The Comic Almanack, Volume 2 / An Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry Tales, Humerous Poetry, Quips, and Oddities

by William Makepeace Thackeray; Gilbert Abbott À Beckett; Henry Mayhew; Horace Mayhew; Albert Smith

THINGS TO BE BORNE IN MIND IN JANUARY.

Recollect, if you slip down in the street this month not to evince any pain, but rather laugh: get up smiling, and walk away with a joyous air.

Do not try rashly to cut the outside edge on the Serpentine, but practise by yourself, at midnight, with a full moon, on secluded Hampstead ponds, until you are perfect; because, it usually happens, that the instant you wish to show off before some young ladies you know, your heels will go higher than your head, and you will look contemptible.

That family parties at this time of the year are not those wonderfully lively things they are conventionally supposed to be: the presence of a few lively acquaintances being indispensable to make them go off well. Relatives don't care to exert themselves to be entertaining before one another; or if they do, all the rest know what is coming.