Chapter C: F. BROWNE, Artemus Ward's Lecture

Mark how the lorgnettes cautiously they raise
Lest points, no pose so thoughtless but displays,
A too quick curiosity should hide--
For they who gaze must gazed-at be beside.

ALFRED AUSTIN, _The Season_.

I sent the book down to the Dean, from Saunders
and Otley's. Speaking of that firm, I don't know
whether I told you of young Sutton, Lord
Canterbury's son, calling there one day very angry,
because they had not sent him some books he had
ordered. He was, as usual, pretty warm, and so much
so that one of the partners could bear it no longer, and
told him as much. "I don't know who you are," was
the answer, "but I don't want to annoy you _personally_,
as you may not be the one in fault: it's your confounded
house that I blame. You may be Otley, or you may be
Saunders; if you are Saunders, d---- Otley; if you are
Otley, d---- Saunders. I mean nothing personal _to you_."

R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.

Of all actions of a man's life, his marriage does
least concern other people, yet of all actions of
our life 'tis most meddled with by other people.

SELDEN, _Table Talk_.

A grave and quiet man was he,
Who loved his book and rod,--
So even ran his line of life
His neighbours thought it odd.

He ne'er aspired to rank or wealth,
Nor cared about a name,
For though much famed for fish was he,
He never fished for fame!

Let others bend their necks at sight
Of Fashion's gilded wheels,
He ne'er had learned the art to "bob"
For anything but eels!

JOHN GODFREY SAXE, _Poems_.

A little knowledge of the world is a very
dangerous thing, especially in literature.

_Lord Montfort_, in LORD BEACONSFIELD's _Endymion_.

Si les hommes ne se flattaient pas les uns les autres,
il n'y aurait guère de société.

VAUVENARGUES, _Réflexions_.

The gravest aversion exists among bears
From rude forward persons who give themselves airs,--
We know how some graceless young people were maul'd
For plaguing a Prophet, and calling him _bald_.

Strange ursine devotion! their dancing-days ended,
Bears die to "remove" what, in life, they defended:
They succour'd the Prophet, and, since that affair,
The bald have a painful regard for the bear.

FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.

Heaven knows what would become of our sociality
if we never visited people we speak ill of; we
should live, like Egyptian hermits, in crowded
solitude.

GEORGE ELIOT, _Janet's Repentance_.

Methinks the older that one grows
Inclines us more to laugh than scold, though laughter
Leaves us so doubly serious shortly after.

LORD BYRON, _Beppo_.

We ought never to contend for what we are not
likely to obtain.

CARDINAL DE RETZ, _Memoirs_.

"I will never marry a woman who cannot carve,"
said M----. "Why?" "Because she would
not be a help-meat for me."

_Literary Gazette._

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you're at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.

LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.

We had for dinner, among other things, a ham which
was not well flavoured; and Mrs. Frederick
Mackenzie, who was annoyed about it, began
apologizing, and saying that Ellerton, the local grocer,
had sold it to her as something very excellent, and as a
genuine Westphalia. "Ah!" said Compton, "I cannot
determine precisely whether it is east or west, but it is a
_failure_ of some sort."

R. B. CARTER, in _Memoir of H. Compton_.

One of the company asserting that he had seen a
pike caught, which weighed thirty-six pounds,
and was four feet in length,--"Had it been a
sole," said Harry [Sandford], "it would have surprised
me less, as Shakespeare tells us, 'All the _souls_ that are,
were _four feet_ (forfeit) once.'"

R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.

There is safety in numbers, especially in odd
numbers. The Three Graces never married,
neither did the Nine Muses.

_Kenelm Chillingly_, in LORD LYTTON's novel.

_DISTICH._

There are three species of creatures who when
they seem coming are going,
When they seem going they come: Diplomats,
women, and crabs.

JOHN HAY, _Poems_.

If a man might know
The ill he must undergo,
And shun it so,
Then were it good to know.
But if he undergo it,
Though he know it,
What boots him know it?
He must undergo it.

SIR JOHN SUCKLING.

Barry Cornwall told me that when he and
Charles Lamb were once making up a dinner-party
together, Charles asked him not to invite
a certain lugubrious friend of theirs. "Because," said
Lamb, "he would cast a damper even over a funeral."

J. T. FIELDS, _Yesterdays with Authors_.

L'amour plaît plus que le mariage, par la
raison que les romans sont plus amusants que
l'histoire.

CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.

The farmers daughter hath frank blue eyes;
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies,
As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas.

The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips;
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
If you try to approach her, away she skips
Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.

The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair;
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
And I met with a ballad, I can't say where,
Which wholly consisted of lines like these.