Various

“ Such being her behaviour in the society of men, the tone of her daily conversation with friends of her own sex may be readily imagined, though it might not be pleasant to describe. Suffice it to say, that she sees no shame in addressing them, or in allowing herself to be addressed by a name which a Court of law has held to be libellous when applied to a burlesque actress. She is always at Hurlingham or the Ranelagh, and has seen pigeons killed without a qualm. ”

“ Having left the Seminary at which she acquired an elementary ignorance of spelling, a smattering of French phrases as used by English lady novelists, and a taste for music which leads her in after-life to prefer Miss Bessie Bellwood to Beethoven, she is soon afterwards brought out at a smart dance in London. From this point her progress is rapid. Balls and concerts, luncheons and receptions, dinners and theatres, race meetings and cricket matches, at both of which more attention is paid to fashion than to the field, follow one another in a dizzy succession. ”

“ The Bull exhibits the liveliest interest in her proceedings, as he looks on, with his forelegs folded easily upon the top of the door.
Song—Lydia Banks (in Polka time.)
I'm the child by Miss Jane Taylor sung;
Unnaturally good for one so young—
A pattern for the people that I go among,
With my moral little tags on the tip of my tongue,
And I often feel afraid that I shan't live long,
For I never do a thing that's rude or wrong!
Chorus (to which the Bull beats time) .
As a general rule, one doesn't live long,
If you never do a thing that's rude or wrong! ”

“ In middle age she loses her brilliant complexion. Yet, for reasons best known to herself, her colour continues to be bright, though her spirits and her temper seem to suffer in the effort to keep it so. ”

“ Nineteenth-Century readers, who pride themselves on being Huxleys in the full blaze of scientific light, and yet would shrink from passing a night in a haunted room, or, if alone, would go a mile out of their way to avoid an uncanny spot. ”

“ As old age advances, she is as likely as not to become a gorgon of immaculate propriety, and will be heard lamenting over the laxity of manners which permits girls to do what was never dreamt of when she was a girl herself. ”

“ Raises latchet; chord; Bull comes slowly out, and crouches ominously; Jack retreats, and takes refuge on top of pump; the Bull, after scratching his back with his off foreleg, makes a sudden rush at Lydia.
Lydia (as she evades it)
,
Here, help!—it's chasing. ”

“ Their pastime is to imitate a flirtation, and to burlesque love, but neither of them is ever deceived into attributing the least reality to this occupation, which is often as harmless as it is always absurd. ”

“ She allows the young men who cluster round her to suppose that she knows all about their lapses from strict propriety, and that she commends rather than condemns them. Causes célèbres are to her a staple of conversation, her interest in them varying directly as the number of co-respondents. ”

“ Falls on ground, while the Bull stands over her, in readiness to give the coup de grace;
Lydia calls for help.
A Farm-hand (encouragingly) .
Nay, Miss, he seems moor sensible nor surly—
He knows as how good children perish early! ”

“ House doesn't like Charles Lewis, Bart., so called on Lees, and Bart. withdrew, angrily snorting.
Very few Members present. Getting on for dinner-hour. General conviction that it's going to be a dull night. Nothing can help it. But Gladstone waits, and presently, attracted by Lees' superb sense of superiority, sits with hand to ear, listening with kindly smile. Nothing delights Grand Old Man so much as youth, especially aggressive youth—youth that knows about everything, with fuller information and judgment more accurate than its elders. ”

“ Yes, the force opposed to our courageous youths of the Lycée Janson de Sailly comprised not only Englishmen, but other nationalities, including sons of the American United States and Holland. Against this formidable combination the active and sportsmanlike youth of our re-awakened athletic France scored a victory, easy, swift, and complete, of two tries to nothing. ”

“ The greatest mistake made by narrators of the marvellous is attempting to account for the unaccountable. This book is, I believe, one of a series now being published by Elliot Stock, of Paternoster Row, a stock which Your Own Baron recommends as a safe investment, for the book alone is a good dividend, the interest being kept up all through; and it is satisfactory to hear that, as the other counties of England, and perhaps of Ireland and Scotland, are being dealt with in a similar manner, there is a good reserve-fund of information and amusement. ”

“ These and similar occupations, of course, leave her no time to attend to her children, who are left to grow up as best they may under the fostering care of nursery-maids and of such relations as may choose, from time to time, to burden themselves with the olive-branches of others. Her husband has long since retired from all competition with her, and leaves her free to follow her own devices, whilst he himself follows the odds. She is often supposed to be riding for a fall. ”

