She tells the story herself, with great zest; and is very frequently asked by her friends, who know the circumstances, "how she likes the Doctor!"
A fine and quaint thought is this, of the venerable Archbishop Leighton:
"Riches oftentimes, if nobody take them away, make to themselves wings, and fly away; and truly, many a time the undue sparing of them is but letting their wings grow, which makes them ready to fly away; and the contributing a part of them to do good only clips their wings a little, and makes them stay the longer with their owner."
This last consideration may perhaps be made "operative" with certain classes of the opulent.
Is not the following anecdote of the late King of the French not only somewhat characteristic, but indicative of a superior mind?
Lord Brougham was dining with the King in the unceremonious manner in which he was wont to delight to withdraw himself from the trammels of state, and the conversation was carried on entirely as if between two equals. His Majesty (inter alia) remarked:
"I am the only sovereign now in Europe fit to fill a throne."
Lord Brougham, somewhat staggered by this piece of egotism, muttered out some trite compliments upon the great talent for government which his royal entertainer had always displayed, &c., when the King burst into a fit of laughter, and exclaimed: