Chapter 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-shells, 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 Parnassum,"
because it was steps for the _muses_.

J. R. PLANCHÉ, _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 chimère de l'amour.

VAUVENARGUES, _Réflexions_.

_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 nobler 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, Agassiz _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.

Hume and his wife and several of their children
were with me. Hume repeated the old saying,
"One fool makes many." "Ay, Mr. Hume,"
said I, pointing to the company, "you have a fine
family."

CHARLES LAMB, _apud_ CRABB ROBINSON.

Plus on juge, moins on aime.

BALZAC, _Physiologie du Mariage_.

George the Third scolded Lord North for
never going to the concert of antient music:
"Your brother, the bishop," said the king,
"never misses them, my lord." "Sir," answered the
premier, "if I were as deaf as my brother, the bishop, I
would never miss them either!"

R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.

_ON A MODERN ACTRESS._

"Miss Neilson's 'benefit'," one says;
I ask to what the phrase refers;
For, sure, when such an artist plays,
The "benefit" is ours, not hers.

W. D. A.

Our king [William IV.] is _ultra_-popular. Have
you heard Lord Alvanley's _bon mot_ concerning
him? He was standing at the window at White's,
when the king, with a thousand of his loving subjects at
his heels, was walking up St. James's Street. A friend
said to him, "What are you staring at, Alvanley?" "I
am waiting to see his Majesty's pocket picked," was the
reply.

MISS MITFORD, _Life and Letters_.

Methinks the lays of now-a-days
Are painfully in earnest.

FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.

Hicks was talking to Thackeray of a certain
gentleman's strange addiction to beer. "It's a
great pity," said Hicks, "that he does not keep a
check-rein on himself, for he is a marvellous fellow otherwise--I
mean, for talent I hardly know his equal."
"No," retorted Thackeray, "he is a remarkable man.
Take him for half-and-half, we ne'er shall look upon his
like again."

J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.

Pro conibus calidis, conibus frigidis,
Pro conibus mollibus, conibus rigidis,
Pro conibus senibus
Atque juvenibus,
Gratias agimus fatis,
Habuimus satis.

ANON.

One of the "Hooks and Eyes" was expatiating on
the fact that he had dined three times at the
Duke of Devonshire's, and that on neither occasion
had there been any fish at table. "I cannot account
for it," he added. "I can," said Jerrold: "they ate it all
upstairs."

CHARLES MACKAY, _Recollections_.

Veracity is a plant of paradise, and its seeds
have never flourished beyond the walls.

_Machiavelli_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Romola_.

I know not why my soul is rack'd:
Why I ne'er smile as was my wont:
I only know that, as a fact,
I don't.

I used to roam o'er glen and glade,
Buoyant and blithe as other folk:
And not unfrequently I made
A joke.

All day I sang; of love, of fame,
Of fights our fathers fought of yore,
Until the thing almost became
A bore.

I cannot sing the old songs now
It is not that I deem them low;
'Tis that I can't remember how
They go.