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Title: Puzzles and oddities : Found floating on the surface of our current literature, or tossed to dry land by the waves of memory
Author: Dawson, Mary A. A.
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Puzzles and oddities : Found floating on the surface of our current literature, or tossed to dry land by the waves of memory" ***
PUZZLES AND ODDITIES:
Found Floating on the Surface of our Current
Literature,
TOSSED TO DRY LAND BY THE WAVES OF MEMORY.
_GATHERED AND ARRANGED_
BY
M. A. A. D.
New York:
RUSSELL BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
17, 19, 21, 23 ROSE STREET.
1876.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHTED BY
RUSSELL BROTHERS,
1876.]
_It is related of St. Aloysius Gonzaga that while, at the usual time
of recreation, he was engaged in playing chess, question arising among
his brother novices as to what each would do were the assurance to come
to them that they would die within an hour, St. Aloysius said he should
go on with his game of chess._
_If our recreations as well as our graver employments are undertaken
with a pure intention, we need not reproach ourselves though Sorrow, we
need not fear though Death surprise us while engaged in them._
_Addison, N. Y., January, 1876._
INDEX.
PART I.
CHARADES.
Nos. 1, 10, 25, 43, 44, 53, 88, 91, 110, 152, 153, 154, 155, 167,
176, 177, 182, 183, 192, 193, 201, 217, 279, 281, 285, 290, 291,
297, 316, 331, 332, 333, 345, 350, 354, 357, 368, 371, 372, 374.
CONUNDRUMS.
Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 17, 18, 21, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37,
46, 47, 51, 52, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 92, 93, 94, 95, 97,
98, 106, 108, 109, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 158, 159,
160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173,
174, 175, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 196, 197, 198,
199, 200, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 214, 252, 253, 254, 257,
258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265,266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 274,
275, 278, 280, 286, 294, 299, 300, 301, 303, 318, 319, 320, 321,
322, 323, 325, 326, 327, 329, 330, 359, 360, 361.
FRENCH AND LATIN RIDDLES.
Nos. 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 78.
MATHEMATICAL.
Nos. 48, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 346, 362, 373.
NOTABLE NAMES.
Nos. 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122,
123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135,
136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142.
POSITIVES AND COMPARATIVES.
Nos. 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229,
230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 336, 337, 338, 339,
340, 341, 342, 343, 344.
POSITIVES, COMPARATIVES AND SUPERLATIVES.
Nos. 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250.
ELLIPSES.
Nos. 307, 308, 309, 312, 313, 352, 355, 365, 366.
NUMERICAL ENIGMA.
No. 306.
SQUARE WORD.
No. 304.
XMAS DINNER.
No. 315.
DINNER PARTY.
No. 360.
UNANSWERED RIDDLES.
Pp. 77, 78.
UNANSWERABLE QUESTIONS.
P. 78.
PARADOXES.
P. 79.
OTHER VARIETIES OF PUZZLES.
Nos. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30,
38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 49, 50, 54, 55, 64, 65, 75, 76, 79, 80, 81,
89, 90, 96, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 151, 156, 157,
178, 179, 180, 182, 194, 195, 202, 203, 210, 211, 212, 213, 215,
216, 251, 255, 256, 271, 272, 273, 276, 277, 282, 283, 284, 287,
288, 289, 292, 293, 295, 296, 298, 302, 305, 310, 311, 314, 317,
324, 328, 334, 335, 347, 348, 349, 351, 353, 354, 358, 363, 364,
367, 369, 370.
PART II.
ACROSTICS: PAGE.
Adelina Patti 145
Emblematic 131
Spring 146
ALLITERATION:
Siege of Belgrade 144
Example in French 145
ALPHABET, THE, in One Sentence 133
AMERICANS, Characteristic Sayings of 113
ANAGRAMS 131, 133
ANN HATHAWAY 140
AN ORIGINAL LOVE STORY 126
BEHEADED WORDS 133
BOOKS, Fancy Titles of 83
CLUBS 85
CONCEALED MEANINGS 129
CONCEITS OF COMPOSITION:
When the September eves 152
Oh! come to-night 153
Thweetly murmurth the breethe 154
CONTRIBUTION TO AN ALBUM 125
DIALECTS:
Yankee 116
London Exquisite’s 116
Legal 118
Wiltshire 118
ENEID, The Newly Translated 122
EPIGRAM 129
ETIQUETTE OF EQUITATION 88
EXTEMPORE SPEAKING 147
FACETLÆ 84, 105
FRENCH SONG 139
GEOGRAPHICAL PROPRIETY 102
GEORGE AND HIS POPPAR 121
HISTORY 133
INSTRUCTIVE FABLES 141
LATIN POEM 139
MACARONIC POETRY:
Felis et Mures 137
Ego nunquam audivi 138
Tres fratres stolidi 138
The Rhine 138
Ich Bin Dein 139
In questa casa 140
MACARONIC PROSE 136
MEDLEYS:
I only know 159
The curfew tolls 160
The moon was shining 161
Life 162
NAMES:
Fantastic 98
Ladies’, their Sound 100
“ their Signification 101
ODE TO SPRING 127
OTHER WORLDS 86
OUR MODERN HUMORISTS 148
PALINDROME 132
PARODIES:
Song of the Recent Rebellion 89
Come out in the garden, Jane 91
Brown has pockets running over 93
When I think of him I love so 94
Never jumps a sheep that’s frightened 95
How the water comes down at Lodore 96
Tell me, my secret soul 97
PRINTER’S SHORT-HAND 119
PRONUNCIATION 142
RHYME 122
RHYTHM 127
SECRET CORRESPONDENCE 130
SEEING IS BELIEVING 97
SOUND AND UNSOUND:
See the fragrant twilight 151
Brightly blue the stars 152
SORROWS OF WERTHER 84
STANZAS from J. F. CRAWFORD’S Poems 128
STILTS 87
ST. ANTHONY’S FISH-SERMON 135
THE CAPTURE 103
THE NIMBLE BANK-NOTE 154
THE QUESTION 144
THE RATIONALISTIC CHICKEN 158
WORD PYRAMID 132
PART I.
PUZZLES AND ODDITIES.
1.
My FIRST the heats of July pack
With rows of milk-pans down the back;
September fills them all with starch,
And, though they neither drill nor march,
Each has a warlike name:
October plucks my honors off,
And down I’m thrown to floor or trough:
Perchance the mill to powder turns
Or smouldering fire to ashes burns
My rough and useless frame.
A weaver’s loom my SECOND fills
In dozens of tall cotton mills,
Before the shuttle, o’er and through,
Has thrown the filling straight and true,
And made each ending fast.
My WHOLE a house in corners set,
Has swung as long as time, and yet
A trap for foolish folk shall swing,
And lessons to the wiser bring,
As long as time shall last.
2.
What is that which we often return, but never borrow?
3.
Can you tell me of what parentage Napoleon the First was?
4.
What was Joan of Arc made of?
5.
Why ought stars to be the best Astronomers?
6.
What colors were the winds and the waves in the last violent storm?
7.
In what color should a secret be kept?
8.
How do trees get at their summer dress without opening their trunks?
9.
Why am I queerer than you?
10.
Mr. Premium took my FIRST, and he wrote to Captain Smith,
And said: “Sir, do my SECOND to my THIRD, forthwith.”
Now, Mr. P., you see, though a millionaire he be,
Could not, without my WHOLE, have sent Captain Smith to sea.
11.
Two pronouns find, but mind they suit,
And then between them “a--t” put:
The combination quickly yields
What may be seen on Scotland’s fields.
Now, for the first word, substitute
Another pronoun that will “suit;”
When this is done, ’twill bring to view
What every day is seen by you.
12.
Me the contented man desires,
The poor man has, the rich requires,
The miser gives, the spendthrift saves,
And all men carry to their graves.
13.
A BUSINESS ORDER.
“J. Gray:
Pack with my box five dozen quills.”
What is its peculiarity?
14.
Those who have me not, do not wish for me; those who have me, do not
wish to lose me; and those who gain me, have me no longer.
15.
Although Methusaleh was the oldest man that ever lived, yet he died
before his father.
16.
If Moses was by adoption the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, was he not, “by
the same token,” the _daughter_ of Pharaoh’s _son_?
17.
What is the best time to study the book of Nature?
18.
What is the religion of Nature in the spring?
19.
There is an article of common domestic consumption, whose name contains
six letters, from which may be formed twenty-two nouns, without using
the plurals. What is it?
20.
What word is that, of two syllables, to which if you prefix one letter,
two letters, or two other letters, you form, in each instance, a word
of one syllable?
21.
What was the favorite salad at the South, in the spring of 1861?
22.
There was a thing, ’twas two days old
Ere Adam was, of yore;
Before that thing was five weeks old,
Adam was years four-score.
23.
What’s that which on four limbs doth move
When first it sees the light,
But walks erect on two at noon,
And creeps on three at night?
24.
A sailor launched a ship of force,
A cargo put therein, of course;
No goods had he he wished to sell;
Each wind did serve his turn as well;
To neither port nor harbor bound,
His greatest wish to run aground.
25.
A merry maid, whose pleasant name
Was my sweet FIRST. Under a tree
She sat, and sang my THIRD, as free
As the wild crows, that without dread,
My SECOND called above her head.
Anon she turned, (with a last look
Above, below,) unto her book--
My WHOLE the author. Guess the same.
26.
The three most forcible letters in our alphabet?
27.
The two which contain nothing?
28.
The four which express great corpulence?
29.
The four which indicate exalted station?
30.
The three which excite our tears?
31.
What foreign letter is an English title?
32.
What foreign letter is a yard and a half long?
33.
What letter will unfasten an Irish lock?
34.
When was B the first letter of the alphabet, while E and O were the
only vowels?
35.
What letter is always more or less heavily taxed?
36.
What letter is entirely out of fashion?
37.
Why is praising people like a certain powerful opiate?
38.
Prove that a man has five feet.
39.
WHAT AM I?
I was once the harbinger of good to prisoners.
I add to the magnitude of a mighty river.
I am a small portion of a large ecclesiastical body.
I represent a certain form of vegetable growth.
A term used by our Lord in speaking to His disciples.
A subordinate part of a famous eulogy.
I am made useful in connection with the Great Western Railway.
40.
=5005E1000E=,
++5005E1000E++.
The name of a modern novel.
41.
Two words in French are often spoken;
Of home and love the fondest token:
But, strange to say it, one of these
Is English, from beyond the seas;
And though the thing seems quite absurd,
It means the same as t’other word.
42.
You fain would win fair Julia’s heart--
“Have I the power?” you’d ask her,
But, from your lips the words won’t part--
“’Tis not an easy task, Sir!”
“I know ’tis not, for one so shy.”
“Well, how shall I begin, Sir?”
“Be what you ask her,” I reply,
“And, ten to one, you’ll win, Sir!”
43.
My FIRST is company; my SECOND shuns company; my THIRD calls together a
company; and my WHOLE entertains company.
44.
My FIRST is a sound, of tranquillity telling,--
A cozy and complaisant sound for your dwelling.
A place which for criminals fittest is reckoned,
Yet where saints find ineffable peace, is my SECOND.
_Or_, where niggardly natures, who hunger and thirst
For the wealth of this world, keep their hearts, is my FIRST;
While my SECOND’S a measure you’ll know at a glance,
For ’tis shortest in Flanders, and longest in France.
Oh! my WHOLE is a name widely known, well beloved,
A name blessed on earth, and in Heaven approved;
Crowned by Faith and Good Works with so holy a light
That angels, themselves, thrill with joy at the sight.
45.
Dr. Whewell being asked by a young lady for his name “in cipher,”
handed her the following lines:
You 0 a 0, but I 0 thee,--
Oh, 0 no 0, but oh, 0 me;
And O, let my 0 no 0 go,
But give 0 0 I 0 you so!
46.
Why was the execution of Charles the First voluntary on his part?
47.
How is Poe’s “Raven” shown to have been a very dissipated bird?
48.
Set down four 9’s so as to make one hundred.
49.
The cc 4 put 00000000.
si
50.
John Doe to Richard Roe, Dr.
To 2 bronze boxes $3 00
1 wooden do 1 50
1 wood do 1 50
----
This bill was canceled by the payment of $1.50. How?
51.
When was Cowper in debt?
52.
What animal comes from the clouds?
53.
My FIRST is one of mystic three,
Who go where goes true Liberty;
Sets with the sun, with him to rise,
Lives in the flame and with it dies;
Fades with the leaf that earthward flies.
My SECOND cleaves the morning air,
Floats through the evening still and fair;
Now soars beyond the mountain crest,
Now flutters downward to its rest,
Now broods upon some hidden nest.
My WHOLE long since the prairie trod,
Now rests beneath the prairie-sod;
Yet still upon the river stands,
And calls the stranger to the lands
Which Reminichia’s[1] cliff commands.
54.
I saw a peacock with a fiery tail
I saw a blazing comet pour down hail
I saw a cloud all wrapt with ivy ’round
I saw a lofty oak creep on the ground
I saw a beetle swallow up a whale
I saw the foaming sea brimful of ale
I saw a pewter cup sixteen feet deep
I saw a well full of men’s tears that weep
I saw wet eyes in flames of living fire
I saw a house as high as the moon and higher
I saw the glorious sun at deep midnight
I saw the man who saw this wondrous sight!
An incredulous friend actually ventured to doubt the above plain
statement of facts, but was soon convinced of its literal truth.
55.
Charles the First walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut
off.
56.
At the time of a frightful accident, what is better than presence of
mind?
57.
Why was the year preceding 1871 the same as the year following it?
58.
Why do “birds in their little nests agree?”
59.
What did Io die of?
60.
Why did a certain farmer out West name his favorite rooster ROBINSON?
61.
How do sailors know there’s a man in the moon?
62.
How do sailors know Long Island?
63.
What does a dog wear in warm weather, besides his collar?
64.
If you transpose what ladies wear,
’Twill plainly show what bad men are:
Again, if you transpose the same,
You’ll see an ancient Hebrew’s name:
Change it again and it will show,
What all on earth desire to do.
65.
Two brothers, wisely kept apart,
Together ne’er employed;
Though to one purpose we are bent,
Each takes a different side.
To us no head nor mouth belongs,
Yet plain our tongues appear;
With them we never speak a word,
Without them, useless are.
In blood and wounds we deal, yet good
In temper we are proved;
From passion we are always free,
Though oft with anger moved.
We travel much, yet prisoners are,
And close confined, to boot;
Can with the swiftest horse keep pace,
Yet always go on foot.
66.
Translate:
Je suis capitaine de vingt-cinq soldats; et, sans moi, Paris serait
pris.
67.
Je suis ce que je suis, et je ne suis pas ce que je suis. Si j’étais ce
que je suis, je ne serais pas ce que je suis.
68.
Mus cucurrit plenum sed
Contra meum magnum ad!
69.
Mens tuum ego!
70.
The title of a book: Castra tintinnabula Poëmata.
71.
Motto on a Chinese box: Tu doces!
72.
[Illustration: (‡ “J’aime” written in script and crossed through by six
upward-pointing arrows.)]
73.
Translate:
Quis crudus enim lectus, albus, et spiravit!
74.
Ecrivez: “J’ai grand appétit,” en deux lettres.
75.
Monosyllabic I, and a reptile, I trow;
But, cut me in twain, I form syllables two.
I’m English, I’m Latin, the one and the other;
And what’s Latin for one half, is English for t’other.
76.
Ever running on my race,
Never staying in one place,
Through the world I make my tour
Everywhere at the same hour.
If you please to spell my name,
Backward, forward, ’tis the same.
77.
In my FIRST my SECOND sat; my THIRD and FOURTH I ate; and yet I was my
WHOLE.
78.
TONIS ADRESTO MARE.
O Mare! Eva si formæ,
Formæ ure tonitru;
Iambicum as amandum,
Olet Hymen promptu!
Mihi his vetas annæ se,
As humano erebi;
Olet mecum, mare, to te,
Or Eta Beta Pi.
Alas, plano more meretrix;
Mi ardor vel uno,
Inferiam ure artis base
Tolerat me urebo.
Ah me! ve ara scilicet
To laudu vimin thus.
Hiatu as arandum sex--
Illuc Ionicus!
Heu! sed heu! vixin, imago,
Mi missis mare sta!
O cantu redit in mihi
Hibernus arida?
Everi dafur heri si;
Mihi resolves indu;
Totius, olet Hymen cum
Accepta tonitru!
79.
_____________
| | | |
|___|___|___|
| | |
|___|___|
From these five squares take three of the fifteen sides, and leave
three squares.
80.
_________
| | |
|___|___|
| |
|___|
Divide this figure into four equal _and uniform_ parts.
81.
Four things there are all of a height,
One of them crooked, the rest upright.
Take three away, and you will find
Exactly ten remains behind:
But, if you cut the four in twain,
You’ll find one-half doth eight retain.
82.
To divide eight gallons of vinegar equally between two persons; using
only an eight-gallon, a five-gallon, and a three-gallon measure?
83.
A certain miller takes “for toll” one tenth of the meal or flour he
grinds. What quantity must he grind in order that a customer may have
just a bushel of meal after the toll has been taken?
84.
To prove that two are equal to one:
Let _x_ = _a_: Then, _x_² = _ax_,
_x_² − _a_² = _ax_ − _a_²,
(_x_ + _a_)(_x_ − _a_) = _a_(_x_ − _a_),
_x_ + _a_ = _a_,
2_a_ = _a_,
2 = 1. Q. E. D.
Where is the fallacy?
85.
As two Arabs, who had for sole provision, the one five, and the other
three loaves of bread, were about to take their noonday meal in
company, they were joined by a stranger who proposed to purchase a
third part of their food. In payment he gave them, when their repast
was finished, eight pieces of silver, and they, unable to agree as to
the division of the sum referred the matter to the nearest Cadi, who
gave seven pieces to the owner of the five loaves, and but one piece to
the owner of the three loaves. And the Cadi was right.
86.
A man went to a store and bought a pair of boots for six dollars. He
put down a ten dollar bill, and the merchant having no change, sent for
it to a neighboring bank, and gave it to him. Later in the day one of
the bank clerks came in to say that the ten dollar bill was a bad one,
and insisted that the merchant should make it right, which he did. Now,
how much did he lose by the whole transaction?
87.
A man bought twelve herrings for a shilling; some were two pence
apiece, some a halfpenny, and some a farthing. How many did he buy of
each kind?
88.
My FIRST is the last of me;
My SECOND is not so much;
And my WHOLE is entirely destitute of my FIRST.
89.
There is a word of plural number,
A foe to peace and tranquil slumber;
Now, any word you chance to take,
Adding an s will plural make;
But if you add an s to this,
How strange the metamorphosis!
Plural is plural then no more,
And sweet what bitter was before.
90.
“Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!”
Were the last words of Marmion.
Had I been in Stanley’s place,
When Marmion urged him to the chase,
You then would very soon descry,
What brings a tear to every eye.
91.
My FIRST, if you do, will increase;
My SECOND will keep you from Heaven,
My WHOLE--such is human caprice--
Is seldomer taken than given.
92.
When may a man reasonably complain of his coffee?
93.
Why does a duck put her head under water?
94.
Why does she take it out again?
95.
In what terms does Shakespeare allude to the muddiness of the river on
which Liverpool lies?
96.
If the ++B++ mt put: If the ++B++. putting:
So said one, but another replied: How can I put: when there is such
a-der?
97.
Why is a man who never bets, as bad as one who bets habitually?
98.
When is a bonnet not a bonnet?
99.
Twice ten are six of us;
Six are but three:
Nine are but four of us;
What can we be?
Would you know more of us?
I’ll tell you more;
Seven are five of us,
Five are but four!
100.
As I was going to St. Ives’
I met seven wives;
Each wife had seven sacks,
Each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits,--
Kits, cats, sacks and wives,
How many were going to St. Ives’?
101.
Helen, after sitting an hour, dressed for a walk, at length set out
alone, leaving the following laconic note for the friend who, she had
expected, would accompany her: 2 ++2++ 8.
102.
Come and commiserate one who was blind,
Helpless and desolate, void of a mind;
Guileless, deceiving; though unbelieving,
Free from all sin.
By mortals adored, still I ignored
The world I was in.
King Ptolemy’s, Cæsar’s, and Tiglath Pilezer’s
Birth days are shown;
Wise men, astrologers, all are acknowledgers,
Mine is unknown.
I never had father or mother
Alive at my birth.
Lodged in a palace, taunted by malice,
I did not inherit by lineage or merit,
A spot on the earth.
Nursed among pagans, no one baptized me,
Sponsor I had, who ne’er catechised me;
She gave me the name to her heart that was dearest;
She gave me the place to her bosom was nearest;
But one look of kindness she cast on me never,
Nor word of my blindness I heard from her ever.
Encompassed by strangers, naught could alarm me;
I saved, I destroyed, I blessed, I alloyed;
Kept a crown for a prince, but had none of my own;
Filled the place of a king, but ne’er had a throne;
Rescued a warrior, baffled a plot;
Was what I seemed not, seemed what I was not;
Devoted to slaughter, a price on my head,
A king’s lovely daughter watched by my bed.
How gently she dressed me, fainting with fear!
She never caressed me, nor wiped off a tear;
Ne’er moistened my lips, though parched and dry,
What marvel a blight should pursue and defy?
’Twas royalty nursed me wretched and poor;
’Twas royalty cursed me in secret, I’m sure.
I lived not, I died not, but tell you I must,
That ages have passed since I first turned to dust.
This paradox whence? this squalor, this splendor?
Say, was I king, or silly pretender?
Fathom the mystery, deep in my history--
Was I a man?
An angel supernal, a demon infernal?
Solve it who can.
103.
A blind beggar had a brother. This blind beggar’s brother went to sea
and was drowned. But the man that was drowned had no brother. What
relation to him, then, was the blind beggar?
104.
Two brothers were walking together down the street, and one of them,
stopping at a certain house, knocked at the door, observing: “I have
a niece here, who is ill.” “Thank Heaven,” said the other, “I have no
niece!” and he walked away. Now, how could that be?
105.
“How is that man related to you?” asked one gentleman of another.
“Brother or sister I have none,
But that man’s father was my father’s son.”
106.
Describe a cat’s clothing botanically.
107.
What is that which boys and girls have once in a lifetime, men and
women never have, and Mt. Parnassus has twice in one place?
108.
Why is the highest mountain in Wales always white?
109.
To what two cities of Massachusetts should little boys go with their
boats?
110.
There kneels in holy St. Cuthbert’s aisles
No holier Father than Father Giles:
Matins or Vespers, it matters not which,
He is ever there like a saint in his niche;
Morning and midnight his Missal he reads,
Midnight and morning he tells his beads.
Wide-spread the fame of that holy man!
Potent his blessing, and dreaded his ban:
Wondrous the marvels his piety works
On unbelieving heathen, and infidel Turks,
But strangest of all is the power he is given
To turn maidens’ hearts to the service of Heaven.
St. Ursula’s Prioress comes to-day,
At holy St. Cuthbert’s shrine to pray,
She comes with an offering; she comes with a prayer;
For she leads to the altar the Lady Clare.
Mary Mother! how fair a maid
To yield the world for the cloister’s shade!
She yields, to-morrow, her gold and lands
For the Church’s use, to the Church’s hands,
Renounces the world, with its pleasures and wiles,
And to-day she confesses to Father Giles:
Slight is the penance, I ween, may atone
For all of sin she hath ever known!
“Daughter! since last thou didst kneel for grace,
Hath peace in thy heart found a dwelling-place?
From thy breast hast thou banished each idle thought?
Save thy spirit’s weal hast thou pined for naught?”
Moist is her kerchief, and drooped her head,
But my FIRST is all that poor Clara said.
“Daughter! thy cheek hath grown pale and thin--
Is thy spirit pure and chastened within?
Gone from thy voice is its ancient mirth?
Are thy sighs for Heaven? Thy tears for earth?”
For earth are her sighs, yet poor Clara knows
My SECOND no more than the spring’s first rose!
Why doth he tremble, that holy man,
At eye so sad, and at cheek so wan?
Less burning the tears, less bitter the sighs
Heaven asks from its _willing_ votaries!
And, alas! when my ALL weeps as Clara weeps,
Holy Church gaineth more than she ofttimes keeps!
NOTABLE NAMES.
111.
One name that means such fiery things
I can’t describe their pains and stings.
112.
Red as an apple, or black as night:
A heavenly sign, or a “perfect fright.”
113.
Place an edible grain ’twixt an ant and a bee,
And the well-beloved name of a poet you’ll see.
114.
Each human head, in time, ’tis said,
Will turn to him, though he is dead.
115.
A little more
Than a sandy shore.
116.
The dearest, “sweetest, spot on earth to me,”
And, just surpassing it, a name you’ll see.
117.
A head-dress.
118.
Inclining to one of the four parts of the compass.
119.
A mineral and a chain of hills.
120.
A metal, and a worker in metals.
121.
A sound made by an insect; and a fastening.
122.
A sound made by an animal; and a fastening.
123.
A sound made by an animal, and a measure of length.
124.
A Latin noun and a measure of quantity.
125.
A bodily pain.
126.
The value of a word.
127.
A manufactured metal.
128.
To agitate a weapon.
129.
A domestic animal, and what she cannot do.
