BREVITY.
The London member of the house of Rothschild once wrote to his Paris correspondent to ascertain if any alteration had occurred in the price of certain stocks. The inquiry was only a simple
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Mr. McNair, a man of few words, wrote to his nephew at Pittsburg the following laconic letter:—
Dear Nephew,
;
To which the nephew replied, by return of mail,—
Dear Uncle,
:
The long of this short was, that the uncle wrote to his nephew, See my coal on, which a se-mi-col-on expressed; and the youngster informed his uncle that the coal was shipped, by simply saying, Col-on.
When Lord Buckley married a rich and beautiful lady, whose hand had been solicited at the same time by Lord Powis, in the height of his felicity he wrote thus to the Duke of Dorset:—
Dear Dorset:—I am the happiest dog alive!
Buckley.
ANSWER:
Dear Buckley:—Every dog has his day.
Dorset.
Louis XIV., who loved a concise style, one day met a priest on the road, whom he asked, hastily,—
“Whence came you—where are you going—what do you want?”
The priest instantly replied,—
“From Bruges—to Paris—a benefice.”
“You shall have it,” replied the king.
A lady having occasion to call upon Abernethy, the great surgeon, and knowing his repugnance to any thing like verbosity, forbore speaking except simply in reply to his laconic inquiries. The consultation, during three visits, was conducted in the following manner:—
First Day.—(Lady enters and holds out her finger.) Abernethy.—“Cut?” Lady.—“Bite.” A.—“Dog?” L.—“Parrot.” A.—“Go home and poultice it.”
Second Day.—(Finger held out again.) A.—“Better?” L.—“Worse.” A.—“Go home and poultice it again.”
Third Day.—(Finger held out as before.) A.—“Better?” L.—“Well.” A.—“You’re the most sensible woman I ever met with. Good-bye. Get out.”
Since Cæsar’s famous “veni, vidi, vici,” (I came, I saw, I conquered,) many military commanders have rendered their despatches memorable for pith and conciseness; but Sir Sidney Smith bears the palm for both wit and brevity in his announcement of the capture of Scinde:—“Peccavi” (I have sinned). Gen. Havelock’s “We are in Lucknow” has already become a matter of history.
The following jeu d’esprit, written in 1793, was occasioned by the circumstance of Lord Howe returning from his pursuit of the French fleet, after an absence of six weeks, during which he had only seen the enemy, without having been able to overtake and bring them to action:—
When Cæsar triumphed o’er his Gallic foes,
Three words concise his gallant acts disclose;
But Howe, more brief, comprises his in one,
And vidi tells us all that he has done.
If brevity is the soul of wit, Talleyrand was the greatest of wits. A single word was often sufficient for his keenest retort. When a hypochondriac, who had notoriously led a profligate life, complained to the diplomatist that he was enduring the torments of hell,—“Je sens les tourmens de l’enfer,”—the answer was, “Déjà?” (Already?) To a lady who had lost her husband Talleyrand once addressed a letter of condolence in two words:—“O, Madame!” In less than a year the lady had married again; and then his letter of congratulation was, “Ah, Madame!” Could any thing be more wittily significant than the “O” and the “Ah” of this sententious correspondence?