Various

“ It was not Art critics that should be pitched into, but painters whose styles resembled each other. They were the real nuisance. It was the duty of artists to be distinctive, and it was the duty of Art critics to keep them so. No doubt, as SHAKSPEARE knew, there was a certain humour to be extracted from men who were exactly alike, such as the two Dromios, but when painters painted alike there was no fun in it at all. ”

“ The poor little dog's hunt up and down the gully for the rabbit that never had been was one of the most pathetic sights I ever saw. That so many big men with such an enormous gun should miss the rabbit every time was gradually killing him with disgust and exasperation. ”

“ This little incident made me think of Billy O'Brien, our next-door neighbour. Billy had one passion in life, and that was the rearing of a dog that could whip any combination in the vicinity.
Billy said life wasn't worth living if he could not walk in the streets without some neighbour's dog beating his. Billy had failed hitherto, and this is not surprising to one who knows the dogs of Ballybun. They are Irish terriers to a dog, and all of them living instances of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. The air of Ballybun is bad for a dog with a weak chest who thinks he has a strong one. ”

“ DEAR SIR,—As a dead set is being made against dogs by some uncompromising food economists, may I point out on behalf of our four-footed friends what admirable service they render the community by the destruction of flies? My Irish terrier, Patsy, spends half his time catching blue-bottles—indeed, my husband, who is of a mathematical turn, estimates that he accounts for several hundreds every day. ”

“ He claimed that a dog is what he eats, and he simply spent pounds on that dog's education. In a month or two Elixir, which was the dog's name, could swallow curries without winking which would bring tears to the eyes of an Oriental Potentate, and he would howl if he was given water without Worcester Sauce.
O'Brien's theory may have been right, or else it was only his dog's liver that was wrong, for very soon Elixir would keep us up half the night shouting offensive epithets across our wall at Mulligan's dog, who hurled them back at him. ”

“ A tuber, Sir, is a potato. Now it has been brought to the notice of my chief, the Food Controller, that certain vendors of vegetables are seeking to defraud the public by selling as potatoes a totally different kind of vegetable disguised with colouring matter and rubbed with earth. ”

“ When we have finished slaying for the day, have stropped our gory sabres, hung our horses up to dry and are sitting about after mess, girths slackened and pipes aglow, it is a favourite pastime of ours to discuss what we are going to do after the War. ”

“ He confided to me that he would not let him out on the street until his education was complete, "and then," said he, "there will be only one dog in the Ballybun census." I had my doubts, as I know the local dog, which would have the hide off an elephant if it barked. But Billy O'Brien is a stranger, or as we say "transplanter" in our part of Ireland, his grandfather being the first of his branch to transplant himself here, and he did not then know much about the higher education of dog, though he is an admirable inspector of schools. ”

“ Marrow began to overhaul the contents of the baskets, every now and then picking out a particularly choice specimen, which she added to an accumulating pile on the floor.
"Aha! Suspects!" I exclaimed grimly. "I shall take all these to the laboratory at the Food Controller's Headquarters, where Mrs. Marrow will submit each tuber to a meticulous test in order to satisfy herself as to its bona fides. You will be gratified to hear that, should your potatoes prove to be all they seem, the Controller will issue you a blue card, registering you as a certified vendor of Government-tested potatoes. ”

“ How he is compressed into a life groove, of which an ineffably turgid respectability provides the chronic atmosphere, is the theme of Grand Chain. And because the author possesses a wonderfully delicate gift of satire and a power of character delineation that never gets out of hand, she has written a novel deserving of more praise than the usual reviewer, all too timid of superlatives, may venture to give. ”

“ The Editors of The Daily Mirror and The Daily Sketch, also speaking in unison, said they agreed to a large extent with the last speakers. It would not really matter if every painting disappeared, so long as the camera remained. One living photographer was better than a thousand dead Masters.
Sir CLAUDE PHILLIPS asked how the Masters would ever have been called Masters had it not been for the critics. Painters merely painted and left it there; it was the critics who decided whether or not they should be immortal, and whether their pictures should be worth tens or thousands. ”

“ Comparisons in criticism are dangerous, but Miss STERN'S philosophy strongly calls to mind BUTLER'S The Way of All Flesh. At least there is the same mordant and rather hopeless analysis of the power for evil in a too complicated world of impeccable people with no sense of humour. ”

“ Then Albert Edward stumbled within and The O'Murphy hung about outside saucing the brass-collared Staff dogs and waiting to gather up what fragments remained of his chum's body after the General had done with it. His interview with the General our Albert Edward prefers not to describe; it was too painful, too humiliating, he says. That a man of the General's high position, advanced age and venerable appearance could lose his self-control to such a degree was a terrible revelation to Albert Edward. ”

