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.