Part 3 (1/2)
”Would you sketch in two words a coquette and deceiver?
Name two Irish geniuses, Lover and Lever!”
She also succeeds with the quatrain:
ON BEING CALLED A GOOSE.
A signal name is this, upon my word!
Great Juno's geese saved Rome her citadel.
Another drowsy Manlius may be stirred And the State saved, if I but cackle well.
I recall a charming _jeu d'esprit_ from Mrs. Barrows, the beloved ”Aunt f.a.n.n.y,” who writes equally well for children and grown folks, and whose big heart ranges from earnest philanthropy to the perpetration of exquisite nonsense.
It is but a trifle, sent with a couple of peanut-owls to a niece of Bryant's. The aged poet was greatly amused.
”When great Minerva chose the Owl, That bird of solemn phiz, That truly awful-looking fowl, To represent her wis- Dom, little recked the G.o.ddess of The time when she would howl To see a Peanut set on end, And called--Minerva's Owl.”
Miss Phelps has given us some sentences which convey an epigram in a keen and delicate fas.h.i.+on, as:
”All forms of self-pity, like Prussian blue, should be sparingly used.”
”As a rule, a man can't cultivate his mustache and his talents impartially.”
”As happy as a kind-hearted old lady with a funeral to go to.”
”No men are so fussy about what they eat as those who think their brains the biggest part of them.”
”The professor's sister, a homeless widow, of excellent Vermont intentions and high ideals in cup-cake.”
And this longer extract has the same characteristics:
”You know how it is with people, Avis; some take to zoology, and some take to religion. That's the way it is with places. It may be the Lancers, and it may be prayer-meetings. Once I went to see my grandmother in the country, and everybody had a candy-pull; there were twenty-five candy-pulls and taffy-bakes in that town that winter. John Rose says, in the Connecticut Valley, where he came from, it was missionary barrels; and I heard of a place where it was cold coffee. In Harmouth it's improving your mind. And so,” added Coy, ”we run to reading-clubs, and we all go fierce, winter after winter, to see who'll get the 'severest.'
There's a set outside of the faculty that descends to charades and music and inconceivably low intellectual depths; and some of our girls sneak off and get in there once in a while, like the little girl that wanted to go from heaven to h.e.l.l to play Sat.u.r.day afternoons, just as you and I used to do, Avis, when we dared. But I find I've got too old for that,”
said Coy, sadly. ”When you're fairly past the college-boys, and as far along as the law students--”
”Or the theologues?” interposed Avis.
”Yes, or the theologues, or even the medical department; then there positively _is_ nothing for it but to improve your mind.”
Listen to Lavinia, one of Mrs. Rose Terry Cooke's sensible Yankee women:
”Land! if you want to know folks, just hire out to 'em. They take their wigs off afore the help, so to speak, seemingly.”
”Marryin' a man ain't like settin' alongside of him nights and hearin'
him talk pretty; that's the fust prayer. There's lots an' lots o'