Various

“ Afrael, the inhabitant of a distant star, falls in love with Noema, the wife of the atheistical Babelite Aran, to whom she has borne a son, aged in the poem, as far as I can make out, about eight years, and a fine boy for that. Anyhow, it makes Noema at least twenty-five, supposing she married at sweet seventeen, and, indeed, she alludes to herself in the poem as no longer in her first youth. ”

“ Well, Aran, who is very far from being a domestic character, is struck down by avenging lightning at the destruction of the Tower of Babel, and Noema is left a widow, with her child, who has been protected in the mêlée by the Spirit Afrael's taking him out of it, and restoring him to his mother's arms. ”

“ Should the Republic be in danger, or should Monarchists or Imperialists get a chance and want a man for the place, let them wire to DRURIOLANUS, "à moitié enfant de Paris" and the "Enfant"—"Enfant ARRIS," not "Enfant GATTI"—will be ready, aye ready, to assume the purple, and to bring all his properties with him. "À moitié"—and the other half? That will ever remain British. So à la santé de Monsieur le Shérif-enfant-de-Londres-et-Paris, in a pint of Half-and-half, and let it, like Le Shérif himself, have a good head on! ”

“ At the risk of being dry and bald, I have confined myself to telling accurately what has happened, my greatest ambition being to leave no one the chance of misrepresenting, as his whim, fancy, or passion may dictate, facts in which I am so deeply interested. ”

“ Nothing can be more absurd than his make-up, his bows, his grimaces, and yet under the surface there is a vein of pathos that causes one to feel a pang of genuine regret when the poverty-stricken, light-hearted rogue, who, if he cannot secure a hundred guineas, is equally ready to accept a "tenner," is marched oft to penal servitude as the Curtain falls. ”

“ When, after this, the infatuated spirit-lover Afrael requests Noema to say the word which shall make a man of him, and a husband of him too at the same time, she modestly refuses, until she has had a decent time to order her widow's weeds at her milliner's and wear them for about a month or so, at the expiration of which interval Afrael may, if he be still of the same mind, call in again, and pop the question. ”

“ I will only say, therefore, that the "sensation" produced in me by this novel is one of the most disagreeable I ever experienced. The characters are, for the most part, inordinately dull, preposterously conceited, and insufferably brutal. As for Dick Heldar, the hero, no more disagreeable and hateful bully-puppy ever thought and talked in disconnected gasps through ninety-seven pages. The catastrophe moves no pity. Mr. KIPLING seems to despise the public, "who think with their boots, and read with their elbows;" but so clever a man might surely show his contempt less crudely. ”

“ Find that my "rear-guard"—the negress and Arabs—have been up to fearful pranks during my absence. Negress killed and ate one of Arabs, and then other Arab killed and ate negress! Tell remaining Arab I shall have him punished when I get to Coast. Arab says he'll get there first, and publish a book showing me up!
Latest.—Left alone in middle of Africa, with a phonograph, several bales of baggage, and a diary. Question now is—will Feminine Tact show me road to Zanzibar? ”

“ And a porker that's plump, and round-barrel'd and big,
Is good business,—or used to be once on a time.
But now, they're the horriblest nuisance on earth
Are Pigs, and a great deal more plague than they're worth. ”

“ Got entangled in swampy forest on Zambesi (I think) , and Arabs declined to extricate us unless their pay was doubled! Also one of negresses—horrid woman!—has deserted me—come to place that she pretended to recognise as her native village, and said she meant to stay! Tact useless with females!
On Lake Tanganyika—or if it isn't Lake Tanganyika, it's an entirely new lake,—which I have been the first to discover! Suffer a good deal from fever and queer diet. Am studying native home-life.
Later.—Have left two Arabs and my remaining negress on Lake, and gone myself to look for STANLEY's Dwarfs. ”

“ Each animal seized a calabash with its teeth, filled it with snow, and trotted off to the crater of an adjacent volcano; it then waited till the lava melted the snow, which it drank up, and finally trotted back again. My nephew says he should not have believed a mule could be so clever, if he had not seen it.
Yours obediently, SAMUEL SOBERSIDES.
SIR,—Since writing you that letter about our bull-finch, I have discovered an even more surprising fact, which I am sure no Naturalist has yet dreamed of. Not only do birds appreciate snow, but they are very fond of iced beverages. ”