“ Their pleasure, however, was real, and therefore it should, in a world of sadness, be encouraged, and consequently Art critics should be encouraged.
Mr. ROGER FRY here rose to point out that the test of a picture is not the pleasure which it imparts, as the last speaker seemed to think, but the pain. The sooner the public got that fact into its thick head the better would it be for those artists who were not so clay-souled as to allow stuffy conventions to interfere with the development of their personality. ”

“ A.S. TEMPLE, and numerous other gentlemen who know a Romney when they see it, or who earn an honest livelihood by distributing adjectives, good or bad, among painters.
Sir WILLIAM RICHMOND, referring to a recent lawsuit, said that it was monstrous that careful conclusions based upon a long life of study should be upset by the production of a pencil sketch, and he called for the removal of Mr. Justice DARLING from the Bench. Art criticism was not a mere matter of caprice, as people were now pretending, but an exact science. ”

“ Artists ought not to be encouraged in the way they are. The world was never so happy as in the interval between the loss of the "Monna Lisa" and its recovery. We should apply our enthusiasm to the stage—to actors and, above all, to actresses. ”

“ The author of Grand Chain (NISBET) is profoundly aware that man is not the master of his fate (though he may be the captain of his soul, which is quite a different matter) , and that the claim so universally put forward, that the leopard can change his spots, is simply an excuse for criticising the superficial pigmentation of other leopards. ”

“ I clearly explained to my groom that I was suggesting nothing, dropping no hints, but I thought it a pity such a sportsman should waste his talents with those sea-soldiers when there were outfits like ours about, offering all kinds of opportunities to one of the right sort. ”

“ It should brace their faith, and will rob them of nothing but a too-ready doubt that so forthright a house-breaker may be a builder in his own way. There is indeed more faith in these honest denials than in half the assents of the conformists. ”

“ But Cook had the better of me there. I had forgotten that she has a son on a submarine. I spoke of the serious position of the country, and Cook cheerfully assented. (For her part she often said to Jane that we were goin' 'eadlong into trouble.) I spoke, in general terms, of economy, and found we were in complete agreement. ("Only last night I says to Jane, 'Waste not, want not' must be our motter.") Then I announced the amount of the DEVONPORT rations and repeated them twice most impressively. Cook appeared to be going through a number of swift professional calculations. ”

“ What was left of Elixir let a yell out of it like a foghorn and bolted. It returned twenty-four hours later with its tail between its legs, a convinced pacifist. The disgusted O'Brien at once changed its name to Bertrand Russell, after some philosopher who palliates German methods of warfare, and gave it to a tinker.
O'Brien has abandoned theories about dogs and is now trying to encourage hygiene in our midst, and Mulligan is sleeping better than ever.
Diner (choking) . "QUICK! WATER! ”

“ Three years' continuous struggle to keep the mess going in whiskey and soda and the officers' kit down to two hundred and fifty pounds per officer has made an old man of him, once so full of bright quips and conundrums. ”

“ He said that his conscientious objections to betting were well known and life-long, but that even they would not stand in the way of his wife's putting a fiver on their dog Stanislaus. He added a few remarks about O'Brien's grandfather, the "transplanter"; but what annoyed the owner of Elixir most was Mulligan's remark that he had not seen the dog, but heard it was some new kind of German pug.
Billy came in with the libelled animal at his heels to show me Mulligan's letter and discuss his wrongs, before he went round to talk dog with the writer. ”

“ An artist has been arrested under the Defence of the Realm Act for sketching on the East Coast without permission. It is dangerous in these times to be caught mapping.
A contemporary complains that German officers at a South of England Prisoners' Camp are being driven to the dentist in motor cars. We also hold the opinion that these reprisals do more harm than good. ”

“ Cook's going to Plymouth for the week-end to see her son."
"Oh, good," said I. "And we will have a blow-out."
"And we won't put it down in the book."
"No, not a hounce of it."
So that is what we are going to do about the Harrisons. But it doesn't touch the larger question. Our problem, you will see, is very different from that of other people, and my wife smiles a pale wan smile when she hears her friends endlessly discussing ways and means of keeping within Lord DEVONPORT'S rations. What we want is to discover a means of getting back to that lavish and generous standard of living. ”

“ A correspondent writes to an evening paper to say that by his thermometer the recent heat was a record for the year. We suppose it is due to the example of the Censor in the matter of the Folkestone raid that nobody appears to be able to keep a secret.
"A movement is on foot," says a contemporary, "to present the Italian nation with a monument to SHAKSPEARE, to be erected in Rome." The alternative of despatching Mr. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW to become a naturalized Italian does not appear to have been so well received. ”

“ As regards wages, payment in kind is generally preferred to money. The baboon is a vegetarian but no bigot, and will eat mutton chops without protest. The great American nature historian, WARD, tells us that we should not give the elephant tobacco, but lays no embargo on its being offered to baboons. They are addicted to spirituous liquors, and on the whole it is best to get them to take the pledge. A valued correspondent of ours, Canon Phibbs, once had a tame gorilla which invariably accompanied Mrs. ”