130.
Which is the greater poet, William Shakespeare or John Dryden?
131.
A barrier before an edible; a barrier built of an edible.
132.
One-fourth of the earth’s surface, and a preposition.
133.
One-fourth of the earth’s surface, and a conjunction.
134.
A song; to follow the chase.
135.
A solid fence, a native of Poland.
136.
An incessant pilgrim; fourteen pounds weight.
137.
A quick succession of small sounds.
138.
Obsolete past participle of a verb meaning to illuminate.
139.
A carriage, a liquid, a narrow passage.
140.
To prosecute, and one who is guarded.
141.
A letter withdraws from a name to make it more brilliant.
142.
A letter withdraws from a name and tells you to talk more.
143.
Why is a man who lets houses, likely to have a good many cousins?
144.
What relation is the door-mat to the door-step?
145.
What is it that gives a cold, cures a cold, and pays the doctor’s bill?
146.
What is brought upon the table, and cut but never eaten?
147.
What cord is that which is full of knots which no one can untie, and in
which no one can tie another?
148.
What requires more philosophy than taking things as they come?
149.
What goes most against a farmer’s grain?
150.
Which of Shakespeare’s characters killed most poultry?
151.
THE BISHOP OF OXFORD’S RIDDLE.
I have a large box,^1 two lids,^2 two caps,^3 two musical
instruments,^4 and a large number of articles which a carpenter cannot
dispense with.^5 I have always about me a couple of good fish,^6 and
a great number of small size;^7 two lofty trees,^8 and four branches
of trees;^9 some fine flowers,^10 and the fruit of an indigenous
plant.^11 I have two playful animals,^12 and a vast number of
smaller ones;^13 also, a fine stag,^14 and a number of whips
without handles.^15
I have two halls or places of worship,^16 some weapons of
warfare,^17 and innumerable weather-cocks;^18 the steps of a
hotel;^19 the House of Commons on the eve of a division;^20 two
students or scholars,^21 and ten Spanish gentlemen to wait upon their
neighbors.^22
To these may be added, a rude bed;^a the highest part of a building;^b
a roadway over water;^c leaves of grass;^d a pair of rainbows;^e a
boat;^f a stately pillar;^g a part of a buckle;^h several social
assemblies;^i part of the equipments of a saddle-horse;^j a pair
of implements matched by another pair of implements much used by
blacksmiths;^j several means of fastening.^k
152.
Be thou my FIRST in study or in play,
Through all the sunny hours which make the day.
Go to my SECOND, and do not despise
Her useful teachings, wonderful and wise:
Yet, for this purpose, never be my WHOLE,
Nor seek to wander from a wise control.
153.
Be sure you do my FIRST, whene’er you see
My SECOND in the garden or the tree;
But set my WHOLE upon the open plain
If you would have a plenteous crop of grain.
154.
My FIRST is a house men love to view;
My SECOND you do when you fasten your shoe;
My THIRD is one of a loving two;
My WHOLE I fain would be with you.
155.
1. A common fish, or an Eastern bay;
2. Part of a visage, or self to say;
3. The lowest part of window or door;
Whole. The end of a will that was made before.
156.
I have a little friend who possesses something very precious. It is a
piece of workmanship of exquisite skill, and was said by our Blessed
Saviour to be an object of His Father’s peculiar care; yet it does
not display the attribute of either benevolence or compassion. If its
possessor were to lose it, no human ingenuity could replace it; and
yet, speaking generally, it is very abundant. It was first given to
Adam in Paradise, along with his beautiful Eve, though he previously
had it in his possession.
It will last as long as the world lasts, and yet it is destroyed every
day. It lives in beauty after the grave has closed over mortality. It
is to be found in all parts of the earth, while three distinct portions
of it exist in the air. It is seen on the field of carnage, yet it is a
bond of affection, a token of amity, a pledge of pure love. It was the
cause of death to one famed for beauty and ambition. I have only to add
that it has been used as a napkin and a crown, and that it appears like
silver after long exposure to the air.
157.
When the king found that his money was nearly all gone, and that he
really _must_ live more economically, he decided on sending away
most of his wise men. There were some hundreds of them--very fine old
men, and magnificently dressed in green velvet gowns with gold buttons.
If they _had_ a fault, it was that they always contradicted each
other when he asked their advice--and they certainly ate and drank
_enormously_. So, on the whole, he was rather glad to get rid of
them. But there was an old lay which he did not dare to disobey, which
said there must always be:
“Seven blind of both eyes;
Ten blind of one eye;
Five that see with both eyes;
Nine that see with one eye.”
Query: How many did he keep?
158.
Why are not Lowell, Holmes, and Saxe the wittiest poets in America?
159.
Why did they call William Cullen Bryant, Cullen?
160.
Why do we retain only three hundred and twenty-five days in our year?
161.
What seven letters express actual presence in this place; and, without
transposition, actual absence from every place?
162.
Is Florence, (Italy,) on the Tiber? If not, on what river does it lie?
Answer both questions in one word.
163.
Is there a word in our language which answers this question, and
contains all the vowels?
164.
What is it that goes up the hill; and down the hill, and never moves?
165.
What ’bus has found room for the greatest number of people?
166.
In describing a chance encounter with your doctor, what kind of a
philosopher do you name?
167.
My FIRST is of my SECOND made,
And holds within its ample bound,
The grosser things of human trade,
From half a ton to half a pound.
But mostly from a barren isle,
Named from the land of Bajazet,
Where tropic sunbeams fiercely smile,
It brings a crystalled muriate.
But, in the land of Moslem mosque,
Of cool sherbet, and scimitar,
Of harem dark and fair kiosk,
It hath an office fouler far
Than e’en the headsman’s sinecure:
For slighted loves and jealousies
It finds a never-failing cure
Deep in the dark Borysthenes.
The fleecy flocks on Scotia’s hills;
The snow-crowned plant on Georgia’s soil,
The Linum with its pale blue bells,
My SECOND yield to human toil.
To shelter from the sun and storm,
It hangs in most unseemly shape
Around the beggar’s shriveled form;
Or fits a dandy, or an ape.
The gentle Rizpah, when the ire
Of Gibeon poured its bloody gall,
Did to the courts of Death retire
To watch the murdered sons of Saul:
More truly great was Aiah’s child,
As on my WHOLE she sat alone,
To fright the wolf and vulture wild,
Than coward Saul upon his throne.
And ever--symbol dark of doom,
A type of deep humility--
My WHOLE speaks of the fearful tomb,
The coffin, shroud, and cypress tree;
Save in the far-off Orient,
Where Light’s own spotless color
Is with the tears of mourners blent,
And made the type of dolor.
168.
What physician stands at the top of his profession?
169.
Would you rather an elephant killed you, or a gorilla?
170.
Why is an amiable and charming girl like one letter deep in thought,
another on its way toward you, another bearing a torch, and another
slowly singing psalms?
171.
Why is Emma, in a sorrowful mood, one of a certain sect of Jews?
172.
Why is she, always, one of another sect?
173.
What English writer would have been a successful angler?
174.
What is that which you and every living man have seen, but can never
see again?
175.
Which is the strongest day in the week?
176.
Come from my FIRST, aye, come!
The battle dawn is nigh;
And the screaming trump, and the thundering drum
Are calling thee to die.
Fight as thy fathers fought,
Fall as thy fathers fell;
Thy task is taught, thy shroud is wrought;
So, forward! and farewell!
Toll ye my SECOND, toll!
Fling high the flambeau’s light;
And sing the hymn for the parted soul
Beneath the silent night.
The wreath upon his head,
The cross upon his breast,
Let the prayer be said, and the tear be shed,
So, take him to his rest!
Call ye my WHOLE, aye, call
The lord of lute and lay;
And let him greet the sable pall
With a noble song to-day.
Go, call him by his name;
No fitter hand may crave
To light the flame of a soldier’s fame
On the turf of a soldier’s grave.
177.
Oh, gloomy, gloomy, is my FIRST
To all who step within!
But doubly gloomy to the one
Who dwells there for his sin.
Oh, silent, silent, are the tongues
Of those who are my NEXT!
Oh, never be unkind to them,
Or with their failings vexed.
Oh, kindly fall sweet pity’s words
Upon the outcast’s heart!
My WHOLE will tell how oft they come
Their blessing to impart.
178.
What a common man often sees;
What a king or emperor seldom sees;
What GOD never sees?
179.
A shining wit pronounced, of late,
That every acting magistrate
Is water in a freezing state.
180.
I’m rough, I’m smooth, I’m wet, I’m dry;
My station low, my title high;
The king my lawful master is,--
I’m used by all, though only his.
181.
My FIRST’S a stream in classic land;
My SECOND all well understand
Who traveled much by public aid
Ere steam ingenious man obeyed.
My FIRST, when cut in two again,
Has part in shedding light ’mong men;
My SECOND, though ’tis no disgrace,
Writes wrinkles on the human face.
My WHOLE is not of recent birth,
But something proved of real worth,
Whose task is to facilitate
The movements of the Ship of State.
182.
I am a king; my palace low, yet rule I with extensive sway;
Great kings had Egypt long ago, but yet I reigned before their day;
To epicures my reign I owe more than to any other thing--
Though guillotine I undergo, it keeps me not from being king.
With head cut off, I am a king; with neck cut off and head left on,
I will be king: yes! I’ll be king though head and neck should both
be gone.
If head and foot I both should lose, a blood relation you’d espy;
For, then, a kin I would disclose: now tell, I pray, what king am I?
183.
My FIRST is in the cornfield seen;
My SECOND in the hedges green;
My WHOLE from glossy vines you glean.
184.
What is the smallest room in the world?
185.
What is often found where it does not exist?
186.
What is that which is lengthened by being cut at both ends?
187.
When do your teeth usurp the functions of your tongue?
188.
What word is that to which if you add one syllable, it will be shorter?
189.
What is that which is lower with a head than without one?
190.
What vice is that which people shun if they are ever so bad?
191.
Which travels at greater speed, heat or cold?
192.
My FIRST hath teeth, yet ’tis no man;
It hath no hands, yet work it can.
My NEXT hath teeth, for ’tis a man,
Or ’tis an herb dried on a pan.
My WHOLE hath _no_ teeth: ’tis no man,
’Tis eaten oft by all his clan.
193.
A maid sat sewing in castle hall,
Near an arching window in the wall;
And again and again her song she rehearsed
As she placed on her lover’s kerchief my FIRST,
For her lover was coming from foreign land
To give her his heart, and to claim her hand.
Ah! in foreign dungeon her lover lay,
Where stone on stone shut out every ray.
He never the hand of the maiden would clasp;
He was held by my SECOND’S iron grasp.
With feverish thirst he calls for drink--
Ere long he hears the rattle and clink
Of the jailer’s keys, as he brings the cup,
And bids the prisoner drink it up.
Eagerly, quickly, he slakes his thirst.
Heaven pity the maid! In that draught accurst,
Is mingled my WHOLE; and, with failing breath,
The doomed man sinks in the arms of death.
194.
A word I am of letters seven,
A name to noble women given;
Take three away, (the last I mean,)
And I’m a man fit for a queen;
Remove one more, and, lo! you’ll see
That I my former sex will be;
Another drop, and two remain
Which tell I am a man again.
195.
No rose can boast a lovelier hue
Than I can when my birth is new:
Of shorter date than e’en that flower,
I bloom and fade within an hour.
Though some in me their honor place,
I bear the stigma of disgrace;
Like _Marplot_, eager to reveal
The secret I would fain conceal.
Fools, coxcombs, wits, agree in this,
They equally destroy my peace;
Though ’gainst my will to stoop so low,
At their command I come and go.
196.
When a blind man drank tea, how did he manage to see?
197.
Why is a mouse like grass?
198.
What is the key-note of good breeding?
199.
What is the typical “Yankee’s” key-note?
200.
If you were on the second floor of a burning house and the stairs were
away, how would you escape?
201.
My FIRST is nothing but a name;
My SECOND still more small;
My WHOLE is of so little fame,
It has no name at all.
202.
A carpenter made a door and made it too large; he cut it again and cut
it too little; he cut it again and made it fit.
203.
A wagoner, being asked of what his load consisted, made the following
(rather indirect) reply:
Three-fourths of a cross, and a circle complete;
An upright, where two semi-circles do meet;
A right-angled triangle standing on feet;
Two semi-circles, and a circle complete.
What is it?
204.
Why need people never suffer from hunger on such a desert as Sahara?
207.
How do the arks used for freight on the Mississippi River, differ from
Noah’s Ark?
208.
In what order did Noah leave the Ark?
209.
What is Majesty deprived of its externals?
210.
Dreaming of apples on a wall,
And dreaming often, dear,
I dreamed that if I counted all,
How many would appear?
211.
What is most like a bee in May?
“Well, let me think: perhaps--” you say;
Bravo! you’re guessing well to-day.
212.
Three sisters at breakfast were feeding the cat;
The first gave it sole: Puss was grateful for that;
The next gave it salmon, which Puss thought a treat;
The third gave it herring, which Puss wouldn’t eat.
(Explain the conduct of the cat.)
213.
John went out; his dog went with him; he went not before, behind, or on
one side of him; then where did he go?
214.
If spectacles could speak to their wearers, what ancient writer would
they name?
215.
Part of a foot with judgment transpose,
And the answer you’ll find just under your nose.
216.
A feeling all persons detest,
Although nearly by every one felt;
By two letters fully expressed,
By twice two invariably spelt.
217.
My FIRST implies equality; my SECOND is the title of a foreign
nobleman; and my WHOLE is asked and given a hundred times a day with
equal indifference; yet is of so much importance that it has saved the
lives of thousands.
POSITIVES AND COMPARATIVES.
218.
Where runs the land far out into the sea,
The children shout and frolic in their glee.
219.
Among the singers half a score were found,
But not a voice so sweet as his in sound.
220.
He vowed he never would forgive,
Though twice two years and more he lived.
221.
The noble tree spread out its mighty arms,
Above the house bedecked in painted charms.
222.
He planted there his wheat and corn,
While birds flew high in early morn.
223.
He paid the lawyer when the suit was won,
Glad that his dread of sad defeat was done.
224.
The timid creature wildly looking ’round,
Shrinks back in deadly terror from the sound.
225.
He vowed to prosecute, because
A neighboring drain unsavory was.
226.
How would the Teuton manage to exist,
If this enchanting beverage he missed?
227.
How delightful ’twould be to recline at your ease,
And list to the harp, with its rare melodies!
228.
A gay young man, without ideas,
Oft wearies where he fain would please.
229.
Famed more for genius than good looks;
I went there to procure her books.
230.
The broad expanse, denied his waking sight,
He saw in visions both by day and night.
231.
It brought the miser to his grave;
Even his strong box could not save.
232.
1. Because he will not work for one,
2. The other he will be.
233.
1. The ship came gaily sailing in;
2. Now who so strong as he?
234.
1. If hungry, you may have it all;
2. A funeral pile, you see.
235.
1. Drive home your ball, and come and eat
2. The cakes prepared for tea.
236.
1. While the poet sang his “Farewell, thou sweet river!”
2. It roamed in forests near, as wild and free as ever.
237.
1. Add sugar, more sugar! His grimaces see!
2. Swift rider, bold robber, fierce savage is he.
238.
1. Hand the beverage ’round, adding cream as you go,
2. From the uppermost, down to the lowermost, row.
POSITIVES, COMPARATIVES, SUPERLATIVES.
239.
Pos., A pronoun; Com., A period of time; Sup., Fermenting froth.
240.
Pos., A knot of ribbon; Com., An animal; Sup., Self-praise.
241.
Pos., A reward; Com., Dread; Sup., A festival.
242.
Pos., To reward; Com., A fruit; Sup., An adhesive mixture.
243.
Pos., A meadow; Com., An unfortunate king; Sup., The smallest.
244.
Pos., In a regular line;
Com., With an appetite fine;
Sup., ’Twill be done when we dine.
245.
Pos., Busy, noisy, and cheerful.
Com., The thought of it saddening and tearful;
Sup., Its roar and its fierce claws are fearful.
246.
Pos., The end of all time;
Com., Judge of music and rhyme;
Sup., The Orient clime.
247.
Pos., Denotes a bond or tie;
Com., In the centre it doth lie;
Sup., The billows break on it and die.
248.
Pos., An American genius; Com., To turn out or to flow; Sup., An
office, an express, a place, a piece of timber.
249.
Pos., To depart; Com., To wound; Sup., A visible spirit.
250.
Pos., Pleasant, dreary, wet or dry;
Com., If ’tis light or heavy, try,
On your scales, before you buy;
Sup., Don’t spend money foolishly!
251.
A gentleman who had sent to a certain city for a car-load of fuel,
wrote thus to his nephew residing there:
“Dear Nephew
;
Uncle John.”
Presently he received the following reply:
“Dear Uncle
:
James.”
252.
Why is a man up stairs, stealing, like a perfectly honorable man?
253.
Why is a ship twice as profitable _as a hen_?
254.
Why can you preserve fruit better by canning it, than in any other way?
255.
Twelve kinds of things in fact, not fiction,
Behind a veil of contradiction.
* * * * *
All dressed in silk, with stately grace,
We stand with ready ears,
And yet the sounds that greet the place
Not one among us hears.^1
We’re keen and quick our holes to find
And run in lively mood,
And yet we’re footless quite and blind,
Although our eyes are good.^2
Our perfect heads can’t give us sense,
Though we are naught without them;^3
Our useful tongues are mere pretense--
No talk or taste about them.^4
Our locks though fine can ne’er be combed;^5
Our teeth can never bite;^6
Our mouths from out our heads have roamed,
And oft outgrow them quite.^7
Our hearts no pity have, or joy,
Yet they’re our richest worth;^8
Our hands ne’er waved at girl or boy,
Or anything on earth.^9
Alive are we, yet buried quite;
Our trust is in our eyes;
They help us out through darkest night,
Though sight stern fate denies.^10
We sally forth when day is done,
And set the owls a-hooting,
And, though we have no bow or gun,
We often go a-shooting.^11
Our souls, alas! are dull and low,
Down-trodden, from the start;
Yet who shall say, in weal or wo,
They’re not our better part?^12
256.
Within this world a creature once did dwell,
As sacred writings unto us do tell,
Who never shall be doomed to Satan’s home,
Nor unto God’s celestial Kingdom come;
Yet in him was a soul that either must
Suffer in Hell, or reign among the just.
257.
What best describes, and most impedes, a pilgrim’s progress?
258.
Why is a girl not a noun?
259.
What part of their infant tuition have old maids and old bachelors most
profited by?
260.
What is that which never asks any questions, and yet requires many
answers?
261.
What quadrupeds are admitted to balls, operas, and dinner-parties?
262.
If a bear were to go into a linen-draper’s shop, what would he want?
263.
When does truth cease to be truth?
264.
How many dog-stars are there?
265.
What is worse than raining cats and dogs?
266.
Why is O the only vowel that can be heard?
267.
Why is a man that has no children invisible?
268.
What is it which has a mouth, and never speaks; a bed, and never sleeps?
269.
Which burns longer, a wax or sperm candle?
270.
Why is a watch like an extremely modest person?
271.
LORD MACAULAY’S LAST RIDDLE.
Let us look at it quite closely,
’Tis a very ugly word,
And one that makes me shudder
Whenever it is heard.
It mayn’t be very wicked;
It must be always bad,
And speaks of sin and suffering
Enough to make one mad.
They say it is a compound word,
And that is very true;
And, when they decompose it,
(Which, of course, they’re free to do)--
If, of the letters they take off
And sever the first three,
They leave the nine remaining
As sad as they can be:
For, though it seems to make it less,
In fact it makes it more,
For it takes the brute creation in,
Which it left out before.
Let’s try if we can mend it--
It’s possible we may,
If only we divide it
In some new-fashioned way,
Instead of three and nine, then,
Let’s make it four and eight;
You’ll say it makes no difference,
At least not very great:
But only see the consequence!
That’s all that needs be done
To change this mass of sadness
To unmitigated fun.
It clears off swords and pistols,
Revolvers, bowie-knives,
And all the horrid weapons
By which men lose their lives;
It wakens holier feelings--
And how joyfully is heard
The native sound of gladness
Compressed into one word!
Yes! four and eight, my friends!
Let that be yours and mine,
Though all the hosts of demons
Rejoice in three and nine.
272.
A word by grammarians used in our tongue,
Of such a construction is seen,
That if, from five syllables one is removed,
No syllable then will remain.
273.
Formed long ago, yet made to-day,
I’m most in use when others sleep;
What few would like to give away,
And none would like to keep.
274.
A lady was asked “What is Josh Billings’ real name? What do you think
of his writings?” How did she answer both questions by one word?
275.
Why is Mr. Jones’ stock-farm, carried on by his boys, like the focus of
a burning-glass?
276.
++A++ by <. The name of a book, and of its author.
277.
What word in the English language contains the six vowels in
alphabetical order?
278.
If the parlor fire needs replenishing, what hero of history could you
name in ordering a servant to attend to it?
279.
My FIRST is an insect, my SECOND a quadruped, and my WHOLE has no real
existence.
280.
If the roof of the Tower of London should blow off, what two names in
English history would the uppermost rooms cry out?
281.
MY FIRST.
In the glance of the sun, when the wild birds sing,
I start in my beauty to gladden the spring;
I weep at the morning marriage, and smile
On the evening tomb, though I die the while.
MY SECOND.
I wander; I sin; though a breath may make
All my frame an effeminate nature take,
And a manly dignity that, as well,
Can of mastery and lordship tell.
MY WHOLE.
I have startled the world to jeering and mirth,
Since that, earthly, I dared to withdraw from the earth;
But I stay, though cut off in my prime, far more
Enlivening and life-full than ever before.
282.
One hundred and one by fifty divide,
Then, if you add naught to the right or left side,
The result will be one out of nine--have you tried?
283.
I am composed of five letters. As I stand, I am a river in Virginia,
and a fraud. Beheaded, I am one of the sources of light and growth.
Beheaded again, I sustain life; again, and I am a preposition. Omit my
third, and I am a domestic animal in French, and the delight of social
intercourse in English. Transpose my first four, and I become what may
attack your head, if it is a weak one, in your efforts to find me out.
284.
Unto a certain numeral one letter join--sad fate!
What first was solitary, you now annihilate.
285.
My FIRST was heard to “hurtle in the sky,
When foes in conflict met in olden time”;
My SECOND none can yield without a sigh,
Though it has oft been forfeited by crime;
My WHOLE, its ancient uses gone, is found
On sunny uplands, or in forest ground.
286.
Can you tell me why
A hypocrite’s eye
Can better descry
Than you can, or I,
Upon how many toes
A pussy-cat goes?
287.
Walked on earth,
Talked on earth,
Boldly rebuked sin;
Never in Heaven,
Never in Hell,
Never can _enter_ in.
288.
There is a certain natural production that is neither animal,
vegetable, nor mineral; it exists from two to six feet from the surface
of the earth; it has neither length, breadth, nor substance; is neither
male nor female, though it is found between both; it is often mentioned
in the Old Testament, and strongly recommended in the New; and it
answers equally the purposes of fidelity and treachery.
289.
We are little airy creatures,
All of different voice and features:
One of us in glass is set;
One of us is found in jet;
One of us is set in tin;
One a lump of gold within:
If the last you should pursue,
It can never fly from you.
290.
My FIRST is a point, my SECOND a span;
In my WHOLE often ends the greatness of man.
291.
Wherever English land
Touches the pebbly shore,
My FIRST lies on the sand,
Changing forevermore.
My SECOND oft, I’m told,
State secrets will hold fast,
But, to a key of gold
’Tis known to yield at last.
Fond mother, tender wife,
With agonizing soul,--
The exile, sick of life,--
Have looked and sighed my WHOLE.
292.
I begin with a thousand, I end with a hundred;
My middle’s a thousand again;
The third of all vowels, the ninth of all letters,
Take their place in the rest of the train:
My WHOLE is a thing you never should do,--
At least, you don’t like it, if tried upon you!
293.
A word which always speaks of shame
I pray you, reader, now to name:
Eleven parts my whole contains,
To guess them you must take some pains.
Three groups there be which stand related;
The first with many a word is mated:
The second speaks of favor rare;
The third of plenty everywhere.
Cut off the first; and shameful grows
As fair as any garden rose;
Cut off the last, and lo! ’tis plain,
The word is full of shame again.
294.
The eldest of four brothers did a sound business; the second, a
smashing business; the third, a light business; and the youngest, the
most wicked business. What were they?
295.
Cut off my head, and singular I am,
Cut off my tail, and plural I appear;
Cut off both head and tail, O wondrous fact!
My middle part remains, though naught is there.
What is my head cut off? A sounding sea.
What is my tail cut off? A roaring river.
Far in the ocean’s depths I fearless play;
Giver of sweetest sounds, yet mute forever.
296.
I’m a creature most active, most useful, most known,
Of the thousands who daily perambulate town.
Take from me one letter, and still you will see
I’m the same as I was; just the same, to a T.
Take two letters from me, take three, or take four,
And still I remain just the same as before:
Indeed I may tell you, although you take all
You cannot destroy me, or change me at all.
297.
My FIRST is up at break of day,
And makes a welcome voice heard,
And goes to bed in twilight gray,
Though neither child nor song-bird.
