Quips and Quiddities Part 17

J. R. PLANCHe, _Songs and Poems_.

A kind Providence furnishes the limpest personality with a little gum or starch in the form of tradition.

GEORGE ELIOT, _Middlemarch_.

Oil and water--woman and a secret-- Are hostile properties.

_Baradas_, in LORD LYTTON's _Richelieu_.

At a musical _soiree_ in Paris, a lady, possessing a magnificent soprano voice and remarkable facility of execution, sang the great Maestro's well-known aria, "Una Voce," with great effect, but overladen with fiorituri of the most elaborate description. Rossini, at its conclusion, advanced to the piano and complimented the lady most highly upon her vocal powers, terminating his encomiums with the cruel inquiry: "Mais de qui est la musique?"

J. R. PLANCHe, _Recollections_.

_ON A BAD SINGER._

Swans sing before they die; 'twere no bad thing Did certain persons die before they sing.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

"Is life worth living?" That depends upon the liver.

_The World._

_OLD LOVES._

"Then, you liked little Bowes."-- "And you liked Jane Raby!"

"But you like _me_ now, Rose?"-- "As I liked 'little Bowes'!"

"Am I then to suppose----"

"_Hus.h.!.+--you mustn't wake baby!_"

"_Did_ you like little Bowes?"-- "If you liked Jane Raby!"

AUSTIN DOBSON, _Proverbs in Porcelain_.

Women, when left to themselves, talk chiefly about their dress; they think more about their lovers than they talk about them.

W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.

O if billows and pillows, and bowers and flowers, And all the brave rhymes of an elder day, Could be furled together, this genial weather, And carted, or carried on "wafts" away, Nor ever again trotted out--ah me!

How much fewer volumes of verse there'd be!

C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.

_Miss Prue._ Must I tell a lie, then?

_Tattle._ Yes, if you'd be well-bred. All well-bred persons lie.

CONGREVE, _Love for Love_.

Some attacks on the lungs, that of woe would be full, Are repelled by a filter of loose Cotton Wool; But a barrier of bra.s.s, or a _chevaux-de-frise_, Won't exclude some descriptions of Dust and Disease.

LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.

When an acquaintance came up to him and said, "Why, Jerrold, I hear you said my nose was like the ace of clubs!" Jerrold returned, "No, I didn't; but now I look at it, I see it is very like."

MRS. COWDEN CLARKE.

_WUS, EVER WUS._

Wus, ever wus! By freak of Puck's My most exciting hopes are dashed; I never wore my spotless ducks But madly--wildly!--they were splashed.

I never roved by Cynthia's beam, To gaze upon the starry sky, But some old stiff-backed beetle came, And charged into my pensive eye.

And oh! I never did the swell In Regent Street, amongst the beaus, But s.m.u.ts the most prodigious fell, And always settled on my nose!

H. CHOLMONDELEY PENNELL, _Puck on Pegasus_.

L'hymen vient apres l'amour, comme la fumee apres la flamme.

CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.

It may be so--perhaps thou hast A warm and loving heart; I will not blame thee for thy face, Poor devil as thou art.

That thing thou fondly deem'st a nose, Unsightly though it be-- In spite of all the cold world's scorn, It may be much to thee.

Those eyes--among thine elder friends Perhaps they pa.s.s for blue; No matter--if a man can see, What more have eyes to do?

Thy mouth--that fissure in thy face, By something like a chin, May be a very useful place To put thy victuals in.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

Nothing shows one who his friends are, like prosperity and ripe fruit. I had a good friend in the country whom I almost never visited except in cherry time. By your fruits you shall know them.

C. D. WARNER, _My Summer in a Garden_.

_AN EPITAPH._