“ It is impossible, therefore, that the men who are her friends should treat her with that chivalrous respect which an obsolete tradition would seem to require, but they suffer no loss of her esteem in consequence. ”

“ The Company professes to sell milk "pure from the cow." From the quality of this morning's supply, I should be inclined to fancy that that cow is suffering from an advanced stage of atrophy.
As our eldest child, aged two-and-a-half, is still totally unable to walk, and its legs have become mere shrivelled sticks, I really must call in an Analyst to test our milk. ”

“ By their example she has been taught to hold as articles of her very limited faith, that the serious concerns of life are of interest only to fools, and should, therefore (though the inference is not obvious) , be entirely neglected by herself, and that frivolity and fashion are the twin deities before whom every self-respecting woman must bow down. ”

“ During the shooting season she goes from country-house to country-house. She has been seen sometimes with a gun in her hands, often with a lighted cigarette between her lips. Indeed she is too frequent a visitor at shooting-luncheons and in smoking-rooms, where a woman, however much she may attempt to disguise her sex, is never cordially welcomed by men. ”

“ How curious that our youngest boy, aged fifteen months, should have already become partially paralysed, and be afflicted, besides, with anæmia, rickets, and growing inability to digest the smallest particle of food! ”

“ Encouraged by the comments of the Press, the Board considered they owed a duty to the Public second only in importance to the duty they owed to the shareholders. Nowadays, great trading communities had no right to act selfishly—they must think not only of those who owned the capital, but also of that vast majority whose comfort it should be their pleasure to enhance. ”

“ Bordeaux will be ransacked for pigeons, Scotland for Scotch woodcock, Wales for rabbits, Sardinia for sardines, and Turkey for rhubarb. Special messengers are travelling through Germany in search of sausages; others are in Ireland seeking supplies of the stew of that country. Bombay is being ransacked for its celebrated Bombay ducks, Guinea for fowls, Norfolk for dumplings, and Chili for vinegar. Merchant traders are already in treaty with Madeira for cakes ”

“ In the unceasing struggle to maintain herself there, she may perhaps shorten her life, but she will apparently find a compensation in the increased length of her dressmaker's bills. She is ordinarily the daughter of aristocratic parents, who carefully allowed her to run wild from the moment she could run at all. ”

“ Enter Farm-hands.
Lydia.
Come quick—this Bull's mistaking me for Jack!
Jack.
He knows his business best, I shouldn't wonder.
Farm-hands (philosophically) .
He ain't the sort o' Bull to make a blunder. ”

“ She thus comes to be considered a cheerful companion, and at the end of her third season, marries a jaded man of pleasure, whose wealth is more considerable than his personal attractions, and who, for some inscrutable reason, has been approved by her parents as a suitable husband. ”

“ Sir W. V. Harcourt, on the night when he was so huffy, "left the House." True: he certainly did not "carry the House with him."
[Pg 124]
MODERN TYPES.
(By Mr. Punch's Own Type-Writer.)
No. IV.—THE GIDDY SOCIETY LADY.
The Giddy Lady is one who, having been plunged at an early age into smart society, is whirled perpetually round in a vortex of pleasures and excitements. ”

“ He was sure that they would be pleased when they learned the manner in which that money had been spent. Instead of being hoarded up to swell the dividend— (groans.) —it had been absorbed in improvements which would confer great benefits upon the community. (Uproar.)
A Shareholder. What have we to do with the community?
The Chairman explained that as the greater included the lesser, the community must include the Shareholders. ”

“ Business done.—Debate on Parnell Commission Report.
Thursday.—For ordinary mild-mannered man, Justin McCarthy to-night dealt Charles Lewis, Bart., what The Marchioness used to call "a wonner." Yesterday, Lewis delivered carefully prepared diatribe on Report. Not particularly friendly to Ministers, especially Jokim; but death on Irish Members. McCarthy to-day complained that, without giving notice, Bart. had made personal attack on him; and, what was worse, holding Report in hand, and purporting to quote from it, had misled House on matter of fact. ”

“ The Bull, after some consideration, decides to accept this retractation, and retreats with dignity to his stall, the door of which he carefully fastens after him. Exit Farmer Banks, L., as Lydia Banks enters R., accompanied by Chorus. ”