* * * * *
You pay too much for your whistle.
* * * * *
_From a Letter to Miss Georgiana Shipley, on the
Loss of her American Squirrel_.
Here Skugg
Lies snug,
As a bug
In a rug.
* * * * *
LAURENCE STERNE.
1713-1768.
_Tristam Shandy_.
Vol. ii. Chapter xii.
Go, poor devil, get thee gone; why should
hurt thee? This world surely is wide
enough to hold both thee and me.
Vol. iii. Chapter ix.
Great wits jump.[27]
[Note 27: "Good witts will jumpe."--_Dr. Couqham,
Camden Soc. Pub._, p.20]
Vol. iii. Chapter xi.
Our armies swore terribly in Flanders, cried
my uncle Toby--but nothing to this.
Vol. vi. Chapter viii.
And the recording angel, as he wrote it
down, dropped a tear upon the word and
blotted it out for ever.
* * * * *
SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY.
Page 1.
"They order" said I, "this matter better in France."
* * * * *
_In the Street_. _Calais_.
I pity the man who can travel from Dan to
Beersheba, and cry, 'Tis all barren.
_The Passport_. _The Hotel at Paris_.
Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery,
said I, still thou art a bitter draught.
* * * * *
_Maria_.
God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.[28]
[Note 28: "Dieu mesure le vent a la brebis tondue."--_Henri
Estienne_. _Premices_. etc., p. 47, a collection of proverbs, published
in 1594.]
* * * * *
THOMAS PAINE.
1737-1809.
_Letter to the Addressers_.
And the final event to himself (Mr. Burke)
has been that, as he rose like a rocket, he fell
like the stick.
* * * * *
_The Crisis_. No. 1.
These are the times that try men's souls.
* * * * *
_Age of Reason_. Part ii. ad fin. (note).
The sublime and the ridiculous are so often
so nearly related that it is difficult to class
them separately. One step above the sublime
makes the ridiculous, and one step above the
ridiculous makes the sublime again.[29]
[Note 29: Probably the original of Napoleon's celebrated mot,
"Du sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas."]
* * * * *
DON JOSEPH PALAFOX.
1780-1843.
_At the Siege of Saragossa_.
War to the knife.
* *
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