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SAGE STUFFING 
 
 GREEN GOSLINGS; 
 
 SAWS FOR THE GOOSE AND SAWS FOR THE GANDEE 
 
 /£- 
 
 BY TILE , 
 
 HON. HUGH ROWLEY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "PUNIANA," "GATWOSAGAMMON," ETCt 
 
 J, J - • 
 
 
 WITH ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR. 
 ENGRAVED BY THE BROTHERS DALZIEL. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 George Routledge and Sons, 
 
 THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE. 
 
 NEW YORK: 416 BROOME STREET. 
 
 I8 7 2, 
 
 Or 
 
J J. 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 TO MY MOTHER. 
 
SAGE STUFFING FOR GREEN GOSLINGS; 
 
 SAWS FOR THE GOOSE AND SAWS FOR THE GANDER. 
 
SAGE STUFFING FOR GREEN GOSLINGS. 
 
 AY, O green gusling gos- 
 ings, do you feel disposed 
 to come and be crammed 
 with our sage stuffing ? 
 Say, O //^proper ganders,, 
 will you have our propa- 
 ganda ? $ay, O ducks, de- 
 licious little ducks, can you 
 duckline our seasoning ? 
 Say, O ye pretty small- 
 footed donkeys, won't you 
 Let us, O blockheads, cut you 
 quick (if you Ve got one) with the double-toothed 
 
 1 
 
 digest our pointed thistles ? 
 to the 
 
Sage Shifjfing for 
 
 saws of knowingness : O green blades, permit us to mot you. 
 Say, O bores, shall our pearls be cast before you to no pur- 
 pose ? Say, O swaggering stoopid big babes and cigar- 
 sucklings, shall our bells jingle their Proverbial Foolosophy 
 for you in vain ? No, we rather imagine not. We know 
 that the words of wisdom nowadays are generally looked 
 upon as a nuisance, a feahful bawah ! Plato's sayings you 
 call platotudes ; Scissaro makes you want . . "to cut it ; " 
 Pausanias can't make any ass pause ! Bruyere puts you 
 into a mental brotiillard, and you think he isn't half as much 
 the cheese as gruyere; you like Lamb in any other form 
 but Charles ; you leave your Locke unopened ; you don't 
 care to save your Bacon ; Tupper isn't tuppermost in your 
 thoughts ; unint-Horace-ting to you is Horace, unless at 
 Asscott or Donkeystir ; you can't bear moral songs, much 
 less SurTer-gless — poor old Sophocles, and, agilis viridisqne, 
 senectns, Paddy Green ! If any one recommend you to 
 Goethe entire animal with the most Schillerbrated Germans, 
 or Shakespeare, you only answer, "Mon cher, Shakespeare 
 deja d' ennui ;" you like meandering more than Menander- 
 ing ; you probably know Laura, but your ignorance of 
 Petrarch is depLaurable ; you think more of your whiskers 
 than your wits — more of inScipioent moustachios than 
 Scipio ; more of your boots than your brains— you won't 
 have a Bunyan if you can help it ; though Young, your 
 " Night Thoughts " are really .... well .... not 
 worth much : you affect venal Jews more than Juvenal ; 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 quite Bulwerser Lord Lytton by skipping every word but 
 the story in his books ; pass Vi(r)gils and fasts .... 
 over; sacrifice Xenophon to a scene of fun; and consume the 
 midnight oil on the sole condition that it be intimately 
 blended with vinegar, mustard, lobsters, &c, &c, &c, et 
 cetera. 
 
 Why is this, O gobe-mouches ? Why, O why is it thus ? 
 Is it because everything the axiomatic swells, ancient and 
 modern, say is too heavily put ; because all their proverbs 
 are solemn 'uns ; because they don't amuse you ; because 
 they are too dry for your palate ; because they 're a pack of 
 old duffers, eh ? Of course ! Therefore we are going to 
 sage-stuff you more lightly, more crummyly, more " Burlo- 
 dramaticcally," and more easily for you to take in ; but, as 
 we know we too might lead you to the undiluted water and 
 not make you drink, we are going to try the effect of put- 
 ting a little spirit in this same water, a little spice in it, a 
 knob or two of sugar, a slice of lemon or so, and something 
 else besides, of an everfizzing character, to make it sparkle, 
 and tempt you to imbibe it, O Gander, with gooseto. Be- 
 sides laying our own eggsperience before you, we shall also 
 omeletanxfinesJierbesify the eggsperience of others, and when 
 our sage-stuffing " rebukes " you, we hope its effect will be 
 to make some of you pull up the green blinds of unwisdom 
 which so many of you will keep carefully drawn down, as if 
 . . . common sense lay dead within you ! 
 
