Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 719: October 6, 1877Various
General
Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 719: October 6, 1877
Various
Periodicals
It was on the other side when, disputing as to the comparative
merits of their professions, Sir Henry Holland said to Bobus Smith,
ex-advocate-general: 'You must admit that your profession does not make
angels of men?' and the lawyer replied: 'There you have the best of it;
yours certainly gives them the best chance.'
Said a pompous man of money to Professor Agassiz: 'I once took some
interest in natural science; but I became a banker, and I am what I
am!' 'Ah!' replied Agassiz, 'my father procured a place for me in a
bank; but I begged for one more year of study, then for a second, then
for a third. That fixed my fate, sir. If it had not been for that
little firmness of mine, I should now have been myself nothing but a
banker.'
The money-dealer must have felt as small as the American judge who,
finding his enforced bed-fellow by no means overwhelmed by the company
of a person of his dignity, observed: 'Pat, you would have remained a
long time in the old country before you could say you had slept with
a judge.' 'True for you,' said Pat; 'and yer Honour would have been a
long time in the ould counthry, I'm thinking, before ye'd been a judge!'
Joseph Hume, the economical reformer, having occasion to visit Brussels
when Sir Robert Adair was our representative there, mindful of the
minister's repute as a host, lost no time in leaving his name at the
legation. Remembering Hume's constant attempts to cut down official
salaries, Sir Robert was inclined to ignore the hint; but taking
second thought, invited the troublesome economist to dine with him.
Hume put his legs under the ambassador's mahogany in the expectation
of tasting the choicest viands and the most exquisite wines, but had
to content himself with poor soup and poorer sherry, roast mutton
and light Bordeaux, a chicken and a salad; supplemented with Adair's
apologetical observation when the banquet was over: 'You see, sir, what
these confounded Radicals have brought us to with their reductions.
By-and-by, I daresay we shall come to prison diet, with pudding perhaps
on Sundays.'
Scribe the dramatist met his match in a nobleman ambitious of gaining
a literary reputation by proxy; from whom he received the following
curious epistle: 'SIR--I have the honour to propose to you to associate
yourself with me in the composition of a drama. Your name will figure
by the side of mine; you alone composing the play, and I alone
defraying all the expenses of the first representation. You shall have
all the profits, for I work only for glory.'
Scribe replied: 'SIR--I have never been accustomed to harness together
in my carriage a horse and an ass; I am therefore unable to accept your
very kind offer.'
The nobleman closed the correspondence with: 'MONSIEUR SCRIBE--I
received your note of refusal to unite our literary labours. You are at
liberty not to understand your own interest, but not to allow yourself
to call me a horse.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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