We ourselves cannot get through any riddle of this kind.
Sergeant (instructing squad of volunteers in physical drill). "THIS 'ERE HEXERCISE IS INTENDED TO 'ARDEN THE MUSCLES OF THE STUMMICK AND MAKE IT HIMPERVIOUS TO GERMAN BULLETS HIN CASE OF HINVASION."
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
(By Mr, Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)
It is difficult within the ordinary limits of a review in these columns to say all that one feels or even to express adequately one's gratitude after reading the two volumes of Lord MORLEY'S generous and delightful Recollections (MACMILLAN). I seem to have been sitting with him in a large and comfortable library while the great Viscount rolled me out his mind, now breaking out into a glowing eulogy of GEORGE MEREDITH, JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN or LESLIE STEPHEN, or again dashing off with a few firm and skilful strokes a portrait of JOHN MILL or HERBERT SPENCER, or some other intellectual giant of that nineteenth century which Lord MORLEY nobly defends and of which he himself was grande decus columenque. The book is crammed with passages that arouse and maintain pleasure in the reader and clamour for quotation on the part of the reviewer. "Meredith," we are told, "who did not know Mill in person, once spoke to me of him, with the confident intuition proper to imaginative genius, as partaking of the Spinster. Disraeli, when Mill made an early speech in Parliament, raised his eye-glass and murmured to a neighbour on the bench, 'Ah, the Finishing Governess.'" Or we are introduced to SPENCER at MILL'S table: "The host said to him at dessert that Grote, who was present, would like to hear him explain one or more of his views about the equilibration of molecules in some relation or other. Spencer, after an instant of good-natured hesitation, complied with unbroken fluency for a quarter-of-an-hour or more. Grote followed every word intently, and in the end expressed himself as well satisfied. Mill, as we moved off into the drawing-room, declared to me his admiration of a wonderful piece of lucid exposition. Fawcett, in a whisper, asked me if I understood a word of it, for he did not. Luckily I had no time to answer." Or again: "Another contributor [to The Saturday Review] was the important man who became Lord SALISBURY. He and I were alone together in the editorial anteroom every Tuesday morning, awaiting our commissions, but he too had a talent for silence, and we exchanged no words, either now or on any future occasion." How charming a picture is this of two shy British publicists maintaining towards one another, against every possible discouragement, an inviolable silence. Not even the weather could tempt them to break it. Yet the great characteristic of this book is the large-hearted tolerance of comment and judgment which makes it emphatically a friendly book. As such I commend it with all the warmth in my power.