 We shall watch to see if you improve : we know you, O 
 
 1—3 
 
Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Goslings, as we meet you every day in the Row, at the club, 
 at the play; we sit next you on the same coaches, dine at 
 the same houses, drink sherry with you at Poole's, stop at 
 the same places, sail in the same yots, stalk the same dears, 
 hunt the same game, flirt with the same women ; for the 
 spirit of Fun is — everywhere, 
 
 " A chiel 's amang ye takin' notes, 
 An' faith he'll prent it;" 
 
 but don't, please do not be angry ; for remember — it *s only 
 written in 
 
 *%M^M < 
 
 Wmp- 
 
READER, dear Reader, we are about to commence pessi- 
 misticising and sage-stuffing you ; we are about to give you 
 a sharp sauce, which is equally sauce for the goose and sauce 
 for the gander — of our own manufacture ; you may perhaps 
 — it is not impossible — now and then find us using the in- 
 gredients of others as our own ; but remember, if you should, 
 that we only so use them as our hone to sharpen our dull 
 edge or blunt point upon them, not that we should have the 
 very faintest scruple in using anybody else's jokes, ideas, 
 etc., if cribbing and plagiarism were in our line, inasmuch as 
 no end of people use ours ; but as it isn't, we don't, except, 
 as we say, as a hone. If you are already sage (you may be, 
 que scais-jef) you can, and most probably will, quote our 
 sagejestsions to your less wise friends and acquaintance. . 
 . . as your own; but if you are not, as we are about with our 
 Proverbial Foolosophy to out-Tupper Tupper, it will be 
 your own fault if you find us like the unhappy man whose 
 
Sage Stuffing for 
 
 writings, alas ! were said to be eternal, as ... he wrote 
 to no end ! Having thus told you what we are going to do, 
 we are now going to do it : permit us to offer you our 
 
 Spoonful I. 
 
 — ♦— 
 Burns says : 
 
 " O wad some power the giftie gie us 
 To see oursels as ithers see us !" 
 
 He makes a mistake, for you ought, dear boy, to be ex- 
 ceedingly thankful, for the sake of your own peace of mind, 
 that it is impossible ; and impossible it is, as . . you 'd 
 have to get behind your own back to do it ! 
 
 Know thyself, says the sage. Quite so. Ha ! ha ! by all 
 means know thyself, but — tell it not in Bath, publish it not 
 in the streets of Brighton — don't, pray don't, let anybody 
 else know — what yon know. 
 
 The difference between " a good man " and " a good feller " 
 is simply e?^rmous. The difference between " a good 
 woman " and a good-looking one, is even more stupendous. 
 
 "The D — v — 1," they say, "is not so black as he is 
 painted." Dear reader, you may feel quite certain that he 
 is exactly the colour — yon like best ! 
 
 You like young ladies : of course you do ! we should 
 utterly despise you if you did not, for what can be more 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 entrancing ? nevertheless, you take our advice, and, if you 
 would get on — don't neglect the more olderly ones. 
 
 A beautiful woman with no feeling, no soul, is like — a 
 silk stocking with no — no — no — ankle in it. 
 
 Definition of a woman who paints : ahem 1 — — The 
 Lady of the Lake ! 
 
 When lovely woman stoops to folly, 
 She does it cos she thinks it 's jolly. 
 
 Oh stoopid stoopid stooping stoopid females ! ! 
 
 Gentle Reader, pardon our exceedingly mild sarcasm, but 
 we have ventured to draw you a black-Amour here, going 
 the way most " amours " do go : Gentle Reader, he is going 
 to " break down " ! 
 
8 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful II. 
 
 UST, only just frozen, yet on you go — 
 — skating ! Just, only just introduced, 
 yet on you go flirting ! In the 
 
 first case, before you know where you are, you are . . . . 
 
 K let in : " in the second case, before you know where you 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 are . . . . you— can't get out of it ! ■ In the first case 
 the water is cold ; but in the second, hang it, it's—" hot 
 water " you get into ! Why not wait, dear boy, till your 
 affections — like the more solid bank, on which it would be 
 so much wiser to remain — are .... ripa ! 
 
 Reader, there has been more " coming-down heavily " — 
 both on the ice and in the world — in connection with " the 
 figure " called " Cupid's bow " than perhaps with any other ! 
 
