Various

“ Professor Splurgeson then went on to say that nowhere was this happy element of intellectual compromise more needful than in discussing the problem of personality. That problem comprised three questions: What are we? What do we think of ourselves? and What do others think of us? ”

“ Professor Splurgeson then proceeded to give a brief outline of what we usually think of ourselves. It was true that the expression of the face held a great place in the idea we had of other personalities, but how was it that in the idea of ourselves it played so small a part? The reason was that we did not know our own countenances. (Sensation.) If we were to meet ourselves in the street we should infallibly pass without a recognition. ”

“ Resuming, Professor Splurgeson discussed with great eloquence the secular duel between the Will and the Understanding. It was ex hypothesi impossible for the super-man, à fortiori the super-woman, to yield to the dictates of the understanding. The question arose whether we might not profitably invert metaphysic and, instead of trying to locate personality in totality, begin with personality and work outwards. ”

“ I clambered into bed and with great intelligence pressed the correct switch. Had I left it at that my problem would never have arisen.
I have, however, a confession to make which ill accords with my luxurious surroundings of the moment. It is that I am accustomed to press my trousers myself by the homely and ignoble expedient of sleeping on them. My only excuse is that I am a heavy sleeper. So automatic is the process, that I was wrapped in sheets and darkness before it occurred to me that I had placed the trousers I had just doffed under the mattress on which I now lay. ”

“ On the eighth day they were too weak for combat; they could only glare at each other passionately from opposite corners of the room; and on the ninth day came the end.
"Arthur held out the longer—he had, you see, wasted less breath. When he saw Hugh gasping in the penultimate throes of death, he mustered sufficient strength to clutch the bottle, and even to crawl over to his friend's side. Hugh saw him coming and shut his teeth. ”

“ We know better. It was a carefully devised Plot to take Carson's hundred thousand armed and drilled men at their word and compel them to fight. Not since war began has there been such unjustifiable—don't wish to use strong language, but must say—such really rude procedure on part of a so-called civilised Government. ”

“ A more engaging old ruffian I have seldom encountered; among all the philanderings, conspiracies and mutinies of this wild voyage he remains a master of volcanic versatility. And his humour is of the right Jacobs brand.
The really stupid thing about Mr. Fergus Rowley was that he had never been to see The Great Adventure. That popular play must have been running for a considerable while (and the story appeared in book-form of course much earlier) before he decided to "fake" a suicide from the deck of the liner Transella and leave his large possessions to an unknown and penniless nephew. ”

“ Yet by his colossal personality he dominated the vast assemblage and inspired the orchestra to such feats of dynamic diabolism as entirely eclipsed the most momentous achievements of any full-grown conductor from Nero to Nikisch.
What renders the performance of this tremendous tot so awe-inspiring is the fact that he is not merely a musical illiterate, who cannot yet read a note of music, but that he has received no education of any kind! Born at Tipperusalem, Oklahoma, on the 15th of March, 1912, he has for parents a clerk in the Eagle Bakery and a Lithuanian laundress. ”

“ Tuesday.—Wholesome spirit of enquiry animates House just now. Bonner Law leads off with demand for judicial inquiry into "the Plot." Fact that its appointment would establish novel precedent in constitutional procedure adds interest to situation. Premier, with emphatic thump of the table that reminds it of Gladstone in his prime, stands by constitutional practice.
"If," he said, "the right hon. gentleman is prepared to make and sustain his allegation of dishonourable conduct on part of the Ministers, I will give him the earliest possible day to bring it forward. ”

“ What can a man want at 1 A.M. except to go to sleep? Even the richest must do that for himself.
There were footsteps outside.... Perkins'.... I thought harder than I have ever thought before, but my life seemed replete with every modern comfort.
"Yes, Sir?" said Perkins.
"Ah, is that you, Perkins?" said I to gain time, and he said it was.
I shut my eyes and tried to think. Perkins stood silent. I had some idea of leaving it at that, of turning out the light and letting Perkins decide upon his own course of action. ”

“ Perkins may have been annoyed about this, but he was certainly impressed. His demeanour suggested that he had met autocrats before but never such a thorough autocrat as I. For the rest of my time there I pressed my trousers in the usual way, well knowing that he would regard the process not as the makeshift of a valetless pauper but as the eccentricity of an overstaffed multi-billionaire.
The Honest Hypocrites.
"Among the most formidable foes to the reform of our industrial system are those who pretend to be most bitterly opposed to it." ”

“ But Perkins will see to it."
Some people can assume a sort of detached attitude in the early morning, while body-servants get them up and dress them and send them downstairs, but me, I confess, these attentions overawe. "Perkins is one of those strong silent men, is he not," I asked, "who creep into one's bedroom in the morning and steal one's clothes when one isn't looking?"
Charles has no sympathy with Spartans and did not answer. "I think you'll find everything you want. There's a telephone by the bed." ”

“ Nothing else will convince the country, as it knows by experience that Ministers are steeped in falsehood.
Mr. Law. That is an allegation against the honour of Ministers. (Mr. Churchill, "They have none.") If the Leader of the Opposition desires to attempt to substantiate these charges I will give him a day—or a week, if he wants it.
Mr. Swift MacNeill. Afraid of five years for perjury. Blackguards!
Mr. Amery (President of the Local Government Board) . Mr. Speaker, should I be in order if I appealed to you to ask Members on the other side to maintain the honourable traditions of this House? ”

“ From the innumerable tributes which have been paid to the genius of this unprecedented phenomenon we can only make a brief and inadequate selection. Prince Boris Ukhtomsky writes, "When I listen to this infinitesimal giant of conductors I dream that mankind is dancing on the edge of a precipice. Tiny Titus is—the 32nd of the month." Mme. Jelly Tartakoff, the famous singer, writes: "I have been deeply shaken by Tiny Titus's concert. He is the limit." ”

“ I said, looking at the attractive bed, "but I expect to be too busy in the morning even to write." I yawned comfortably. "Though it may be that I shall dictate, from where I lie, a note or two to my stenographer."
Charles doubted, with all solemnity, whether Perkins could manage shorthand, but promised to enquire about it. He's a dear solid fellow, is Charles, and he does enjoy being rich. Moreover, he means his friends to enjoy it, too. ”

“ It Will Be All Right is an exercise in the picaresque school, lacking none of the author's usual raciness and vigour; but, if at the end we find Mr. Fergus Rowley still unable to reinstate himself, and left with no better consolation than the "Heigho" of his famous great-uncle Anthony, the fault, I feel, was his own. He ought to have looked in at the Kingsway Theatre and provided himself with the indispensable mole.
THE SPREAD OF CUBISM. "ON." (A contemporary remarked recently how many names of famous men have ended in "on.")
Call no man famous till you know his end. ”

“ Men like Perkins, however, are not to be lied to; still less may they be made the recipients of confessions. Methods of self-defence were therefore unthinkable, and I knew instinctively that I must assume the offensive. ”

“ I see no necessity for any such enquiry. I am prepared to answer for the Government on the floor of this House.
Mr. Lloyd George. May I ask the right honourable gentleman how many members of the Government are interested in armament companies, and to what extent they would have profited by the contemplated Tipperary pogrom? (Shouts of "Yah," "Thieves!" "Thieves!" "Brigands!" and "Yah!")
Mr. Law. I utterly and entirely repudiate the suggestion of the right honourable gentleman. (Opposition shouts of "Liar" and "Coward.") ”

