Various

“ Janet (springing up suddenly) . Feyther! (A pause; she collects herself for her big effort.) Feyther, I'm one o' they dour silent girls to whom expression comes hardly, but (with veiled menace) when it does come it means fifteen minutes' unrelieved monologue. So tak' heed. We're not wanting these changes, and to be up-to-date, and all that. I'm happy as I am, and so's David. He has his hope of the council, and the bribes and them things. And I've my guild and my friends, with their odd clothes and variable accents. That's the life I want, and I won't change it. ”

“ GERMAN MEASLES.
"Francesca," I said, "you must admit that at last I have you at a disadvantage."
"I admit nothing of the sort."
"Well," I said, "have you or have you not got German measles? It seems almost an insult to put such a question to a woman of your energy and brilliant intellectual capacity, but you force me to it."
"Dr. Manley—"
"Come, come, don't fob it off on the Doctor. He didn't wilfully provide you with an absurd attack of this childish disease." ”

“ Even the garden is feeling the new influence and potatoes are being planted where no potatoes were ever planted before. Everything, in fact, is being reformed."
"I warn you," said Francesca, "that your reforms will not be allowed to go on. As soon as I can get rid of the German measles I shall restore everything to its former condition."
"But that," I said, "is the counter-revolution."
"It is; and it's going to begin as soon as I get out of bed."
"And what are you going to bring out of bed with you?"
"Common sense," said Francesca. ”

“ I've mastered all your jealously-guarded secrets and I've allowed the strong wind of a man's intellect to blow through them. I am facing the cook on a new system and am dealing with the tradesmen in a spirit of inexorable resolution. ”

“ Everyone's furious at the way the powers that be have treated Sybil Easthampton. You know what a wonderful thing her Ollyoola Love Dance is. Of course she's lived among the Ollyoolas and knows them in all their moods. (They're natives somewhere ever and ever so far off, where there are palms and coral reefs, and the people don't believe in wrapping themselves up much.) ”

“ The country, after all, is the proper place for old fogeys like myself, as it is very difficult for them to live up to the present-day bustle of a large city. For the last six months I have been doing odd jobs at a munition factory, which, I must admit, has benefited my health in an extraordinary manner, so much so that I have entirely lost the troublesome dyspepsia I suffered from, and now, you will be glad to hear, I am able to eat like a hunter, as we used to say. ”

“ For example, most of us who are not linguists confine our conversations in foreign places to the necessities of life, rarely leaving the beaten track of bread and butter, knives and forks, the times of trains, cab fares, the way to the station, the way to the post-office, hotel prices and washing lists. ”

“ A door in the far distance is heard to bang. At the same instant John Bullyum enters quickly. He is the typical British parent of repertory; that is to say, he has iron-grey hair, a chin beard, a lie-down collar, and the rest of his appearance is a cross between a gamekeeper and an undertaker.
Bullyum (He is evidently in a state of some excitement; speaks scornfully) . Well, here's a fine thing happened.
Mrs. B. What is it, feyther?
Bully, (showing letter) . That young puppy, Inkslinger, had the impudence to write me asking for our Janet. ”

“ Margery brought home the first news of the revolution.
"Most extraordinary thing," she said. "The Joneses have got the two old Miss Singleweeds staying with them."
"What!" I exclaimed, swallowing my ration of mammalia in one astonished gulp. "Why, only two or three days ago Jones told me very privately that the Singleweeds were two of the most interfering, bigoted, cabbage-eating [pg 245] old cats that he had ever come across."
"Cabbage-eating!" repeated Margery thoughtfully. "How stupid we are. That's it, of course." ”

“ Another military absentee having told the Thames Police Court magistrate that he did not know there was a War on, it is expected that the Government will have to announce the fact.
It is no longer the fashion to regard the British as a degenerate race. Still it is good to know that one of our rat clubs has killed no fewer than three hundred of these ferocious beasts. ”

“ There is only one day for France, the day of the arrival of Frenchmen on German soil. When the English arrive in Germany there will be nothing doing, except some short and precise orders that we must salute all civilians and pay double for what we buy ”

“ Janet (in a level voice) . Ye're wrong there, feyther. Bob Inkslinger's a dramatist now.
Bully, (thunderstruck) . What?
Janet (as before) . He's had a play taken by the Sad Sundays Society.
Bully. Great Powers, a repertory dramatist! And I've insulted him!—me, a town councillor. (He has grown white to the lips; this is not easy, but can be managed.) There'll be a play about me—about us, this house—everything. But (passionately) I'll thwart him yet. Janet, my girl, do thee write at once and say that I withdraw my opposition to the engagement.
Janet (dully) . But I don't want the man. ”

“ They're really quite worth while. There's dear Lala Middleshire in one of those charming "Olga" trench coats (khaki face-cloth lined self-coloured satin and with big, lovely, gilt-and-enamelled buttons) , high brown boots, and one of those saucy little Belgian caps with a distracting little tassel wagging in front. The pickie is called "The Duchess of Middleshire Takes a War-Worker's Lunch," and dear Lala is shown standing by a table, looking so bravely at two cutlets, a potato, a piece of war bread, a piece of war cheese and a small pudding. ”