 Remember this, in skating and in worldly matters, the 
 great thing is — having a good balance, and being able to 
 keep it — on the ice, and .... the Bank ! Cutting 
 threes, double threes, eights, noughts, and so on, on the one, 
 isn't half such good fun as drawing them on the other. 
 
 Just act in the world as you would on rotten ice 
 
 avoid that which is dangerous! Don't say it's difficult to 
 discover its rottenness, its ... . superficiality. Bah ! 
 you know all about it as well as any one ; it don't hide 
 itself under a bushel, or even a bush : the real secret is, you 
 don't want to see it, because . . . . it 's nice ! 
 
 Apropos of skating, &c, remember this : Pleasure is 
 selfish : that which is joy to you means cold, hunger, fire- 
 lessness, starvation, death even to others : if you like skat- 
 ing whilst others are frozen ; if you like swimming whilst 
 hundreds of shipwrecked wretches may possibly be battling 
 with death in the same sea, don't — as the wit says ; — sub- 
 scribe to Exeter Hall Missionaries, for not half the people 
 go to the d — 1 that ought to, nor let your charity bfgin at 
 
i o Sage Stuffing for 
 
 home and stop there, but — much more to the purpose — be 
 charitable at X-mas time, and send a fiver now and then to 
 the Life Boat Institution. 
 
 The King of Prussia has been called the " Will of Pro- 
 vidence " ! To get rid of him the French have now to pay 
 . . . . the Bill of /^-providence ! 
 
 The last thing the King of Prussia said at Versailles was 
 certainly the best thing he said whilst he was there ; he 
 said, in his own German vay — Je m'en vais ! 
 
 France, poor France, for you has commenced .... 
 the Rain of Tears ! ! ! 
 
 French cooking is wholesome enough, but an entree a la 
 Prusse will always make the Gaul to rise. 
 
 A contented mind is a continual feast : yes, perhaps ; 
 but, there are men — gastrophilistic parties, whose god is 
 their tum-tum, whose Paradise is Eden an' drinkin' — who 
 read it, that a continual feast is the best way of getting a 
 contented mind. 
 
 The cook who curries your lobsters, chickens, &c, &c, 
 &c, to perfection, can hardly fail also to curry .... 
 your favour. 
 
 Paunch a la Remain : A man who sticks to the table ! 
 A man who has a paunchant for eating ! 
 
 P.S. — Don't call a man who "sticks to the table" glut- 
 tonous, — glutinous is the word ! , 
 
 Whine from the wood : A creaking door ! 
 
 An un-flattering Port-trait : A red nose I 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 ii 
 
 A Mayor's nest : Guildhall ! 
 
 Yes, there is no doubt about it ; a short cut to the heart, 
 is frequently through the stomach ! 
 
 Reader, Beloved Reader, we hear people spoken of as 
 " sponges," " awful sponges," " tremendous sponges " ! Ha ! 
 ha ! it isn't water THEY absorb though : anything but it ! 
 
12 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful III. 
 
 NGENUOUS YOUTH! have 
 you a young lady " in your 
 eye " ? if so . . . mind it ! 
 Do as you would be done 
 by ! This is entirely Smith- 
 kinson's creed, for — (his mar- 
 ried life is not happy) — he 
 protests he shall only be too 
 delighted to run away with 
 Mrs. Somebody, provided he 
 can only guarantee Mr. Some- 
 body's running away with 
 Mrs. Smithkinson ! . . . . Ruffian. 
 
 An intellegshowall (if not an intellectual) treat ; 
 
 The Ballet 1 
 
 Mrs. Eyebury Barnes has, we are informed, "taken up 
 
 her cross " ; Nonsense ! we don't believe it, unless 
 
 . . . . it is a good big diamond one. 
 
Green Goslings. 13 
 
 Mrs. Skippingtone Smyijthe-Smyijthe (widow) has, we 
 
 are told, "put off the old man " ! yes ; quite so ; but 
 
 simply because all the young ones had first put her off. 
 
 How many a time has love dimmed the eye of Beauty, 
 and — and — ah — sad retribution — how many a time has the 
 mouth of Beauty .... dim'd Love. 
 
 " Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit ; " no one can tell 
 who he sits next to in an omnibus ; clever poet ! 
 
 The most dangerous, tho' most entrancing form of Rouge 
 et Noir ; Ladies' lips and boots ! 
 
 We hear of people who have pet dogs " that do every- 
 thing but speak;" by the living jingo, it's lucky for 
 them, for both of them, dogs and owners, they don't do 
 that. 
 
