The Potiphar Papers

“Imagination fondly stoops to trace The parlor splendors of that festive place.”
Goldsmith’s Deserted Village.
“Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarise or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in.”
Burke’s First Letter on a Regicide Peace.
“And I do seriously approve of that saying of yours, ‘that you would rather be a civil, well-governed, well-grounded, temperate, poor angler, than a drunken lord.’ But I hope there is none such.”
Walton’s Angler.
“‘Mon petit faquin de philosophé,’ dit le Chevalier de Grammont, ‘tu fais ici le Caton de Normandie.’”
“‘Est-ce que je mens?’ poursuivit Saint-Evremond.”
Memoires de Grammont.
CONTENTS

It is surely unnecessary to call the attention of so astute an observer, and so austere a critic, as yourself, to the fact that the title of the leading essay in this little volume (of which, permit me to say, you are so essential an ornament) is marked as a quotation; and a quotation, as you will very well remember, from the lips of our friend, Mrs, Potiphar, herself.