My SECOND’S known to tongue and pen;
Is fast to all the church walls,
Is always seen in nurseries,
And often when the snow falls.
In green and yellow always dight,
Though melancholy never,
My WHOLE shines bright with golden light,
And emerald, forever.
298.
To fifty add nothing, then five,
Then add the first part of eighteen;
A desert would life be without it,
But with it, a garden, I ween.
299.
What tree bears the most fruit for the Boston market?
300.
Why is the end of a dog’s tail, like the heart of a tree?
301.
Why is a fish-monger not likely to be generous?
302.
Take away my first five, and I am a tree. Take away my last five, and
I am a vegetable. Without my last three, I am an ornament. Cut off my
first and my last three, and I am a titled gentleman. From his name cut
off the last letter, and an organ of sense will remain. Remove from
this the last, and two parts of your head will be left.
Divide me into halves, and you find a fruit and an instrument of
correction. Entire, I can be obtained of any druggist.
303.
Why was Elizabeth of England a more marvelous sovereign than Napoleon?
304.
A SQUARE-OF-EVERY-WORD PUZZLE.
I.
The desert-king,
Whose presence will
Each living thing
With terror fill.
II.
Of this word ’tis the mission
To be a preposition,
Giving you a notion
Of onward, inward, motion.
III.
This charm to blend,
The myriad roses of Cashmere you ask
Their subtle essences to one small flask
Freely to lend.
IV.
The middy, to his labor trained,
The sun by sextant viewed;
And said that Phœbus had attained
His greatest altitude.
305.
A prophet exists, whose generation was before Adam; who was with Noah
in the Ark, and was present at the trial of our Lord. The only sermon
he preached, was so convincing as to bring tears to the eyes and
repentance to the heart of a sinner. He neither lies in a bed nor sits
in a chair; his clothing is neither dyed, spun nor woven, but is of
finest texture and most brilliant hue. His warning cry ought to call
all sluggards from their slumbers: he utters it in every land and every
age; and yet he is not the Wandering Jew.
306.
I have but six letters; I’m little, you see;
Yet millions of people have wondered at me;
My 2, 6, 5, 1, you possess, and yet seek;
My 6, 4, 1, renders the strongest man weak;
My 5, 3, 2, 1, is both pronoun and noun,
And my 5, 1, 2, often have builded a town;
To my 3, 5, 6, 4, 1, men sometimes have prayed,
And my 4, 6, 5, 1, through most forests have strayed;
My 6, 3, 5, _has_ been to mystify you,
And devout men oft utter my 6, 5, 1, 2.
307.
(Fill the blanks with the names of British Authors.)
A ---- upon the ---- shore was seen,
I looked again, and it no ---- was seen.
308.
A ---- who of riches had great store,
Was fain to keep a ---- upon his door.
309.
A ---- trod the desert, ---- and ----,
And, slow but sure of ---- made good his way.
310.
I see with every man a thing
No man on earth hath ever seen;
Yet calm reflection still would bring
It face to face with him, I ween;
’Twould be before him plain as day,
Yet not be what he saw, I say.
311.
1. I have wings and I fly, though I’m not called a bird;
2. I am part of a hundred, e’en more than a third;
3. I am “A No. 1” with the most of mankind;
4. In France and in Germany me you will find;
5. My FIFTH in your hand you may frequently see;
6. And my WHOLE it is dreary and wretched to be.
312.
_Blanks to be filled with the names of noted authors._
A little child, ----, ----, and full of grace,
Threw back her ---- and showed her smiling face;
Meek as the ---- she by a ribbon led,
As o’er the ---- in the ---- dawn she sped;
Fleet as the ---- when to the ---- the ----
Called, and the sportsman ---- not at morn;
Against her ---- more than paltry gold,
I could not ---- my heart, however cold.
313.
You need not ---- my inquiring friend,
If, asking me if I am on the mend,
You find me still in no ---- frame;
Upon an ---- lay all the blame;
And though it may not ---- seem to mope,
I could not ---- my pain to please the ----.
314.
Than myself in my normal condition, nothing could be lighter or more
airy. I am composed of six letters and four syllables. Deprived of my
first two and transposed, I am the haunt of wild beasts; transposed, I
am a human being more dangerous than a wild beast; transposed again,
I am part of a fence; robbed of my last letter, and again transposed,
I am a melody; or I am that noun without which there would be no such
adjective as my WHOLE.
315.
CHRISTMAS DINNER.
The first course consisted of a linden tree, and some poles. The
second, of a red-hot bar of iron, a country in Asia, and an ornament
worn by Roman ladies, accompanied by a vegetable carefully prepared
as follows: one-sixth of a carrot, one-fourth of a bean, one-half of
a leaf of lettuce, and one-third of a cherry. For dessert, a pudding
made of the interment of a tailor’s implement; some points of time, and
small cannon-shot from Hamburg.
316.
My FIRST can be a useful slave,
Obedient to your will;
Yet let him once the master be,
He’ll ruin, rage, and kill.
To do my SECOND through the air,
Oft men have tried in vain,
Yet, if you look, you’ll find it there,
Upon your window-pane.
My WHOLE on summer nights is seen
A fairy lamp to light the green.
317.
Seen more by day; heard more by night:
I help the old to better sight;
Chameleon-like, my food is air,
And dust to me is dainty fare.
NUTS TO CRACK.
318.
What nuts were essential to the safety of ancient cities?
319.
What nut is a garden vegetable?
320.
What nut is a dairy product?
321.
What nut is dear to bathers?
322.
What nut is used to store away things in?
323.
What nut is a breakfast beverage?
FOR AMATEUR GARDENERS.
324.
Plant the early dawn, and what flower will appear?
325.
What spring flowers are found in the track of an avalanche?
326.
What early vegetable most resembles a pain in the back?
327.
What flower is most cultivated by bad-tempered persons?
328.
If a dandy be planted, what tree will come up?
329.
Why is a gardener a most fortunate antiquary?
330.
What herbs will spoil your brood of chickens?
331.
Man cannot live without my FIRST;
By day and night ’tis used,
My SECOND, though disliked by all,
By none can be refused.
My WHOLE is never seen by day,
Nor ever seen by night;
Yet shows in eyes suffused with tears,
In faces wan and white.
332.
FIRST.
Something we too early sigh for;
What, through life, too hard we try for;
What, alas! too many die for.
SECOND.
Upon my SECOND, in a boat,
We lightly toss or idly float;
Or bathe within its wavelets clear,--
(The word to Tennyson is dear.)
THE WHOLE.
A lovely vale well known to fame,
Of which a fabric bears the name,
Well worthy of the proudest dame.
333.
My SECOND went to the side of my FIRST,
And stayed through the WHOLE for the air;
There were croquet and singing
And bathing and swinging,
And chatting with maidens so fair.
334.
Two heads I have, and when my voice
Is heard afar like thunder,
The lads and maids arrested stand,
And watch and wait with wonder.
Quite promptly I’m obeyed, and yet
’Tis only fair to say
My master bangs me right and left,
And him I must obey.
335.
I am useful on a farm, and on shipboard. Transpose me and I am not out
of place on your tables, though I am most at home on the other side of
the world. Change me to my original form, and remove my middle, and I
become a part of your face.
POSITIVES AND COMPARATIVES.
336.
He brings his bill for service done
And straightway mounts his steed.
337.
The little rascal plays his pranks,
Then runs away with speed.
338.
Now see the youth with nimble tread
As step by step he mounts!
339.
How well the story he’ll relate!
How rapidly he counts!
340.
Then give me but my Arab steed,
And well I’ll shave his head.
341.
Oh! what a horrid, noisy bell!
The noontide meal is spread.
342.
It was myself--mistake me not--
Whose wrath was kindled at the thought.
343.
The sombre tree grew at the foot of the mountain:
Just where the pitcher we filled at the fountain.
344.
The debts he’s contracted to you and to me,
By the silver that’s in it, will canceled be.
345.
Beside the brook one summer day
When Nature all was merry,
I saw a gypsy maiden stray,
As brown as any berry.
She, with the limpid waters quenched her thirst,
And picked a simple salad of my FIRST.
The woodbine and the eglantine,
The clematis and mallow,
Delight to twine and interwine
Beside that streamlet shallow;
And, kissed by sunlight, and caressed by dews,
My SECOND in the ambient air diffuse.
The sun went down; the twilight fell;
Out shone the stars unnumbered;
Each flowret closed its honeyed cell,
And Nature softly slumbered.
While, pale and cold, across the heavens stole
In modest, maiden majesty, my WHOLE.
346.
The following puzzle was first published in 1628, and was reprinted in
_Hone’s Every-Day Book_ for 1826:
A vessel sailed from a port in the Mediterranean, with thirty
passengers, consisting of fifteen Jews and fifteen Christians. During
the voyage a heavy storm arose, and it was found necessary to throw
overboard one-half the passengers, in order to lighten the ship. After
consultation, they agreed to a proposal from the captain, that he
should place them all in a circle, and throw overboard every ninth man
until only fifteen should be left. The treacherous wretch then arranged
them in such a way, that all the Jews were thrown overboard, and all
the Christians saved. In what order were they placed?
347.
~pO^l ^Po++l++ p^o^l
P~ol POL P^oL
ST
348.
A man building a barn, wished to place in it a window 3 ft. high by 3
ft. wide. But, finding there was not room enough, he had it made half
the size intended, without altering height or width.
349.
PERSIAN RIDDLE.
Between a thickset hedge of bones,
A small, red dog now barks, now moans.
350.
I contain only two syllables. My FIRST implies plurality; my SECOND,
sound health. My WHOLE is the name of a profligate earl who was
the third husband of a queen noted alike for her beauty and her
misfortunes. He died insane and in exile; and the beautiful queen,
after being queen consort in one country, and reigning sovereign in
another, spent nineteen years in captivity, and was finally beheaded on
the 8th of January, 1587.
351.
A celebrated line from Shakespeare.
[Illustration: (‡ Four large uppercase letters: K, I, N, D. The letter D
is cut off such that only the left half of it is visible.)]
352.
The blacksmith with hammer of musical ----
Forges a chain of a ponderous ----
His hands are brawny and black as ----
But he loves his work as well
As his neighbor goldsmith at ease in a ----
Twisting fine gold to the size of a ----
And weaving a trifle light as ----
For the delicate ear of a belle.
353.
TRANSMUTATIONS.
1. A letter made crazy by being placed in order.
2. A letter becomes an island when surrounded by a belt.
3. A letter is pleased when set on fire.
4. A letter falls in love when it is beaten.
5. A letter is hated when it is examined.
6. A letter becomes a sailor when it leaves the house.
7. A letter is filled with crystals when it becomes a creditor.
8. A letter becomes musical when it is made thick.
9. A letter changes its shape when empty.
10. A letter is seen when it is spotted.
11. Another is seen when taken in hand.
12. When a letter is perforated it draws near the ocean.
13. It costs money for a letter to be thoughtful.
14. A letter is always slandered when it becomes noted.
What letters are they?
354.
My FIRST a liquid path is made
By something used in foreign trade.
My SECOND pours from out his throat
To weary ones a welcome note,
Coming, a sure and pleasant token
That winter’s icy chain is broken.
My WHOLE I’ve found in purple bloom,
Or clothed in white ’mid forest gloom,
Leaves, petals, sepals, all in threes--
A triple triplet, if you please.
355.
On muster-day the boys were ----
Each nerve to show a splendid ----
When suddenly the cry, ’Tis ----
Proclaims ill luck begun;
From fine cockades the beauty ----
Adown their uniforms are ----
The streams that spoil their fun.
Crestfallen, homeward they are ----
When lo! a bright bow over ----
Tells that the rain is done.
356.
Brilliant with white and golden light
I blossom in the shade;
Emblem of purity and truth,
Though of two falsehoods made.
357.
The egotist my FIRST employs
To consummate his bliss,
The school-boy finds it in a noise,
The lover in a kiss.
When on the field, in dread array,
Opposing legions wait the fray,
When trumpets sound and banners wave,
The watchword “Victory or the Grave”
Where’er my SECOND may be found,
The bravest knights will there abound.
What though my THIRD the soldier spurns
With undisguised disdain,
To it the farmer gladly turns
To cultivate the plain.
My WHOLE a gallant warrior’s name,
The idol of the fair;
A wizard celebrates his fame--
You’ll find my subject there.
358.
_A little word of syllables three,
Holds in its heart a mystery._
I walk the earth; I climb the sky;
Full fierce below, serene on high;
I lead the field, I lead the fold,
I call to mind the fleece of gold.
Four times ten centuries ago,
When Abraham’s shepherds watched by night,
Their flocks upon the fields below,
Above, the stars’ mysterious light,
The heavenly host all followed one
Whose name proclaimed his mission high,
He “went before and led the way,”
We joined his train submissively.
At length, as centuries rolled on,
His leadership and prestige gone,
In turn _I_ led the flocks on high,--
As on the earth, so in the sky.
When many centuries again
Had joined the eternal past,
I found the fate of all create
Was mine--was mine--at last!
And while, my ancient honors lost,
I yield to my changed destiny,
Another chief the starry host
In stately march precedes on high.
(To make the enigma more complete,
If to this word of syllables three,
A personal pronoun be prefixed,
The _three_ reduced to _two_ you’ll see:
And this new word will just express
What everything earthly does in time,
Life’s bitter sooner than its sweets,--
So end the riddle and the rhyme.)
359.
What kind of paper is most like a sneeze?
360.
Why did Edward Everett like to write his own name?
361.
Why would not the same name be a good exercise in writing?
362.
A farmer had ten apple trees to plant. He desired to place them in five
rows, having four in each row. This he succeeded in doing. How?
363.
Quotation from Shakespeare:
[Illustration: (‡ Three columns of text, which are shown below. The
first column is enclosed in a large 0.)
M
x A
10 & L
u I
8 C
(⬭)
E.
]
364.
One little boy said to another: “I have an own and only sister, but she
has no brother.” How was that?
365.
If stately Edith give her ----
To Reginald, ’twill end my ----
For it transcends my utmost ----
To make a hero of a ----
366.
On grassy upland chirps the ----
Sad in the valley roams the ----
Thinking of bright hours too soon ----
Humming in misery “Non è ----”
He thinks not of the west so brightly ----
Nor listens to the faint and distant ----
But dreams of the false fair to whom is ----
The wo which never, never, will take ----.
367.
Convert the following into a couplet, perfect in rhyme and rhythm,
without adding or omitting a single letter:
“O Deborah, Deborah! wo unto thee
For thou art as deaf as a post.”
368.
One and the same word of two syllables, answers each of the following
triplets:
I. MY FIRST springs in the mountains;
MY SECOND springs out of the mountains;
MY WHOLE comes with a spring over the mountains.
II. MY FIRST runs up the trees;
MY SECOND runs past the trees;
MY WHOLE spreads over the trees.
III. MY FIRST runs on two feet;
MY SECOND runs without feet;
MY WHOLE just glides away.
IV. To catch MY FIRST, men march after it;
To capture MY SECOND, they march over it;
To possess MY WHOLE, they go through a march before it.
369.
Said the Moon to the Sun:
“Is the daylight begun?”
Said the Sun to the Moon:
“Not a moment too soon.
You’re a full Moon,” said he;
She replied, with a frown,
“Well! I never did see
So uncivil a clown!”
Query: Why was the Moon so angry?
370.
It is as high as all the stars,
No well was ever sunk so low;
It is in age five thousand years,
It was not born an hour ago.
It is as wet as water is;
No red-hot iron e’er was drier;
As dark as night, as cold as ice,
Shines like the sun, and burns like fire.
No soul, nor body to consume--
No fox more cunning, dunce more dull;
’Tis not on earth, ’tis in this room,
Hard as a stone, and soft as wool.
’Tis of no color, but of snow,
Outside and inside black as ink;
All red, all yellow, green and blue--
This moment you upon it think.
In every noise, this strikes your ear,
’Twill soon expire, ’twill ne’er decay;
Does always in the light appear,
And yet was never seen by day.
Than the whole earth it larger is,
Yet, than a small pin’s point, ’tis less;
I’ll tell you ten times what it is,
Yet after all, you shall not guess!
’Tis in your mouth, ’twas never nigh--
Where’er you look, you see it still;
’Twill make you laugh, ’twill make you cry;
You feel it plain, touch what you will.
371.
My FIRST, so faithful, fond and true,
Will ne’er forsake or injure you;
My SECOND, coming from the street
You often trample under feet;
My THIRD you sleep on every night,
Serene and calm, without affright;
My WHOLE is what you should not be
When talking with your friends or me.
372.
My FIRST is a little river in England that gave name to a celebrated
university; my SECOND is always near; my THIRD sounds like several
large bodies of water; and my WHOLE is the name of a Persian monarch,
the neighing of whose horse gave him a kingdom and a crown.
373.
A horse in the midst of a meadow suppose,
Made fast to a stake by a line from his nose;
How long must this line be, that, feeding all ’round,
Permits him to graze just an acre of ground?
374.
FIRST, A house where man and beast
Find themselves at home;
SECOND, Greatest have and least
Wheresoe’er you roam;
THIRD, A pronoun, meaning many,
(You must add an L);
ALL, The manner of our meeting
When you ring my bell.
375.
A DINNER PARTY.
THE GUESTS,
(Who are chiefly Anachronisms and other Incongruities.)
The First: Escaped his foes by having his horse shod backward.
Second: Surnamed, The Wizard of the North.
3d: Dissolved pearls in wine; “herself being dissolved in love.”
4th: Was first tutor to Alexander the Great.
5th: Said “There are no longer Pyrenees.”
6th: The Puritan Poet.
7th: The Locksmith King.
8th: The woman “who drank up her husband.”
9th: The Architect of St. Peter’s, Rome.
10th: The Miner King.
11th: Surnamed The King Maker.
12th: The woman who married the murderer of her husband, and of her
husband’s father.
13th: The Architect of St. Paul’s, London.
14th: The man who spoke fifty-eight languages; whom Byron called “a
Walking Polyglot.”
15th: A death-note, and a father’s pride.
16th: The Bard of Ayrshire.
17th: The Knight “without fear, and without reproach.”
18th: Refused, because he dared not accept, the crown of England.
19th: Whose vile maxim was “every man has his own price.”
20th: The king who had an emperor for his foot-stool.
21st: The conqueror of the conqueror of Napoleon.
22d: The inventor of gunpowder.
23d: The king who entered the enemy’s camp, disguised as a harper.
24th: The greatest English navigator of the eighteenth century.
25th: The inventor of the art of printing.
26th: Whom Napoleon called “the bravest of the brave.”
27th: Who first discovered that the earth is round.
28th: The diplomatic conqueror of Napoleon.
29th: The inventor of the reflecting telescope.
30th: The conqueror of Pharsalia.
31st: The inventor of the safety lamp.
32d: First introduced tobacco into England.
33d: Discovered the Antarctic Continent.
34th: The present poet laureate of England.
35th: His immediate predecessor.
36th: The first of the line.
37th: Surnamed “the Madman of the North.”
38th: The young prince who carried a king captive to England.
39th: First sailed around the world.
40th: Said “language was given us to enable us to conceal our thoughts.”
41st: The Father of History.
* * * * *
DISHES, RELISHES, DESSERT.
1: Natural caskets of valuable gems.
2: Material and immaterial.
3: The possessive case of a pronoun and an ornament.
4: A sign of the zodiac, (pluralized).
5: One-third of Cesar’s celebrated letter, and the centre of the solar
system.
6: Where Charles XII. went after the battle of Pultowa.
7: Whose English namesake Pope called “the brightest, wisest, meanest
of mankind.”
8: A celebrated English essayist.
9: Formerly a workman’s implement.
10: The ornamental part of the head.
11: An island in Lake Ontario.
12: Timber, and the herald of the morning.
13: A share in a rocky pathway.
14: The unruly member.
15: The earth, and a useful article.
16: An iron vessel, and eight ciphers.
17: A letter placed before what sufferers long for.
18: Like values, and odd ends.
19: A preposition, a piece of furniture, and a vowel, (pluralized).
20: An insect, followed by a letter, (pluralized).
21: The employment of some women, and the dread of all.
22: A kind of carriage, and a period of time.
23: A net for the head, an organ of sense, an emblem of beauty.
24: By adding two letters, you’ll have an Eastern conqueror.
25: Five-sevenths of a name not wholly unconnected with Bleak House and
Borrioboola Gha.
26: An underground room, and a vowel.
27: Skill, part of a needle, and to suffocate, (pluralized).
28: Antics.
29: An intimation burdens.
30: What if it should lose its savor?
31: Where you live a contented life; a hotel, and a vowel.
32: The staff of life.
33: What England will never become.
34: Scourges.
35: Running streams.
36: A domestic fowl, and the fruit of shrubs.
37: Married people.
38: A Holland prince serene, (pluralized).
39: To waste away, and Eve’s temptation, (pluralized).
40: Four-fifths of a month, and a dwelling, (pluralized).
41: Busybodies.
42: What Jeremiah saw in a vision.
43: Very old monkeys.
44: Approach convulsions.
45: Small blocks for holding bolts.
* * * * *
UNGUESSED RIDDLES.
As, on Louis Gaylord Clarke’s authority, “no museum is complete without
the club that killed Captain Cook”--he had seen it in six--so no
collection of riddles can be considered even presentable without the
famous enigma so often republished, and always with the promise of “£50
reward for a solution.” It was first printed in the _Gentlemen’s
Magazine_, London, in March, 1757.
The compiler of this little book has no hope of winning the prize, and
leaves the lists open to her readers, with a hope that some one of them
may succeed in “guessing” not only this, but the next riddle, of whose
true answer she has not the faintest idea.
The noblest object in the works of art;
The brightest scenes which Nature can impart;
The well-known signal in the time of peace;
The point essential in a tenant’s lease;
The farmer’s comfort as he drives the plough;
A soldier’s duty, and a lover’s vow;
A contract made before the nuptial tie;
A blessing riches never can supply;
A spot that adds new charms to pretty faces;
An engine used in fundamental cases;
A planet seen between the earth and sun;
A prize that merit never yet has won;
A loss which prudence seldom can retrieve;
The death of Judas, and the fall of Eve;
A part between the ancle and the knee;
A Papist’s toast, and a physician’s fee;
A wife’s ambition, and a parson’s dues;
A miser’s idol, and the badge of Jews.
If now, your happy genius can divine
The corresponding word in every line,
By the first letter plainly may be found
An ancient city that is much renowned.
The other unguessed, if not unguessable, riddle claims to come from
Cambridge, and is as follows:
A Headless man had a letter to write;
It was read by one who had lost his sight;
The Dumb repeated it, word for word;
And he was Deaf who listened and heard.
(See Key.)
* * * * *
QUESTIONS NOT TO BE ANSWERED UNTIL THE WORLD IS WISER.
Considering how useful the ocean is to mankind, are poets justified in
calling it “a _waste_ of waters”?
How can we catch _soft_ water when it is raining hard?
Where is the chair that “Verbum sat” in?
How does it happen that _Fast_ days are always provokingly
_slow_ days?
How is it that a storm looks heavy when it keeps lightening? And the
darker it grows, the more it lightens?
When it is said of a man that “he never forgets himself,” are we to
understand that his conduct is absolute perfection, or that it is the
perfection of selfishness?
* * * * *
PARADOXES.
1st. Polus instructed Ctesiphon in the art of pleading. Teacher and
pupil agreed that the tuition-fee should be paid when the latter should
win his first case. Some time having gone by, and the young man being
still without case or client, Polus, in despair of his fee, brought the
matter before the Court, each party pleading his own cause. Polus spoke
first, as follows:
“It is indifferent to me how the Court may decide this case. For,
if the decision be in my favor, I recover my fee by virtue of the
judgment; but, if my opponent wins the case, this being his first, I
obtain my fee according to the contract.”
Ctesiphon, being called on for his defense, said:
“The decision of the Court is indifferent to _me_. For, if in my
favor, I am thereby released from my debt to Polus. But, if I lose the
case, the fee cannot be demanded, according to our contract.”
2d. A certain king once built a bridge, and decreed that all persons
about to cross it, should be interrogated as to their destination. If
they told the truth they should be permitted to pass unharmed; but, if
they answered falsely, they should be hanged on a gallows erected at
the centre of the bridge. One day a man, about to cross, was asked the
usual question, and replied:
“I am going to be hanged on that gallows!”
Now, if they hanged him, he had told the truth, and ought to have
escaped; but, if they did not hang him, he had “answered falsely,” and
ought to have suffered the penalty of the law.
PART II.
FANCY TITLES FOR BOOKS.
_Furnished by Thomas Hood for a blind door in the Library at
Chatsworth, for his friend the Duke of Devonshire._
Percy Vere. In Forty Volumes.
Dante’s Inferno; or Descriptions of Van Demon’s Land.
Ye Devyle on Two Styx: (black letter).
Lamb’s Recollections of Suet.
Lamb on the Death of Wolfe.
Plurality of Livings: with Regard to the Common Cat.
Boyle on Steam.
Blaine on Equestrian Burglary; or the Breaking-in of Horses.
John Knox on Death’s Door.
Peel on Bell’s System.
Life of Jack Ketch, with Cuts of his own Execution.
Cursory Remarks upon Swearing.
Cook’s Specimens of the Sandwich Tongue.