“ The point is that the real tale here is neither of fairies nor of sugar dolls, but of genuine human beings, vastly entertaining to read about and quite convincingly credible. I can only entreat the author to continue this rationing of sentiment for our mutual benefit.
When a book rejoices in such a title as The Amazing Years (HODDER AND STOUGHTON) and begins with a prosperous English family contemplating their summer holiday in August 1914, you may be tolerably certain beforehand of its subject-matter. ”

“ To begin with, you have a happily married young couple asking a nice man down for the week-end to meet a girl, and as good as telling him that the party has been arranged, as the advertisements put it, with a view to matrimony. Passing from this, we find a doctor (surely unique) blurting out to a fellow-guest at dinner that a mutual friend had consulted him for heart trouble. To crown all, when the match arranged by the young couple has got as far as an engagement, the wife must needs go and tell the girl that the whole affair was manœuvred by herself. ”

“ PRINGLE a much-needed corrective, by telling him that if he wanted further information he must put a Question down, the House cheered again. So far as a single incident enables one to judge, another representative of Labour has "made good."
Viscount VALENTIA has gone to the Lords, and the Commons will henceforth miss the elegant and well-groomed figure which lent distinction to a Treasury Bench not in these days too careful of the Graces. Happily Oxford City has found another distinguished man to succeed him. ”

“ However, the car eventually learnt to stand on its back wheels, climb hedges and make its way home across country, having confirmed its general opinion of the Bosch, that he is only good at one thing, and that is destroying other people's property. ”

“ There is a serious shortage of margarine and many people have been compelled to fall back on butter.
A gossip writer states that one of the recent additions to the Metropolitan Special constabulary weighs seventeen stone. It is not yet decided whether he will take one beat or two.
There is to be no General Election this year for fear that it might clash with the other War. ”

“ A contemporary suggests that we may yet institute a system of pigeon post, and thus assist the postal services. There will be fine mornings when the exasperated house-holder will be waiting behind the door with a shot-gun for the bird which attempts to deliver the Income Tax papers. ”

“ The Council of Workmen's Delegates has issued an appeal to the proletariat, which contains the following striking passage: We shall defend our liberty to the utmost against all attacks within and without. ”

“ There is red blood in both, and not less in Charles Stuart, a hero whose earlier adventures with smugglers, secret passages and the like have an almost STEVENSONIAN vigour. All the life of impoverished Waterpark, with its wonderful drawing-room full of precarious furniture, is excellently drawn. ”

“ Letters that don't matter, letters from the insignificant and the boresome, simply aren't answered. For small spur-of-the-moment notes to one's intimes who're not too far off, there's quite a little feeling for using slates. ”

“ Here she writes intimately of many people whose names are already household words in France. The more books we have of the kind the better. VOLTAIRE, we are reminded, once said that "when a Frenchman and an Englishman agree upon any subject we may be quite sure they have reason on their side." ”

“ There are many pleasant, if rather familiar, characters; though I own to a certain sense of repletion arising from the elderly and domineering dowagers of fiction, of whom Lady Crane may be regarded as embodying the common form. A Little World Apart, in short, is no very sensational discovery, but good enough as a quiet corner for repose. ”

“ To see ourselves as others see us may be a difficult operation, but to hear ourselves as others hear us is by this little book made quite easy. Everyone knows the old story of the Italian who entered an East-bound omnibus in the Strand and asked to be put down at Kay-ahp-see-day. ”

“ Yet what is all this to the longing of the Canadian for the nightly howl of the kangaroo and the song of the wombat flitting among the blue-gums in his native bush?
According to a French philosopher mankind is divided into two categories, Les Huns et les autres. ”

“ You know how these affairs develop in interest and excitement as the correspondence passes down and down, from one formation to another, and what an air of urgency and bitterness they wear when they reach the last man. In this case the young German subaltern, who had no one else below him on whom to put the burden of explaining in writing, took advantage of his position, and wrote upon a slip, which he attached to the top of the others: "To Officer Commanding British Troops. ”

“ I drew a map showing my house, the nearest chemist's shop, the doctor's surgery and a few other points of interest, such as Land's End and the Lizard. This I sent to him, and on the 22nd he replied:—
"DEAR WILLIAM,—I acknowledge your map with many thanks. There is one more thing. My doctor insists on a very special diet. Can your cook make porridge? I rely very largely on porridge for breakfast and ..." ”

“ IF IT AIN'T THE REGIMENTAL COAT-OF-ARMS COME TO LIFE!"
"The Wady Ghuzzeh, or river of Gaza, a stream-bed which makes no large assertion on the map. But it 'just divides the desert from the sewn.'"—Sunday Paper.
Being, as you might say, a mere thread.
Extracts from an article entitled "London Sights: An Australian's Impressions":—
"When all is over and we are back where the coyote cries ... ”

“ In these words did the Italian let him have it:—"Ai du nòt laich nòv-èls èt òl, bicô-s ê nòv-èl is bàt ê fichtisciòs têl stof-t òv sô mène fantastical dîds ènd nònsènsical wòrds, huicc òpsèt maind ènd hàrt. An-hêppe thô-s an-uêre jòngh pèrsòns, hu spènd thèar prê-sciòs taim in ridin nòv-èls! Thê du nòt nô thèt nòv-èllists, gènnèralle spichin, ar thi laitèst ènd thi môst huim-sical raittars, hu hèv uêstèd ènd uêst thèar laif in liùdnès."
English people abroad do not, as a rule, drop aphorisms by the way; but our Italian loves to do so. ”