The Bed-Book of Happiness. Harold Begbie
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a leg is not the man he was.
ADAM AND EVE
[Sidenote: Samuel Butler]
A little boy and a little girl were looking at a picture of Adam and
Eve.
"Which is Adam and which is Eve?" said one.
"I do not know," said the other, "but I could tell if they had their clothes on."
FIRE
[Sidenote: Samuel Butler]
I was at one the other night, and heard a man say: "That corner stack is alight now quite nicely." People's sympathies seem generally to be with the fire so long as no one is in danger of being burned.
THE ELECTRIC LIGHT IN ITS INFANCY
[Sidenote: Samuel Butler]
I heard a woman in a 'bus boring her lover about the electric light. She wanted to know this and that, and the poor lover was helpless. Then she said she wanted to know how it was regulated. At last she settled down by saying that she knew it was in its infancy. The word "infancy" seemed to have a soothing effect upon her, for she said no more, but, leaning her head against her lover's shoulder, composed herself to slumber.
NEW-LAID EGGS
[Sidenote: Samuel Butler]
When I take my Sunday walks in the country, I try to buy a few really new-laid eggs warm from the nest. At this time of the year (January) they are very hard to come by, and I have long since invented a sick wife who has implored me to get a few eggs laid not earlier than the self-same morning. Of late, as I am getting older, it has become my daughter, who has just had a little baby. This will generally draw a new-laid egg, if there is one about the place at all.
At Harrow Weald it has always been my wife who for years has been a great sufferer and finds a really new-laid egg the one thing she can digest in the way of solid food. So I turned her on as movingly as I could not long since, and was at last sold some eggs that were no better than common shop-eggs, if so good. Next time I went I said my poor wife had been made seriously ill by them; it was no good trying to deceive her; she could tell a new-laid egg from a bad one as well as any woman in London, and she had such a high temper that it was very unpleasant for me when she found herself disappointed.
"Ah! sir," said the landlady, "but you would not like to lose her."
"Ma'am," I replied, "I must not allow my thoughts to wander in that direction. But it's no use bringing her stale eggs, anyhow."
SNAPSHOTTING A BISHOP
[Sidenote: Samuel Butler]
I must some day write about how I hunted the late Bishop of Carlisle with my camera, hoping to shoot him when he was sea-sick crossing from Calais to Dover, and how St. Somebody protected him and said I might shoot him when he was well, but not when he was sea-sick. I should like to do it in the manner of the "Odyssey":
… And the steward went round and laid them all on the sofas and benches, and he set a beautiful basin by each, variegated and adorned with flowers; but it contained no water for washing the hands, and Neptune sent great waves that washed over the eyelet-holes of the cabin. But when it was now the middle of the passage and a great roaring arose as of beasts in the Zoological Gardens, and they promised hecatombs to Neptune if he would still the raging of the waves. …
At any rate I shot him and have him in my snap-shot book; but he was not sea-sick.
From the Note-Books of Samuel Butler.
GOETHE'S MOTHER
[Sidenote: G.H. Lewes]
That he was the loveliest baby ever seen, exciting admiration wherever nurse or mother carried him, and exhibiting, in swaddling clothes, the most wonderful intelligence, we need no biographer to tell us. Is it not said of every baby? But that he was in truth a wonderful child we have undeniable evidence, and of a kind less questionable than the statement of mothers and relatives. At three years old he could seldom be brought to play with little children, and only on the condition of their being pretty. One day, in a neighbour's house, he suddenly began to cry and exclaim, "That black child must go away! I can't bear him!" And he howled till he was carried home, where he was slowly pacified; the whole cause of his grief being the ugliness of the child.
A quick, merry little girl grew up by the boy's side. Four other children also came, but soon vanished. Cornelia was the only companion who survived, and for her his affection dated from the cradle. He brought his toys to her, wanted to feed her and attend on her, and was very jealous of all who approached her. "When she was taken from the cradle, over which he watched, his anger was scarcely to be quieted. He was altogether much more easily moved to anger than to tears." To the last his love for Cornelia was passionate.
In old German towns, Frankfurt among them, the ground-floor consists of a great hall where the vehicles were housed. This floor opens in folding trap-doors, for the passage of wine-casks into the cellars below. In one corner of the hall there is a sort of lattice, opening by an iron or wooden grating upon the street. This is called the Geräms. Here the crockery in daily use was kept; here the servants peel their potatoes, and cut their carrots and turnips, preparatory to cooking; here also the housewife would sit with her sewing, or her knitting, giving an eye to what passed in the street (when anything did pass there) and an ear to a little neighbourly gossip. Such a place was, of course, a favourite with the children.
One fine afternoon, when the house was quiet, Master Wolfgang, with his cup in his hand, and nothing to do, finds himself in this Geräms, looking out into the silent street, and telegraphing to the young Ochsensteins who dwelt opposite. By way of doing something, he begins to fling the crockery into the street, delighted at the smashing music which it makes, and stimulated by the approbation of the brothers Ochsenstein, who chuckle at him from over the way. The plates and dishes are flying in this way, when his mother returns: she sees the mischief with a housewifely horror, melting into girlish sympathy, as she hears how heartily the little fellow laughs at his escapade, and how the neighbours laugh at him.
This genial, indulgent mother employed her faculty for story-telling to his and her own delight. "Air, fire, earth, and water I represented under the forms of princesses; and to all natural phenomena I gave a meaning, in which I almost believed more fervently than my little hearers. As we thought of paths which led from star to star, and that we should one day inhabit the stars, and thought of the great spirits we should meet there, I was as eager for the hours of story-telling as the children themselves; I was quite curious about the future course of my own improvisation, and any invitation which interrupted these evenings was disagreeable. There I sat, and there Wolfgang held me with his large black eyes; and when the fate of one of his favourites was not according to his fancy, I saw the angry veins swell on his temples, I saw him repress his tears. He often burst in with 'But, mother, the princess won't marry the nasty tailor, even if he does kill the giant.' And when I made a pause for the night, promising to continue it on the morrow, I was certain that he would in the meanwhile think it out for himself, and so he often stimulated my imagination. When I turned the story according to his plan, and told him that he had found out the dénouement, then was he all fire and flame, and one could see his little heart beating underneath his dress! His grandmother, who made a great pet of him, was the confidante of all his ideas as to how the story would turn out, and as she repeated these to me, and I turned the story according to these hints, there was a little diplomatic secrecy between us, which we never disclosed. I had the pleasure of continuing my story to the delight and astonishment of my hearers, and Wolfgang saw, with glowing eyes, the fulfilment of his own conceptions, and listened with enthusiastic applause." What a charming glimpse of mother and son!
She is one of the pleasantest figures in German literature, and one standing out with greater vividness than almost any other. Her simple, hearty, joyous, and affectionate nature endeared her to all. She was the delight of children, the favourite of poets and princes. To the last retaining her enthusiasm and simplicity, mingled with great shrewdness and knowledge of character, "Frau Aja," as they christened her, was at once grave and