 When about to make a phool of yourself, ask yourself 
 this question — " Is she ivorth going to the — the — Bad for ? 
 We should like to have an even hundred on our ability to 
 guess your answer, eh ? 
 
 Caning a boy for whistling on the Sabbath is perhaps the 
 best, yes, perhaps the very best way to make him cordially 
 detest that weekly event for ever afterwards : it is quite as 
 sure a way as taking him three times to church every Sun- 
 day of his holidays. 
 
 How many a " swellish party " we see in the Row and 
 St. James's Street ! " A stranger, unacknowledg'd, unap- 
 prov'd," is like the wind of Heaven ; he comes you know 
 not whence, and he goes you know not whither ! 
 
H 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Money in this world can do nearly everything for you ; 
 it can make your home a mundane ;£-s-ium, &c, &c, &c, 
 but it can not .... make you a gentleman. 
 
 There *s many a cloven hoof wears patent leather. 
 
 We are very much afraid, could Mephistopheles only 
 walk about London, A.D. 1871, offering a good many of us 
 elderly parties the same bargain he offered Dr. Faustus, 
 that there would incontinently be a very sensible ///-crease 
 in the number of youthful Burlington Arcadians, and a 
 corresponding ^-crease in the number of padded, bewigged 
 old-gentlemanly bores, one is now accustomed to see about 
 town ! 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 IS 
 
 Spoonful IV. 
 
 ES, yes, of course, 
 you, O Cornet and 
 Sub - lieutenant 
 Lord Doffleswell, 
 may get up your 
 rocking animal's 
 "spirit" with your 
 " sp;/rto genteel " if 
 you think it looks 
 well, and if you are 
 weak enough to 
 imagine people 
 don't know how 
 it 's done, but the 
 less-accustomed -to 
 horses reader and 
 rider who would 
 become the centaur of admiring observation, had better 
 
1 6 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 most carefully remember (unless he wish to be sent . . . 
 aw . . . flying) that he must first be able gracefully — 
 and by Bellerophon securely — to show — 07i, before he risks 
 . . . . showing off! 
 When the poet said, '. 
 
 " The proper study of mankind is man," 
 
 he was in error ; that is the study of womankind : the 
 proper study of mankind is — ladies ! 
 
 The female heart is like iron, softest when warmest ; we 
 should then attack it whilst it 's ma/eable ! 
 
 "When other hearts and other lips their tales of love 
 shall," etc., etc., etc., if you are a lady go and tell your 
 husband immediately ! if you are a gentleman, do NOT tell 
 your wife. 
 
 Handsome is as handsome does ; if you are a gentleman 
 — be gentle ! nothing is more admired by other men and — 
 N.B., and — by women, than — gentlemanliness ! 
 
 Let the only thing low about you be . . . your voice ! 
 
 Only do half as well as — you would be done by y and 
 what an agreeable fellow you will be. 
 
 We hear people spoken of as being " no better than they 
 ought to be " ! This is very sad, considering the height of 
 the 1 87 1 standard of goodness! 
 
 Habit and custom become, like use, a sort of second 
 nature ; the habit or custom of not using pockethandker- 
 chiefs sufficiently often to very young children is most 
 
Green Goslings. 17 
 
 highly to be reprehended ; as is also the habit or custom 
 older children have, of chewing and sucking toothpicks, — 
 noisily chewing and sucking them — to show, we can only 
 presume, they have had some dinner! Ah, goslings, your 
 hundred stoopid little tricks ! do stop 'em before they be- 
 come a habit ; dent chew toothpicks, and, oh, please do 
 not rattle a lot of loose sovereigns, etc., hi your trowsers 
 pockets ; you ' ve no idea how you bore people, whose teeth 
 are not defective, but whose supply of sovereigns, perhaps 
 . ... is! 
 
 Do you know what the " Cinque Cento " is ? Do you ? 
 Not you : well, we '11 tell you ; it is the love of Mammon, 
 simply the unutterably snobbish worship of money ; let us 
 call it .... £ s. <f.-eism : if that 's not the Chink we 're 
 chained to, every man Jack of us, and woman too, we can't 
 very well say what e ls e is ! 
 
 Of two evils choose the lesser; of two fools . . . 
 the richer. 
 
 Many a man who passes through life simply as " an 
 agreeable diner-out " might have done wonders if he had 
 only been poorer/ Competence and toomanyironsinthe- 
 fireishness squash talent. How hod it is, yet many a fellow 
 who is contented to be considered only "a brick," at the 
 bottom of the ladder, might, we trow well, with his cements 
 talents, have im-mortar-lized himself if he had been wwable 
 
 to " come down with the dust ; " if he had only been 
 
 "hard up." 
 
