'Woman,' said a lovelorn youth, 'is like Ivy—the more you are ruined, the closer she clings to you.'
'And the closer she clings to you, the sooner you are ruined,' replied an old cynic of a bachelor.
Poor man! He had never realized the truth of the French saying, that to enjoy life, there is nothing like being ruined a little.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] New Curiosities of Literature, and Book of the Months. By George Soane, B.A. London, 1849, Vol. i., p. 57.
[2] The Poetical History. By P. Galtruchius. London 1678.
[3] Galtruchuis, c. 7.
[4] 'Hedera quo que vel laurus et hujusmodi, quæ semper servant virorem, in sarcophago corpori substernantur, ad significandum, quod qui moriuntur in Christo, vivere non desinant; nam licet mundo moriantur secundum corpus, tamen secundum animam vivunt et reviviscunt in Deo.'—Durandus, Ration. Div. Offic., lib. vii., cap 35.
[5] Berty, Dictionnaire de l'Architecture du Moyen Age. Paris, 1845.