Quips and Quiddities Part 57

With undissembled grief I tell,-- For sorrow never comes too late,-- The simplest bonnet in Pall Mall Is sold for 1 8_s._

CATHARINE M. FANSHAWE.

Said the Gryphon, "Do you know why it's called a whiting?"

"I never thought about it," said Alice.

"Why?"

"_It does the boots and shoes_," the Gryphon replied very solemnly.

Alice was thoroughly puzzled. "Does the boots and shoes?" she repeated in a wondering tone.

"Why, what are _your_ shoes done with?" said the Gryphon. "I mean, what makes them so s.h.i.+ny?"

Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she gave her answer. "They're done with blacking, I believe."

"Boots and shoes under the sea," the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, "are done with whiting. Now you know."

LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.

I'm always dull on Christmas Day, It lets a flood of ills in, For that's the time those birds of prey Bring all their horrid bills in!

J. R. PLANCHe, _Songs and Poems_.

The wit of a family is usually best received among strangers.

GEORGE ELIOT, _Middlemarch_.

Sweet maids in wimples fair y-wrought, Shall smile upon thee. Thou shalt say, Oft, by thy halidame, there's nought So gracious and so fair as they, But what thy halidame may be, I trow 'tis useless asking me.

H. SAVILE CLARKE.

Le vrai honnete homme est celui qui ne se pique de rien.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Reflexions_.

O memory! thou art but a sigh For friends.h.i.+ps dead and loves forgot, And many a cold and altered eye That once did say--Forget me not!

And I must bow me to thy laws, For--odd although it may be thought-- I can't tell who the deuce it was That gave me this Forget-me-not!

_Bon Gaultier Ballads._

What is Truth? "Bring me the wash-hand basin,"

is the reply of Pontius Pilate.

HEINRICH HEINE, _The Denunciator_.

_ON A RECENT ROBBERY._

They came and stole my garments, My stockings, all my store, But they could not steal my sermons, For they were stolen before.

REV. HENRY TOWNSHEND.

Some folk's tongues are like the clocks as run on strikin', not to tell you the time o' day, but because there's summat wrong i' their own inside.

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

'Tis said that he lived upon bacon and beans, And that sometimes he dined upon salt pork and greens; But he thought that such feeding was rather humdrum,-- "I've gone the whole hog," said little Tom Thumb.

As Tom once was crossing a river close by, A salmon snapped up, as it would at a fly; But as it was dark Tom did sing rather mum-- "I'm down in the mouth," said little Tom Thumb.

Next day a black raven poor Tom did espy, Which carried him up to the heaven so high; If the bird let him go, to the ground would he come-- "I'll be dashed if I do," said little Tom Thumb.

J. A. SIDEY, _Mistura Curiosa_.

It is often harder to praise a friend than an enemy.

W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.

_ON A CERTAIN PARSON._

By purchase a man's property is known: Scarf's sermons and his livings are his own.

_Epigrams in Distich_ (1740).

I measure men's dullness by the devices they trust in for deceiving others. Your dullest animal is he who grins and says he doesn't mind just after he has had his s.h.i.+ns kicked.

MACHIAVELLI, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Romola_.

_GRAMMATICAL._

The least drop in the world I do not mind: "Cognac" 's a noun I never yet declined.

H. J. BYRON, in _English Epigrams_.