“ I said. "I have noticed that when a letter written, say, by the Duke of Pemmican is thrown on the screen it is always signed 'Duke of Pemmican.' Why is that? In real life wouldn't he sign it 'Pemmican'?"
"He might," said my companion. "I don't know; but what I do know is that the cinema public expects a duke to call himself a duke; and we pride ourselves on giving them what they want."
"If you were making King George write a letter," I said, "would he sign himself 'King George'?"
"Certainly," he replied. "Why not? That's a good idea, anyway. A film with a letter from the King in it would go. ”

“ As a rule successfully affects attitude of one "who cares for none of these things." To-day moved to unsuspected depths.
"Here," he says, "is Ulster, for two years arming with avowed intention of [pg 334] forcibly resisting the law of the land. The Constitutional Party in this country, bulwark of Law and Order, who, when the Southern Counties of Ireland were in revolt, applauded Prince Arthur's Cromwellian command, 'Don't hesitate to shoot,' backs them up, in my opinion very properly. Carson has developed Napoleonic genius in reviewing troops on parade. ”

“ PROFESSOR SPLURGESON ON PERSONALITY. Strange Conduct of Fashionable Audience.
Professor Splurgeson delivered the first of his Claridge Lectures at the theatre of the Mayfair University yesterday. The auditorium was crowded to its utmost extent, ladies largely predominating.
Professor Peterson Prigwell, in a brief introductory speech, said that the achievements of Professor Splurgeson beggared the vocabulary of eulogy. More than any other thinker he had succeeded in reconciling high life with high thinking. ”

“ Kipling with a faculty, when planning an escapade, for faultless English, only equalled by that of the flustered client explaining what has happened to the lynx-eyed sleuth, they are as stout a trio as ever thrust coal into a furnace or fist into a first mate's jaw. ”

“ All they care for is the £5,000 a year.
Mr. Speaker. Order, order! I must ask honourable members not to turn Question time into a debate.
Mr. Churchill. I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether the guns of the first cruiser squadron are not at this moment trained on Limerick, and to ask him if ample time will be given for women and children to escape before the massacre begins? ”

“ In at least one of our colonies the War Minister is designated "Minister for Defence." This would surely be a more than apt title for Mr. Asquith, who has been doing yeoman work of this kind on behalf of his peccant colleagues.
Some idea of the confusion which reigned at the fight between Blake and Borrell may be gathered from the following paragraph in The Liverpool Daily Post:—
"Blake, who was the taller, at once led the £500 aside, and both men to deposit a further close quarters, and they indulged in in-fighting up to the close of the round." ”

“ Arthur Rackham, "woman seeks persistently for beauty." And now many husbands are flattering themselves that that is how they came to be married.
"Mothers who sleep nine hours on end," says Dr. Westcott, the coroner, "should not have babies, and, if they do, they should be put in cradles." The only difficulty is that at present there is no cradle on the market large enough to take a grown-up. ”

“ The Express is offering prizes to its readers with a view to ascertaining which is the best-looking animal in the Zoo, and which is the ugliest. It is, of course, no affair of ours, but we think it would be a graceful and humane act on the part of our contemporary to give a consolation prize to the poor beast adjudged to be the ugliest. ”

“ Many kinds of fear are treated in the book—those common to us all in childhood and youth and age; and there are chapters dedicated to men and women who have notably striven with and overcome the dragon—Johnson and Charlotte Brontë and Carlyle, and that friend of his, John Sterling, whose letter from his death-bed the author quotes and rightly calls "one of the finest human documents." ”

“ Married women consider this a marvellous achievement in view of the fact that the man had no wife to help him.
At last it looks as if something is going to be done for golfers, whose language, it is rumoured, occasionally leaves so much to be desired. The Rector of Frinton has undertaken to consider a suggestion that a special service for golfers shall be held at nine o'clock on Sunday mornings. ”

“ A thrush has built its nest and laid three eggs at the junction of two scaffold poles where between fifty and sixty men are working on a new building at Northampton. The kind-hearted labourers were, we understand, willing to work quietly and slowly in order not to disturb the young mother, but were over-ridden by the foremen. ”