1 8 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 The difference between being a Rochefoucauld and 
 
 a riche fou call'd is — immense : rich fools would do well to 
 try and lessen it ; however, of two evils choose the lesser. 
 Better be a rich fool than a poor one, any day. 
 
 O reader, youthful, roving, racing, riding, hippomaniacal 
 reader, O remember this. 
 
 The medi-evif bold baronial swell's " Fastness " . . '. . 
 preserved him: the 1871 swell's fastness does pre-cisely 
 . . . . the other thing ! 
 
 The medievil bold baronial swell's fastness enabled him 
 to rob and plunder with impunity; the 1871 swell's fastness 
 simply enables people to rob and plunder .... him ! 
 
 The medievil b. b. swell's fastness was fortified ; the 1871 
 swell's fastness is ... . forty-per-cent-ified ! 
 
 The medievil bold baronial swell in his fastness used to 
 keep captives waiting for ransom ; the 1 87 1 swell in his 
 fastness thinks far more of keeping himself captive-ating 
 and handsome ! 
 
 The medievil bold baronial swell in his fastness used 
 "the bill" and drew the bow; but the 1871 swell in his 
 fastness uses up the beau by ... . drawing the bill ! 
 
 And, the medievil bold baronial swell had in his fastness 
 . . . . dzmjons ; but the 1871 swell has in his fastness 
 only . . . . dans, without any jons, no chance what- 
 ever . . . . of paying them ! ! 
 
 Oh! be advised, ye swells, in your 1871 Fastness! de- 
 narcotize yourselves from the mental De-Quinceyfications 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 19 
 
 of its vapid but intoxicating pleasures ere it become — for 
 you— a ruin and tumble about your ears ; let not its ivy, 
 its parasites, cling to you, and thrive on your decay ! 
 
 Oh, be warned in time, ye 1871 swells in your modern 
 Castle of Indolence ! take its moat .... out of your 
 eye ! beware of its awful cells ! pay less attention to the fit 
 of its drawbridges ! think of the expense of its keep ! and 
 — raze it, don't race it .... to the ground ! 
 
20 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful V. 
 
 ^ ERE you are ; pictorial 
 
 advice to meddling 
 people who always 
 like to try and find 
 out a woman's H, 
 
 S how old she is . . 
 
 - . . Letter H alone ! 
 Here you are; the 
 much wanted letter 
 
 J H for the Greek al- 
 phabet — for which, 
 
 by-the-bye, the "curry-comb-o-ontes akaioi" ought to thank 
 us — a lovely Grecian bent one ! Here you are ; the letter 
 H Lord Byron, or whoever wrote the celebrated conundrum, 
 meant, when he said (it 's too long to quote the whole of it) 
 
Green Goslings. 21 
 
 Without it the ensign and middy should roam, 
 
 But law-suits for him who expels it from home ! 
 
 It presides o'er man's happiness, honour, and health, 
 
 Is the prop of his house, and .... the end of his wealth. 
 
 You tell us it's not an H-ural position ; but, que foolez vous, 
 is that our fault ? No, it 's yours, dear Sir and Madam : 
 you insist upon admiring it, and nothing evidently will 
 make you drop it ! 
 
 "The Golden Age;" A.D. 1871 ! .... N.B.— Hair- 
 dye ! 
 
 Whenever by any chance we go through the Burlington 
 Arcade, which is seldom, as our bootmaker lives in it (we 
 don't care to be Buhl-ied, tho' we Bernau malice), whenever 
 we do go through it, we are sure, quite certain to meet that 
 ptit creve Toddlekins (Toddlekins' house by-the-bye where 
 Mrs. Toddlekins lives is a trifle beyond Windsor), and at last 
 we rather twit him with his Arcadian rambling, say "sly 
 dog," and the usual amount of feeble, feeble twaddle one 
 always employs when wishing to flatter a man by making 
 him think himself a gay Lothario, an 1871 Zampa ; but 
 Toddlekins is equal to the occasion : he spurns, he scorns 
 the implied accusations of Dongiovarneyism, and assures 
 us, quite seriously (Ha ! ha !), quite seriously, that his doctor 
 (it 's too ridiculous) that his medical adviser, his physician, 
 has ordered — N.B., please observe — "ordered" — his Bur- 
 lington Arcade promenade, that being such a nice . . . . 
 DRY place. 
 
