ONEY makes a man laugh. A blind fiddler playing to a company, and playing but scurvily, the company laughed at him. His boy that led him, perceiving it, cried, "Father, let us begone; they do nothing but laugh at you." "Hold peace, boy," said the fiddler; "we shall have their money presently, and then we will laugh at them."
Selden, Table Talk.
N candent ire the solar splendour flames;
The foles, languescent, pend from arid rames;
His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes,
And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes.
How dulce to vive occult from mortal eyes,
Dorm on the herb with none to supervise,
Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine,
And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine!
Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades!
Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!
Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,—
Depart—be off—exude—evade—erump!
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
E slaps me gently on the back. He's stopped too long in the wine-cellar. A little tasting is a dangerous thing.
F. C. Burnand, Happy Thoughts.
THE MAIDENS.