something good to eat.”
I wish I had room for my favorite Irishwoman, Lady Morgan, and her description of her first rout at the house of the eccentric Lady Cork.
The off-hand songs of her sister, Lady Clarke, are fine illustrations of rollicking Irish wit and badinage.
At one of Lady Morgan’s receptions, given in honor of fifty philosophers from England, Lady Clarke sang the following song with “great effect:”
FUN AND PHILOSOPHY.
Heigh for ould Ireland! Oh, would you require a land
Where men by nature are all quite the thing,
Where pure inspiration has taught the whole nation
To fight, love, and reason, talk politics, sing;
‘Tis Pat’s mathematical, chemical, tactical,
Knowing and practical, fanciful, gay,
Fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry,
There’s nothing in life that is out of his way.
He makes light of optics, and sees through dioptrics,
He’s a dab at projectiles—ne’er misses his man;
He’s complete in attraction, and quick at reaction,
By the doctrine of chances he squares every plan;
In hydraulics so frisky, the whole Bay of Biscay,
If it flowed but with
Fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry,
There’s nothing in life that is out of his way.
So to him cross over savant and philosopher,
Thinking, God help them! to bother us all;
But they’ll find that for knowledge ‘tis at our own college
Themselves must inquire for—beds, dinner, or ball.
There are lectures to tire, and good lodgings to hire,
To all who require and have money to pay;
While fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry,
Ladies and lecturing fill up the day.
So at the Rotunda we all sorts of fun do,
Hard hearts and pig-iron we melt in one flame;
For if Love blows the bellows, our tough college fellows
Will thaw into rapture at each lovely dame.
There, too, sans apology, tea, tarts, tautology,
Are given with zoology, to grave and gay;
Thus fun and philosophy, supping and sophistry
Send all to England home, happy and gay.
From George Eliot, whose humor is seen at its best in “Adam Bede” and “Silas Marner,” how much we could quote! How some of her searching comments cling to the memory!
“I’ve nothing to say again’ her piety, my dear; but I know very well I shouldn’t like her to cook my victuals. When a man comes in hungry and tired, piety won’t feed him, I reckon. Hard carrots ‘ull lie heavy on his stomach, piety or no piety. I called in one day when she was dishin’ up Mr. Tryan’s dinner, an’ I could see the potatoes was as watery as watery. It’s right enough to be speritial, I’m no enemy to that, but I like my potatoes mealy.”
“You’re right there, Tookey; there’s allays two ‘pinions: there’s the ‘pinion a man has of himsen, and there’s the ‘pinion other folks have on him. There’d be two ‘pinions about a cracked bell if the bell could hear itself.”
“You’re mighty fond o’ Craig; but for my part, I think he’s welly like a cock as thinks the sun’s rose o’ purpose to hear him crow.”
“When Mr. Brooke had something painful to tell it was usually his way to introduce it among a number of disjointed particulars, as if it were a medicine that would get a milder flavor by mixing.”
“Heaven knows what would become of our sociality if we never visited people we speak ill of; we should live like Egyptian hermits, in crowded solitude.”
“No, I ain’t one to see the cat walking into the dairy and wonder what she’s come after.”
“I have nothing to say again’ Craig, on’y it is a pity he couldna be hatched o’er again, and hatched different.”
“I’m not denyin’ the women are foolish; God Almighty made ‘em to match the men.”
“It’s a waste of time to praise people dead whom you maligned while living; for it’s but a poor harvest you’ll get by watering last year’s crop.”
“I suppose Dinah’s like all the rest of the women, and thinks two and two will come to make five, if she only cries and makes bother enough about it.”