Recollections of Banister. By Lord Stair.
On the Affinity of the Death-Watch and Sheep-Tick.
Malthus’ Attacks of Infantry.
McAdam’s Views of Rhodes.
The Life of Zimmermann. By Himself.
Pygmalion. By Lord Bacon.
Rules of Punctuation. By a Thoroughbred Pointer.
Chronological Account of the Date Tree.
Kosciusko on the Right of the Poles to Stick up for Themselves.
Prize Poems. In Blank Verse.
Shelley’s Conchology.
Chantry on the Sculpture of the Chipaway Indians.
The Scottish Boccaccio. By D. Cameron.
Hoyle on the Game Laws.
Johnson’s Contradictionary.
* * * * *
When Hood and his family were living at Ostend for economy’s sake, and
with the same motive Mrs. Hood was doing her own work, as we phrase it,
he wrote to a friend in England: “Jane is becoming an excellent cook
and housemaid, and I intend to raise her wages. She had nothing a week
before, and now I mean to double it.”
* * * * *
It has been estimated that of all possible or impossible ways of
earning an honest livelihood, the most arduous, and at the same time
the way which would secure the greatest good to the greatest number,
would be to go around, cold nights, and get into bed for people! To
this might be added, going around cold mornings and getting up for
people; and, most useful and most onerous of all, going around among
undecided people and making up their minds.
* * * * *
In these days of universal condensation--of condensed milk, condensed
meats, condensed news--perhaps no achievement of that kind ought to
surprise us; but it must be acknowledged that Thackeray’s condensing
feat was the most extraordinary on record. To compress “The Sorrows of
Werther”--that three volumed novel: a book of size--and tears, full of
pathos and prettiness, of devotion and desperation--into four stanzas
that tell the whole story, was a triumph of art which--which it is very
possible GOETHE would admire less than we do.
Werther had a love for Charlotte
Such as words can never utter.
Would you know how first he met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.
Charlotte was a married lady,
And a moral man was Werther,
And, for all the wealth of Indies,
Would do nothing for to hurt her.
So he sighed, and pined, and ogled,
And his passion boiled and bubbled,
Till he blew his silly brains out,
And no more was by it troubled.
Charlotte, when she saw his body
Borne before her on a shutter,
Like a well conducted person,
Went on cutting bread and butter.
* * * * *
Theodore Hook was celebrated not more for his marvelous readiness in
rhyming than for the quality of the rhymes themselves. In his hands
the English language seemed to have no choice: plain prose appeared
impossible. Motley was the only wear; fantastic verse the only method
of expression. No less does he press into his service phrases from the
languages, as in the curious verses which follow, in praise of
CLUBS.
If any man loves comfort and
Has little cash to buy it, he
Should get into a crowded club--
A most select society!
While solitude and mutton cutlets
Serve _infelix uxor_, he
May have his club (like Hercules),
And revel there in luxury.
Here’s first the Athenæum club,
So wise, there’s not a man of it
That has not sense enough for six;
(In fact, that is the plan of it).
The very waiters answer you
With eloquence Socratical,
And always lay the knives and forks
In order mathematical.
The Union Club is quite superb;
Its best apartment daily is
The lounge of lawyers, doctors, beaux,
Merchants, _cum multis aliis_.
The Travellers are in Pall Mall,
And smoke cigars so cozily,
And dream they climb the highest Alps,
Or rove the plains of Moselai.
These are the stages which all men
Propose to play their parts upon;
For _clubs_ are what the Londoners
Have clearly set their _hearts_ upon.
OTHER WORLDS.
_Mr. Mortimer Collins indulges in sundry very odd speculations
concerning them._
Other worlds! Those planets evermore
In their golden orbits swiftly glide on;
From quick Hermes by the solar shore,
To remote Poseidon.
Are they like this world? The glory shed
From the ruddy dawn’s unfading portals?
Does it fall on regions tenanted
By a race of mortals?
Are there merry maidens, wicked-eyed,
Peeping slyly through the cottage lattice?
Have they vintage bearing countries wide?
Have they oyster patties?
Does a mighty ocean roar and break
On dark rocks and sandy shores fantastic?
Have they any Darwins there, to make
Theories elastic?
Does their weather change? November fog,
Weeping April, March with many a raw gust?
And do thunder and demented dog
Come to them in August?
Nineteenth century science should unravel
All these queries, but has somehow missed ’em.
When will it be possible to travel
Through the solar system?
STILTS.
Behold the mansion reared by dædal Jack,
See the malt stored in many a plethoric sack,
In the proud cirque of Ivan’s bivouac.
Mark how the Rat’s felonious fangs invade
The golden stores in John’s pavilion laid.
Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin strides,
Subtle Grimalkin to his quarry glides--
Grimalkin grim, that slew the fierce _rodent_,
Whose tooth insidious Johann’s sackcloth rent.
Lo! now the deep mouthed canine foe’s assault,
That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt,
Stored in the hallowed precincts of the hall,
That rose complete at Jack’s creative call.
Here stalks the impetuous Cow with crumpled horn,
Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn,
Who bayed the feline slaughter beast that slew
The Rat predacious, whose keen fangs ran through
The textile fibres that involved the grain,
That lay in Hans’ inviolate domain.
Here walks forlorn the Damsel crowned with rue,
Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs who drew,
Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn
Tossed to the clouds, in fierce, vindictive scorn,
The harrying hound whose braggart bark and stir
Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur
Of Puss, that with verminicidal claw,
Struck the weird Rat, in whose insatiate maw
Lay reeking malt, that erst in Ivan’s courts we saw.
Robed in senescent garb that seems, in sooth,
Too long a prey to Chronos’ iron tooth;
Behold the man whose amorous lips incline,
Full with young Eros’ osculative sign,
To the lorn maiden, whose lac-albic hands
Drew albu-lactic wealth from lacteal glands
Of the immortal bovine, by whose horn
Distort, to realm ethereal was borne
The beast catulean, vexer of that sly
Ulysses quadrupedal, who made die
The old mordacious Rat, that dared devour
Antecedaneous ale, in John’s domestic bower.
Lo here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct
Of saponaceous lock, the Priest, who linked
In Hymen’s golden bands the torn unthrift,
Whose means exiguous stared from many a rift,
Even as he kissed the virgin all forlorn,
Who milked the cow with implicated horn,
Who in fine wrath the canine torturer skied,
That dared to vex the insidious muricide,
Who let the auroral effluence through the pelt
Of the sly Rat that robbed the palace Jack had built.
The loud, cantankerous Shanghai comes at last,
Whose shouts aroused the shorn ecclesiast,
Who sealed the vows of Hymen’s sacrament,
To him who robed in garments indigent,
Exosculates the damsel lachrymose,
The emulgator of that hornèd brute morose,
That tossed the dog, that worried the cat, that _kilt_
The rat, that ate the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built.
* * * * *
The _Home Journal_ having published a set of rather finical rules
for the conduct of equestrians in Central Park, a writer in _Vanity
Fair_ supplemented and satirized them as follows:
ETIQUETTE OF EQUITATION.
When a gentleman is to accompany a lady on horseback,
1st. There must be two horses. (Pillions are out of fashion, except in
some parts of Wales, Australia and New Jersey.)
2d. One horse must have a side saddle. The gentleman will not mount
this horse. By bearing this rule in mind he will soon find no
difficulty in recognizing his own steed.
3d. The gentleman will assist the lady to mount and adjust her foot
in the stirrup. There being but one stirrup, he will learn upon which
side to assist the lady after very little practice.
4th. He will then mount himself. As there are two stirrups to his
saddle, he may mount on either side, but by no means on both; at
least, not at the same time. The former is generally considered the
most graceful method of mounting. If he has known Mr. Rarey he may
mount without the aid of stirrups. If not, he may try, but will
probably fail.
5th. The gentleman should always ride on the right side of the lady.
According to some authorities, the right side is the left. According
to others, the other is the right. If the gentleman is left handed,
this will of course make a difference. Should he be ambidexter, it
will be indifferent.
6th. If the gentleman and lady meet persons on the road, these will
probably be strangers, that is if they are not acquaintances. In
either case the gentleman and lady must govern themselves accordingly.
Perhaps the latter is the evidence of highest breeding.
7th. If they be going in different directions, they will not be
expected to ride in company, nor must these request those to turn
and join the others; and _vice versa_. This is indecorous, and
indicates a lack of _savoir faire_.
8th. If the gentleman’s horse throw him he must not expect him to pick
him up, nor the lady; but otherwise the lady may. This is important to
be borne in mind by both.
9th. On their return, the gentleman will dismount first and assist
the lady from her horse, but he must not expect the same courtesy in
return.
N. B.--These rules apply equally to every species of equitation, as
pony riding, donkey riding, rocking horse riding, or “riding on a
rail.” There will, of course, be modifications required, according to
the form and style of the animal.
SONG OF THE RECENT REBELLION.
AIR: “_Lord Lovell_.”
Lord Lovell he sat in St. Charles’ Hotel,
In St. Charles’ Hotel sat he;
As fine a case of a rebel swell,
As ever you’d wish to see, see, see,
As ever you’d wish to see!
Lord Lovell the town had sworn to defend,
A-waving his sword on high;
He swore that the last ounce of powder he’d spend,
And in the last ditch he would die, die, die,
And in the last ditch he would die.
He swore by black and he swore by blue,
He swore by the stars and bars,
That never he’d fly from a Yankee crew
While he was a son of Mars, Mars, Mars,
While he was a son of Mars.
He had fifty thousand gal-li-ant men,
Fifty thousand men had he,
Who had all sworn with him they would never surren-
Der to any tarnation Yankee, kee, kee,
To any tarnation Yankee.
Sir Farragut came with a mighty fleet;
With a mighty fleet came he;
And Lord Lovell instanter began to retreat,
Before the first boat he could see, see, see,
Before the first boat he could see.
His “fifty thousand gal-li-ant men”
Dwindled down to thousands six,
Who heard a distant cannon, and then,
Commenced a-cutting their sticks, sticks, sticks--
Commenced a-cutting their sticks.
“Oh, tarry, Lord Lovell!” Sir Farragut cried;
“Oh, tarry, Lord Lovell!” cried he;
“I rather think not,” Lord Lovell replied,
“For I’m in a great hurree, ree, ree,
For I’m in a great hurr_ee_!
“I like the drinks at St. Charles’ Hotel,
But I never could bear strong Porter,
Especially when it is served in a shell,
Or mixed in an iron mortar!”
“I reckon you’re right,” Sir Farragut said,
“I reckon you’re right,” said he;
“For if my PORTER should fly to your head,
A terrible crash there’d be, be, be,
A terrible crash there’d be!”
Oh, a wonder it was to see them run!
A wonderful thing to see--
And the Yankees sailed up without shooting a gun,
And captured their great citee, tee, tee,
And captured their great citee.
Lord Lovell kept running all day and all night,
Lord Lovell a-running kept he,
For he swore that he couldn’t abide the sight
Of the gun of a live Yankee, kee, kee,
Of the gun of a live Yankee.
When Lord Lovell’s life was brought to a close
By a sharp-shooting Yankee gunner,
From his head there sprouted a red, red--nose,
From his feet a scarlet runner!
OTHER PARODIES.
“_Come into the garden, Maud!_”
Come out in the garden, Jane,
For the black bear, night, has run,
Come out in the garden, Jane,
It’s time the party was done;
And the chickens commence to cackle again,
And the cocks crow, one by one.
For a breeze begins to blow,
And the planet of Jupiter, he,
Grows shaky and pale, as the dawn, you know,
Comes striding over the sea;
Grows pale, as the dawn keeps coming, you know,
Grows paler and paler to be.
All night have the tulips shaked,
At the noise of the fiddle and drum,
All night has the trumpet-vine quivered and quaked,
As the sounds of the dancing have come;
Till the chickens and cocks in the hen-roost waked,
And they stopped the fiddle and drum.
I said to the tulip, “It’s I,” says I,
Whom she likes best of them all;
“When will they let her alone?” says I,
“She’s tired I know of the ball.
Now part of the folks have said good-bye,
And part are now in the hall;
They’ll all be off directly,” says I,
“And then I’m over the wall.”
I said to the pink, “Nigh over, I think,
The dancing and glancing and fun:
O young Lloyd Lever, your hopes will sink
When you find the charmer is won!
We’re one, we’re one,” I remarked to the pink,
“In spirit already one.”
And the red of the pink went into my face,
As I thought of your sweet “I will;”
And long I stood in that slippery place,
For I heard our waterfall spill,
Spill over the rocks and run on in the race,
The mill-race down by the mill,
From the tree where I feebly stated my case,
To the fence where you answered “I will.”
The drowsy buttercup went to bed
Nor left a lock of her hair;
The great sunflower he nodded his head
And the poppy snored in his chair;
But the pink wasn’t sleepy at all, she said,
Wishing my pleasure to share,
No tulip or pink of them cared for bed,
They knew I expected you there.
Queen pink of the feminine pinks in there,
Come out in the garden to me,
In the velvet basque, silk-lined you wear,
Queen pink and tulip you be:
Bob out little face, running over with hair,
And let the hollyhocks see.
Is that the marigold’s laugh I hear,
Or the sound of her foot as ’t fell?
She is coming, my duck, my dear;
She is coming, my bird, my belle.
The blood-pink cries; “She is near, she is near,”
And the pale pink sobs: “Do tell!”
The snap-dragon says: “D’you see her? D’you see her?”
And the tulip, “Yes, there by the well!”
She is coming, my joy, my pet,
Let her trip it, soft as she chose,
My pulses would livelier get
Were I dying there under the rose;
My blood flow rapider yet
Were I buried down under the rose,
Would start and trickle out ruby and wet
And bubble wherever she goes.
CLEON HATH A MILLION ACRES.
Brown has pockets running over,
Ne’er a dime have I;
Brown he has a wife and children,
Bachelor am I;
Brown he has a dozen servants,
One of ’em am I;
Yet the poorest of us couple
’s Brown; I’ll tell you why.
Brown, ’tis true, possesseth dollars,
All creation I;
And the income that it gives me
Lieth in my eye.
Brown he is a sleepy fellow,
Wide-awake am I;
He in broad-cloth, I in tow-cloth,
Handsomest am I.
Brown has had no education;
Mine you couldn’t buy;
He don’t know we call him “noodle,”
I assert it, I;
Brown, I tell you you’re a noodle,
Noodle you will die;
Who speaks first to change conditions?
--I declare--it’s I!
“WHEN I THINK OF MY BELOVED.”
(_Algonquin Song, in “Hiawatha.”_)
When I think of him I love so,
Oh lor! think of him I love so,
When I am a-thinking of him--
Ouch! my sweetheart, my Bee-no-nee!
Oh lor! when we left each other
He presented me a thimble--
As a pledge, a silver thimble,
Ouch! my sweetheart, my Bee-no-nee!
“I’ll go ’long with you,” he whispered,
Oh lor! to the place you come from;
“Let me go along,” he whispered,--
Ouch! my sweetheart, my Bee-no-nee!
“It’s awful fur, full fur,” I answered,
“Fur away it is,” I answered,
“Oh lor! yes, the place I come from--”
Ouch! my sweetheart, my Bee-no-nee!
As I looked ’round for to see him,
Where I left him for to see him,
He was looking for to see me--
Ouch! my sweetheart, my Bee-no-nee!
On the log he was a-sitting,
On the hollow log a-sitting,
That was chopped down by somebody--
Ouch! my sweetheart, my Bee-no-nee!
When I think of him I love so,
Oh lor! think of him I love so,
When I am a-thinking of him--
Ouch! my sweetheart, my Bee-no-nee!
(_From “Milkanwatha.”_)
“NEVER STOOPS THE SOARING VULTURE.”
(_Also from “Milkanwatha.”_)
Never jumps a sheep that’s frightened,
Over any fence whatever,
Over wall, or fence, or timber,
But a second follows after,
And a third, upon the second,
And a fourth, and fifth, and so on,
First a sheep, and then a dozen,
Till they all, in quick succession,
One by one have got clean over.
So misfortunes almost always,
Follow after one another,
Seem to watch each other always;
When they see the tail uplifted,
In the air the tail uplifted,
As the sorrow leapeth over;
Lo! they follow, thicker, faster,
Till the air of earth seems darkened
With the tails of sad misfortunes,
Till our heart within us, weary,
Cry out: “Are there more a-coming?”
THE FALLS OF LODORE.
“Rising and leaping, sinking and creeping,
Striking and raging, as if a war waging,
All around and around, with endless rebound,
Confounding, astounding,
Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound!
“Recoiling, turmoiling, and toiling and boiling,
And dashing, and flashing, and splashing and crashing,
All at once, and all o’er, with a mighty uproar;
And THIS way the water comes down at Lodore!”
A disappointed, “disillusioned,” tourist expresses below _his_ view of
the subject, which slightly differs from Southey’s.
Do you want to be told how it is that the water
Comes down at Lodore?
Why then I’m the man
Of all others, that can,
Or, rather, the man of all others, that _ought_ to
Be able to tell you, without any more
Fuss;
Thus!
Behind a small cavern,
Suppose a dark cavern,
Or ravine, more correctly,
From whose summit directly
As from a stone pitcher,
Out of the which, a
Volume of fluid
Enough for a Druid
To wade to his knees in,
Pours out unceasin’-
Gly down, and not up;
Which would be a sup-
Position so very
To nature contrary,
That it couldn’t be thought a
Supposable case,
For a cascade of water
On any man’s place;
Much more, at Lodore,
Where the water has always come down, heretofore.
Down deep precipices,
And awful abysses,
Ten feet, or fifteen,
The water is seen
To drip, skip, trip, slip, dip
A gill in a minute, in great agitation;
Then goes it again,
With a very perpen-
Dicular smash, dash, splash, crash;
A pint, at the least calculation!
Making no bones
Of wetting the stones,
Which can’t get out,
But wriggle about,
A whole quart of the cascade has got ’em;
And the way they go
Down, isn’t slow;
Rumble, and jumble, and tumble;
Hip, hop, drop, whop, stop!
A gallon has got to the bottom!
And the moral of that is, said the Duchess, that tourists shouldn’t see
NIAGARA before they visit Lodore.
“TELL ME, YE WINGED WINDS.”
Tell me, my secret soul,
Oh, tell me, Hope and Faith,
Is there no resting-place
From women, girls, and death?
Is there no happy spot
Where bachelors are blessed,
Where females never go,
And men escape that pest?
Faith, Hope, and Love, best boon to mortals given,
Waved their bright wings, and whispered, “Yes, in Heaven!”
SEEING IS BELIEVING: SEEING IS DECEIVING.
Here is a row of capital letters, and of figures, of ordinary size and
shapes:
SSSSXXXXZZZZZ33338888
They are such as are made up of two parts, of similar form. Look
carefully at these, and you will perceive that the upper halves of the
characters are a very little smaller than the lower halves--so little
that, at a mere glance, we should declare them to be of equal size.
Now, turn the page upside down, and, without any careful looking, you
will see that this difference in size is very much exaggerated--that
the real top half of the letter is very much smaller than the other
half. It will be seen by this that there is a tendency in the eye to
enlarge the upper part of any object upon which it looks. Thus two
circles of unequal size might be drawn and so placed that they would
appear exactly alike.
FANTASTIC NAMES.
An Ohio lady told me that she knew three young ladies belonging to one
family, named severally:
_Regina_, _Florida Geneva_, and _Missouri Iowa_. And that an
ill-starred child, born about the time of the first Atlantic cable
_furor_, was threatened with the name of _Atalanta Telegrapha
Cabelletta_!
The cable collapsed, and the child escaped; but a young lady of
Columbus, born January 1, 1863, was less fortunate. She was named
by her parents in honor of the event of that day, _Emancipation
Proclamation_, and is known by the pet name “Proklio.”
I knew a boy named _Chief Justice Marshall_; a young man, (greatness
was thrust upon him,) named _Commodore Perry V----r_, and have been
told of a little girl named by her novel-loving mother, _Lady Helen
Mar_.
Mrs. C., of Western New York, was, in her girlhood, acquainted with a
boy who by no means “rejoiced in the name” of _John Jerome Jeremiah
Ansegus P. S. Brown McB----e_.
A colored woman in Dunkirk named her infant son in honor of two lawyers
there: _Thomas P. Grosvenor William O. Stevens D----s_; and, at an
Industrial school in Detroit, there was some years ago a colored boy
named _Nicholas Evans Esquire Providence United States of America
Jefferson Davis B----s_.
In Cazenovia there once lived a young lady named _Encyclopedia
Britannica D----y_.
There, too, Messrs. _Hyde_ and _Coop_ lived side by side for several
years. Then Mr. _Hyde_ moved out of town, and spoiled that little game.
It was noted as a coincidence when a Mr. _Conkrite_, of Tecumseh,
Mich., sold his dwelling-house and lot to Mrs. _Cronkite_.
A farmer in Allegany county, N. Y., named his children _Wilhelmina
Rosalinda_, _Sobriski Lowanda_, _Eugertha Emily_, _Hiram Orlaska_,
_Monterey Maria_ and _Delwin Dacosti_. The following are also vouched
for as genuine American names: _Direxa Polyxany Dodge_, _Hostalina
Hypermnestra Meacham_, _Keren Habuch Moore_ and _Missouri Arkansas
Ward_.
There lived in Greenfield, N. Y., a certain Captain _Parasol_; and, at
Niagara Falls, for a time, a Methodist minister named _Alabaster_.
I have lately heard of a Mrs. _Achilles_, a Mr. and Mrs. _December_,
a _John January_, and a Mr. _Greengrass_; and of an Indiana girl, at
school in Cincinnati, named _Laura Eusebia Debutts Miranda M’Kinn
Parron Isabella Isadora Virginia Lucretia A----p_.
In 1874 one of the young ladies at a certain convent school in West
Virginia, was Miss _Claudia Deburnabue Bellinger Mary Joseph N----p_.
The following are names of stations on the “E. and N. A. Railway,”
New Brunswick: _Quispamsis_, _Nanwigewank_, _Ossekeag_, _Passekeag_,
_Apohaqui_, _Plumweseep_, _Penobsquis_, _Anagance_, _Petitcodiac_,
_Shediac_, _Point du Chene_; and we should particularly like to hear a
conductor sing them.
LADIES’ NAMES.
_Their Sound._
There is a strange deformity,
Combined with countless graces,
As often in the ladies’ names
As in the ladies’ faces.
Some names are fit for every age,
Some only fit for youth;
Some passing sweet and musical,
Some horribly uncouth;
Some fit for dames of loftiest grades,
Some only fit for scullery maids.
Ann is too plain and common,
And Nancy sounds but ill;
Yet Anna is endurable,
And Annie better still.
There is a grace in Charlotte,
In Eleanor a state,
An elegance in Isabelle,
A haughtiness in Kate:
And Sara is sedate and neat,
And Ellen innocent and sweet.
Matilda has a sickly sound,
Fit for a nurse’s trade;
Sophia is effeminate,
And Esther sage and staid;
Elizabeth’s a matchless name,
Fit for a queen to wear--
In castle, cottage, hut or hall,
A name beyond compare:
And Bess and Bessie follow well,
But Betsy is detestable.
Maria is too forward,
And Gertrude is too gruff,
Yet, coupled with a pretty face,
Is pretty name enough:
And Adelaide is fanciful,
And Laura is too fine,
But Emily is beautiful,
And Mary is divine;
Maud only suits a high-born dame,
And Fanny is a baby name.
Eliza is not very choice,
Jane is too blunt and bold,
And Martha somewhat sorrowful,
And Lucy proud and cold.
Amelia is too light and gay,
Fit only for a flirt,
And Caroline is vain and shy,
And Flora smart and pert;
Louisa is too soft and sleek--
But Alice, gentle, chaste and meek.
And Harriet is confiding,
And Clara grave and mild,
And Emma is affectionate,
And Janet arch and wild;
And Patience is expressive,
And Grace is old and rare,
And Hannah, kind and dutiful,
And Margaret, frank and fair;
And Faith, and Hope, and Charity
Are heavenly names for sisters three.
LADIES’ NAMES.
THEIR SIGNIFICANCE.
Frances is frank and free;
Bertha is purely bright;
Clara is illustrious;
Cecilia, dim of sight.
Katharine is pure;
Barbara, from afar;
Mabel is lovable;
Lucy is a morning star.
Wisdom is Sophia’s name;
Happiness, Letitia’s;
Adelaide a princess is;
Beatrice, delicious.[2]
Susan is a lily;
Julia has soft hair;
Sara is a lady;
Rosalind, as roses fair.
Constance, firm and resolute;
Grace is favor meet;
Emily has energy;
Melicent is honey-sweet.
Elizabeth and Isabel
To GOD are consecrate;
Edith is happiness;
Maud has courage great.
Mary or Maria,
Star of the sea;
Margaret, a pearl;
Agnes, chastity.
Agatha is truly kind;
Eleanor is light;
Esther is good fortune;
Elvira’s soul is white.
Antoinette, Anne, Anna,
Grace and favor rare;
Geraldine and Bridget,
Strong beyond compare.
Noble is Eugenia;
Flora, queen of flowers;
Virginia is purity;
Let her grace be ours!
GEOGRAPHICAL PROPRIETY.