22 Sage St tiffing for 
 
 The other day Smyijthe, when he started his new mail 
 phaeton, completely overran the constable ! ! We are happy 
 to say the constable was not at all injured. 
 
 P.S. — Smyijthe was. 
 
 Somebody once asked "what is a guinea?" Do j/ou 
 know the real value of a pound ? If not, just try and earn 
 a few ; you '11 soon find out ! 
 
 We all know the upshot — or down-shot rather — of sitting 
 between two stools ; but how about sitting between two 
 fools ? isn't the im-idiot neighbourhood of an ass as bad ? 
 Eh ? Rather. 
 
 Familiarity, dearest Mrs. Jarmingal, breeds .... all 
 sorts of things, but among the most to be dreaded of her 
 children are satiety, indifference, and contempt ! We are 
 perfectly aware that some people consider it " the thing " to 
 crimp the hair, to put it in curl-papers, and otherwise pre- 
 pare for making themselves look beautiful on the morrow ; 
 but, belle dame — we put it you as mildly as possible — what, 
 now what does your sposo think of it ? how does he like the 
 private over-night arrangements — your night cap-pillar-y 
 preparations — which you make for the sake of obtaining 
 " Society's " valuable (?) admiration next day ? does he con- 
 sider the game worth the pair of candles you invariably use 
 over it ? Remember, dear Mrs. Jarmingal, he fell in love 
 with you .... when you were " got up " (number one 
 in the programme), and he may — it is not impossible — fall 
 out again if you are never more so — for him ! Is it fair — 
 
Green Uostings. 
 
 23 
 
 to say nothing of untidy slippers, curl-papers, curling-tongs, 
 sticky glycerine paste, &c, &c, &c, ct cetera, is it fair to 
 run the chance of putting his eye out with hair-pins (a mis- 
 fortune which frequently hairpins to husbands of crimpy- 
 haired ladies) and to otherwise— besides this state of frightful 
 porcupineism — (number two) render ^/^-captivating all the 
 beauty he married to be his, and his only, for ever ? Is it 
 fair? No, certainly not. Familiarity, sweetest lady, breeds 
 indifference, indifference breeds don't-care-ishness, don't- 
 care-ishness slights, slights annoyance, annoyance anger, 
 anger quarrels, quarrels rows, and Rows, many Rows, in- 
 fallibly breeds wretchedness, most utter wretchedness and 
 .... Penzance ! Be good enough, dear Mrs. Jarmingal, to 
 Beware ! Mrs. J., you will oblige us, you will oblige us very 
 much indeed, by ... . Bewaring ! 
 
24 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful VI. 
 
 LLINGLY we 
 
 subscribe to 
 the theory 
 that if there 
 were no bores 
 in the world 
 pleasure 
 would 
 lose 
 halfits 
 enjoy- 
 ableness. A wet day, for instance, is a bore we abhor ; but, 
 without rain, we know we should have no hunting, no peas, 
 no cover for our birds, no soft water for our tub : Duns are 
 a bore, but if we were not dunned by tradesmen, where 
 would be the gratification of being able to pay our bills ? 
 The bore may have his mission, may even be of use, if you 
 like, in Society, but the fact of knowing this don't make us 
 
Green Goslings. 25 
 
 love bores any the more, and, confound 'em ! what a lot 
 one meets every day ! 
 
 We are hardly ass-enough to try and be a second Her- 
 cules, and attempt to strangle the Hydra of Boredom ; he 's 
 too like the other party, who every time he touched his 
 mother earth was more alive and kicking than ever ; he 's 
 not to be strangled, but we may — we presume — talk about 
 him, and mention a few of his weaknesses, in order that you 
 may rechognize your own pigculiarities and act accordingly. 
 
 Let us — more in sorrow than in anger — begin with the 
 " sound advice "-giving bore : look at the four Reverend 
 Spanish Ecclesiastics delineated above; three of the holy 
 men, you will perhaps be kind enough to observe, are utterly 
 unsettled in their minds, upset, quite miserable, and per- 
 spiring from every pore, because, simply because, the fourth 
 holy man has thought it his duty to give them his " candid 
 opinion, and a bit of his mind." 
 
 We all know that sort of bore. 
 
