Quips and Quiddities Part 23

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Reflexions_.

And I said, "Why is this thus? What is the reason of this thusness?"

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

_THEOLOGICAL HOROLOGY._

There's this to say about the Scotch, So bother bannocks, braes, and birks, They can't produce a decent watch, For Calvinists despise good works.

s.h.i.+RLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.

Dawson told a good story about the Irish landlord counting out the change of a guinea. "12, 13, 14" (a shot heard); "Bob, go and see who's that that's killed; 15, 16, 17" (enter Bob). "It's Kelly, sir." "Poor Captain Kelly, a very good customer of mine; 18, 19, 20--there's your change, sir."

THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.

Can this be Balbus, household word for all, Whose earliest exploit was to build a wall: Who, with a frankness that I'm sure must charm ye, Declared it was all over with the army?

Can this be he who feasted, as 'twas said, The town at forty sesterces a head?

But, while the thankless mob his bounty quaffed, Historians add--that there were some who laughed.

_Horace_, in G. O. TREVELYAN's _Horace at Athens_.

I should never like scolding any one else so well; and that is a point to be thought of in a husband.

_Mary Garth_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Middlemarch_.

In Logic a woman may seldom excel; But in Rhetoric always she bears off the bell.

Fair Portia will show woman's talent for law, When in old Shylock's bond she could prove such a flaw.

She would blunder in physic no worse than the rest, She could leave things to Nature as well as the best, She could feel at your wrist, she could finger your fee; Then why should a woman not get a degree?

LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.

_Quam parva sapientia regitur mundus._ Say rather, _quam magna stult.i.tia_.

CHARLES BUXTON, _Notes of Thought_.

The padded corsage and the well-matched hair, Judicious jupon spreading out the spare, Sleeves well designed soft plumpness to impart, Leave vacant still the hollows of the heart.

ALFRED AUSTIN, _The Season_.

A Tailor is partly an alchemist, for he extracteth his own apparel out of other men's clothes.

SIR THOMAS OVERBURY, _Characters_.

I am quite ashamed to take people into my garden, and have them notice the absence of onions. In onion is strength; and a garden without it lacks flavour.

C. D. WARNER, _My Summer in a Garden_.

Torbay had incurred a good deal of expense To make him a Scotchman in every sense But this is a matter, you'll readily own, That isn't a question of tailors alone.

A Sa.s.senach chief may be bonily built, He may purchase a sporran, a bonnet, and kilt, Stick a skean in his hose--wear an acre of stripes-- But he cannot a.s.sume an affection for pipes.

W. S. GILBERT, _Bab Ballads_.

When you have found the master-pa.s.sion of a man, remember never to trust him where that pa.s.sion is concerned.

LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Letters to his Son_.

_ON ONE WHO SPOKE LITTLE._

"I hardly ever ope my lips," one cries: "Simonides, what think you of my rule?"

"If you're a fool, I think you're very wise; If you are wise, I think you are a fool."

R. GARNETT, _Idylls and Epigrams_.

Nous aimons mieux voir ceux a qui nous faisons du bien que ceux qui nous en font.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Reflexions_.

_ALL SAINTS'_.

In a church which is furnish'd with mullion and gable, With altar and reredos, with gargoyle and groin, The penitents' dresses are sealskin and sable, The odour of sanct.i.ty's eau-de-Cologne.

But only could Lucifer, flying from Hades, Gaze down on this crowd with its panniers and paints, He would say, as he look'd at the lords and the ladies, "Oh, where is All Sinners', if this is All Saints'?"

EDMUND YATES.

If we are long absent from our friends, we forget them; if we are constantly with them, we despise them.

W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.

A well-known _litterateur_, on seeing [Lady Ruthven], after breakfast, feeding her pheasants with crumbs and milk, exclaimed, "Ah! I see your ladys.h.i.+p is preparing them _here_, for bread-sauce _hereafter_."

J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.