“John P. Hale is an old goose!” exclaimed General Cass. Some friend was kind enough to repeat this saying to the Senator; who replied with a smile, (and, surely this was the “retort courteous,”) “Tell General Cass that he’s a Michi-gander!”
At a public dinner in Boston, nearly twenty years ago, Judge Story proposed as a toast: “The Orator of the Day: Fame follows merit wherEVER IT goes!” To which Mr. Everett responded: “The President of the Day: To whatever height the fabric of jurisprudence may aspire in this country, it can never rise above one Story!”
A newspaper wit announces the discovery of a buried city in the following pathetic terms: Another lost city has been found on the coast of Siberia. Now let the man who lost it make his appearance, pay for this advertisement, and take his old ruins away.
It has been said that the faculty of generalization belongs equally to childhood and to genius. Was she a genius, clad in sable robes, and bewailing the recent loss of her husband—she was certainly not a child—who observed in conversation, with most impressive pathos: “For we are all liable to become a widow!”
CHARACTERISTIC SAYINGS OF AMERICANS.
Franklin said many things that have passed into maxims, but nothing that is better known and remembered than “He paid dear, very dear, for his whistle.”