“ But if a growing girl gives trouble,
You've got to take her to the play!
A PIONEER IN PETTICOATS.
[An American Lady is about to explore Africa, on humane principles.]
Arrive in Africa.—Convinced that real way of taming the savage heart is by Feminine Tact. No need of brutal habits of male adventurers. Two negresses, from "Ole Virginny," with me, who said they would like to "see Africa again"; a few Arabs, to carry our baggage. Intend to study home-life of African tribes, and to get them to talk into my phonograph. ”

“ His politeness to ladies, his assumption of businesslike habits, suggested by his reading and spiking of bogus telegrams brought to him when he is engaged with a client, his urbanity under difficulties, and his cheerful acceptance of the inevitable in whatever shape presented, are all admirable points, and points that are fully appreciated by the audience. ”

“ Your application for Naturalisation in the midst of our great disasters, is for me the signal of a new life for us. A country which in the midst of such catastrophes recruits citizens like you, is not to be despaired of. ”

“ Was he? I suspected. Already I had my secret agents in every centre of population. One, whose letter bore the post-mark the Pyramids, placed in my hand proof that DE LESSEPS was an official candidate of the Empire. I secretly conveyed this information to a local newspaper. The news burst like a tempest on the public of Marseilles, and swept away in its irresistible whirl the candidature of M. DE LESSEPS.
This was pretty well for a first newspaper paragraph, worth at the time, as I remember thinking, more than the paltry three sous a line that became my due. ”

“ My wife's maternal uncle spoke of them as "the Bourbons," just as you talk of "the Groceries," and no one asks you Lequel? As for my own ancestry, I do not speak of it. I have never been in the habit of thrusting myself on the attention of the public. It is sufficient for me that my wife's maternal uncle's ancestors were Bourbons. ”

“ Afrael chez eux, and, in fact, something spicy about this strangely assorted couple; for Poet ALFRED will do well to remember and act upon his own dictum when, in the preface to The Satire, he observed, and with truth, that had he originally "written with the grave decorum of a secluded moralist, he would" by this time "have gone down into the limbo of forgotten bores."
Into that limbo A.A. will never descend. ”

“ SPILKINGS, with his dead-eyes turned in, dashed breathlessly into the saloon. "By all that's holy," he shouted, "the Captain's gone mad, and the crew have thrown off all disguise. We are manned by ourang-outangs!"
CHAPTER IV.
Never shall I forget the horrors of the scene that ensued. We clewed up the mizzen royal, we lashed the foretop to make it spin upon its heels. The second dog watch barked his shins to the bone, and a tail of men hauled upon the halliards to mast-head the yard. Nothing availed. ”

“ And as to cremation—well, such an utter corporeal extinction would be the only way of putting an end to the terrestrial existence of Phra the Phoenician, who, however, "might rise," as Mrs. Malaprop would say, "like a Phoenician from the ashes."
The appearance of A New Lady Audley is rather late in the half-century as a "skit" on Miss BRADDON's celebrated novel. ”

“ My wife's mother was a descendant of a noble but anonymous family in the Vosges, whilst her maternal uncle was accustomed to attach to himself some local unpopularity by preferring for investigation a complicated sheet which set forth his genealogy, tracing his origin back to the Bourbons. ”

“ So Shérif DRURIOLANE wrote at once to the London Correspondent of the Figaro, who bears the singularly French name of JOHNSON, denying, in his very best French, that he, M. le Shérif, had had anything to do with these walking advertisements, or, indeed, with the Panorama Company at all, from which he had retired a year ago. ”

“ No, thank you; that kind of thing's played out. MARRYAT was all very well in his day, but that day's gone. The public requires stories about merchant ships, and, by Neptune, the public shall have them, with all kinds of hairy villains and tempest-tossed wrecks and human interest and no end of humour, likewise word-pictures of ships and storms. ”

“ Her Companion (who is not in the habit of allowing his enthusiasm to run away with him) . Um—yes, it's not bad. But, of course, they wouldn't send a thing like that here without having it washed and done up first!
An Old Lady. "Tea-pot used by the Duke of WELLINGTON during his campaigns." So he drank tea, did he? Dear me! Do you know, my dear, I think I must have my old tea-pot engraved. It will make it so much more interesting some day! ”