Quips and Quiddities: A Quintessence of Quirks, Quaint, Quizzical, and Quotable. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
href="#fb3_img_img_7c489a0c-7258-52ad-8be2-f50b3ad703fe.jpg" alt="T"/> HAT Picture-Raffles will conduce to nourish Design, or cause good colouring to flourish, Admits of logic-chopping and wise-sawing: But surely Lotteries encourage Drawing?
Thomas Hood, Whims and Oddities.
OBERT SMITH (brother of Sydney, and familiarly called "Bobus") was a lawyer and an ex-Advocate-General, and happened on one occasion to be engaged in argument with an excellent physician touching the merits of their respective professions. "You must admit," urged Dr. ——, "that your profession does not make angels of men." "No," was the retort, "there you have the best of it; yours certainly gives them the first chance."
Abraham Hayward, Essays.
N London I never know what I'd be at, Enraptured with this, and enchanted by that; I'm wild with the sweets of variety's plan, And Life seems a blessing too happy for man. But the Country, Lord help me! sets all matters right; So calm and composing from morning to night; Oh! it settles the spirits when nothing is seen But an ass on a common, a goose on a green.
Charles Morris, Lyra Urbanica.
ARLER d'amour, c'est faire amour.
Balzac, Physiologie du Mariage.
T the Polish ball, the Lord Mayor said to Lady Douglas, who squints, "Which do you prefer, my lady, Gog or Magog?" "Of the three," said Lady Douglas, "I prefer your lordship!"
B. R. Haydon, Diary.
ON THE CAPPADOCIANS.
VIPER bit a Cappadocian's hide; But 'twas the viper, not the man, that died.
Anon., from the Greek.
HE merits of a certain American diplomatist being on the tapis, [Washington Irving] said, in allusion to his pomposity, "Ah, he is a great man; and, in his own estimation, a very great man—a man of great weight. When he goes to the West, the East tips up."
J. C. Young, Diary.
HEN a rapt audience has encored "Fra Poco" Or "Casta Diva," I have heard that then The Prima Donna, smiling herself out, Recruits her flagging powers with bottled stout.
C. S. Calverley, Verses and Translations.
believe everything. It saves one such a world of bore from intelligent people who are anxious to explain things you doubt about.
Lucy Forrester, in Brooks' Aspen Court.
ANK so friendly now with trade is, Bill discounters titled ladies Stoop to raise. Manners used to make the man, It is only money can Nowadays.
J. Jemmett Browne, Songs of Many Seasons.
LACK is a great fact. Want of fashion in the cut; want of richness in the material; want of chic in the wearer—all these it covers, like charity. There's a sentiment about it which appeals to the feelings, and it is becoming to the skin.
Anna C. Steele.
RE you quite sure that Pygmalion is the only person who ever fell in love with his own handiwork?
Guesses at Truth.
UTY—that's to say the complying With whate'er's expected here, On your unknown cousin's dying, Straight be ready with the tear; Upon etiquette relying, Unto usage nought denying, Lend your waist to be embraced, Blush not even, never fear.
A. H. Clough, Poems.
HAT Jenner said on hearing in Elysium that complaints had been made of his having a statue in Trafalgar Square:—
England, ingratitude still blots
The escutcheon of the brave and free:
I saved you many million spots,
And now you grudge one spot to me.
Shirley Brooks, Wit and Humour.
EH! what are we sinners doing all our lives? Making soup in a basket, and getting nothing but the scum for our stomachs.
Machiavelli, in George Eliot's Romola.
Y idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.
Hugo Bohun, in Lord Beaconsfield's Lothair.
ILL you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail, "There's the porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance?" "You can really have no notion how delightful it will be When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!" But the snail replied, "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance, Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.
COULD draw on wood at a very tender age. When a mere child I once drew a small cartload of turnips over a wooden bridge. The people of the village noticed me. I drew their attention.
C. F. Browne, Artemus Ward's Lecture.
HAT all-softening over-powering knell, The tocsin of the soul—the dinner-bell.
Lord Byron, Don Juan.
OW Darwin proves as clear as mud, That, endless ages ere the Flood, The Coming Man's primeval form Was simply an Ascidian worm: And having then the habit got Of passing liquor down his throat, He keeps it still, and shows full well That Man—was—once——a leather bottèl.
Lord Neaves, Songs and Verses.
HE ancients," quoth Paul, "were very great men, Mr. MacGrawler." "They were so, sir," returned the critic; "we make it a rule in our profession to assert that fact." "But,
