Excellency had passed through the suite of rooms, coolly inquired what had been the object of his examination? "Madam," replied the interpreter, "I dare not inform you." "But I wish particularly to know, sir." "Indeed, madam, it is impossible!" "Nay, sir, this reserve is vexatious; I desire to know." "Oh! since you desire, madam, know then that his Excellency has been valuing you!" "Valuing us! how, sir?" "Yes, ladies, his Excellency, after the custom of his country, has been setting a price upon each of you!" "Well, that's whimsical enough; and how much may that lady be worth, according to his estimation?" "A thousand crowns." "And the other?" "Five hundred crowns." "And that young lady with fair hair?" "The same price." "And that lady who is painted?" "Fifty crowns." "And pray, sir, what may I be worth in the tariff of his Excellency's good graces?" "Oh, madam, you really must excuse me, I beg." "Come, come, no concealments." "The Prince merely said as he passed you—" "Well, what did he say?" inquired the lady with great eagerness. "He said, madam, that he did not know the small coin of this country."
PRO ARIS ET FOCIS
[Sidenote: Percy Anecdotes]
At the establishment of volunteer corps, a certain corporation agreed to form a body, on condition that they should not be obliged to quit the country. The proposal was submitted to Mr. Pitt; who said he had no objection to the terms, if they would permit him to add, "except, in case of invasion."
THE GENTLE READER
[Sidenote: Anon.]
No British Museum the fisherman needs:
He simply goes down to the river and reeds.
CLERGYMEN AND CHICKENS
[Sidenote: Samuel Butler]
Why, let me ask, should a hen lay an egg, which egg can become a chicken in about three weeks and a full-grown hen in less than a twelvemonth, while a clergyman and his wife lay no eggs, but give birth to a baby which will take three-and-twenty years before it can become another clergyman? Why should not chickens be born and clergymen be laid and hatched? Or why, at any rate, should not the clergyman be born full-grown and in Holy Orders, not to say already beneficed?
MELCHISEDEC
[Sidenote: Samuel Butler]
He was a really happy man. He was without father, without mother, and without descent. He was an incarnate bachelor. He was a born orphan.
EATING AND PROSELYTISING
[Sidenote: Samuel Butler]
All eating is a kind of proselytising—a kind of dogmatising—a maintaining that the eater's way of looking at things is better than the eatee's. We convert the food, or try to do so, to our own way of thinking, and, when it sticks to its own opinion and refuses to be converted, we say it disagrees with us. An animal that refuses to let another eat it has the courage of its convictions, and, if it gets eaten, dies a martyr to them. …
It is good for the man that he should not be thwarted—that he should have his own way as far, and with as little difficulty, as possible. Cooking is good because it makes matters easier by unsettling the meat's mind and preparing it for new ideas. All food must first be prepared for us by animals and plants, or we cannot assimilate it; and so thoughts are more easily assimilated that have been already digested by other minds. A man should avoid converse with things that have been stunted or starved, and should not eat such meat as has been overdriven or underfed or afflicted with disease, nor should he touch fruit or vegetables that have not been well grown.
Sitting quiet after eating is akin to sitting still during divine service so as not to disturb the congregation. We are catechising and converting our proselytes, and there should be no row. As we get older we must digest more quietly still; our appetite is less, our gastric juices are no longer so eloquent, they have lost that cogent fluency which carried away all that came in contact with it. They have become sluggish and unconciliatory. This is what happens to any man when he suffers from an attack of indigestion.
Or, indeed, any other sickness, is the inarticulate expression of the pain we feel on seeing a proselyte escape us just as we were on the point of converting it.
ASSIMILATION AND PERSECUTION
[Sidenote: Samuel Butler]
We cannot get rid of persecution; if we feel at all we must persecute something; the mere acts of feeding and growing are acts of persecution. Our aim should be to persecute nothing but such things as are absolutely incapable of resisting us. Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.
NIGHT-SHIRTS AND BABIES
[Sidenote: Samuel Butler]
On Hindhead, last Easter, we saw a family wash hung out to dry. There were papa's two great night-shirts and mamma's two lesser night-gowns, and then the children's smaller articles of clothing and mamma's drawers and the girls' drawers, all full swollen with a strong north-east wind. But mamma's night-gown was not so well pinned on, and, instead of being full of steady wind like the others, kept blowing up and down as though she were preaching wildly. We stood and laughed for ten minutes. The housewife came to the window and wondered at us, but we could not resist the pleasure of watching the absurdly life-like gestures which the night-gowns made. I should like a Santa Famiglia with clothes drying in the background.
A love-story might be told in a series of sketches of the clothes of two families hanging out to dry in adjacent gardens. Then a gentleman's night-shirt from one garden and a lady's night-gown from the other should be shown hanging in a third garden by themselves. By and by there should be added a little night-shirt.
A philosopher might be tempted, on seeing the little night-shirt, to suppose that the big night-shirts had made it. What we do is much the same, for the body of a baby is not much more made by the two old babies, after whose pattern it has cut itself out, than the little night-shirt is made by the big ones. The thing that makes either the little night-shirt or the little baby is something about which we know nothing whatever at all.
DOES MAMMA KNOW?
[Sidenote: Samuel Butler]
A father was telling his eldest daughter, aged about six, that she had a little sister, and was explaining to her how nice it all was. The child said it was delightful, and added:
"Does mamma know? Let's go and tell her."
CROESUS AND HIS KITCHEN-MAID
[Sidenote: Samuel Butler]
I want people to see either their cells as less parts of themselves than they do, or their servants as more.
Croesus's kitchen-maid is part of him, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, for she eats what comes from his table, and, being fed of one flesh, are they not brother and sister to one another in virtue of community of nutriment, which is but a thinly veiled travesty of descent? When she eats peas with her knife, he does so too; there is not a bit of bread and butter she puts into her mouth, nor a lump of sugar she drops into her tea, but he knoweth it altogether, though he knows nothing whatever about it. She is en-Croesused and he en-scullery-maided so long as she remains linked to him by the golden chain which passes from his pocket to hers, and which is greatest of all unifiers.
True, neither party is aware of the connection at all as long as things go smoothly. Croesus no more knows the name of,
