Josh Billings on Ice, and Other ThingsBillings, Josh
General
Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things
Billings, Josh
American wit and humor
By awl means, Joe, git married, if yu hav got a fair show. Don't stand
shivvering on the bank; but pitch in and stick yure head under, and the
shiver iz awl over. Thare aint enny more trick in gitting marrid, after
yu are ready, than there iz in eating peanuts. Menny a man haz stood
shivvering on the shore till the river haz awl run out. Don't expect
tew marry an angel; the angels hav awl been picked up long ago.
Remember, Joe, yu aint a saint yureself. Don't marry for buty
excloosively; buty iz like ice, awful slippery, and thaws dredful eazy.
Don't marry for garments; dry goods are uncommon deceptibus; they are
like the feathers on a blue-jay--pick oph the feathers, and thare aint
nothing left. Don't marry for munny; munny may make yu respectabel, but
kan't make you honnest nor happy. Don't marry excloosively for luv
neither; luv iz like a cooking-stove, good for nothing when the fuel
gives out. But marry a mixtur. Let the mixtur be: sum buty, becumingly
dressed, with about 225 dollars in her pocket; a good speller, handy
and neat in the house, plenty ov good sense, a tuff constitution and
by-laws, small feet, and a light stepper; add tew this, clean teeth,
and a warm heart; the whole tew be well shaken before taken. This
mixtur will keep in enny climate, and not evaporate. If the cork
happens tew be left out for two or three minutes, the strength aint awl
gone.
Joe, for heaven's sake don't marry for pedigree; thare aint much in
pedigree, unless it iz backed up bi bank stock; a family, with nothing
but pedigree, generally lacks sense; they are like a kight with tew
much tail; if they would only take oph sum ov the tail, they mite
possibly git up, but they are always tew illustrious to take off any
tail.
Let me hear from yu again, Joe, soon.
But mi dear fellow, don't be afrade; wedlok iz az natral az milk, but
in course thare iz sum difference in milk about highsting cream, but
there iz one thing that don't vary, and that iz awl milk tew have the
cream rize good, and keep sweet, must be kept in a cool place, not be
rousted up tew often.
Don't be an olde bachelor; lonesum, and selfish, crawling out ov yure
hole, in the morning, like a shiny backed beetle, and then backing into
it again, late every night, suspicious, and suspected.
I would az soon be a stuffed rooster, set up in a show window, or a tin
weather cock, on the ridge-pole of a female seminary, az a lonesum
bachelor, jeered at by awl the virginity ov the land.
_Jeremiah._--Don't confuse learning and wisdum; thare iz jist az mutch
diffrence between them az thare iz between fruit that iz raized in a
hott-house and that which ripens out doors, smiled upon bi the sun, and
shook up by the wind and the storm.
When the two hitch up together, they are a bully team.
Wisdum, being natrally the stoughtest, takes learning up in its arms,
and learning points out the shortest road tew take; they work together
handy az a pair ov twin oxen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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