The Brewers should to Malta go,
The dullards all to Scilly,
The Quakers to the Friendly Isles,
The Furriers to Chili.
Spinsters should to the Needles go;
Wine-bibbers to Burgundy;
Gourmands may lunch at Sandwich Isles,
Wits sail to Bay of Fundy.
Cooks, from Spithead, should go to Greece;
And, while the Miser waits
His passage to the Guinea Coast,
Spendthrifts are in the Straits.
The Babies (bless their little hearts!)
That break our nightly rest,
Might be sent off to Babylon,
To Lapland, or to Brest.
Musicians hasten to the Sound;
Itinerants to Rome;
And let the race of hypocrites
At Canton find their home.
Lovers should fly to Cape Good Hope,
Or castles build in Spain;
Debtors should go to Oh-I-Owe;
Our Sailors to the Maine.
Bold Bachelors to the United States;
Maids to the Isle of Man;
The Gardener should to Botany go;
And Shoeblacks to Japan.
This all arranged, and misplaced men
Would then no longer vex us;
While any not provided for
Could go, at once, to Texas!
THE CAPTURE.
When, in the tenth century, the Tartars, led by their ruthless chief,
invaded Hungary, and drove its king from the disastrous battle-field,
despair seized upon all the inhabitants of the land. Many had fallen
in conflict, many more were butchered by the pitiless foe, some sought
escape, others apathetically awaited their fate. Among the last was a
nobleman who lived retired on his property, distant from every public
road. He possessed fine herds, rich corn fields, and a well stocked
house, built but recently for the reception of his wife, who now for
two years had been its mistress.
Disheartening accounts of the general misfortune had reached his
secluded shelter, and its peaceful lord was horror-stricken. He
trembled at every sound, at every step; he found his meals less savory;
his sleep was troubled; he often sighed, and seemed quite lost and
wretched. Thus anxiously anticipating the troubles which menaced him,
he sat, one day, at his well closed window, when suddenly a Tartar,
mounted on a fiery steed, galloped into the court. The Hungarian sprang
from his seat, ran to meet his guest, and said:
“Tartar, thou art my lord; I am thy servant; all thou seest is thine.
Take what thou fanciest; I do not oppose thy power. Command; thy
servant obeys.”
The Tartar immediately leaped from his horse, entered the house, and
cast a careless glance on all the precious adornments it contained. His
eyes rested upon the brilliant beauty of the lady of the house, who
appeared, tastefully attired, to greet him there, no less graciously
than her consort.
The Tartar seized her, with scarcely a moment’s hesitation, and,
unheedful of her shrieks, swung himself upon the saddle, and spurred
away, carrying off his lovely booty.
All this was but an instant’s work. The nobleman was thunderstruck, yet
he recovered, and hastened to the gate. He could hardly distinguish,
in the distance, the figures of the lady and her relentless captor. At
length a deep sigh burst from his overcharged heart, and he exclaimed
in the bitterness of his bereavement:
“Alas! poor Tartar!”
* * * * *
Matrimony has been defined An insane desire on the part of a young man
to pay a young woman’s board. But it might be said, with equal justice,
to be An insane desire on the part of a young woman, to secure--a
master.
* * * * *
THE FIRST MARRIAGE.--And Adam said: “This is now bone of my
bone, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman because she was
taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and
cleave unto his wife. They shall be one flesh.”
No cards.
* * * * *
In a country church-yard is found this epitaph: “Here lie the bodies of
James Robinson and Ruth his wife;” and, underneath, this text: “Their
warfare is accomplished.”
* * * * *
A lady having died unmarried at the age of sixty-five, the following
epitaph was engraved upon her tombstone:
“She was fearfully and wonderfully maid.”
* * * * *
“This animal,” said a menagerie-man, “is exceedingly timid and retired
in its habits. It is seldom seen by the human eye--sometimes never!”
* * * * *
If it was Talleyrand who described language as a gift bestowed upon man
in order to enable him to conceal his thoughts, he scarcely made that
use of it, when, in reply to some friend who asked his opinion of a
certain lady, he said: “She has but one fault--she is insufferable!”
* * * * *
“What do you want?” demanded an irate house-holder, called to the
window at eleven o’clock, by the ringing of the door-bell:
“Want to stay here all night.”
“Stay there, then!” Window closed emphatically.
* * * * *
“I want to go to the Revere,” said a stranger in Boston to a citizen on
the street.
“Well, you may go, if you’ll come back pretty soon,” was the
satisfactory reply.
* * * * *
“I wish to take you apart for a few moments,” one gentleman said to
another in a mixed company.
“Very well,” said the person addressed, rising and preparing to follow
the first speaker; “but I shall insist on being put together again!”
* * * * *
Two gentlemen meeting at the door of a street-car in Toledo, and
entering together, both faultlessly dressed for the evening, one of
them, glancing at his companion’s attire, asked briskly: “Well! who
is to be bored to-night?” “I don’t know,” said the other, _as_
briskly, “Where are you going?”
* * * * *
This is the way it sounded to the congregation:
“Wawkaw swaw daw aw waw,
Thaw saw thaw Law ahwaw,
Wawkaw taw thaw rahvawvaw braw
Aw thaw rahjawsaw aw!”
this is what the choir undertook to sing:
“Welcome sweet day of rest,
That saw the Lord arise!
Welcome to this reviving breast,
And these rejoicing eyes!”
* * * * *
Mary Wortley Montague was epigrammatic when she divided mankind into
“three classes--men, women, and the Hervey family”; an English writer
of the present century, when he summed up Harriet Martineau’s creed,
in a travesty on the Mohammedan confession of faith, “There is no
God, and Harriet is his prophet;” an English critic, who described
Forster’s Life of Charles Dickens as a “Biography of John Forster,
with Reminiscences of Dickens”; an American, who said of one of his
own noted countrymen (and it is equally true of many others), “He is
a self-made man, and he worships his Creator;” finally, President
Grant, when he exclaimed: “Sumner does not believe the Bible! I am not
surprised; he didn’t write it!”
* * * * *
Charles Francis Adams, in his eloquent eulogy on W. H. Seward, lapses
into a mixed metaphor which is, perhaps, all things considered, one of
the most remarkable on record. “One single hour,” he says, “of the will
displayed by General Jackson, at the time when Mr. Calhoun--the most
powerful leader secession ever had--was abetting active measures, would
have _stifled the fire in its cradle_.”
This is scarcely excelled even by Sir Roche Boyle’s celebrated trope:
“I smell a rat. I see him floating in the air. But, mark me, I shall
nip him in the bud!”
* * * * *
M. B. was planning plank walks from the front doors of his
Ellicottville cottage to the gate, wishing to combine greatest
convenience with least possible encroachment upon the verdure of the
modest lawn. “Friends in council,” assisting at his deliberations, took
diverse views of the case. One would have the walks meet obliquely in
the form of a Y. Another insisted that whatever angles there were,
should be right angles, etc. Finally, M. B. remarked: “Well! we don’t
seem to agree. No two of us agree. I think I’ll plank the yard all
over, and, where I _want_ the grass to grow BORE HOLES!”
* * * * *
Readers who admire the elliptical and suggestive style, and who,
therefore, adore Mrs. R. H. D. and Mrs. A. D. T. W., ought to be
pleased with the instructions given by a Philadelphian million-heiress
to her agent, in this wise, (_audivi_):
“Where the men are at work, they will throw stones and earth and
timbers against that tree, and there is no use in it. By a little care
they could avoid it, but they won’t _be_ careful. So I’d like you,
as soon as possible, to put a protection around it--_because it isn’t
necessary_.”
... “No, you needn’t drive her out of the grounds. Cows are not
allowed to run in the street, and the owner is liable for trespass if
they do. Shut her up in the yard, and if the owner don’t come for her
to-morrow--Pound her--_because there is a law against it_.”
* * * * *
“Aha!” said a Hibernian gentleman, surprised at his neighbor’s unusual
promptness; “Aha! So you’re first, at last! you were always behind
before!”
Another Emerald Islander, speaking at his breakfast table of the
difference between travel by steam and the old mode, thus illustrated
the point: “Afore the rail-road was built, if ye left Elmira at noon,
and drove purty fast, ye might likely get to Corning to tea. But
to-day, if ye were to start from Elmira at noon on an Express train for
Corning, why, ye’re there _Now_!”
* * * * *
Caledonian shrewdness and the Caledonian dialect, alike speak for
themselves, in a “bonny Scot’s” definition of metaphysics: “When the
mon wha is listenin’, dinna ken what the ither is talkin’ aboot, and
the mon wha is talkin’ dinna ken it himsel’, that is metapheesicks.”
* * * * *
“Be what you would seem to be,” said the Duchess, in Lewis Carroll’s
delightfully droll story of “Alice’s Adventures,”--“or, if you like it
put more simply: Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what
it might appear to others, that what you were or might have been, was
not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be
otherwise.”
That is slightly metapheesickal, perhaps; and the same objection might
be urged against Dr. Hunter’s favorite motto: “It is pretty impossible,
and, therefore, extremely difficult for us to convey unto others those
ideas whereof we are not possessed of ourselves.”
It was Dr. Hunter, who, some years before the war, returned from
Florida, where he had spent the winter in a vain quest of health, and
exhibited to one of his friends a thermometer he had procured there,
marked from 120° only down to zero.
“It was manufactured at the South, I suppose?” she said.
“Oh, no!” was his reply: “It was made in Boston. It’s a Northern
thermometer, with Southern principles.”
* * * * *
Colonel Bingham, of brave and witty memory, had resigned his commission
in the Union army, and come home to die. During his lingering illness,
the family received a visit from a distant relative, a Carolina lady,
with strong secession proclivities, but with sufficient tact not to
express them freely before her Northern friends. However, she could not
altogether conceal them, but would often express her sympathy for “the
soldiers, on both sides”--wish she could distribute the fruit of the
peach-orchard among them, “on both sides,” &c.
One day when the Colonel was suffering, with his usual fortitude, one
of his severest paroxysms of pain, the lady looked in at the door of
his room, and, after watching him a few moments with an expression of
the keenest commiseration, she turned away. Just as soon as he could
breathe again, he gasped out:
“Cousin--Sallie--looked--as if--she was--sorry for me--on both sides!”
* * * * *
A young lady who had married and come north to live, visited, after the
lapse of a year or two, her southern home. It was in the palmy days of
the peculiar institution, and she was as warmly welcomed by the colored
as by the white members of the household. Just before her arrival, a
bottle of medicine with a strong odor of Bourbon had been uncorked,
and, afterward, set away. After the first greetings were over, she
exclaimed:
“I smell spirits. What have you been doing?”
Old Aunt Chloe, who had lingered in the room so as to be near the
beloved new-comer, turned with an air of triumph to her mistress, who
had often rebuked her belief in ghosts, and burst out with:
“Dar, Missus! Didn’t I allus tole yo dere was sperits in dis yere
house? Sometimes I see ’em, sometimes I hear ’em, an’ yo wood’n b’lieve
me; but now, Miss Lizzie’s done gone SMELL ’em!”
* * * * *
The first chapter of a Western novel is said to contain the following
striking passage:
All of a sudden the fair girl continued to sit on the sands, gazing
upon the briny deep, upon whose bosom the tall ships went merrily by,
freighted, ah! who can tell with how much joy and sorrow, and pine
lumber, and emigrants, and hopes and salt fish!
* * * * *
“The story,” said our host, with his inexhaustible humor and
irresistible brogue, “is of a man who died, and forthwith presented
himself at Heaven’s gate, requesting admittance.
‘Have ye bin to Purgatory, my mon?’ says St. Peter.
‘No, yer Riverence.’
‘Thin it’s no good. Ye’ll have to wait awhile.’
While the unlucky ‘Peri’ was slowly withdrawing, another candidate
approached, and the same question was asked him.
‘No, yer Riverence, but I’ve been married.’
‘Well, that’s all the same,’ says St. Peter; ‘Come in!’
At this, the first arrival taking heart of grace, advanced again, and
says he:
‘Plaze yer Riverence, I’ve been married twice!’
‘Away wid ye! Away wid ye!’ says St. Peter: ‘Heaven is no place for
fools!’”
* * * * *
When, some years since, a coalition was talked of between the New York
_World_, the _Times_, and the _Herald_, the _Tribune_ remarked that,
after all, it would be nothing new; it was only the old story of “the
world, the flesh, and the devil.”
* * * * *
In 1871, when the French President was undecided and inactive, in the
face of all the frightful dangers that threatened the nation, some wit
quoted at him the well known verse from Tennyson:
“Thiers! Idle Thiers! We know not what you mean!”
* * * * *
In ’73 a print was widely circulated in Germany, representing Bismarck
pulling away at a rope which was fastened to the massive pillars of a
Cathedral. At his side stood His Satanic Majesty, who thus questioned
him:
“Well, my friend, what are you doing?”
“Trying to pull down the Church.”
“Trying to pull down the Church? And how long do you think it will take
you?”
“Oh, perhaps three or four years.”
“Very good, my friend, very good! I have been trying that for the last
eighteen hundred years; and, if you succeed in three or four, I’ll
resign in your favor!”
* * * * *
When a certain United States Senator disappointed his Ohio constituents
by voting on what they thought the wrong side of a question, some one
(who must have enjoyed his opportunity) hit him with the following
quotation: “He’s Ben Wade, and found wanting.”
* * * * *
“John P. Hale is an old goose!” exclaimed General Cass. Some friend
was kind enough to repeat this saying to the Senator; who replied with
a smile, (and, surely this was the “retort courteous,”) “Tell General
Cass that he’s a Michi-gander!”
* * * * *
At a public dinner in Boston, nearly twenty years ago, Judge Story
proposed as a toast: “The Orator of the Day: Fame follows merit
wherEVER IT goes!” To which Mr. Everett responded: “The President of
the Day: To whatever height the fabric of jurisprudence may aspire in
this country, it can never rise above one Story!”
* * * * *
A newspaper wit announces the discovery of a buried city in the
following pathetic terms: Another lost city has been found on the coast
of Siberia. Now let the man who lost it make his appearance, pay for
this advertisement, and take his old ruins away.
* * * * *
It has been said that the faculty of generalization belongs equally
to childhood and to genius. Was she a genius, clad in sable robes,
and bewailing the recent loss of her husband--she was certainly not a
child--who observed in conversation, with most impressive pathos: “For
we are all liable to become a widow!”
CHARACTERISTIC SAYINGS OF AMERICANS.
Franklin said many things that have passed into maxims, but nothing
that is better known and remembered than “He paid dear, very dear, for
his whistle.”
Washington made but very few epigrammatic speeches. Here is one: “To be
prepared for war is the most effectual means of preserving peace.”
Did you ever hear of old John Dickinson? Well, he wrote of Americans in
1768: “By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.”
Patrick Henry, as every school-boy knows, gave us, “Give me liberty, or
give me death,” and “If this be treason, make the most of it.”
Thomas Paine had many quotable epigrammatic sentences: “Rose like a
rocket; fell like a stick;” “Times that try men’s souls;” “One step
from the sublime to the ridiculous,” etc., etc.
Jefferson’s writings are so besprinkled that it is difficult to
select. In despair we jump at “Few die and none resign,” certainly as
applicable to office-holders now as in Jefferson’s time.
Henry Lee gave Washington his immortal title, “First in war, first in
peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney declared in favor of “Millions for defence,
but not one cent for tribute.”
“Peaceably if we can; forcibly if we must,” is from Josiah Quincy, 1841.
John Adams did not say, “Live or die, survive or perish, I am for the
constitution,” but Daniel Webster said it for him.
The revolutionary age alone would give us our article, had we time to
gather pearls. Coming down, we pass greater, but not more famous men.
Davy Crockett was the illustrious author of “Be sure you are right, and
then go ahead.”
Andrew Jackson gave us “The Union--it must be preserved.”
Benton almost lost his original identity in “Old Bullion,” from his
“hard money” doctrines.
Governor Throop, of New York, was called “Small Light Troop” for years,
from a phrase in a thanksgiving proclamation.
Scott’s “hasty plate of soup” lasted his lifetime.
Taylor’s battle order, “A little more grape, Captain Bragg,” will be
quoted after he is forgotten by “all the world and the rest of mankind.”
Seward is known for the “irrepressible conflict,” wherever the English
language is spoken.
To Washington Irving we owe “The Almighty Dollar.”
Rufas Choate gave us “glittering generalities.”
Tom Corwin’s “welcome with bloody hands to hospitable graves,” gave him
more unenviable criticism than any other saying in his life.
Calhoun gave us “state rights” as a most pernicious and absurd
equivalent for national supremacy under the constitution.
Douglas applied “squatter sovereignty,” though it is probable that Cass
invented it and Calhoun named it.
Stringfellow was the original “Border Ruffian.”
War times gave us no end of epigrammatic utterances. Those of Lincoln
alone would fill a volume--chief of these, is that noble sentiment:
“With charity to all, and malice toward none.”
McClellan’s “All quiet along the Potomac” was repeated so often that
its echo will “ring down through the ages.”
To Gen. Butler the country was indebted for the phrase “Contraband of
War,” as applied to fugitive negroes found within our lines.
Grant gave us “Fight it out on this line,” “Unconditional surrender,”
“I propose to move immediately upon your works,” “Bottled up,”
and a hundred others. It seems to have escaped notice that Grant
is responsible for more of these characterizing, elementary
crystallizations of thought, than any other military leader of modern
times.
One odd example occurs, in his response to Gen. Sheridan’s telegram:
“If things are pushed, Lee will surrender.” “Push things!” was the
reply, and that has passed into a proverb.
DIALECTICAL.
The peculiarities of the Yankee dialect are most amusingly exemplified
by James Russell Lowell, in the Biglow Papers, especially in the First
Series, from which the following extract is taken:
I ’spose you wonder where I be; I can’t tell fur the soul o’ me
Exactly where I be myself, meanin’ by thet, the hull o’ me.
When I left hum, I hed two legs, an’ they wa’n’t bad ones neither;
The scaliest trick they ever played, wuz bringin’ on me hither--
Now one on ’em’s I dunno where, they thought I was a-dyin’,
An’ cut it off, because they said ’twas kind of mortifyin’;
I’m willin to believe it wuz, and yet I can’t see, nuther,
Why one should take to feelin’ cheap a minute sooner ’n t’other,
Sence both wuz equilly to blame--but things is ez they be;
It took on so they took it off, an’ thet’s enough for me.
Where’s my left hand? Oh, darn it! now I recollect wut’s come on’t.
I haint no left hand but my right, and thet’s got jest a thumb on’t,
It aint so handy as it wuz to calkylate a sum on’t.
I’ve lost one eye, but then, I guess, by diligently usin’ it,
The other’ll see all I shall git by way of pay fer losin’ it.
I’ve hed some ribs broke, six I b’lieve, I haint kep’ no account of
’em;
When time to talk of pensions comes, we’ll settle the amount of ’em.
An’ talkin’ about broken ribs, it kinder brings to mind
One that I couldn’t never break--the one I left behind!
Ef you should see her, jest clean out the spout o’ your invention,
And pour the longest sweetnin’ in about a annooal pension;
And kinder hint, in case, you know, the critter should refuse to be
Consoled, I aint so expensive now to keep, as wut I used to be:--
There’s one eye less, ditto one arm, an’ then the leg that’s wooden,
Can be took off, an’ sot away, whenever there’s a pudden!
(Letter from Birdofreedom Sawin, a Mexican volunteer, to a friend at
home.)
* * * * *
The Dundreary “dialect” is admirably illustrated in
A LONDON EXQUISITE’S OPINION OF “UNCLE TOM’S CABIN.”
Aw must wead “Uncle Tom,”--a wawk
Which aw’m afwaid’s extwemely slow:
People one meets begin to talk
Of Mrs. Hawiet Beechah Stowe.
’Tis not as if aw saw haw name
To walls and windahs still confined;
All that is meawly vulgah fame:
Aw don’t wespect the common mind.
But Staffa’d House has made haw quite
Anothah kind of pawson look;
A countess would pawsist last night,
In asking me about haw book.
She wished to know if aw admiawd
Eva, which quite confounded me;
And then haw ladyship inquiawed
Whethaw aw didn’t hate Legwee.
Bai Jove! Aw was completely flawed;
Aw wished myself, or haw, in Fwance;
And that’s the way a fellah’s bawed
By evewy gahl he asks to dance!
Aw felt myself a greataw fool
Than aw had evaw felt befaw;
Aw’ll study at some wagged school
The tale of that old blackamaw!
It must be this same kind of Englishman, of whom the following story
is told: He was traveling on some American railroad, when a tremendous
explosion took place; the cars, at the same time, coming to a sudden
halt. The passengers sprang up in terror, and rushed out to acquaint
themselves with the cause and extent of the mischief, all but His
Serene Highness, who continued reading his newspaper. In a moment some
one rushed back, and informed him that the boiler had burst. “Awe!”
grunted the Englishman.
“Yes, and sixteen people have been killed!”
“Awe!” he muttered again.
“And--and,” said his interlocutor, with an effort, “your own man--your
servant--has been blown into a hundred pieces!”
“Awe! Bring me the piece that has the key of my portmanteau!”
THE LEGAL “DIALECT.”
ODE TO SPRING.
WRITTEN IN A LAWYER’S OFFICE.
Whereas, on sundry boughs and sprays
Now divers birds are heard to sing,
And sundry flowers their heads upraise,
Hail to the coming on of spring!
The birds aforesaid, happy pairs!
Love ’midst the aforesaid boughs enshrines,
In household nests, themselves, their heirs,
Administrators and assigns.
The songs of the said birds arouse
The memory of our youthful hours,
As young and green as the said boughs,
As fresh and fair as the said flowers.
Oh, busiest term of Cupid’s court!
Where tender plaintiffs actions bring;
Seasons of frolic and of sport,
Hail, as aforesaid, coming spring!
* * * * *
“Broad Wiltshire” is sampled below, in a psalm given out by the Clerk
of Bradford Parish Church during an Episcopal visitation:
Let us zing to the praayze an’ glawry ’o God, dree verses of the
hundred an’ vourteenth zaam,--a version specially ’dapted to the
’casion, by myself:
Why hop ye zo, ye little hills,
And what var do’ee skip?
Is it acoz you’m proud to zee
His grace, the Lard Bish_ip_?
Why skip ye zo ye little hills,
And what var do’ee hop?
Is it acoz to preach to we,
Is comed the Lard Bish_op_?
Ees--he has comed to preach to we,--
Then let us aal strick up,
An’ zing a glawrious zong of praayze,
An’ bless the Lard Bish_up_!
* * * * *
Persons fond of economizing words, sometimes use figures (are they
figures of speech?) and letters, in their stead. Thus, the fate of all
earthly things is presented by the consonants DK--a view of the case
entirely consonant with our own observation.
The following is a printer’s short-hand method of expressing his
emotions:
2 KT J.
An SA now I mean 2 write
2 U, sweet KT J,
The girl without a ||,
The belle of UTK.
I 1der if U got the 1
I wrote 2 U, B4
I sailed in the RKDA,
And sent by LN Moore?
My MT head will scarce contain
A calm IDA bright,
But, 8T miles from U, I must
M { this chance to write.
And first, should NE NV U,
B EZ, mind it not;
Should NE friendship show, B true;
They should not be forgot.
But friends and foes alike DK,
As U may plainly C,
In every funeral RA,
And every LEG.
From virtU never DV8;
Her influence B9
Alike induces 10dernS,
And 40tude divine.
This SA until U I C,
I pray U 2 to XQQ;
And not to burn in FIG
My young and 10der muse.
Now fare U well, DR KT J,
I trust that U R true;
When this U C, then U can say
An SA IOU.
AN AFFECTING STORY.
IIAR BB loved a maid,
He loved her to XS,
And XRSIId his NRGG
2 C her and confS.
Says he, “A meeting I’ll proQR,
B4 the day is past;
In spite of all my NMEE,
She shall B mine at last.”
Now UUULe, MLE
Was 10dR and B9,
FMN8 and gentL 2,
Some th0 she was Divine,
But poor IIAR made her X,
She said he was a calf--
SPCLE ODS;
0 spoke in his B½.
She said, “Should you go on UR nEE,
And melt awA in TRR,
Or WR at 10tions 4
The futR 50 years.
“U still would 0 B 2 me,
UR not 2 my mind,
So prA B YYR, sir, and go
Some betR maid 2 find.
“DR MLE, my love’s XS,
PrithE X10U8,
XQQ--4give--and love me, or
I’ll take an OP8.”
And so he did. Alas! poor man!
Kind readR shed a TR,
He took the OPM so strong,
It laid him on his BR!
GEORGE AND HIS POPPAR.
FEB. 22, A.D. 1738.
There livèd once a plan-ti-er
With his son, his only love,
To whom, upon his birth-day,
A brand new ax he guv.
This farmer had a gar-di-ing,
All filled with apple trees,
Which, for the city mar-ki-et,
He trièd for to reeze.
The son he takes the hatch-i-et,
Quite jolly and jocund,
And, going to the apple trees,
He chops them to the grund.
The farmer called his serv-i-ents,
And ranged them in a row;
“Now, who has chopped my apple trees,
And killed them, root and bo’?”
The servants stand ama-zi-ed,
All drawn up in a line;
Then comes a running up to him,
His young and hopeful sci’n.
