Various

“ The cannibal advertiser evidently is a gourmet, for he is particular as to age, and never eats them married. Or is it that he likes them single in preference to double, as, per contra, one might prefer double stout to single stout. After this, we shall expect such delicacies as Boiled Butler, Sauce Maître d'Hotel, Fried Footman, garnished with Calves-foot jelly, or Pickled Pageboy with Button mushrooms. Every fashion must have some inaugurator; and who knows but that we are on the eve of cannibalism, and that the Advertiser and the Daily Telegraph are its joint pioneers! ”

“ There speaks the true gourmet, with single-hearted straight-forward egotism, worthy of a City alderman, in all the glory of a civic banquet. To none but an artist in guttlery would that touch of genius about the kids and the missus occur. ”

“ But aloofness, coupled in harness with anæmia, had nipped the wilding shoots in the bud and won hands down at the distance. True, in the scraggy past, there had been a male creature, less curate than Cupid, that each of them had saved her soul alive in the memory of. But the cares of celibacy, cruel-heavy as a portmanteau-metaphor, now weighed on their shoulders; they could not crush them with a burial-spade like complete natures ”

“ It remains with you to show that you are prepared to rise to the height of the occasion. If you do this, if you grasp firmly the benefits which this Act offers you, then when next New Year's Day the gladsome bells ring out once again to tell a listening world that one year is dead and that another lives, they will sound all the clearer, all the more joyous, because they ring in a year in which Mudford will have a Parish Council. ”

“ An odd, earnest, ineffable look jumped into her eyes, changing their grey to pitch-black, with patches of ethereal blue, where the soul shone through. To their dying day the twins never forgot the smell, or ceased from the pain of their incapacity to grasp the fresh, unmellowed point of view. Points of view are the very dickens. ”

“ Writes a Baronitess, "How quaint and simple appear the affectations of Miss Jane Austen's heroines in Pride and Prejudice, especially now that one's mind is confused with the vagaries of the newspaper-created but impossible 'New Woman.'" Rather different days then, when girls addressed their mothers as "Ma'am," and were afraid of getting their feet wet, which was unromantic, and bread-and-butter romance was the fashion of those times. No matter, these romantic young women knew how to dress, according to the exquisite illustrations of Hugh Thomson. ”

“ Here is one. "Supposing only eight people come to the Parish Meeting, and a Parish Council of seven has to be elected, and suppose seven of the eight are nominated for election, and the seven are elected chairmen of the Meeting in succession, and have all to retire because they are candidates for the Council, and suppose the eighth man cannot read or write, and when he's proposed as chairman, goes home, how will the Parish Council be elected?" ”

“ Then climb a narrower and steeper staircase, and finally reach a staircase so steep and narrow that it might more accurately be called a ladder. Begin to think I have mistaken the way. Perhaps I shall find myself in the attics of the Palace, and be arrested as an anarchist. Have left my stick below, and have not even a passport with which to protect myself. Step cautiously up the first rounds of the ladder, when suddenly a large body completely fills the space above, and comes slowly down. It is impossible to go on; it is impossible to remain where I am. ”

“ Englishmen should rise in their thousands to defend the wedding-ring, symbolising as it does the sanctity of the nuptial tie, and should hurl from power a Government which is about to hand us over, fingers and souls, to a tyrannical set of County Council busybodies. ”

“ Lady Cantire. Nonsense, my dear, no walk at all; the church is only just across the park. My brother Rupert always goes, and it pleases him to see the Wyvern pew as full as possible. I seldom feel equal to going myself, because I find the necessity of allowing pulpit inaccuracy to pass without a protest gets too much on my nerves; but my daughter will accompany you. You'll have just time to run up and get your things on. ”

“ Why, Buckingham Palace is a joy for ever compared to it, and even Wormwood Scrubbs Prison reveals unsuspected charms! Would like to sit down to recover from the shock, but as one is more likely to find a public seat in a London square than in an Italian piazza, this is impossible. Therefore, totter to the great central entrance. Perhaps the grand staircase leading to the galleries may be as attractive as the exterior is forbidding.
Dynamite with care
Discover that the entrance to the galleries is by a small side door, where I leave my walking-stick, and climb a narrow, steep staircase. ”

“ No contemptible piece of architecture like our National Gallery, where you fall over the staircase directly you go in at the door, and where, when you have recovered yourself, you find three staircases, facing you like the heads of Cerberus at another entrance, and always go up the wrong one, and have to come down again and clamber up another before you find what you want. Even then, if you seek the watercolours of the greatest English landscape painter, you must go down yet another staircase into the cellar. ”

