Bishop Lawrence, of Massachusetts, tells this joke on himself with keen relish. It was at the time when there was a vacancy in the bishopric, and Dr. Brooks was the most prominent candidate. Mr. Lawrence, then the Dean of the Theological School, in Cambridge, was walking with President Eliot of Harvard University, and the two were discussing the situation. “Don’t you hope Brooks will be elected?” asked the Dean. “No,” said Dr. Eliot; “a second- or third-rate man would do just as well; and we need Brooks in Boston and Cambridge.” Phillips Brooks was elected, and a little later Dr. Eliot and Mr. Lawrence again discussed the matter. “Aren’t you glad Brooks was elected?” queried the Dean. “Yes, I suppose so,” said Dr. Eliot, “if he wanted it; but, to tell the truth, Lawrence, you were my man.”
The Wounded Amazon
Gibson’s Wounded Amazon is a poem in marble, but how many of its admirers would ever suspect the grotesque suggestiveness of which it was the outgrowth? “Yes,” said Gibson to a friend who went to his studio to see the statue in clay, “I call it a Wounded Amazon, but that statue is a proof of how useful it is for an artist to keep his eyes open. Now, how do you think I found that pose? I was going along the street, and I found a girl catching a flea. Yes, I did; she was catching a flea! I stopped and said to myself, ‘That’s a pretty pose—a very pretty pose indeed,’ and I took it down. Then I thought it over; I sat up and worked it out, and there it stands now as my Wounded Amazon. But it is the very pose of the girl catching the flea, nevertheless. A very pretty pose it is, you see; and, as I said, it shows that an artist must not fail to keep his eyes always open.”
Mr. Evarts’s Jocularity
A friend read to Mr. William M. Evarts the statement of a newspaper that, in reply to the question “What part of the turkey will you have?” Mr. Evarts answered that it was “quite inconsequential to one of his recognized abstemiousness and supersensitive stomachic nervation whether he be tendered an infinitesimal portion of the opaque nutriment of the nether extremities, the superior fraction of a pinion, or a snowy cleavage from the cardiac region.” Mr. Evarts said that this was an attempt at condensing one of his despatches protesting against the dismemberment of Turkey. It was founded on an incident which occurred at one of his Thanksgiving dinners at home. “I had a roasted New England goose, well stuffed with sage, with plenty of apple-sauce and the usual accompaniments. At the close of the meal I said, ‘My children, you now see the difference between the condition of affairs before and after dinner. You then saw a goose stuffed with sage; now you see a sage stuffed with goose.’”
Worse than Worst
Two comedians having laid a wager as to which of them sang the best, they agreed to refer it to an arbitrator. A day was accordingly set, and both parties executed to the best of their abilities. When they had finished, he proceeded to give judgment in the following manner: “As for you, sir,” addressing himself to the first, “you are the worst singer I ever heard in all my life.” “Ah,” said the other, “I knew I should win the wager.” “Stop, sir,” said the arbitrator; “I have a word to say to you before you go, which is this, that as for you, you cannot sing at all.”
A Poet-farmer in a Fix
Long Island has a poet named Bloodgood H. Cutter, who, when an infant, “lisped in numbers.” He is a member of the agricultural profession, a practical farmer, and alternates between cultivation of his extensive family manor and his favorite muse monthly. One day the Long Island Byron, when on the way to the New York market, had the misfortune to break his tackling through the antics of his spirited team, that was drawing a big load.
Just at this moment, as the poet was in the road lugubriously viewing his ruptured tackling and broken traces, there appeared on the spot a wagon-load of his neighbors on their way home. “By Jove!” said S., “there is our rhyming neighbor Cutter, broke down; bet you the dinners all round at Tony’s that when we stop he will tell his trouble in good rhythm.” “Done,” said B. “I take that bet. Drive up and decide it.” Bloodgood looked around, saw a chance of relief, and his countenance radiating like an Edison lamp, opened his lips thusly: