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

On one of the country gentlemen saying in Parliament,
"We must return to the food of our ancestors,"
somebody asked, "What food does he
mean?" "Thistles, I suppose," said Tierney.

THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.

Maidens then were innocent,
Blushing at a compliment,
Or a gaze.
But a blush a vanish'd grace is,
For young ladies paint their faces
Now-a-days,

Black their eyelids till they stare,
Wash with soda, till their hair
Looks like maize;
'Tis the fashion to be blonde
_À la mode du demi-monde_
Now-a-days.

J. JEMMETT BROWNE, _Songs of Many Seasons_.

[Lady Charlotte Lindsay] said she had
"sprained her ankle so often, and been told
that it was worse than breaking her leg, that
she said she had come to look upon a broken leg as a
positive advantage."

LORD HOUGHTON, _Monographs_.

Blows are sarcasms turned stupid.

GEORGE ELIOT, _Felix Holt_.

They grieved for those who perished with the cutter,
And also for the biscuit-casks and butter.

LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.

Social arrangements are awful miscarriages;
Cause of all crime is our system of marriages.
Poets with sonnets, and lovers with trysts,
Kindle the ire of the Positivists.

Husbands and wives should be all one community:
Exquisite freedom with absolute unity.
Wedding-rings worse are than manacled wrists--
Such is the creed of the Positivists.

MORTIMER COLLINS, _The British Birds_.

Fox, whose pecuniary embarrassments were universally
recognized, being attacked by a severe
indisposition, which confined him to his apartment,
Dudley frequently visited him. In the course of
conversation, Fox, alluding to his complaints, remarked
that he was compelled to observe much regularity in his
diet and hours; adding, "I live by rule, like clockwork."
"Yes," replied Dudley; "I suppose you mean you go
by _tick, tick, tick_."

SIR NATHANIEL WRAXALL, _Memoirs_.

_PROBATUM EST._

One loss has a companion always. _Semper_,
When people lose their train, they lose their temper.

SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.

Working by the hour tends to make one moral.
A plumber working by the job, trying to unscrew
a rusty, refractory nut, in a cramped position, where
the tongs continually slipped off, would swear; but I
never heard one of them swear, or exhibit the least
impatience at such a vexation, working by the hour.
Nothing can move a man who is paid by the hour. How
sweet the flight of time seems to his calm mind!