Quips and Quiddities Part 41

Hand to shake and mouth to kiss, Both he offered ere he spoke; And she said--"What man is this Comes to play a sorry joke?"

Then they praised him--call'd him "smart,"

"Tightest lad that ever stept;"

But her son she did not know, And she neither smiled nor wept.

Rose, a nurse of ninety years, Set a pigeon-pie in sight; She saw him eat--"'Tis he! 'tis he!"

She knew him--by his appet.i.te!

WILLAM SAWYER.

Lord Allen, being rather the worse for drinking too much wine at dinner, teased Count D'Orsay, and said some very disagreeable things, which irritated him; when suddenly John Bush entered the club and shook hands with the Count, who exclaimed, "Voila, la difference entre une bonne _bouche_ et une mauvaise _haleine_."

GRONOW, _Recollections_.

_ANOTHER WAY._

When lovely woman, Lump of Folly, Would show the world her vainest trait; Would treat herself as child her dolly, And warn each man of sense away; The surest method she'll discover To prompt a wink from every eye, Degrade a spouse, disgust a lover, And spoil a scalp-skin, is--to dye.

SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.

The bean is a graceful, confiding, engaging vine; but you can never put beans into poetry, nor into the highest sort of prose. Corn is the child of song. It waves in all literature. But mix it with beans, and its high tone is gone. The bean is a vulgar vegetable, without culture, or any flavour of high society among vegetables.

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

Then Abner Dean of Angel's raised a point of order, when A church of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen, And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor, And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.

BRET HARTE, _Complete Works_.

"I was born, Signora, on New Year's Night, 1800." "Did I not tell you," said the Marquis, "that he is one of the first men of our century?"

HEINRICH HEINE, _Travel Pictures_.

When dinner has opprest one, I think it is perhaps the gloomiest hour Which turns up out of the sad twenty-four.

LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.

As a boy, George Washington gave no promise of the greatness he was one day to achieve. He was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie. But then he never had any of those precious advantages which are within the reach of the humblest of the boys of the present day. Any boy can lie now. I could lie before I could stand.

MARK TWAIN, _Choice Works_.

By the way, Shakespeare endorses polygamy. He speaks of the Merry Wives of Windsor. How many wives did Mr. Windsor have?

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

I dare say she's like the rest o' the women-- thinks two and two'll come to make five, if she cries and bothers enough about it.

_Bartle Ma.s.sey_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.

Don't you see a hint of marriage In his sober-sided face, In his rather careless carriage And extremely rapid pace?

If he's not committed treason, Or some wicked action done, Can you see the faintest reason Why a bachelor should run?

Why should he be in a flurry?

But a loving wife to greet, Is a circ.u.mstance to hurry The most dignified of feet!

JOHN G.o.dFREY SAXE, _Poems_.

Mr. Luttrell once said to me, "Sir, the man who says he does not like a good dinner, is either a fool or a liar."

J. R. PLANCHe, _Recollections_.

_TO PHOEBE._

"Gentle, modest little flower, Sweet epitome of May, Love me but for half an hour, Love me, love me, little fay."

Sentences so swiftly flaming In your tiny sh.e.l.l-like ear, I should always be exclaiming If I loved you, Phoebe dear:

"Smiles that thrill from any distance Shed upon me while I sing!

Please ecstaticize existence, Love me, oh thou, fairy thing!"

Words like these outpouring sadly You'd perpetually hear, If I loved you fondly, madly;-- But I do not, Phoebe dear.

W. S. GILBERT, _Bab Ballads_.

On one occasion, when Power the actor was present, Hood was asked to propose his health.

After enumerating the various talents that popular comedian possessed, he requested the company to observe that such a combination was a remarkable ill.u.s.tration of the old proverb, "It never rains but it _powers_."

J. R. PLANCHe, _Recollections_.

I dreamed that somebody was dead. It was a private gentleman, and a particular friend; and I was greatly overcome when the news was broken to me (very delicately) by a gentleman in a c.o.c.ked hat, top boots, and a sheet. Nothing else.

"Good G.o.d!" I said, "is he dead?" "He is as dead, sir," rejoined the gentleman, "as a door nail. But we must all die, Mr. d.i.c.kens, sooner or later, my dear sir."

"Ah!" I said; "yes, to be sure. Very true. But what did he die of?" The gentleman burst into a flood of tears, and said, in a voice broken by emotion, "He christened his youngest child, sir, with a toasting fork!"

CHARLES d.i.c.kENS, _apud_ J. T. FIELDS.