Bishop Wilmer of Alabama, famous as a story-teller, told of one of his friends who had lost a dearly beloved wife and, in his sorrow, caused these words to be inscribed on her tombstone: “The light of mine eyes has gone out.” The bereaved married within a year. Shortly afterward the Bishop was walking through the graveyard with another gentleman. When they arrived at the tomb, the latter asked the Bishop what he would say of the present state of affairs, in view of the words on the tombstone. “I think,” said the Bishop, “the words ‘But I have struck another match’ should be added.”
A man of letters who visited Washington recently appeared at but one dinner-party during his stay. Then he sat next to the daughter of a noted naval officer. Her vocabulary is of a kind peculiar to very young girls, but she rattled away at the famous man without a moment’s respite. It was during a pause in the general conversation that she said to him: “I’m awfully stuck on Shakespeare. Don’t you think he’s terribly interesting?” Everybody listened to hear the great man’s brilliant reply, for as a Shakespearian scholar he has few peers. “Yes,” he said, solemnly, “I do think he is interesting. I think he is more than that. I think Shakespeare is just simply too cute for anything.”
A well-known Scotch professor was occasionally called up to Balmoral to attend the late Queen Victoria, and was extremely proud of the honor. One day a notice appeared in the university which stated that Professor —— could not attend his classes that day as he had been called up to Balmoral to see the Queen. A waggish student who saw the notice wrote underneath it, “God save the Queen.”
“The other day,” said a man passenger in a street-car, “I saw a woman in a street-car open a satchel and take out a purse, close the satchel and open the purse, take out a dime and close the purse, open the satchel and put in the purse. Then she gave the dime to the conductor and took a nickel in exchange. Then she opened the satchel and took out the purse, closed the satchel and opened the purse, put in the nickel and closed the purse, opened the satchel and put in the purse, closed the satchel and locked both ends. Then she felt to see if her back hair was all right, and it was all right, and she was all right. That was a woman.”
As a couple of callers were in the parlor of a friend who is a firm Christian Scientist, the voice of five-year-old Florence could be heard from an upper room, fretting. Upon their inquiries about her the mother replied simply she was suffering from a “belief” in a boil.