 Then there's the J OB-ly comforting bore: let us ima- 
 gine small-pox, or cholera, or elephantiasis, or lumbago 
 (small-pox he prefers) to be very prevalent, then he 's in his 
 element. He finds out that you have either not, or that 
 you just have, been vaccinated ; in the first case he informs 
 you that 1897 people expired only yesterday, and advises 
 your immediate vaccination ; in the second case he tells you 
 that vaccination is often attended with far more serious con- 
 sequences than anything else in the world, that it renders 
 
26 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 you always more liable to softening of the brain, and hard- 
 ening of the vesicles of the cutaneous malacopterygious and 
 sub-interior tissues of the mucous membrane, and so on, on, 
 on. Then there 's the practical joking, or " bear-fighting " 
 bore, who is sure to tell you when he meets you in the park 
 that it was your house, or at any rate the one next door to 
 it, which, he heard, was in flames when he passed the end 
 of your street just now. Then there's the engaged-couple 
 bore you meet — and have to stay with — in a country house; 
 aren't they a bore ? aren't they even an ubiquitous bore ? If 
 you go into the billiard-room to knock the balls about, there 
 they are with the present state of their game . . . two 
 love or ... . love six ! if you go into the library for a 
 book, there they are again ; if you go to cut a rose for your 
 coat at dinner, there they are in the gardens : there they 
 are, in the drawing-rooms, morning-rooms, dining-room, 
 breakfast-room, green-houses, hothouses, everywhere ; and 
 always there just when you want to be there, too and you 
 darerit interrupt 'em, or everybody would yell at you. 
 
 They are a great bore. 
 
 Then there's the malapropos bore, who when he meets 
 you walking with your olderly, and, alas, unfortunately very 
 jealous wife, pokes you in the ribs, calls you "sly dog," and 
 says, "I'll tell your wife, you ruffian you." "This IS my 
 wife," you indignantly answer (you introduce 'em — Mrs. 
 Portarlington Smith, Mr. Potius Aper). " Oh, I really beg 
 your pardon," he apologizes, "but I certainly thought that 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 27 
 
 very lovely fair-haired girl I saw you alone in a private 
 box with at the theatre," &c, &c, &c. 
 
 
 mimmm 
 
 Pleasant, isn't it ? 
 
 Then there 's the bore who is just thinking of bringing 
 out a " little volume of p.oems," and would, oh, so like your 
 opinion of a few stanzas or so. O that my friend would 
 only be good enough .... NOT to write a book, Job 
 might also have said. Then there 's the bore who is perpe- 
 tually bragging of his shooting, knowing perfectly well that 
 he never shot anything in his life but a £$0 dog or — a — a — 
 beater. 
 
 You Ve the bore too who mixes your '20 port with water, 
 
28 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 and who chews for ten minutes, preparatory to chucking 
 'em away, your best 1/6 cigars ; you've the pedantic bore, 
 who objects to any other sort of antic ; you Ve the absent 
 bore, who is certainly always in the wrong — for not being — 
 absent ; you Ve the bore who has always (according to his 
 own account) a Duchess — or at any rate a Countess — dying 
 for him ; you Ve the chemically conjuring bore, who nearly 
 blows the house up, and does ^19 of damage before you 
 can say Fred Robinson ! then there 's the old china and 
 marqueterie cabinet bargaining bore, who will insist on 
 taking you into filthy slummy purlieus to look at sham 
 mediaeval rubbish, and who tells you the price of everything 
 he possesses, even to his socks and pocket-handkerchiefs ; 
 also the incorrectly musical humming bore; the old Joe 
 Mi-ller-tary story-telling bore ; the bore who don't " mince 
 matters " with anybody, and the bore who does — with every - 
 body ; the betting bore with his horse voice and ossy-fied 
 heart ; the sponge bore, who, by-the-bye, is invariably — dry, 
 who never has any small change to pay his share of a cab or 
 what not, and who has invariably just emptied his cigar- 
 case ; the argumentative interrupting and contradictory 
 bore ; the bore who insists upon your dining with him, and 
 who then gives you foul food, not half as good as you would 
 have got at home; the spirit medium believer bore (this 
 species, as the spirits he delights in are not real, we call the 
 myth-elated bore) ; the spiteful, black-tongued, tale-bearing 
 bore ; the near-sighted bore who cuts you dead ; the deaf 
 
Green Goslings. 29 
 
 bore, who unfortunately wont cut you at all ; the melan- 
 choly bore, the frisky bore, the borrowing bore, the pug- 
 nacious bore, the sleepy bore, the next-door neigh-bore, 
 the important bore, and the invalid bore. 
 
 The invalid bore is a bore ! 
 
