Table-Talk
If the age of women were known by their teeth, they would not be so fond of showing them.
What is an Irishman but a mere machine for converting potatoes into human nature?
The smiles of a pretty woman are glimpses of Paradise.
Military men never blush; it is not in the articles of war.
We look with pleasure even on our shadows.
It is particularly inconvenient to have a long nose—especially if you are in company with Irishmen after dinner.
Weak-minded men are obstinate; those of a robust intellect are firm.
Bear-baiting has gone down very much of late. The best exhibitions of that manly and rational amusement take place nightly in the House of Commons.
When you are invited to a drinking-party you do not treat your host well if you do not eat at least six salt herrings before you sit down to his table. I have never known this to fail in ensuring a pleasant evening.
Butchers and doctors are with great propriety excluded from being jurymen.
Few men have the moral courage not to fight a duel.
It is a saying of the excellent Tom Brown, “No poet ever went to a church when he had money to go to a tavern.” This may be looked on as an indisputable axiom; there is no truer proposition in Euclid. Indeed, the very name of poet is derived from potare—to drink; and it is not by mere accident that the same word signifies Bacchus and a book.
The most ferocious monsters in existence are authors who insist on reading their MSS to their friends and visitors.
A friend of mine, one of the wittiest and most learned men of the day, once recommended a Frenchman, who expressed an anxiety to possess the autographs of literary men, to cash their bills. “And, believe me,” says he, “if you do, you will get the handwriting of the best of the tribe.”
Tailors call Adam and Eve the first founders of their noble art; they have them depicted on their banners and escutcheons. But they would be nearer the truth if they called the devil the first master-tailor; as only for him a coat and breeches would be unnecessary and useless. This would be giving the devil his due.
A very acute man used to say, “Tell me your second reason; I do not want your first. The second is the true motive of your actions.”
Youth and old age seem to be mutual spies on each other—blind, each, to its own imperfections, but extremely quick-sighted to those of its opposite.
Hints to Men of Business.—Whenever you are in a hurry engage a drunken cabman; he will drive you at double the speed of a sober one. Also, be sure not to engage a cabman who owns the horse he drives; he will spare his quadruped, and carry you at a funeral pace. Both these maxims are as good as any in Rochefoucault.
Man is a twofold creature; one half he exhibits to the world, and the other to himself.
Edward V. H. Kenealy, LL.D. (1819–1880).
ADVICE TO A YOUNG POET.
Snooks, my friend, I see with sorrow
How you waste much precious time—
Notwithstanding all you borrow—
In concocting wretched rhyme.
Do not think that I fling any
Innuendoes at your head,
When I state the fact that many
Mines of Wicklow teem with lead.
Snooks, my friend, you are a ninny
(Class, mammalia-genus, muff),
If you hope to make a guinea
By such caterwauling stuff.
Lives of poets all remind us
We may write “demnition” fine,
Leaving still unsolved behind us
The problem, “How are bards to dine?”
Problem which perhaps some others,
As through life they dodge about,
Seeing, shall suppose our mothers
Did not know that we were out.
Hang the bard, and cut the punster,
Fling all rhyming to the deuce,
Take a business tour through Munster,
Shoot a landlord—be of use.
Richard Dalton Williams (1822–1862).
SAINT KEVIN AND KING O’TOOLE.
As Saint Kevin once was travelling through a place called Glendalough,
He chanced to meet with King O’Toole, and asked him for a shough;18
Said the king, “You are a stranger, for your face I’ve never seen,
But if you have a taste o’ weed, I’ll lend you my dhudeen.”19
While the saint was kindling up the pipe the monarch fetched a sigh;
“Is there anything the matter,” says the saint, “that makes you cry?”
Said the king, “I had a gander, that was left me by my mother,
And this morning he cocked up his toes with some disease or other.”
“And are you crying for the gander, you unfortunate ould goose?
Dhry up your tears, in frettin’, sure, there’s ne’er a bit o’ use;
As you think so much about the bird, if I make him whole and sound,
Will you give to me the taste o’ land the gander will fly round?”
“In troth I will, and welcome,” said the king, “give what you ask;”
The saint bid him bring out the bird, and he’d begin the task;
The king went into the palace to fetch him out the bird,
Though he’d not the least intention of sticking to his word.
Saint Kevin took the gander from the arms of the king,
He first began to tweak his beak, and then to pull his wing,
He hooshed him up into the air—he flew thirty miles around;
Said the saint, “I’ll thank your majesty for that little bit o’ ground.”
The king, to raise a ruction next, he called the saint a witch,
And sent in for his six big sons, to heave him in the ditch;
“Nabocklish,” said Saint Kevin, “I’ll soon settle these young urchins,”
So he turned the king and his six sons into the seven churches.
Thomas Shalvey (fl. 1850).