“I cannot tell a lie, poppar,”
This truthful boy began;
“’Twas I who chopped your apple trees,
’Twas I, your little san.”
Now, who’d you s’pose this buffer was?
And who his filial kin?
It was the immortal Bushrod,
And the late G. Washingtin!
Feb. 22, 1875. MORAL.
Now, whoso takes a hatch-i-et,
And apple trees cuts down,
Will be, if he lives long enough,
A great and pious moun.
* * * * *
The preceding poem, while it places in a new light the immortal history
of the hatchet, also illustrates the wonderful adaptability of the
English language to the purposes of the poet. Thus, in the last stanza,
a rhyme is required for “down,” while the sense demands the word “man”
at the end of the corresponding line. Instantly the ingenious author
perceives the remedy, and changes “man” to “moun,” which doesn’t mean
anything to interfere with the sense, and rhymes with “down” in the
most satisfactory manner.
Other fine illustrations of this kind are found in that learned
translation of a part of the Eneid, published a few years since at
Winsted, Connecticut. Thus:
“The hair stood endwise on his powdered wig,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupig;
He wants to go, and then again he doesn’t;
The situation is indeed unpluzzent.”
The temptation is strong to quote just here several parallel passages
from Davidson’s very literal translation and from this Winsted version.
We will give one, for the sake of the contrast.
“Returning Aurora now illuminates the earth with the lamp of Phœbus,
and has chased away the dewy shades from the sky, when Dido,
half-frenzied, thus addressed her sympathizing sister:
Sister Anna, what dreams terrify and distract my mind! What think you
of this wondrous guest who has come to our abode? In mien how graceful
he appears! In manly fortitude and warlike deeds how great! I am fully
persuaded, (nor is my belief groundless,) that he is the offspring of
the gods. Had I not been fixed and steadfast in my resolution never
to join myself to any in the bonds of wedlock, since my first love by
death mocked and disappointed me, I might, perhaps, give way. Anna,
since the death of my unhappy spouse Sichæus, since the household gods
were stained with his blood, shed by a brother, this stranger alone has
warped my inclinations, and interested my wavering mind. I recognize
the symptoms of my former flame. But he who first linked me to himself,
hath borne away my affection. May he possess it still, and retain it in
the grave. (_Liber Quartus. Ibid._)
Next day the sun rose at the proper time,
And much improved the Carthaginian clime,
When thus her sister Anna she addressed:
“Sister, my nights are full of wild unrest:
This nice young man that’s now a-stopping here
To my affections is a-growing dear;
Celestial is his origin I _know_,--
Such fearless souls don’t emanate below.
My grief! what savage fights that man has fit,
And how genteel he can get up and git!
’F I hadn’t vowed not to unite again,
I’m not quite certain but I should cave in.
Since poor dear Sic was slew by brother Pyg,
For no live man I’ve ever cared a fig,
Till unto Carthage this brave hero came--
But now--I swan--I feel the ancient flame.
Yet, while Sichæus keeps his coffined state,
My heart lies with his ashes--that’s my gait.”
* * * * *
Prizes having been offered for rhymes corresponding to “Ipecacuanha,”
and “Timbuctoo,” it is to be hoped that the ingenious authors of the
following verses gained them:
As I was walking in the grove
With my Julianna,
Some oranges I gave my love,
Pine-apple and banana;
And then, her headache to remove,
Some ipecacuanha.
* * * * *
If I were a cassowary
On the plains of Timbuctoo,
I would eat a missionary,
Flesh and bones, and hymn-book, too.
“And the moral of that is,” as the Duchess observed:
That step can find no place
In rhyme, is not the case:
’Tis quite absurd:
To find a rhyme for “step,”
You only have to sep-
Arate a word.
Also: (“month” having been declared unrhymable;)
They seized a soldier in Broadway,
December was the month;
He saw his pistols thrown away,
He also saw his gun th-
rown away!
* * * * *
In W. G. Clarke’s youth he was requested by a young lady in the
millinery line to contribute a poem to her album. Her “Album” was an
account book diverted from its original purpose, and he responded as
follows:
_To Miss Lucretia Sophonisba Matilda Jerusha Catling_:
Thou canst not hope, O nymph divine | |
That I should ever court the | | 9
Or that, when passion’s glow is done, | |
My heart can ever love but | | 1
When, from Hope’s flowers exhales the dew,| |
Then Love’s false smiles desert us | | 2
Then Fancy’s radiance ’gins to flee, | |
And life is robbed of all the | | 3
And Sorrow sad her tears must pour | |
O’er cheeks where roses bloomed be | | 4
Yes! life’s a scene all dim as Styx; | |
Its joys are dear at | 3 | 6
Its raptures fly so quickly hence | |
They’re scarcely cheap at | | 18d
Oh! for the dreams that then survive! | |
They’re high at pennies | | 25
The breast no more is filled with heaven | |
When years it numbers | | 27
And yields it up to Manhood’s fate | |
About the age of | | 28
Finds the world cold and dim and dirty | |
Ere the heart’s annual count is | | 30
Alas! for all the joys that follow | |
I would not give a _quarter dollar_. | | 25
-------------
1 97½
Thus, my dear maid, I send to you
The balance of my meter due;
Please scrutinize the above amount,
And set it down to my account.
“FRAGMENTS OF AN ORIGINAL LOVE STORY.”
BY
J. G. STAUNTON, AND A SOUTH CAROLINA LADY.
After a “lovers’
quarrel,” when the party of the first part
----Meekly approached and knelt down at her feet,
Praying loud as before he had ranted,
That she would forgive him, and try to be sweet,
And said “Can’t you?” the dear girl re-canted.
Then softly he whispered “How could you do so?
I certainly thought I was jilted;
But come now with me; to the parson we’ll go!
Say, wilt thou, my dear?” and she wilted.
Then gaily he took her to see his new home;
A cottage by no means enchanted;
“Ah! here we can live without longing to roam,”
He said, “Sha’n’t we, my love?” and they shantied,
And gently beamed o’er them love’s rose-colored ray;
(The bridegroom and bride of this ballad;)
He said “Let us walk at the close of the day,
My own lovely Sall,” and they sallied.
He plucked her the sweetest and loveliest flowers
That scented the path where they wandered;
And when she exclaimed “Let us turn from these bowers,
To roam near the pond!” then they pondered.
Old time softly paused o’er the home of this pair,
Nor grief nor perplexity haunted;
And when the meek husband asked “What shall I wear?”
“Plaid pants,” she replied, and he panted.
She, like a good wife, made his wardrobe her care;
(Neglecting it seemed to her wicked;)
So, when she brought linen, all shining and fair,
Saying “Wear this, dear Dick!” then he dickied.
And when a bright bud of divinity came,
To gladden the home where it tarried,
They put it to vote that the young stranger’s name
Sweet CARRIE should be, and _’twas carried_.
* * * * *
But perhaps the most “pronounced” example of adaptability, as referred
to above, is found in a poem recently contributed to a Rochester paper.
Spring, sprang, beautiful sprung!
The wild-winged warblers are wanging a wung,
And the soft southern breezes are brazing a broze,
That thaws up the ice with remarkable thoze.
O betterest time of all moments of tome,
I’ll rhyme thee a rhimelet in tenderest rhome,
And tell thee how oft in my longing, I’ve lung
To welcome thy coming, O beautiful sprung!
Symbolical season! exquisitest soze!
All nature uprising in gleefulest gloze,
Wide opens its larynx to sing and to shout,
Exuberant pleasure and gratefulest grout.
The blithe little rivulets run to the seas,--
The little buds start on the hemlocks and trees;
The wild geese are screaming their vigorest scream,
And the frogs that were dreaming no longer will dream.
Of course there is sadness in thinking the thought
That there’ll be no more skating for skaters who skaught;
But the Erie Canal, with its _de_crease in tolls,
Will cause us to smile a succession of smoles.
* * * * *
If “the exigencies of rhyme” need not be considered in constructing
English verse, neither need the exigencies of rhythm, as shown by the
following highly artistic couplets:
The wind blew down our well-sweep,
And father and I put it up again ---- sheep.
* * * * *
Wasn’t Pharaoh a Rascal
Because he wouldn’t let the children of Israel go three days’
journey into the wilderness, to celebrate the Paschal?
* * * * *
In ’73, a modest volume of poems was published by an Hon. and Rev.
gentleman of Central New York,[3] in which occur the following rather
surprising verses: (not consecutively, but here and there.)
O bright shining morn of the year,
I cannot foretell thy events;
Trusting in God, why should I fear,
Though having so many relents!
* * * * *
I looked on his form; ’twas like mine;
Transparent his body did seem;
His vigor could never repine;
With glory his features all gleam.
* * * * *
Oh, that the great ocean of love,
Where all the inhabitants bathe,
Ere they go to the bright realms above,
In His sight to whom they have clave.
* * * * *
We saw there as beacons of light
God’s temples of worship, so fair;
We saw there, enlisted in fight,
The wicked who cursed God with dare.
* * * * *
O then they all sang as before,
And the prophets they came rushing down;
And skipping, they came to that shore
Where saints shall forever be crowned!
* * * * *
To find the “concealed sense” (concealed _non_sense!) of the
verses that follow, the first and third, second and fourth lines, are
read consecutively:
That man must lead a happy life,
Who’s free from matrimonial chains;
Who is directed by a wife,
Is sure to suffer for his pains.
Adam could find no solid peace,
When Eve was given for a mate;
Till he beheld a woman’s face,
Adam was in a happy state.
In all the female race appear
Hypocrisy, deceit, and pride,
The tokens of a heart sincere,
In woman never did reside.
What tongue is able to unfold
The failings that in woman dwell?
The merits in her we behold,
Are almost imperceptible.
Confusion take the man, I say,
Who makes a woman his delight!
Who will no court to women pay,
Keeps always reason in his sight.
This is nonsense, too; though, certainly, women are the faultiest of
human beings--except men.
Be that as it may, few women have ever been more severely, or, perhaps,
more justly, cauterized, than poor Job’s poor wife, in Coleridge’s
celebrated _Epigram_:
Sly Beelzebub took all occasions
To try Job’s constancy and patience.
He took his honor, took his health,
He took his children, took his wealth,
His servants, horses, oxen, cows--
But cunning Satan did _not_ take his spouse.
But Heaven, that brings out good from evil,
And loves to disappoint the Devil,
Had predetermined to restore
Twofold all Job had lost before:
His servants, horses, oxen, cows.
Short-sighted Satan! NOT to take his spouse?
SECRET CORRESPONDENCE.
A young lady, newly married, being obliged to show her husband all the
letters she wrote, sent the following to an intimate friend:
I cannot be satisfied, my dearest friend,
blest as I am in the matrimonial state,
until I confide to your most friendly keeping
trusting to your interest in what interests me,
the various deep sensations which swell
with the liveliest feelings of satisfaction
my almost bursting heart. I tell you, my dear
husband is one of the most amiable of men.
I have been married nearly seven weeks, and
have never found the least possible reason to
repent the day that joined us. My husband is
in person and manners far from resembling those
ugly, cross, old, disagreeable and jealous
monsters, who think by confining to secure
a wife, it is his maxim to treat as a
bosom friend and confidant and not as a
plaything or menial slave the woman
chosen to be his companion. Neither party
he frequently says, ought to obey implicitly,
but each yield to the other in turn.
I know my husband loves nothing more
than he does me; he flatters me more
than the glass, and his intoxication
(for I must so call the excess of his love,)
often makes me blush for the unworthiness
of its object, and wish I could be more deserving
of the man whose name I bear. To
say all in one word, my dearest friend, and to
crown the whole, my former gallant lover
is now my indulgent husband. My fondness
is returned, and I might have married
a prince, without the felicity I find with
him! Adieu! May you be blest as I am unable
to wish that I could be more
happy.
(The key to the above letter is to omit every alternate line: reading
the first, third, fifth, &c., consecutively.)
* * * * *
It is said that among ancient Christian devices the figure of a fish
occurs very frequently, with the inscription _anthropou_ (in Greek
letters), signifying _of man_. The following explanation has been
given: The Greek word for _fish_ is _ichthus_, and each of the five
letters composing the Greek word, (ch and th being each represented by
only one letter,) is the initial of a significant word, as follows:
iesus--Jesus,
christos--Christ,
theou--of God,
uios--Son,
soter--Saviour.
The whole, followed by anthropou, (the word inscribed upon the figure
of the fish,) forms a profession of Christian faith:
JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD, SAVIOUR OF MEN.
* * * * *
Pilate’s question addressed to our Lord, “What is truth?” “Quid est
Veritas?” contains in itself, by a perfect anagram, its own answer:
“Est vir qui adest:” “_It is the Man who stands before you._”
When “I cry that I sin” is transposed, it is clear
My resource, “Christianity,” soon will appear.
* * * * *
The following very curious sentence, “_Sator arepo teret opera
rotas_,” is not first-class Latin, but may be freely translated: “I
cease from my work; the mower will wear his wheels.” It is, in fact,
something like a nonsensical verse, but has these peculiarities: 1st.
It spells backward and forward the same. 2d. Then, the first letter
of each word spells the first word. 3d. Then, all the second letters
of each word spell the second word. 4th. Then, all the third, and so
on through, the fourth and fifth. 5th. Then, commencing with the last
word, the last letter of each word spells the first word. 6th. Then,
the next to the last, and so on, through.
* * * * *
The lines which constitute the Pyramid below, may be read from the base
upward, or from the apex downward, indifferently.
There
For aye
To stay,
Commanding,
’Tis standing,
With God-like air,
Sublimely fair.
Its form declaring,
Its height admiring,
Looks on it from afar
Lo! every smiling star.
To raise the pile to heaven
These beauteous stones are given,
Each prayer for truth-inspiring light,
Each manly struggle for the right,
Each kindly word to cheer the lowly,
Each aspiration for the holy,
Each strong temptation overcome,
Each clamorous passion held in silence dumb.
As it arises slowly toward the upper heaven
Stone after stone until the mass is given.
Its base upon the earth, its apex in the skies,
The good man’s character, a pyramid doth rise.
* * * * *
“Revolution” is transposed “to love ruin,” and “French Revolution,”
“Violence run forth.”
One of the prettiest of modern anagrams is “Florence Nightingale,”
“Flit on, cheering angel.”
* * * * *
If the name Napoleon be successively “beheaded” till only two letters
are left, each remainder forms a significant word; and these words,
combined in a certain manner, form a concise sketch of Napoleon the
First. Thus:
Napoleon, Apoleon, Poleon, Oleon,
destroying, cities, destructive,
Leon, Eon, On,
lion, going about, being.
Napoleon, on, oleon, leon, eon, apoleon, poleon.
Napoleon being a destructive lion, going about destroying cities.
* * * * *
The following sentence of only thirty-four letters contains all the
letters of the alphabet:
John quickly extemporized five tow bags.
HISTORY.
Sir Walter Raleigh, in his prison, was composing the second volume
of his “History of the World.” Leaning on the sill of his window, he
meditated on the duties of the historian to mankind, when suddenly his
attention was attracted by a disturbance in the court yard before his
cell. He saw one man strike another whom he supposed by his dress to
be an officer; the latter at once drew his sword, and ran the former
through the body. The wounded man felled his adversary with a stick,
and then sank upon the pavement. At this juncture the guard came up,
and carried off the officer insensible, and then the corpse of the man
who had been run through.
Next day Raleigh was visited by an intimate friend, to whom he related
the circumstances of the quarrel, and its issue. To his astonishment,
his friend unhesitatingly declared that the prisoner had mistaken the
whole series of incidents which had passed before his eyes.
The supposed officer was not an officer at all, but the servant of a
foreign ambassador; it was he who had dealt the first blow; he had
not drawn his sword, but the other had snatched it from his side, and
had run _him_ through the body before any one could interfere;
whereupon a stranger, from among the crowd, knocked the murderer
down with his stick; and some of the foreigners belonging to the
ambassador’s retinue carried off the corpse.
Raleigh’s friend added that the Government had ordered the arrest and
immediate trial of the murderer, as the man assassinated was one of the
principal servants of the Spanish ambassador.
“Excuse me,” said Raleigh, “but I cannot have been deceived as you
suppose, for I was eye-witness to the events, which took place under my
own window; and the man fell there on that spot where you see a paving
stone standing up above the rest.”
“My dear Sir Walter,” replied his friend, “I was sitting on that stone
when the fray took place, and I received this slight scratch on my
cheek in snatching the sword from the murderer. Upon my word of honor,
you were deceived in every particular.”
Sir Walter, when alone, took up the second volume of his history, which
was in manuscript, and, contemplating it, thought: “If two men see the
same thing so differently--nay, if I cannot believe my own eyes, how
can I be assured of the truth of a tithe of the events which happened
ages before I was born?” and he flung the manuscript into the fire.
Charles Dudley Warner, travelling in Nubia and Egypt, asserts that “The
Arabian Nights’ Entertainment” is the best history ever written. In the
light of the above facts, perhaps it is.
ST. ANTHONY’S FISH-SERMON.
From a German versification of a passage from the works of Abraham à
Santa Clara, a Jesuit preacher of the Seventeenth Century.
St. Anthony, _one_ day
Found the Church empty, Sunday:
So he goes to the river,
A discourse to deliver:
They’re ready to listen--
Their tails flop and glisten.
The carps, those old scorners,
Come out of their corners;
Their carping suspended,
Their jaws wide extended,
(Ears wanting--) to swallow
Remarks that might follow.
The pouts, cross-grained pouters--
Those well-known come-outers,--
For this once go-_inners_,
Confessed themselves sinners.
The pouts said they never
Heard a sermon so clever.
Crabs and mud-turtles also,
That usually crawl so,
And in dirt their heads bury,
Came up in a hurry.
Crabs and turtles had never
Heard sermon so clever.
Eels and sturgeons, best livers
Of all in the rivers--
Forsaking their dinners
Bewailed themselves sinners.
Eels and sturgeons had never
Heard sermon so clever.
And lastly, those odd fish
We mortals call codfish--
Their glass eyes distended--
Devoutly attended,
Like rational creatures,
This greatest of preachers.
And dog-fish and cat-fish,
And flounders and flat-fish,
And, finally, all fish,
Both great fish and small fish,
Came swimming and squirming
In shoals to the sermon;
And all said they never
Had heard one so clever.
But when it was ended,
To their business all wended;
The pikes to their thieving,
The eels to good living;
The crab still went crooked,
The codfish was stupid:
Yet none of them ever
Heard sermon so clever!
* * * * *
A susceptible youth addressed the following highly classical letter to
a young lady whose poetical effusions, dated “Pine Woods,” had won his
heart:
Permittere me dicere, carissima puella, ego habeo visus vestris dulces
funes in papyrus. Ego lignum simile videre te plurimo. Ego nosco nos
lignum autumnus in amore cum unus alter. Tuus versus spectaculum genius
et tener cors. Ego lignum calcitro tuum durum cordatum patrem ex
portis, et ego possum duo, si ille erat non complacens et omnis rectus.
Volo ad vistare te, sed non nosco ubi Pinus Sylva sit. Prendam Erie
maledictum-viam? Ubi est id? Ero membrum legis, proximo vero, et tun,
cum pocket libro pleno stamporum, cano in manu, silko castore super
capito, ego non curo pro omnibus tauricanibus in Pino-silva, nam meum
canum est fors, et decutiam sua capita--sed sufficit.
Omnium pro te,
Unus qui amat.
FELIS ET MURES.
BY GREENE KENDRICK.
Felis sedit by a hole;
Intenta she, cum omne soul,
Prendere rats;
Mice cucurrerunt over the floor,
In numero, duo, tres, or more,
Obliti cats.
Felis saw them oculis;
“I’ll have them,” inquit she, “I guess,
Dum ludunt;”
Tunc illa crept toward the group,--
“Habeam,” dixit, “good rat soup;
Pingues sunt!”
Mice continued all ludere;
Intenti they in ludum vere,
Gaudenter:
Tunc rushed the felis into them,
Et tore them omnes, limb from limb,
Violenter.
MORAL.
Mures, omnes, now beware!
Of hungry felis have a care
Nox et die;
Si hoc facis “verbum sat;”
Avoid a huge and hungry cat,
Studiose!
* * * * *
Ego nunquam audivi such terrible news,
As at this present tempus my senses confuse;
I am drawn for a miles, I must go cum Marte,
Et, communis ense, engage Bonapar-te;
But soon we will show to this Corsican vaunter,
That, though _times_ may change, BRITONS _never_ mutantur.
_Dr. Porson._
* * * * *
Tres fratres stolidi
Took a boat for Philippi;
Stormum surgebat
Et boatum overturnebat;
Omnes drownerunt
Qui swimmere non potuerunt
THE RHINE.
Oh the Rhine, the Rhine, the Rhine!
Comme c’est beau! wie schön! che bello!
He who quaffs thy Lust and Wein,
Morbleu! is a lucky fellow.
How I love thy rushing streams,
Groves of ash and birch and hazel,
From Schaffhausen’s rainbow beams,
Jusqu ’à l’echo d’ Oberwesel!
Oh, que j’aime the Brüchen, when
The crammed Dampschiff gayly passes!
Love the bronzed pipes of thy men,
And the bronzed cheeks of thy lasses!
Oh, que j’aime the “oui,” the “bah,”
From the motley crowd that flow,
With the universal “ja,”
And the Allgemeine “So!”
LATIN POEM.
FOR THE LEARNED.
Hei didulum, didulum, atque iterum didulum,
Felisque, Fidisque!
Vacca super Lunæ cornua prosiluit
Nescio qua catulus risit dulcedine ludi,
Abstunt et turpi lanx cochleare fuga!
FRENCH SONG.
Chantons une chanson à six sous,
La poche pleine de blé;
Vingt-quatre oiseaux noirs
Cuits dans un pâté!
Quand le pâté s’ouvrit,
Les oiseaux levaient leurs voix;
N’était-ce pas un joli plat,
Mettre devant le Roi?
ICH BIN DEIN.
ENGLISH, LATIN, GREEK, FRENCH AND GERMAN “MACARONI.”
In tempus old a hero lived
Qui loved puellas deux,
He ne pouvait pas quite to say
Which one amabat mieux.
Dit-il lui-même, un beau matin,
“Non possum both avoir;
Sed si address Amanda Anne,
Then Kate and I have war!”
Amanda habet argent coin
Sed Kate has aureas curls
Et both sunt very agathæ
Et quite formosæ girls.
Enfin, the youthful anthropos
Philoun the duo maids,
Resolved proponere ad Kate
Avant cet evening’s shades.
Procedens then to Kate’s domo,
Il trouve Amanda there,
Kai quite forgot his late resolves
Both sunt so goodly fair.
Sed, smiling on the new tapis,
Between puellas twain,
Cœpit to tell his vœux to Kate
Dans un poëtique strain.
Mais, glancing ever and anon
At fair Amanda’s eyes,
Illæ non possunt dicere
Pro which he meant his sighs.
Each virgo heard his demi vow
With cheeks as rouge as wine,
And, offering each a milk-white hand,
Both whispered “Ich bin dein.”
MACARONIC ADVERTISEMENT.
An inn-keeper in Germany sets forth the accommodations of his house in
the following lines, inscribed upon one of its windows:
In questa casa trovarete
Toutes les choses que vous souhaitez;
Vinum bonum, costas, carnes,
Neat post-chaise, and horse and harness.
ANN HATHAWAY.
(PROBABLY NOT SHAKESPEARE’S.)
Would ye be taught, ye feathered throng,
With love’s sweet notes to grace your song,
To charm the heart in thrilling lay,
Listen to Ann Hathaway.
She hath a way to sing so clear,
Phœbus might, listening, stoop and hear:
To melt the sad, make blithe the gay,
And nature charm, Ann hath a way.
She hath a way,
Ann Hathaway.
When Envy’s tongue and Rancor’s tooth
Do soil and bite fair worth and truth,
And merit to distress betray,
To soothe the soul, Ann hath a way.
She hath a way to chase despair;
To heal all grief, to cure all care,
Turn foulest night to fairest day,
Thou knowest, fond heart, Ann hath a way,
She hath a way,
Ann Hathaway.
Tell not of gems the Orient list;
The diamond, topaz, amethyst,
The emerald mild, the ruby gay;
Talk of my gem Ann Hathaway.
She hath a way with her bright eye,
Their various lustre to defy;
The jewel she, and the foil they,
So sweet to look Ann hath a way.
She hath a way,
Ann Hathaway.
But to my fancy were it given
To rate her charms, I’d call it heaven;
For, though a mortal made of clay,
Angels might love Ann Hathaway.
She hath a way so to control
And rapture the imprisoned soul,
And love and truth so to display
That to be heaven Ann hath a way.
She hath a way,
Ann Hathaway.
INSTRUCTIVE FABLES.
THE DOG AND THE SPARE RIB.--A mastiff crossing a bridge and
bearing in his mouth a piece of meat, suddenly swallowed the meat. He
immediately observed that the shadow of the aforesaid in the water had
disappeared.
_Moral_: We learn from this fable that life is but a shadow.
THE ASS AND THE LOCOMOTIVE.--A donkey one day was quietly
munching thistles when he heard the screaming whistle of a locomotive.
Pricking up his ears, he started into a gallop and raced across lots,
with his tail high in the air.
