Chapter C: D. WARNER, My Summer in a Garden

It greets me in my festal hours,
It brings my gloom relief;
It sprinkles life with loveliest flowers
And plucks the sting from grief.
I'd smile at poverty and pain;
I'd welcome death with glee--
If to the last I might retain
My own--my upper G!

H. S. LEIGH, _Carols of Cockayne_.

"Milton Perkins," said the Siren, "not thy wealth do I admire,
But the intellect that flashes from those eyes of opal fire;
And methinks the name thou bearest cannot surely be misplaced;
And--embrace me, Mister Perkins!" Milton Perkins her embraced.

BRET HARTE, _Complete Works_.

Truth-vendors and medicine-vendors usually
recommend swallowing. When a man sees his
livelihood in a pill or a proposition, he likes to
have orders for the dose, and not curious inquiries.

_Felix Holt_, in GEORGE ELIOT's novel.

Stuart Mill on Mind and Matter
All our old Beliefs would scatter:
Stuart Mill exerts his skill
To make an end of Mind and Matter.

But had I skill, like Stuart Mill,
His own position I could shatter:
The weight of Mill I count as Nil--
If Mill has neither Mind nor Matter.

LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.

"And how many hours a day did you do lessons?"
said Alice.
"Ten hours the first day," said the Mock
Turtle; "nine the next, and so on."
"What a curious plan!" exclaimed Alice.
"That's the reason they're called lessons," the Gryphon
remarked "because they lessen from day to day."

LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.

Quiconque n'a pas de caractère n'est pas un
homme: c'est une chose.

CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.

It's hard work to tell which is Old Harry when
everybody's got boots on.

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

I want you to come and pass sentence
On two or three books with a plot;
Of course you know "Janet's Repentance"?
I'm reading Sir _Waverley_ Scott,
The story of Edgar and Lucy,
How thrilling, romantic, and true!
The Master (his bride was a _goosey_!)
Reminds me of you.

They tell me Cockayne has been crowning
A poet whose garland endures:
It was you who first spouted me Browning--
That stupid old Browning of yours!
His vogue and his verve are alarming;
I'm anxious to give him his due,
But, Fred, he's not nearly so charming
A poet as you!

FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.

Joseph Gillon was a Writer to the Signet. Calling
on him one day in his writing office, Sir Walter
Scott said, "Why, Joseph, this place is as hot as
an oven." "Well," quoth Gillon, "and isn't it here that
I make my bread?"

LOCKHART, _Life of Scott_.

Forever! 'tis a single word!
Our rude forefathers deem'd it two;
Can you imagine so absurd
A view?
Forever! what abysms of woe
The word reveals, what frenzy, what
Despair! For ever (printed so)
Did not.
And nevermore must printer do
As men did longago; but run
"For" into "ever," bidding two
Be one.
Forever! passion-fraught, it throws
O'er the dim page a gloom, a glamour:
It's sweet, it's strange, and I suppose
It's grammar.