Chapter 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 Sassenach 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 assume an affection for pipes.

W. S. GILBERT, _Bab Ballads_.

When you have found the master-passion of a man,
remember never to trust him where that passion
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 à qui nous faisons
du bien que ceux qui nous en font.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Réflexions_.

_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 sanctity'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 ladyship is preparing them _here_, for bread-sauce
_hereafter_."

J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.

The second canto of the "Pleasures of Memory,"
as published in the first edition, commenced
with the lines--
"Sweet memory, wafted by thy gentle gale,
Oft up the tide of Time I turn my sail."

[A] critic remarked on this passage that it suggested the
alliteration--
"Oft up the tide of Time I turn my _tail_."

ROGERS, _Table Talk_.

I like the man who makes a pun,
Or drops a deep remark;
I like philosophy or fun--
A lecture or a lark;
But I despise the men who gloat
Inanely over anecdote.

Ah me! I'd rather live alone
Upon a desert isle,
Without a voice except my own
To cheer me all the while,
Than dwell with men who learn by rote
Their paltry funds of anecdote.

H. S. LEIGH, _Carols of Cockayne_.

No woman is too silly not to have a genius for
spite.

ANNA C. STEELE.

That's what a man wants in a wife mostly; he
wants to make sure o' one fool as 'ull tell him
he's wise.

_Mrs. Poyser_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.

The characters of great and small
Come ready-made, we can't bespeak one;
Their sides are many, too,--and all
(Except ourselves) have got a weak one.
Some sanguine people love for life,
Some love their hobby till it flings them.--
How many love a pretty wife
For love of the _éclat_ she brings them!

FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.

Conscience, in most souls, is like an English
Sovereign--it reigns, but it does not govern.
Its function is merely to give a formal assent to
the Bills passed by the passions; and it knows, if it
opposes what those are really bent upon, that ten to one
it will be obliged to abdicate.

_Leslie_, in MALLOCK's _New Republic_.

If you are pious (mild form of insanity),
Bow down and worship the mass of humanity.
Other religions are buried in mists;
We're our own Gods, say the Positivists.

MORTIMER COLLINS, _The British Birds_.

We were sitting in the green-room one evening
during the performance, chatting and laughing,
she [Mrs. Nesbitt] having a book in her hand
which she had to take on the stage with her in the next
scene, when Brindal, a useful member of the company,
but not particularly remarkable for wit or humour, came
to the door, and, leaning against it, in a sentimental
manner drawled out,--
"If to her share some female errors fall,
Look in her face----"

He paused. She raised her beautiful eyes to him, and
consciously smiled--_her_ smile--in anticipation of the
well-known complimentary termination of the couplet,
when, with a deep sigh, he added--
"----and you'll _believe_ them all!"

J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.

_THE MAIDENS._

Perhaps, O lovers, if we did our hair
_A la_ Medea, and if our garments were
Draped classically, we should seem more fair.

_THE YOUTHS._

By doing this ye would not us befool;
Medea! the idea makes our blood run cool;
Besides, of classics we'd enough at school.

_Once a Week_.

Pledge me round, I bid ye declare,
All good fellows whose beards are grey,
Did not the fairest of the fair
Common grow and wearisome ere
Ever a month was passed away?

The reddest lips that ever have kissed,
The brightest eyes that ever have shone,
May pray and whisper, and we not list,
Or look away, and never be missed,
Ere yet ever a month is gone.

W. M. THACKERAY.

It was known that Lord St. Jerome gave at his
ball suppers the same champagne that he gave
at his dinners, and that was of the highest class:
in short, a patriot. We talk with wondering execration
of the great poisoners of past ages, the Borgias, the
inventor of Aqua tofana, and the amiable Marchioness
de Brinvilliers; but Pinto was of opinion that there
were more social poisoners about in the present day than
in the darkest and most demoralized periods, and then
none of them are punished; which is so strange, he
would add, as they are all found out.

LORD BEACONSFIELD, _Lothair_.

Seared is, of course, my heart:--but unsubdued
Is, and shall be, my appetite for food.