Various

“ Believe me, there is nobody in the world than yourself I had rather live with if obliged to choose somebody. But to pass more than a few hours at a stretch in anyone's house besides my own, is more than I can abide, unless now and then for a night or so at an hotel, where I am not expected to notice anybody, and nobody minds me except the waiters in attendance, whom I am not ashamed of giving trouble. ”

“ The present condition of Teapot Bay is much the same—the roads running between two lines of cellars (contributions to houses that have yet to be built) are numerous and testify to good intentions never fulfilled. There is the same meaningless tower with a small illuminated clock at the top of it, and if the pier is not quite so long as it was thirty or forty years ago, it still seems to be occupying the same site. ”

“ When this happens, the weary traveller has to descend, cross a platform, and try another line. If he is a man of determination, and is not easily disheartened, nine times out of ten he ultimately reaches Teapot Bay, where his arrival causes more astonishment than gratification. ”

“ If the shade of Master William Shakspeare will pardon the liberty, the play is a very good one. It has an interesting plot, with plenty of scope for good acting, good music, and last, and not least, good scenery. Why it should not have been revived before I cannot imagine, unless it be that London theatres have men and not ladies to manage them. Had it been produced in the Irving régime, Miss Ellen Terry could have played—and played well—the parts of Hermione and Perdita ”

“ Because Women are cheap, and there's heaps to be found,
Won't it come to this, sooner or later, my boy,
That the most of us chaps will be out of employ,
Whilst the Women will do all the work there's to do,
And keep us, and the kids, on about half our "screw"? ”

“ As Leontes he has a part rather out of his line; but, all things considered, he fills it very well. It may be objected that he is rather effeminate, and that his costume would have been more becoming had he worn what the ladies (I believe) term "half sleeves;" but for all that, his reading of the character was entirely conscientious, if not absolutely right. But naturally the success of Saturday evening was Miss Anderson, who was as matronly dignified as Hermione, as she was deliciously girlish as Perdita. ”

“ Leaving the scenery to come to the acting, I may say that the play is generally well cast. Mr. Maclean and Mr. Charles Collette are both very amusing, the first as Camillo, and the last as Autolycus, and Mr. George Warde is quietly humorous with the baby. When I say quietly humorous, I do not mean that he trenches in the least on the ground occupied by either the Clown of Pantomime or the Clown of Shakspeare. He does not sit upon the infant, or throw it about—no, nor even sing to it a little comic song. ”

“ Margate, Ramsgate, Westgate and Broadstairs, are taken au sérieux, and have trains which keep their time; but Teapot Bay, seemingly, is looked upon as a legitimate excuse for laughter. If two trains are fixed to start at 12, and 12.30, the twelve o'clock train will leave at 12.30, and the 12.30 at 1. The authorities endeavour to have a train in hand at the end of the day, and I fancy are generally successful in carrying out their intentions. ”

“ Londoners who like but are weary of the attractions of Eastend-on-Mud, and want a change, can scarcely do better than spend twenty-four hours in that rising watering-place Teapot Bay. I say advisedly "rising," because the operation has been going on for more than forty years. ”

“ To darn stockings at home with the kids on our laps.
Well, I hope as they'll like it. I tell you what, neighbour,
The world's being ruined by petticoat labour.
Besides, Mate, in spite of this Woman's Rights fuss,
Work don't make 'em better as women, but wus.
It mucks 'em for marriage, and spiles 'em for home,
'Cos their notion of life is to racket and roam.
Just look at that work-girl there, her with the fringe!
She's a nice pooty specimen! Makes a chap cringe
To think of that flashy young chit as a wife,
That's what cheap woman labour will do for our life. ”

“ Great Firmness and Benevolence. The Moral Brain is large, and your moral standard"— ("My what?" interrupts 'Arry, with a suspicious cock of his eye) —"Your moral standard is high." ("Right!" says 'Arry, mollified, and séance terminates.)
Cam-belle.
These delineators certainly put things very agreeably. One might get some useful hints, too. If Professor Skittles could tell me whether I am most poetic, or witty, or dramatic, I should know exactly what to aim at in my Nautical Drama. I have never been able to decide which I love the best—Tennyson, Milton, or Campbell. ”

“ Sometimes sit and meditate till I lapse into a brown study, and am then liable to dream day-dreams, and fall into fits of unconscious cerebration, in which I frequently start up and spout Shakspeare, or sing songs, or hum passages in operas, oratorios, symphonies, and overtures, a trick which, as my voice is very harsh and discordant, would of course be most irritating and offensive to anybody who could hear me, as would be generally the case anywhere out of my own den. ”

“ I can quite fancy that Leontes when he saw Hermione, and Florizel Perdita, must have talked of their condition (allowing for the loss of their hearts) as I describe myself when I assume the signature of
One who has gone to Pieces. ”

“ Several shoeblacks very anxious to black my boots, which, as I tell them, would be "painting the lily." Don't think they understand me. Stop thoughtlessly to look at a cage containing a tree-frog and two Japanese rats. Proprietor approaches with plate: "This little Jubilee Menagerie open free to the Public," he says—"we ope the Public will respond by a similar liberality." Well, well, if I must—but it really was not worth a penny.
Join a crowd: a conjuror—good, I am fond of conjuring. Conjuror now going to introduce his "celebrated and favourite Shell-trick." ”

“ It will be useless to bring up this little boy to any trade or business of a mechanical kind, unless he developes an after-taste for it, which I do not say he may not—far from it. But he has a brain which will fit him for great success in some artistic profession. ”

“ Leontes is not a very prominent personage, and even had it been coupled with Autolycus, still the demands upon Mr. Irving's talent would have been insufficient, not only to please himself, but also (which is of equal importance) to satisfy the audience.
A Picture from the Stone.
However, when Miss Anderson takes the reins of stage management in to her own fair and shapely hands, the necessity of providing for a tragedian of the first class disappears. The "leading man" of her company is Mr. Forbes-Robertson—a most talented person. ”

“ Riparian Owner.—Yes, you can, if you think it worthwhile, sue the owners of the five houseboats which have moored themselves close to your front-garden, and to whose proximity you fancy the two cases of typhus and one of cholera in your family are to be attributed. You ask what the maximum costs would be. Costs are things which have no maximum. Multiply your yearly income by the number of boats, and you will be pretty near the amount. ”

“ I have done, young lady. Now, we have a nice large audience—I hope some other subject will oblige us by stepping up. We like to see one coming up briskly after another, you know. We don't like to be idle. ”

“ Shiel, on the Southwark Bench, to observe that "Gambling was the first step towards crime. Boys who began with gambling, very often ended by being thieves." Too often, perhaps, but, it may be hoped, not always. ”

“ Luckely my son William came by in a Bote, so I hollowed to him, and, getting in, he pulled me across the foaming River. I luckely remembered hearing 2 of the Tems Consewatifs a torking at the Lord Mare's Bankwet about the Buy Lors, and that one on em was a fine of 40s. for ewerrybody as shot a gun across the River. So, harmed with this nollidge, I at wunce adrest myself to the estonished Gents about the enormous sum as they wood have to pay me if as how as I went and told. I had bin a making the Calkerlashon all the way across, so I was able to say boldly, eleven shots, at 40s. ”

“ The boy who begins by playing at pitch-and-toss, surely doesn't always grow up to be a man who actually commits manslaughter. He may possibly stop short of larceny, burglary, or housebreaking, and do nothing worse than getting a useless, but not absolutely criminal livelihood, by betting on the Derby and the St. ”

“ She will be fond of her home, fond of her parents. She will be capable of passing in an examination—if she takes pains. She finds no difficulty in doing anything that comes easy to her." (Here the patient giggles.) ”

“ What it is to be not only a Poet but a geolergist as well! ah, it's all owing to the Bellowsmender's Skool.
I don't find much difference in the old Place xcep that it's gitting bigger, witch it's a pity, but how can one be surprized. If peeple finds out a perfec pairodice they natrally tells their friends of it, and so more cums ewery year. Among others we've got a real live Hem Pea, but he's here on the sly, having told the Tory Whip as he's bin obligated to go to Swizzerland to see his pore sick Mother-in-Law! A nice sort of green Whip he must ha' bin to be so eesily gammond. ”

“ Davies as a gaoler suggests that in "those days" prison officials were sometimes whatever happened to be the equivalent of the period to the modern "masher." Miss Zeffie Tilbury, Miss Helena Dacre, and Miss Desmond ("1st Lady with a song" and gigantic lyre) are all equally good, and even the subordinate female parts have efficient representatives.
Returning to the gentlemen (a difficult task when it entails leaving such pleasant company) Mr. F. H. Macklin as Polixenes is sufficiently robust in his manly bearing to suggest the necessary contrast with Leontes, and Mr. ”

“ Nearly everyone else off, pair or no pair. Irish Members, with exception of Parnell, have nowhere else to go, so make up their minds not only to stop themselves, but to be the cause of stopping in others. ”