The American Joe Miller: A Collection of Yankee Wit and Humor
John Stuart Mill · en
A Western editor says:--"Wood, chips, coke, coal, corn-cobs,
feathers, rosin, sawdust, shavings, splinters, dry leaves, old rags,
fence-rails, barn-doors, flints, or anything that will burn or strike
fire, taken on subscription at this office."
TRUE AMERICAN PATRIOTISM.--332.
A Down-Easter thus distinguishes between different sorts of
patriotism:--"Some esteem it sweet to die for one's country; but most
of our patriots hold it sweeter still to live _upon_ one's country."
POETICAL PATCHWORK.--333.
Rock'd in the cradle of the deep,
Old Casper's work was done;
Piping on hollow reeds to his pent sheep,
Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!
There was a sound of revelry by night,
On Linden, when the sun was low;
A voice replied, far up the height,
Tall oaks from little acorns grow.
What, if a little rain should say,
I have not loved the world, nor the world me!
Ah! well a-day;
Woodman spare that tree!
My heart leaps up with joy to see
A primrose by the water's brim;
Zaccheus, he did climb that tree;
Few of our youth could cope with him.
The prayer of Ajax was for light,
The light that never was on sea or shore;
Pudding and beef make Britons fight;
Never more!
Under a spreading chestnut tree,
For hours the gither, sat
I and my Annabel Lee;
A man's a man for a' that.
Truth crush'd to earth shall rise again,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air;
In thunder, lightning, or in rain,
None but the brave deserve the fair.
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
The child is father of the man;
Hush, my dear, lie still in slumber.
They can conquer who believe they can.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream;
Whatever is, is right,
And things are not what they seem;
My native land, good night!
SO HUMANE.--334.
A lady in Brooklyn is known to be so humane that she will not allow
even her carpet to be beaten; and was frightfully shocked on hearing a
boy, who was relating a story about a donkey, tell his comrades to cut
his tail short. She actually fainted away when a relative said he had
been killing time.
THE LYING AT THE TOP.--335.
"Truth lies at the bottom of the well." All very well, as long as it
stays there; but it is the lying at the top and thereabouts that does
all the mischief!
"BRAGGIN' SAVES ADVERTISIN'."--336.