“ And here it shall be seen whether you have true chivalry and romance in your soul, or whether you grovel in mere sensual gourmandise. What says Master Bill Nupkins, master-cook to the Blue Pig chop-house in Skittle-alley? Is there not an idyllic flavour of Cocaigne, a very fervour of simplicity about his spelling which goes straight to the gizzard of the whelk-worshipper? Listen to his wise counsel on whelks à la Shoreditch:—
"Tyke three 'aputh of whilks, 'Erne By sort fer choice, and chuck 'em wiv a saveloy and a kipper into a sorcepan, if you can nick one from a juggins. ”

“ Learn but one magic formula, and you shall see the wizard-working of your incantation, as, like an enchantress herself bewitched, she assumes you an ensorceled, faery shape. Here, mark you, is this potent spell, culled from the inspired lips of a frenzied chef.
To Make Whelk Fritters.—Take one ripe whelk, draw and truss it until you are black in the face, tie up the forequarter with chickweed, sit down, and smoke a pipe; parboil anything you like for a few hours, or don't, if you don't care to ”

“ It is easy to jeer at Woman, but be warned in time. Her day will come. Already, married or single, she may vote, already County Councils tremble at her word. Treat Woman with respect, or it will be the worse for you. ”

“ The room was crammed with persons, men and women, married and single. The Vicar brought his daughters, two charming girls. Black Bob and his mates were there, in solid rows, whilst Mrs. Havitt and Mrs. March both turned up, attended by body-guards—the one of Women Liberals, the other of Primrose Leaguers. When the Chairman rose at half-past seven it is no exaggeration to say that the scene was striking and impressive. Then, two minutes later, I rose, and commenced my magnum opus of oratory. ”

“ Florence is undoubtedly one of the best places in the world for studying pictures. Resolve to visit the Pitti Palace. Now I shall see something like a palace—the home of the Medici, adorned with all the beauty of architecture and sculpture which they loved so well! No monotonous, painted barrack like Buckingham Palace, no shabby brick house like St. ”

“ The literary style is unmistakable. "Released from the swaddling clothes of error and superstition," no one but Mr. M. could have written, "the inherent virility of man has reasserted itself, and to the untrammelled vision and ripened energies of the scientist the arcana of nature have been gradually disclosed." "Edison's literary proclivities," he adds, in a sentence that recalls struggles in the house in Windsor Terrace, City Road, where David Copperfield was a lodger, "were seriously hampered by the collapse of the family fortunes, and the early necessity of gaining his own living. ”

“ A poorer, singler man, with the same prancing tip-toe spirit, would have lost all sense of decency, and written a book. But being rich, and, by profession, married, he also was on his way to the usual trout-stream. ”

“ A cross-country journey in a slow train, with unlimited opportunities of studying the Company's bye-laws and traffic arrangements at several admirably ventilated junctions, is not my own idea of the best way to spend a cheery Sunday, that's all. ”

“ There are so many serious publications claiming attention in these days of literary over-production that I have long made it a rule to read no literature of a lighter order that has not been before the world for at least ten years. ”

“ And of course the children should have a version suitable for their shrill voices. And it could be used as an opera, and played on the organ. All this, of course, you could manage?
H. V. B. Certainly, you may be sure it shall become universally popular. I will score it for every conceivable instrument, and every possible audience. It shall be played or sung in hospitals, railway stations, schools, and in fact everywhere!
I. M. It shall! But there must be one version teaching a man how to play the tune with a solitary finger.
H. V. B. May I venture to ask by whom that last version will be used? ”

“ Whilst your wrath rages human love sits weeping!
If of "a common Christianity"
Ye were but practical and patient teachers,
In Education's task ye might agree.
Now sense is asking "Who shall teach our teachers?"
"THE FOURTH R;" OR, THE "RELIGIOUS" (?) ROW AT THE SCHOOLBOARD.
Quite Un-sectarian Girl. "Oh, my! What a jolly Row!"
Equally Un-sectarian Boy. "Ain't it! I 'ope they'll keep it up, and we shan't 'have to Learn nothink!" ”

“ You are probably thinking of some totally different person, as my daughter has never mentioned having written to you, and is not in the habit of conducting any correspondence without my full knowledge and approval. ”

“ It's quite romantic. But I must rush up and get my bonnet on if I'm to go to church. (To herself, as she goes out.) So she was "Lady Grisoline," after all! If I was her mother—— But dear Lady Cantire is so advanced about things.
Lady Cant. (to herself) . Darling Maisie! He'll be Lord Dunderhead before very long. How sensible and sweet of her! And I was quite uneasy about them last night at dinner; they scarcely seemed to be talking to each other at all. But there's a great deal more in dear Maisie than one would imagine.
Sir Rupert (outside) . We're rather proud of our church, Mr. ”