A generous enemy is a friend on the wrong side All are friends who sit at table Be what you seem, my little one Bed was a rock of refuge and fortified defence Civil tongue and rosy smiles sweeten even sour wine Dangerous things are uttered after the third glass Everywhere the badge of subjection is a poor stomach Face betokening the perpetual smack of lemon Gratitude never was a woman’s gift It was harder to be near and not close Loving in this land: they all go mad, straight off Never reckon on womankind for a wise act Self-incense Sign that the evil had reached from pricks to pokes So are great deeds judged when the danger’s past (as easy) Soft slumber of a strength never yet called forth Suspicion was her best witness Sweet treasure before which lies a dragon sleeping We like well whatso we have done good work for Weak reeds who are easily vanquished and never overcome Weak stomach is certainly more carnally virtuous than a full one Wins everywhere back a reflection of its own kindliness THE CASE OF GENERAL OPLE AND LADY CAMPER By George Meredith CHAPTER I An excursion beyond the immediate suburbs of London, projected long before his pony-carriage was hired to conduct him, in fact ever since his retirement from active service, led General Ople across a famous common, with which he fell in love at once, to a lofty highway along the borders of a park, for which he promptly exchanged his heart, and so gradually within a stone’s-throw or so of the river-side, where he determined not solely to bestow his affections but to settle for life. It may be seen that he was of an adventurous temperament, though he had thought fit to loosen his sword-belt. The pony-carriage, however, had been hired for the very special purpose of helping him to pass in review the lines of what he called country houses, cottages, or even sites for building, not too remote from sweet London: and as when Coelebs goes forth intending to pursue and obtain, there is no doubt of his bringing home a wife, the circumstance that there stood a house to let, in an airy situation, at a certain distance in hail of the metropolis he worshipped, was enough to kindle the General’s enthusiasm. He would have taken the first he saw, had it not been for his daughter, who accompanied him, and at the age of eighteen was about to undertake the management of his house. Fortune, under Elizabeth Ople’s guiding restraint, directed him to an epitome of the comforts. The place he fell upon is only to be described in the tongue of auctioneers, and for the first week after taking it he modestly followed them by terming it bijou. In time, when his own imagination, instigated by a state of something more than mere contentment, had been at work on it, he chose the happy phrase, ‘a gentlemanly residence.’ For it was, he declared, a small estate.