_Moral_: This fable teaches what an ass he was.
THE MOUSE AND THE CAT.--A mouse once peeped from his hole and
saw a cat. The cat was looking the other way, and happened not to see
the mouse.
Nobody killed.
_Moral_: This little fable doesn’t teach anything.
PRONUNCIATION.
The difficulty of applying rules to the pronunciation of our language
may be illustrated in two lines, wherein the combination of the letters
_ough_ is pronounced in no less than seven different ways, viz: as
_o_, _uf_, _off_, _up_, _ow_, _oo_, and _ock_.
Though the tough cough and hiccough plough me through,
O’er life’s dark lough my course I still pursue.
And in the subjoined couplets, which should be read rhymingly:
Peasant Arcadian, guiding the plough,
Loam on your garments, your aspect is rough.
Peasant imprudent, I hear you’ve a cough:
Do you feel sure you’re clad warm enough?
Home to your cottage, and bend o’er the trough,
Kneading the loaves of digestible dough.
Though the bread’s heavy, unsweetened and tough,
Well sharpened teeth can go easily through.
And the opposite difficulty, which sometimes occurs, of determining
the sense of a word from its pronunciation, is shown in the following
verses:
Write, we know, is written right,
When we see it written w-r-i-t-e;
But when we see it written r-i-g-h-t,
We know it is not written right.
For write, to have it written right,
Must not be written r-i-g-h-t, or r-i-t-e,
Nor yet must it be written w-r-i-g-h-t,
But w-r-i-t-e, for so ’tis written right.
* * * * *
Some one asks: “If W-o-r-c-e-s-t-e-r is pronounced Wooster, wouldn’t
r-o-r-c-e-s-t-e-r be an excellent way to spell rooster?”
That is “the English of it,” and, on the same principle--whatever
it is--C-h-o-l-m-o-n-d-e-l-e-y is pronounced Chumley;
M-i-c-h-i-l-i-m-a-c-i-n-a-c, Mackinaw; M-a-r-j-o-r-i-b-a-n-k-s,
Marchbank; L-e-i-c-e-s-t-e-r, Lester; N-o-r-w-i-c-h, Norrij, and
C-o-l-o-n-e-l, Curnel.
The ways of English pronunciation are, indeed, past finding out.
So are the secret motives of those who, having once adopted a false
pronunciation, adhere to it in the face of all precept and example;
who persist in calling Garibaldi, Gar-i-bawld-i; guipure, gim-pure;
alpaca, al-a-pac-a; and a polonaise, a polo-nay. Of this class was the
young person of Boston--she _couldn’t_ have been a young person of
BOSTON!--who, passing out of an Art Gallery with a friend not
long since, read aloud the inscription beneath a statuette of Psyche,
and pronounced it Pi-sish. Her friend mildly suggesting the true
pronunciation, the young person rejoined: “I know it. Some folks call
it Si-kee, and some Pi-sish. I like Pi-sish the best.”
THE QUESTION.
It is said that when a young lady enters society in one of our leading
Eastern cities, the question invariably asked about her, by those
who have not met her, is, in New York, “How much is she worth?” in
Baltimore, “How does she look?” in Boston, “What does she know?” in
Philadelphia, “_Who_ is she?”
ALLITERATION.
The best specimen of alliteration in the English language is, perhaps,
THE SIEGE OF BELGRADE.
An Austrian army, awfully arrayed,
Boldly, by battery, besieged Belgrade.
Cossack commanders cannonading come,
Dealing destruction’s devastating doom;
Every endeavor engineers essay,
For fame, for fortune, fighting, furious fray!
Generals ’gainst generals grapple--Gracious God!
How honors Heaven heroic hardihood!
Infuriate, indiscriminate, in ill,
Kinsmen kill kindred--kindred kinsmen kill.
Labor low levels longest, loftiest lines,--
Men march ’mid mounds, ’mid moles, ’mid murderous mines.
Now noisy, noxious, numbers notice naught
Of outward obstacles opposing ought;
Poor patriots! partly purchased, partly pressed,
Quite quaking, quickly “Quarter! Quarter!” quest.
Reason returns; religious right redounds,
Suwarrow stops such sanguinary sounds.
Truce to thee, Turkey! triumph to thy train,
Unjust, unwise, unmerciful, Ukraine!
Vanish, vain victory! Vanish, victory vain!
Why wish we warfare! Wherefore welcome were
Xerxes, Ximenes, Xanthus, Xavier!
Yield, yield, ye youths; ye yeomen yield your yell!
Zeno’s, Zarpater’s, Zoroaster’s zeal,
Attracting all, arms against arms appeal.
A droll example of French alliteration is the following inquiry as to
the efficacy of a certain remedy:
“Ton thé, a-t-il oté ta toux?”
One of the neatest of ACROSTICS was written by Desmond Ryan,
for the _London Musical World_:
Art and Genius burn within her,
Dearest fondling of the Graces!
Every charm is centered in her;
Like a poet’s page her face is!
In her voice the lark is thrilling--
Now to weep the heart is willing--
And now with joy and hope ’tis filling!
Praised, admired, two worlds all hail her--
Artless, pure, no tongues assail her!
Trust, love, triumph, never fail her!
Tell me, sooth, whose praise all that is?
I say, ADELINA PATTI’S!
But apropos of ingenuity, the author of the following exquisite poem
seems, without half trying, to have distanced all competitors.
Many years ago, twenty-five or thirty, perhaps, two Cincinnati editors
engaged in a newspaper controversy, which was, for a long time,
conducted with all candor and courtesy. At length, however, one of them
so far forgot himself as to become first personal, then scurrilous,
then virulent; and the other, at an early stage of this radical change,
quietly withdrew from the contest. Editor No. One thereupon indulged
in loud pæans of victory: he had spiked his adversary’s guns, put him
to rout, utterly demolished him. While he was in this complacent frame
of mind, he received from an anonymous contributor a seasonable poem
on SPRING, which he published with a eulogium on its beauty,
and a warmly-expressed wish that he might often hear from its gifted
author:
SPRING.
The genial Spring once more with chaplets crowned,
Has showered her choicest blessings all around.
Each silent valley, and each verdant lawn,
Enriched with flowers, looks smiling as the dawn;
Demure and modest here the violet grows,
In yonder garden blooms the blushing rose:
To these the lilac adds her fragrant dower
Of perfume cherished by the sun and shower:
Reviving Flora walks the world, a queen
Of kingdoms peerless as a fairy scene.
Far o’er the hills, in many a graceful line,
The rainbow blossoms of the orchard shine.
How softly mingled all their tints unite,
Embalm the air, and bless the grateful sight!
Sweet voices now are heard on every tree,
The breeze, the bird, the murmur of the bee;
And down the cliff, where rocks oppose in vain,
Runs the clear stream in music to the plain.
In noisy groups, far from their southern home,
Now ’round the lofty spire the swallows roam;
The fearless robin builds, with glossy leaves,
Her fragile nest beneath the farmer’s eaves;
Embowered in woods the partridge makes her bed
With silken moss o’er tender osiers spread:
Each happy bird expands his dappled wings,
Soars with his gentle mate and sweetly sings.
The sounds of early husbandry arise,
In pleasing murmurs, to the pale blue skies;
Shrill floats the ploughman’s whistle, while he speeds
Along the yielding earth his patient steeds.
Joyous the life which tills the pregnant soil,
And sweet the profits of the farmer’s toil:
Content, as smiling as an angel’s face,
Keeps peaceful vigil ’round his dwelling-place;
And gentle Hope, and Love, forever bright,
Smiling like seraphs in their bowers of light,
Salute his mornings, and embalm each night.
A few days passed, and this self-complacent gentleman had the
satisfaction of reading in a Boston paper that the editor of _The
Star in the West_ had fully justified the acrostic contained in a
late beautiful poem on SPRING, by publishing and praising it
in his paper.
EXTEMPORE SPEAKING.
It is no small thing to be called suddenly to address a public meeting
of any sort, and to find all your wits gone wool-gathering, when
you most require their services. Such being the case, and standing
admitted, the following speech of a compulsory order, at the opening of
a free hospital, is recommended as a model:
Gentlemen--ahem! I--I--I rise to say--that is, I wish to propose a
toast--wish to propose a toast. Gentlemen, I think that you’ll all
say--ahem--I think, at least, that this toast is, as you’ll all say,
the toast of the evening--toast of the evening. Gentlemen, I belong to
a good many of these things--and I say, gentlemen, that this hospital
requires no patronage--at least, you don’t want any recommendation.
You’ve only got to be ill--got to be ill. Another thing--they are
all locked up--I mean they are all shut up separate--that is, they
have all got separate beds--separate beds. Now, gentlemen, I find
by the report (turning over the leaves in a fidgety manner), I
find, gentlemen, that from the year seventeen--no, eighteen--no,
ah, yes, I’m right,--eighteen hundred and fifty--no, it’s a three,
thirty-six--eighteen hundred and thirty-six, no--less than one
hundred and ninety-three millions--no--ah? (to a committee-man at his
side), what? thank you!--thank you, yes--one hundred and ninety-three
thousand, two hundred and thirty-one! Gentlemen, I beg to propose:
Success to this Institution!
* * * * *
If no selections from the writings of our modern humorists, Artemus
Ward, P. V. Nasby, Mark Twain, and others, grace these pages, the
omission arises partly from the difficulty of selecting and partly from
the fact that these writings are only too well known for our purpose.
While the compiler has, doubtless, brought her readers face to face
with many of their old acquaintances, she naturally prefers not to
introduce those whom they are certain to meet every day at their own
tables. “There must be a line drawn somewhere.”
But there is a word to be said about K. N. Pepper, whose irresistibly
droll papers were contributed to the _Knickerbocker Magazine_,
early in the ’50’s. He was, in fact, pioneer in that region of
illiterature, in which so many others, since he withdrew, have
apparently settled for life. Artemus Ward learned from him (and never
hesitated to give him credit for the original idea,) the trick of bad
spelling, and caught many of his fantastic ways of thought. His Betsey
Jane was Pepper’s Hannah Gane amplified,--but the twins, and the son
who read the _Clipper_, and the daughter who delighted in the
_Ledger_, were original Wards. (And what a guardian they had, in
their hi-minded father!)
K. N. Pepper describes in the _Knickerbocker_, his first visit to
New York. He arrived there on the twenty-fifth of November, and that
anniversary suggested many solemn reflections. “I thinc,” he pensively
remarks, “that I see the British evacuating of the sitty. I thinc I se
them gathering up their goods and things. I thinc I hear them cuss, and
then I thinc I doant.”
Very suddenly he retired from the field, leaving his laurels to be
picked up and won by others, and presently disappeared from public
view. But it is possible that Mr. James W. Morris, of Onondaga County,
N. Y., could, if he chose, furnish some information concerning him.[4]
The Widow Bedott, too, was precursor and prototype of Miss Slimmins,
Josiah Allen’s wife, and all of that ilk; and, among her imitators,
has, thus far, had no equal. Her prose was a model of absurdity; but
there are no words to characterize her poetry.
Listen, as she condoles with a widower, on his recent bereavement:
Sickness and afflictions is trials sent
By the will of a wise creation,
And always ought to be underwent
With fortitude and resignation.
Then mourn not for your pardner’s death,
But to forgit endevver,
For, sposen she hadn’t a died so soon,
She couldn’t a lived forever.
And when, at last, she secured a widower of her own, the Rev. Shadrack
Sniffles, how jubilant her muse became:
The heart that was scornful and cold as a stun,
Has surrendered at last to the fortinit one.
Farewell to the miseries and griefs I have had!
I’ll never desert thee, O Shadrack, my Shad.
The wonderful puns and repartees of Charles Lamb and Sydney Smith,
prince and king of wits! are open to the same objection as those
alluded to above: they are only too familiar, already. But as that
is equivalent to saying that they have charmed only too many people;
turned too many sorrowful or wearied minds out of their ordinary
channels; excited too much healthful and delightful laughter; we are,
after all, not disposed to complain. Rather let us, Sancho-Panza-like,
invoke a benison, first on Cervantes himself; then on the English
Hood and Hook, and Moore and Sheridan and Lamb, on the three Smiths,
Sydney and James and Horace; on Dickens, Thackeray and Jerrold, and
Edmund Lear; on our own Irving, Derby, Whicher, Morris, Brown, the
Clarkes; our Lowell, Saxe, Holmes, Strong; our Warner, Cozzens,
Dodgson, Gilbert, Locke, Bret Harte; our Grail Hamilton, and our Phebe
Carey; and on all the named and unnamed, known and unknown writers,
through whom have come to us the exquisite sense of fun, the blessing
of irrepressible mirth, and of hearty, wholesome, innocent, delicious
laughter!
And if, despite our struggles, we are accused, as we shall be, and
justly, of having told some more than twice-told tales, of quoting
already hackneyed quotations charity will urge in our behalf (and, let
us trust, not vainly), Burns’ pathetic plea, reminding the critics,
that while
“What’s done they” easily “compute.
They know not what’s resisted.”
“SOUND AND” UNSOUND, “SIGNIFYING NOTHING.”
A young gentleman of Rochester, suspecting that the poetical enthusiasm
of certain of his young lady acquaintances was not genuine; that
they appreciated the musical jingle of verses, without in the least
regarding the sentiment, laid a wager with one of his friends, that he
could write a set of stanzas, which should not contain one grain of
sense, and yet would be just as warmly applauded by those young ladies
as the most eloquent poetry.
He won the wager. (But this occurred many years ago. There are no such
young ladies in Rochester now).
See! the fragrant twilight whispers
O’er the orient western sky,
While Aurora’s verdant vespers
Tell her evening reign is nigh.
Now a louder ray of darkness,
Carols o’er the effulgent scene,
And the lurid light falls markless
On the horizon’s scattered screen.
Night is near, with all his horrors,
Sweetly swerving in his breast,
And the ear of fancy borrows
Morning mists to lull the west.
Ere he comes in all his splendor,
Hark! the milky way is seen,
Sighing like a maiden tender
In her bower of ruby green.
Such a scene, ah! who can list to,
And not saddened, silent, seek
To unveil the burning vista
Of Diana’s raven cheek?
Thus tremulous, and ever dear,
Robed in repellant rapture;
Our hours shall stay, swift as the year,
Illumed by Cupid’s capture!
And when hyenal joys are ours,
And memory soars above us,
Hope shall retrace for future years
The love of all who love us.
Something of the same character is the subjoined:
EVENING SONG.
Brightly blue the stars shine o’er us,
While the sinking sun ascends
To the wide spread waves before us,
And a pleasing softness lends.
Homeward now the aged plough-boys
Wing their way o’er hill and dale,
And the laughter-loving cow goes
Tripping lightly down the vale.
Gentle zephyrs’ ink-stained fingers
Point the hour-hand of the clock,
There the warbling sheep-fold lingers--
Save it from the cruel hawk!
Thus excoriate the hours,
Till the red volcano’s powers
Kindle on the hearth its fires:
Poets! dissipate your lyres!
* * * * *
In the following musical poem, the letter e does duty so well for all
the other vowels, as to suggest the idea that our ordinary lavish use
of them is a piece of extravagance!
When the September eves were new,
When fresh the western breezes blew,
When meek Selene, gem-besprent,
The dew her crested jewels lent;
We met, Belle, where the beeches grew,
When the September eves were new.
When the September eves were new,
Endless, meseemed, the sweets we knew!
Sweet fell the dew; sweet swept the breeze;
Sweet were the templed beechen trees;
The spell yet sweeter, tenderer grew,
When the September eves were new!
When the September eves were eld,
The templed beechen trees were felled;
Keen-edged the western breezes blew;
Crestless the meek Selene grew;
The fettered dew her jewels held,
When the September eves were eld.
When the September eves were eld,
Fled were the scenes we erst beheld--
Reft were the tender scenes we knew;--
The desert, where the beeches grew!
Yet, Belle, we sweeter secrets held,
Ere the September eves were eld!
* * * * *
The construction of the following verses, from which the letter s is
omitted, shows that our language is not of necessity a succession of
sibilant sounds, as it is generally supposed to be:
Oh! come to-night, for naught can charm
The weary time when thou’rt away.
Oh, come! the gentle moon hath thrown
O’er bower and hall her quivering ray.
The heather bell hath mildly flung
From off her fairy leaf the bright
And diamond dew-drop that had hung
Upon that leaf a gem of light.
Then come, love, come!
To-night the liquid wave hath not,
(Illumined by the moonlit beam
Playing upon the lake beneath,
Like frolic in a fairy dream--)
The liquid wave hath not, to-night,
In all her moonlit pride, a fair
Gift-like to them that, on thy lip,
Do breathe and laugh and home it there.
Then come, love, come!
To-night, to-night, my gentle one,
The flower-bearing Amra tree
Doth long, with fragrant moan, to meet
The love-lip of the honey-bee.
But not the Amra tree can long
To greet the bee, at evening light,
With half the deep, fond love _I_ long
To meet my Nama here to-night.
Then come, love, come!
What a boon would a volume of poems, modeled on the above principle of
architecture, be to perthonth troubled with a lithp; whose reading at
present (through the perverseness of the English language), sounds thus:
Thweetly murmurth the breethe from the thea,
Thoothing my thoul to thlumberth,
Fond memorieth bearing to me,
Of the patht, in endleth numberth.
I thigh ath I think how yearth have thped,
How joy hath left me to thorrow;
My heart now thleepeth the thleep of the dead;
Will it waken to gladneth to-morrow?
THE NIMBLE BANK-NOTE.
“And he rose with a sigh,
And he said, ‘Can this be?’”
(_Motto chosen chiefly for its inappropriateness._)
One evening at the house of a friend of mine, while we were seated at
the table, Mr. Baker, my friend’s husband, absently feeling in his
vest pocket, found a five dollar note which he had no recollection of
putting there.
“Hallo!” he exclaimed, “that is no place for you. I should have put you
in my pocketbook. Here, wife, don’t you want some ready money?” and he
threw the note across the table to her.
“Many thanks,” she replied; “money is always acceptable, although I
have no present need of it.” She folded the note and put it under the
edge of the tea-tray, and then proceeded to pour out the tea and attend
to the wants of her guests.
At her right sat Mrs. Easton, or Aunt Susan, whom we all knew as an
acquaintance who, from time to time, spent a week with Mrs. Baker. Her
visit was just at an end, and she was to return home that evening.
As Mrs. Baker was pouring her tea, it occurred to her that she was
in her aunt’s debt for certain small matters, and when she had the
opportunity, she pushed the note under her plate, saying:
“Here, auntie, take this five dollars in part payment of my debt.”
“Very well,” she replied, “but the money does not belong to me. I owe
you fifteen dollars, my dear Grace, which you lent me last Saturday. I
had to pay the taxes on my little home, and had not the ready money,
and Grace lent it to me,” explained Aunt Susan.
Grace, an orphan, was a cousin of Mrs. Baker. She and her brother Frank
boarded with her, and made a very pleasant addition to the family
circle. She was studying music, and her brother was a clerk in a
mercantile establishment.
As soon as Aunt Susan received the note, she handed it to Grace, saying:
“I will give you this now on account, and the rest as soon as I get it.”
“All right,” answered Grace, laughing, “and since we all seem in
the humor of paying our debts, I will follow suit. Frank, I owe you
something for music you bought me; here is part of it,” and she threw
the bank-note across the table to her brother, who sat opposite.
We were all highly amused to see how the note wandered around the table.
“This is a wonderful note,” said Mr. Baker; “I only wish somebody owed
me something, and I owed somebody something, so that I might come into
the ring.”
“You can,” said Frank. “I owe Mrs. Baker--or you, it’s all the
same--for my board; I herewith pay you part of it.”
Amid general laughter, Mr. Baker took the note and playfully threw it
to his wife again, saying:
“It’s yours again, Lucy, because what belongs to me belongs to you. It
has completed the round, and we have all had the benefit of it.”
“And now it must go around again,” replied she gayly. “I like to see
money circulate; it should never lie idle. Aunt Susan you take it. Now
I have paid you ten dollars.”
“Dear Grace, here is another five dollars on my account,” said Aunt
Susan, handing it to Grace.
“And you Frank, have paid ten dollars for the music you bought me,”
said Grace, handing it to her brother.
“And I pay you ten dollars for my board,” he continued, and the note
once more rested in Mr. Baker’s hands.
The exchanges were quick as thought, and we were convulsed with
laughter.
“Was there ever so wonderful an exchange?” exclaimed Grace.
“It’s all nonsense!” exclaimed Mr. Baker.
“Not in the least,” answered his wife. “It’s all quite right.”
“Certainly,” said Frank; “when the money belonged to you, you could
dispose of it as you would; I have the same right; it is a fair kind of
exchange, though very uncommon.”
“It shows the use of money,” said Aunt Susan. “It makes the circuit of
the world and brings its value to every one who touches it.”
“And this note has not finished its work yet, as I will show you, my
dear, if you will give it to me again, said Mrs. Baker to her husband.
“I present you with this five dollar note,” said Mr. Baker.
“And I give it to you, Aunt Susan--I owed you fifteen dollars, and I
have paid my debt.”
“You have, my dear friend, without doubt; and now, my dear Grace, I pay
you my indebtedness, with many thanks for your assistance.”
“I take it with thanks, Aunt Susan,” replied Grace; “and now the time
has come when this wonder-working, this inexhaustibly rich bank-note
must be divided, because I do not owe Frank five dollars more. How much
have I to pay you?”
“Two dollars and sixty-two cents,” replied Frank.
“Can you change it?”
“Let me see; sixty-two, thirty-eight, yes, there is the change; the
spell is broken, Grace, and you and I divide the spoils.”
“This bank-note beats all I ever saw. How much has it paid? Let us
count up,” said Grace. “Mrs. Baker gave Aunt Susan fifteen dollars,
which Aunt Susan gave me; I gave Frank twelve dollars and sixty-two
cents; Frank gave Mr. Baker ten dollars--altogether fifty-two dollars
and sixty-two cents.”
“It’s all nonsense, I tell you,” cried Mr. Baker, again; “you all owe
each other what you owed before.”
“You are deceived, my dear, by the rapid, unbroken race this little sum
has made; to me it is as clear as daylight,” replied Mrs. Baker.
“If it is all nonsense, how could the note which you gave Mrs. Baker,
if nothing to me or to you, be divided between us two?” asked Grace.
Mr. Baker did not seem to see it very clearly, but the others did,
and they often relate this little history for the amusement of their
friends.
THE RATIONALISTIC CHICKEN.
(_Inspecting its shell._)
BY J. S. STONE.
Most strange!
Most queer,--although most excellent a change!
Shades of the prison-house, ye disappear!
My fettered thoughts have won a wider range,
And, like my legs, are free;
No longer huddled up so pitiably:
Free now to pry and probe, and peep and peer,
And make these mysteries out.
Shall a free-thinking chicken live in doubt?
For now in doubt undoubtedly I am:
This Problem’s very heavy on my mind,
And I’m not one either to shirk or sham:
I won’t be blinded, and I won’t be blind.
Now, let me see:
First, I would know how did I get in _there_?
Then, where was I of yore?
Besides, why didn’t I get out before?
Dear me!
Here are three puzzles (out of plenty more)
Enough to give me pip upon the brain!
But let me think again.
How do I know I ever _was_ inside?
Now I reflect, it is, I do maintain,
Less than my reason, and beneath my pride,
To think that I could dwell
In such a paltry miserable cell
As that old shell.
Of course I couldn’t! How could _I_ have lain,
Body and beak and feathers, legs and wings,
And my deep heart’s sublime imaginings,
In there?
I meet the notion with profound disdain;
It’s quite incredible; since I declare
(And I’m a chicken that you can’t deceive)
_What I can’t understand I won’t believe._
Where _did_ I come from, then? Ah! where, indeed?
This is a riddle monstrous hard to read.
I have it! Why, of course,
All things are moulded by some plastic force,
Out of some atoms somewhere up in space,
Fortuitously concurrent anyhow;--
There, now!
That’s plain as is the beak upon my face.
What’s that I hear?
My mother cackling at me! Just her way,
So prejudiced and ignorant _I_ say;
So far behind the wisdom of the day.
What’s old I _can’t_ revere.
Hark at her. “You’re a silly chick, my dear,
That’s quite as plain, alack!
As is the piece of shell upon your back!”
How bigoted! upon my back, indeed!
I don’t believe it’s there,
For I can’t _see_ it: and I do declare,
For all her fond deceivin’,
_What I can’t see I never will believe in!_
A MEDLEY.
I only know she came and went, [Lowell.
Like troutlets in a pool; [Hood.
She was a phantom of delight, [Wordsworth.
And I was like a fool. [Eastman.
One kiss, dear maid, I said, and sighed, [Coleridge.
Out of those lips unshorn! [Longfellow.
She shook her ringlets round her head, [Stoddard.
And laughed in merry scorn. [Tennyson.
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, [Tennyson.
You hear them, Oh, my heart, [Alice Cary.
’Tis twelve at night by the castle clock-- [Coleridge.
Beloved, we must part. [Alice Cary.
Come back, come back, she cried in grief, [Campbell.
My eyes are dim with tears; [B. Taylor.
How shall I live through all the days, [Mrs. Osgood.
All through a hundred years? [J. J. Perry.
’Twas in the prime of summer time, [Hood.
