not half so sweet as 'tis reckoned; And when one wakes from the trance, There's a vast stock of bliss in the second.

And e'en should a second subside, A lover should never despair; The world is uncommonly wide, And the women uncommonly fair.

The poets their raptures may tell, Who have never been put to the test; A first love is all very well, But, believe me, the last love's the best.

MR. BERNAL.

I've nothing to say again' her piety, my dear; but I know very well I shouldn't like her to cook my victual. When a man comes in hungry an'

tired, piety won't feed him, I reckon. Hard carrots 'ull lie heavy on his stomach, piety or no piety. It's right enough to be speritial--I'm no enemy to that; but I like my potatoes mealy.

_Mrs. Linnet_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Janet's Repentance_.

Somehow, sitting cosily here, I think of the sunny summertide hours, When the what-do-you-call-'em warbles clear, And the breezes blow--likewise the flowers.

_Once a Week._

A lawyer's brief will be brief, before a freethinker thinks freely.

_Guesses at Truth._

Juxtaposition, in fine; and what is juxtaposition?

Look you, we travel along in the railway, carriage or steamer, And, _pour pa.s.ser le temps_, till the tedious journey be ended, Lay aside paper or book, to talk to the girl who is next one; And, _pour pa.s.ser le temps_, with the terminus all but in prospect, Talk of eternal ties and marriages made in heaven.

_Claude_, in CLOUGH's _Amours de Voyage_.

We measure the excellency of other men by some excellency we conceive to be in ourselves.

SELDEN, _Table Talk_.

Oh! spare those Gardens where the leafy glade Prompts the proposal dalliance delayed; Where tear-dewed lids, choked utterance, sobs suppressed, Tear the confession from a doubting breast; Whence they, who vainly haunted rout and ride, Emerge triumphant from a suitor's side.

ALFRED AUSTIN, _The Season_.

They have queer hotels in Oregon. I remember one where they gave me a bag of oats for a pillow. I had night mares, of course.

C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.

The man who would Charybdis shun Must make a cautious movement, Or else he'll into Scylla run-- Which would be no improvement.

The fish that left the frying-pan, On feeling that desire, sir, Took little by their change of plan, When floundering in the fire, sir.

LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.

The flattery which is most pleasing to really beautiful or decidedly ugly women is that which is addressed to the intellect.

LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Letters to his Son_.

Johnson's folly--to be candid--was a wild desire to treat Every able male white citizen he met upon the street; And there being several thousand--but this subject why pursue?

'Tis with Perkins, and not Johnson, that to-day we have to do.

BRET HARTE, _Complete Works_.

Good little girls ought not to make mouths at their teachers for every trifling offence. This kind of retaliation should only be resorted to under peculiarly aggravating circ.u.mstances.

If you have nothing but a rag-doll stuffed with sawdust, while one of your more fortunate little playmates has a costly china one, you should treat her with a show of kindness nevertheless. And you ought not to attempt to make a forcible swap with her, unless your conscience would justify you in it, and you know you are able to do it.

If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to reply that you won't. It is better and more becoming to intimate that you will do as she bids you, and then afterwards act quietly in the matter according to the dictates of your better judgment.

MARK TWAIN, _Choice Works_.

We count mankind, and keep our census still, We count the stars that populate the night; But who, with all his computation, can Con catty nations right?

R. H. NEWELL, _Orpheus C. Kerr Papers_.

I think it was Jekyll who used to say that "the further he went West, the more convinced he was that the wise men did come from the East."

SYDNEY SMITH, _Life and Letters_.

Ce qui nous empeche souvent de nous abandonner a un seul vice est que nous en avons plusieurs.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Reflexions_.

I have observed that if people's vanity is pleased, they live well enough together. Offended vanity is the great separator.

_Ellesmere_, in HELPS's _Friends in Council_.