She blessed me with her hand; [Hoyt.
We strayed together deeply blest, [Mrs. Edwards.
Into the dreaming land. [Cornwall.
The laughing bridal roses blew, [Patmore.
To deck her dark brown hair, [B. Taylor.
No maiden may with her compare, [Brailsford.
Most beautiful, most rare! [Read.
I clasped it on her sweet cold hand, [Browning.
The precious golden link; [Smith.
I calmed her fears, and she was calm-- [Coleridge.
Drink, pretty creature, drink! [Wordsworth.
And so I won my Genevieve, [Coleridge.
And walked in Paradise; [Hervey.
The fairest thing that ever grew [Wordsworth.
Atween me and the skies! [Tennyson.
ANOTHER MEDLEY.
(WHO ARE THE AUTHORS?)
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
In every clime, from Lapland to Japan;
To fix one spark of beauty’s heavenly ray,
The proper study of mankind is man.
Tell, for you can, what is it to be wise,
Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain!
“The man of Ross,” each lisping babe replies,
And drags, at each remove a length’ning chain.
Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb
Far as the solar walk, or milky way?
Procrastination is the thief of time,
Let Hercules himself do what he may.
’Tis education forms the common mind,
The feast of reason and the flow of soul;
I must be cruel only to be kind,
And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole.
Syphax! I joy to meet thee thus alone,
Where’er I roam, whatever lands I see;
A youth to fortune and to fame unknown,
In maiden meditation, fancy free.
Farewell! and wheresoe’er thy voice be tried,
Why to yon mountain turns the gazing eye?
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
Pity the sorrows of a poor old man,
Whose beard descending, swept his aged breast;
Laugh where we must, be candid where we can,
Man never is, but always to be blest.
AND ANOTHER MEDLEY.
The moon was shining silver bright,
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,
When freedom from her mountain height,
Exclaimed, “Now don’t be foolish, Joe!”
An hour passed by; the Turk awoke,
Ten days and nights with sleepless eye,
To hover in the sulphur smoke,
And spread its pall upon the sky.
His echoing axe the settlers swung,
He was a lad of high degree;
And deep the pearly caves among,
Sweet Mary, weep no more for me.
Loud roars the wild, inconstant blast,
And cloudless sets the sun at even;
When twilight dews are falling fast,
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven.
Oh, ever thus, from childhood’s hour,
By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,
Beneath yon ivy-mantled tower,
They lingered in the forest shade.
My love is like the red, red rose;
He bought a ring with posy true;
Deep terror then my vitals froze;
And, Saxon, I am Rhoderick Dhu!
LIFE.
Why all this toil for triumph of an hour?
[Young.
Life’s a short summer--man is but a flower;
[Dr. Johnson.
By turns we catch the fatal breath and die--
[Pope.
The cradle and the tomb, alas! so nigh.
[Prior.
To be is better far than not to be,
[Sewell.
Though all man’s life may seem a tragedy:
[Spencer.
But light cares speak when mighty griefs are dumb--
[Daniel.
The bottom is but shallow whence they come.
[Sir Walter Raleigh.
Your fate is but the common fate of all;
[Longfellow.
Unmingled joys may here no man befall;
[Southwell.
Nature to each allots his proper sphere,
[Congreve.
Fortune makes folly her peculiar care;
[Churchill.
Custom does often reason overrule,
[Rochester.
And throw a cruel sunshine on a fool.
[Armstrong.
Live well--how long or short permit to heaven;
[Milton.
They who forgive most shall be most forgiven,
[Bailey.
Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its face--
[French.
Vile intercourse where virtue has no place,
[Sommerville.
Then keep each passion down, however dear.
[Thompson.
Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear;
[Byron.
Her sensual snares let faithless Pleasure lay,
[Smollet.
With craft and skill to ruin and betray,
[Crabbe.
Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise,
[Massinger.
We masters grow of all that we despise.
[Cowley.
Oh, then, renounce that impious self-esteem;
[Beattie.
Riches have wings; and grandeur is a dream.
[Cowper.
Think not ambition wise because ’tis brave,
[Sir Walter Davenant.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave,
[Gray.
What is ambition? ’Tis a glorious cheat.
[Willis.
Only destructive to the brave and great.
[Addison.
What’s all the gaudy glitter of a crown?
[Dryden.
The way to bliss lies not on beds of down.
[Francis Quarles.
How long we live, not years but actions tell;
[Watkins.
That man lives twice who lives the first life well.
[Herrick.
Make then, while yet you may, your God your friend.
[William Mason.
Whom Christians worship, yet not comprehend.
[Hill.
The trust that’s given guard, and to yourself be just;
[Dana.
For live we how we may, yet die we must.
[Shakespeare.
THE KEY.
ANSWERS TO PUZZLES.
1. Cobweb. _M. A. R._
2. Thanks.
3. Of course I can! (Of Corsican.)
4. Maid of Orleans.
5. Because they have studded the heavens for centuries.
6. The winds blue, and the waves rose.
7. In violet.
8. They _leave out_ their summer dress.
9. Because I am the querist.
10. Penmanship. _English Paper._
11. Heather: weather. _Hearth and Home._
12. Nothing.
13. It contains all the letters of the alphabet.
14. A lawsuit.
15. His father was Enoch, who did not die.
16. Yes: he was the Daughter-of-Pharaoh’s son.
17. When Autumn is turning the leaves.
18. Bud-dhism.
19. Starch. (Star, sac, scar, tar, trash, act, arc, arch, art, ash,
rat, rash, chart, cart, cat, car, chat, cash, cast, crash, hart, hat.)
20. Ague. (Hague; league; plague.)
21. Lettuce, alone. (Let us alone!)
22. The moon.
23. A human being. _The Sphinx Riddle._
24. Noah.
25. Macaulay. _Rural New Yorker._
26. N R G.
27. M T.
28. O B C T.
29. X L N C.
30. L E G.
31. Dutch S.
32. French L.
33. K.
34. In the days of no A (Noah,) before U and I were born.
35. T.
36. Q.
37. It’s laudin’ ’em.
38. No man has three feet; a man has two feet more than no man:
therefore, a man has five feet.
39. A branch. _M. L. C._
40. Love Me Little: Love Me Long.
41. Ma mère. _E. P._
42. Amiable (Am I able?)
43. Conundrum.
44. Purcell. _M. D._
45. You sigh for a cipher, but I sigh for thee;
Oh, sigh for no cipher, but, oh, sigh for me;
And O, let my sigh for no cipher go,
But give sigh for sigh, for I sigh for you so!
46. Because they _axed_ him whether he would or no. (Horrid!)
47. He was out at midnight, _on a bust_.
48. 99⁹⁄₉.
49. The season is backward for potatoes.
50. One “wouldn’t do:” one “would do.”
51. When he owed (Oh’d) “for a lodge in some vast wilderness.”
52. The reindeer (The rain, dear!)
53. Red Wing. _M. A. R._
54. Insert a semicolon after “peacock,” after “comet,” after “cloud,”
&c.; finally, after “sun.”
55. Semicolon after “talked.”
56. Absence of body!
57. The year before was 1870; the year following was 1870, too.
58. Because they’d _fall out_, if they didn’t.
59. Io died (iodide) of potassium.
60. He named it Robinson for Robinson crew so!
61. They’ve been to sea.
62. By the _Sound_.
63. He wears his collar and _pants_.
64. Veil; vile or evil; Levi, live.
65. A pair of spurs.
66. The letter A.
67. Translate the fourth and fifth “_suis_,” _follow_. “Suis” comes
from _suivre_, as well as from _être_.
68. A mouse ran, full _but_,
Against my big _to_.
69. Mind your _I_!
70. Campbell’s Poems.
71. Thou tea-chest!
72. J’aime en silence (_six lances_.)
73. Who raw for (the) read, white, and blew!
74. G a. (G, grand; a, petit.)
75. Toad (to _ad_.)
76. Noon.
77. Insatiate (in sat I ate.)
78. Follow the English pronunciation of the syllables, allowing for the
cockneyish displacement of the letter h.
Thus: TONY’S ADDRESS TO MARY.
O Mary! Heave a sigh for me,
For me, your Tony true;
I am become as a man dumb,--
Oh, let Hymen prompt you! etc.
The eighth line is “Or eat a bit of pie.”
79. _____ _____
| | | |
|___|___|___|
| |
|___|
80. _________
| _|_ |
|_|_|_|_|
| |_|
|___|
81. XIII. (X, ^VIII.)
82. For convenience let us call the eight-gallon measure, a; the
five-gallon, b; and the three-gallon, c.
From a fill c, and empty into b. Fill c again; and, from it, fill b.
Then empty b into a, and c, (which has in it one gallon,) into b. Fill
c again, and empty into b, which now contains four gallons; while a,
also, contains four.
83. One bushel and one-ninth.
84. Nescio. Ik weet niet. Je ne sais pas. No sà. Non so. Ich weiss
nicht. Ninis cume. I dinna ken. I DON’T KNOW!
Professor Robinson in his Algebra attempts it, but not satisfactorily,
so long as letters may be made to represent any number, or any
other number, at discretion. Let us call it in this particular
phase--(unfortunately it has others),--the Matrimonial Equation: “For,
these two are one.”
85. The stranger had eaten eight-thirds of a loaf: seven-thirds
belonging to one of the Arabs, and only one-third to the other.
86. He lost four dollars and the actual cost of the boots.
87. 5 herring @ 2_d._ = 10_d._
1 “ @ ½ = ½
6 “ @ ¼ = 1½
-- -----------
12 “ 12_d._
88. Endless.
89. Cares: caress.
90. Onion.
91. Advice.
92. When he has grounds for complaint.
93. For divers reasons.
94. For sundry purposes.
95. “The quality of Mercy (Mersey) is not strained.” _H. B. S._
96. “If the grate be empty, put coal on. If the grate be full, stop
putting coal on.” So said one, but another replied “How can I put coal
on, when there is such a high fender?”
97. Because he is no better.
98. When it becomes a lady.
99. The letters of the alphabet.
100. _One_ was _going_ to St. Ives’: he met the others.
101. A little too long to wait! (A _little_ 2, _long_ 2, 8.)
_E. S. D._
102. The Image that Michal put in David’s bed. I Samuel, ch. xix. Douay
version, xix ch. I Kings.
103. His sister. The blind beggar was a woman.
104. The man who thanked Heaven was the lady’s father.
105. “That man” was the rhymer’s son.
106. Hirsute.
107. The letter s.
108. Because it is always _Snowdon_.
109. They should go to Fall River and Salem.
110. Novice.
111. Burns. _Hearth and Home._
112. Crabbe. “ “ “
113. Bryant. “ “ “
114. Gray. “ “ “
115. Beecher. “ “ “
116. Homer.
117. Hood.
118. Southey.
119. Coleridge.
120. Goldsmith.
121. Humboldt.
122. Mulock.
123. Lowell.
124. Virgil.
125. Akenside.
126. Wordsworth.
127. Steele.
128. Shakespeare.
129. Cowper.
130. WILLis.
131. Barry Cornwall.
132. Landon.
133. Landor.
134. Leigh Hunt.
135. Walpole.
136. Palmerston.
137. Russell.
138. Lytton.
139. Carlyle.
140. Seward.
141. W(h)ittier.
142. Chatter(t)on.
143. Because he has tenants.
144. It is a step fa(r)ther.
145. A draft.
146. A pack of cards.
147. A cord of wood.
148. Taking leave of things as they go.
149. His reaper.
150. It was Hamlet’s Uncle, who “did murder most foul.”
151. The Human Body.--^1 The chest; ^2 the eye-_lids_; ^3 the
knee-_caps_; ^4 the ear-_drums_; ^5 the nails; ^6 the _soles_ of the
feet; ^7 the muscles; ^8 the _palms_ of the hands; ^9 the limbs; ^10
two lips; ^11 the hips; ^12 the calves; ^13 hairs; ^14 the heart; ^15
the eye-_lashes_; ^16 the temples; ^17 arms; ^18 veins; ^19 insteps;
^20 eyes and nose; ^21 pupils; ^22 tendons.
^a The palate; ^b the _roof_ (of the mouth;) ^c the _bridge_ (of the
nose;) ^d the shoulder-_blades_; ^e the iris (of each eye;) ^f the
skull; ^g the spinal _column_; ^h the tongue; ^i the eye-_balls_, &c.,
^jjj the stirrup, anvil and hammer (bones of the ear,) ^k locks (of
hair).
152. Truant.
153. Scarecrow.
154. Intimate.
155. Codicil.
156. The hair.
157. Sixteen (those who were blind of both eyes, were also blind of one
eye, &c.)
158. Because we have a W(h)ittier.
159. Because that was his name!
160. Because the other forty are Lent.
161. Now here, nowhere.
162. Ah no! (Arno.)
163. Unquestionably.
164. The road.
165. Columbus.
166. Met-a-physician.
167. Sackcloth.
168. The one who attends “patien_ts_ on a monument.”
169. Rather he killed the gorilla.
170. She is a musing, b coming, d lighting, n chanting.
171. She is _Sad you see_.
172. She is _Fair I see_.
173. “The judicious Hooker.”
174. Yesterday.
175. Sunday; all the rest are _week_ days.
176. Campbell. _W. M. Praed._
177. Seldom, (cell-dumb.)
178. His equal.
179. Just ice.
180. The King’s Highway.
181. Postage.
182. Baking--_a king_, _b king_, _a kin_.
183. Strawberry.
184. A Mushroom.
185. Fault.
186. A ditch.
187. When they chatter.
188. Short.
189. A pillow.
190. _Ad_vice.
191. Heat; you can _catch_ cold.
192. Sausage. _Rural New Yorker._
193. Hemlock.
194. Heroine; hero; her; he.
195. A blush.
196. He took his cup and saucer.
197. The cat’ll eat it.
198. B natural.
199. B sharp.
200. If the stairs were a way, I would go down stairs.
201. Nameless.
202. He “cut it too little”; that is, he did not cut it enough.
203. TOBACCO.
204. Because of the sandwiches (sand which is) there.
205. How did the sandwiches get there? Ans. There Ham dwelt, and there
his descendants were bred and mustered (bread and mustard.)
206. Was there any butter on the sandwiches? Ans. No; Ham took only his
wife; he took none of his family BUT _her_.
207. His was made _of_ Gophir wood, and they are made _to_ go for wood.
208. “Noah went _forth_.”
209. (M) _a jest_ (y).
210. “Dreaming often;” dreaming of _ten_.
211. Yes; “perhaps” _is_ most like maybe, or a bee in May.
212. The third gave it her ring, which Puss _couldn’t_ eat.
213. On the other side.
214. Eusebius, (You see by us.)
215. Inch; chin.
216. Envy; (N. V.)
217. Pardon.
218. Cape, caper.
219. Ten, tenor.
220. Foe, four.
221. Oak, ochre.
222. Sow, soar.
223. Fee, fear.
224. Roe, roar.
225. Sue, sewer.
226. Be, beer.
227. Lie, lyre.
228. Beau, bore.
229. Stowe, store.
230. Sea, seer.
231. Cough, coffer.
232. Loaf, loafer.
233. Port, porter.
234. Pie, pyre.
235. Bat, batter.
236. Dee, deer.
237. Tart, Tartar.
238. Tea, tier.
239. Ye, year, yeast.
240. Bow, boar, boast.
241. Fee, fear, feast.
242. Pay, pear, paste.
243. Lea, Lear, least.
244. Bow, rower, roast.
245. Bee, bier, beast.
246. E, ear, east.
247. Co., core, coast.
248. Poe, pour, post.
249. Go, gore, ghost.
250. Weigh, weigher, waste.
251. “Dear Nephew;
See, my coal on.
Uncle John.”
“Dear Uncle;
Coal on!
James.”
252. He is above doing a bad action.
253. Because a hen lays only one egg a day, and a ship _lays to_.
254. Because you can.
255. ^1 corn, ^2 needles, ^3 pins, ^4 buckles, ^5 canals, ^6 combs,
^7 rivers, ^8 roses, ^9 clocks, ^10 potatoes, ^11 stars,
^12 shoes. _Hearth and Home._
256. The whale that swallowed Jonah.
257. Bunyan--a bunion.
258. A girl is a lass, and alas is an interjection.
259. Learning to go alone.
260. The door-bell.
261. White kids.
262. He would want muzzlin’.
263. When it lies in a well.
264. Three: Sirius and the two pointers.
265. _Hailing_ omnibuses.
266. All the rest are in audible.
267. Because he is not a(p)parent.
268. A river.
269. Neither: both burn shorter.
270. Because it keeps its hands before its face; and, though full of
good works, it is wholly unconscious of them, and always running itself
down.
271. Manslaughter; man’s laughter.
272. _Mo_nosyllable.
273. A bed.
274. (P)shaw!
275. The sons raise meat there. (The sun’s rays meet there.)
276. Innocence Abroad, by Mark Twain (In no sense, a broad).
277. Facetiously.
278. Philip the Great.
279. Bug-bear.
280. Wat Tyler Will Rufus.
281. Bloomer (err; her; Herr).
282. Clio.
283. Cheat; heat; eat; at; chat; ache.
284. One; none.
285. Arrow-head.
286. A man of deceit
Can best counter_feit_;
So, as everything goes,
He can best count ’er toes.
287. Balaam’s Ass.
288. A kiss.
289. The _five_ vowels.
290. Dotage.
291. Seaward.
292. Mimic.
293. Disgraceful.
294. The first made musical instruments; the second was a baggage-man;
the third was employed in a gas-factory; and the fourth made candles.
295. Cod.
296. The postman.
297. Cowslip.
298. Love.
299. The axle-tree.
300. Because it is farthest from the bark.
301. Because his business makes him sell-fish.
302. Pearlash.
303. If he was a _won_der, she was a _Tu_dor.
304. LION
INTO
OTTO
NOON.
305. A cock.
306. Enigma.
307. Crabbe, Shelley, Moore.
308. Goldsmith, Locke.
309. Campbell, Knight, Day, Foote.
310. His face.
311. BLIND.
312. Young, Gay, Hood, Lamb, Field, Gray, Fox, Hunt, Horne, Lingard,
Wordsworth, Steele.
313. Marvell, Hilarius, Akenside, Manley, Hyde, Pope.
314. Aërial.
315. Bass, perch, roast pig, turkey, fillet, celery, gooseberry
pudding, dates, Hamburg grapes.
316. Fire-fly.
317. The nose.
318. _Wal_nut.
319. Pea-nut.
320. Butternut.
321. _Beech_nut.
322. Chestnut.
323. Cocoanut.
324. The morning glory.
325. Snow drops.
326. Spinach.
327. The passion flower.
328. The spruce tree.
329. Because he has Adam’s Needle, Jacob’s Ladder, and Solomon’s Seal.
330. Catnip and Henbane.
331. Heart-ache.
332. Cashmere.
333. Season.
334. A drum.
335. Chain, china, chin.
336. Charge, charger.
337. Scamp, scamper.
338. Lad, ladder.
339. Tell, teller.
340. Barb, barber.
341. Din, dinner.
342. I, ire.
343. Yew, ewer.
344. Owe, oar.
345. Crescent, (cress-scent.)
346. The 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 12th, 16th, 18th, 19th, 22nd, 23rd,
24th, 26th, 27th, 30th, in the circle, were Jews.
347. Honesty is the best policy. (On ST, etc.)
348. [Illustration: (‡ A square enclosing a second square. The second
square is set at a 45 degree angle compared to the first square.)]
349. The Tongue.
350. Bothwell. _St. Nicholas._
351. A little more than _kin_ and less than _kind_.
352. Clink, link, ink, chair, hair, air.
353. (1) D-ranged; (2) C-girt; (3) D-lighted; (4) N-hammered; (5)
D-tested; (6) R-gone-out: (7) G-owed; (8) K-dense; (9) O-void;
(10) S-pied; (11) B-held; (12) C-bored; (13) X-pensive;
(14) D-famed. _St. Nicholas._
354. Wake robin.
355. Fill blanks with: straining, training, raining; dashing, plashing,
marching, arching.
356. Lily.
357. Ivanhoe. _St. Nicholas._
358. Aries,--_we_aries. The enigma refers to the period when Taurus
(the name of whose principal star Aldebaran signifies “He went before,
or led the way,”) was First Constellation. Next, Aries, always First
Sign, was also First Constellation; and now the Constellation Pisces
“leads the year.”
359. Tissue.
360. Because it is written with great E’s.
361. Because it is written with two great E’s--(_too_ great ease.)
362. Trace a five-pointed star, and plant a tree at each extreme point,
and at each point of intersection.
363. In naught extenuate, and set _down_ naught in
malice. _E. S. D._
364. That boy lied.
365. Fill the blanks with heart, story, art, tory.
366. Fill the blanks with plover, lover, over, ver; glowing, lowing,
owing, wing.
367. “For thou art as deaf as a p-o-s-t.”
368. April: (ape, rill).
369. He mispronounced the word “full.” “You’re a fool, Moon,” said he.
370. The pronoun “it,” which may stand for anything on earth, or under
or above the earth, seems to be the only possible solution. In the
first line it stands, perhaps, for the utmost limit of space; in the
second, for the centre of the earth, etc.
371. Dogmatic.
372. Cambyses.
373. About 117.7 feet. (Find the radius of a circle whose area is
43,560 square feet.).--_Prof. Eaton, of Packer Institute._
374. Informal.
375. A DINNER PARTY--THE GUESTS.
1. Robert Bruce.
2. Sir Walter Scott.
3. Cleopatra.
4. Leonidas.
5. Napoleon.
6. John Milton.
7. Louis XVI.
8. Artemisia.
9. Michael Angelo.
10. Gustavus of Sweden.
11. Warwick.
12. Anne of Warwick.
13. Christopher Wren.
14. Cardinal Mezzofanti.
15. Nelson.
16. Robert Burns.
17. The Chevalier Bayard.
18. Cromwell.
19. Sir Robert Walpole.
20. Sopor, King of Persia.
21. Death.
22. Schwartz, or Roger Bacon.
23. Alfred the Great.
24. Captain Cook.
25. Johannes Gutenberg.
26. Marshal Ney.
27. Galileo.
28. Blucher.
29. Sir Isaac Newton.
30. Julius Cæsar.
31. Sir Humphrey Davy.
32. Sir Walter Raleigh.
33. Sir James Ross.
34. Alfred Tennyson.
35. William Wordsworth.
36. Geoffrey Chaucer.
37. Charles XII of Sweden.
38. The Black Prince.
39. Sir Francis Drake.
40. Talleyrand.
41. Herodotus.
DISHES, ETC.
1. Oysters.
2. Soles.
3. Herring.
4. Crabs.
5. Venison.
6. Turkey.
7. Bacon.
8. Lamb.
9. Goose.
10. Hare.
11. Duck.
12. Woodcock.
13. Partridge.
14. Tongue.
15. Terrapin.
16. Potatoes.
17. Pease.
18. Parsnips.
19. Tomatoes.
20. Beets.
21. Spinach(e).
22. Cabbage.
23. Cauliflower.
24. Salad _in_.
25. Jelly.
26. Celery.
27. Artichokes.
28. Capers.
29. Cucumbers.
30. Salt.
31. Hominy.
32. Bread.
33. A _floating_ island.
34. Whips.
35. Currants.
36. Gooseberries.
37. Pears.
38. Oranges.
39. Pine apples.
40. Apricots.
41. Medlars.
42. Figs.
43. Grapes (gray apes.)
44. Comfits.
45. Nuts.
_Note._--“A headless man had a letter,” etc., page 78. Was “the
letter” the letter O--equivalent to a cipher, to nought, or nothing?
If this is the solution, then the headless man had “nothing” to
write; “nothing” was read by the blind man; the dumb repeated and the
deaf heard “nothing.”
Footnotes
[1] Reminichia--overhanging the water--the Indian name of a bluff at
the entrance of a certain Minnesota city.
[2] Full of delights: blessed.
[3] The book was written in good faith, and was published for the
benefit of the Syracuse University.
[4] Emerson, in his “Parnassus,” and the _Atlantic Monthly_
for April, 1875, accredit “A Colusion between A Water-Snaik and A
Aligater,” to G. H. Derby (“John Phenix”). It was contributed by “K. N.
Pepper” to the _Knickerbocker Magazine_, in 1854.
Transcriber’s Notes
Inconsistent word hyphenation and spelling have been regularized.
Apparent typographical errors have been corrected.
Depending on the device, software and font used to read this text, not
all elements may display as intended.
Italics are indicated as _italics_.
Bold words are indicated as =bold=.
Very large type is indicated as ++large++.
Small capitals were changed to all capitals.
Superscripts are preceded by a caret character: ^superscript, and
subscripts are preceded by a tilde character: ~subscript.
In puzzle 347, superscript (^) and subscript (~) marks affect only the
next letter displayed.
The symbol ‘‡’ indicates that the description in parentheses has been
added to an illustration tag. Visual elements in puzzles 72, 351, 363
and in answer 348 have been described in this way.
Puzzles 79 and 80 and their answers are represented as text art.
In the printer’s short-hand poem on page 119, the “{” character was
originally depicted facing upwards.
The illusion “Seeing is Believing: Seeing is Deceiving” on Page 97 may
not work with every font.
The word pyramid on Page 132 may not make the expected shape with every
font.
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