 The bilious man with an indifferent liver is .seldom 
 amusing at the best of times, for when he 's a weak jeeur, 
 he 's generally a weak joker : as with bad coffee the horrid 
 chicory 's sure to predominate, so with the bilious man his 
 horrid jecur is sure to be his first thought ; but when he 
 makes you his confidant about his pains, pills, pangs, poul- 
 tices and plaisters, Bohoo ! isn't lie a .bore ? Does he expect 
 to please you by an account of all his sufferings ? does he 
 expect to gratify you ? or is it upon the dog-in-the-manger 
 principle, as he 's no appetite himself he wishes to take away 
 yours ? The invalid bore should go to bed, and stop there 
 . . . . at any rate till he gets better. 
 
 Then there 's the bore who always jejunely asks for " a 
 little sherry," or " some bread if you please," or what not — 
 and lets you see his mind is intent on getting it, and it only 
 — just while you are telling him your best and least known 
 story. Is he a bore ? Rather ! 
 
 Upon our word, amico, we are almost inclined to think 
 that the wild bore of the woods is better fun than the mild 
 bore of the cities : one you can hunt, t'other hunts you ; 
 one you can pot, t'others spot you; one's head is valuable 
 with a lemon in his mouth, t'other's is not at all valuable, 
 
3° 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 with or without a lemon in his mouth ; out of one you may 
 get ham, t'other gets ham, and — confound him — eggs too, 
 out of you ; one chews roots, t'other chews his che-roots, that 
 is, chooses your cheroots ; one eats trees, acorns, &c, t'other 
 prefers to gnaw away at your ma/k^any ; one whets his 
 tusks upon anything suitable — for instance, green oaks — 
 t'other only wets his tusks with your best Pomerey and 
 Gre<?n<? ! ! 
 
 Reader, we are told that by " feeding our enemy we heap 
 coals of fire upon his head ; " it may be so, but we regret 
 very much, very much indeed, that we mtist say we have 
 never yet come across any one member of the genus bore 
 who made the very faintest pretence of acting as if he con- 
 sidered it was so, or who, in the very least degree, objected 
 to such a . . . . coald coallation ! 
 
 C — 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 3 1 
 
 Spoonful VII. 
 
 HE very highest stations in 
 this life are attended with 
 a certain amount of danger 
 and anxiety to those who 
 fill them : the troubles of 
 " the great " are known only 
 to the great, and . . . 
 and .... attendant 
 soot-alightr. 
 
 True greatness does not consist in being a big man ; this 
 is a mistake most big men appear to labour under. Beauty 
 of proportion does not consist in being very small; this is 
 a mistake most small men appear to labour under. 
 
 In Vino Veritas ! Bah ! not in vinos it. In vino imper- 
 tinent, imbesilly stupidity more likely. 
 
 We hear people perpetually saying, " Ah poor so and so, 
 he died like an angel." What 's the use of " dying like an 
 angel " after living as long as possible like a beast. 
 
32 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 A needless remark "give the d — 1 his Jew," 
 He takes him, dear boy, and his Christian too ! 
 
 The amount of " cheek " some people have, will indubit- 
 ably prevent their ever being put — " out of countenance." 
 
 Modesty can be carried too far. The lady who wore 
 spectacles to hide her n — k — d eyes was a silly creechar. 
 Plain ; bet you a fiver she was plain ; dayvlish plain ! ' 
 
 Every dog has his or her day. 
 
 There is no doubt about it, the most beautiful, the most 
 charming Alice in the wide world — when her figure is 
 
 sufficiently ample — is "Alice P"; sweet, 
 
 sweet " £ s. d" ! 
 
 A fool and his money, and his cigars, and his breakfasts, 
 and his " private affairs," and his conversation, and his toute 
 la boutique are soon parted, if N very B, if he is a good- 
 natured fool ; the bad-natured fool simply parts with that 
 
 which he knows no one will take his 
 
 advice. 
 
 What a much happier gosling you would be, and oh how 
 much happier your friends will be, if you would only keep 
 your bills down half as carefully as you do your .... 
 wristbands ! 
 
 Be strong athletic stoopids if you like, certainly, by all 
 means ; but, please do be natural ; don't try and look so 
 strong : please look comfortable. We don't allude to real 
 rowing men, &c, but to their imit-eightoars ! 
 
 Reader, gentle reader, have you ever yet come across the 
 
Green Goslings. 33 
 
 man or the woman, who (according to their own account) 
 has not once been most PASH-onatelv adored ? 
 
 ^*yyv 
 
 We constantly hear, associated and toasted, " The three 
 W's," " Wine, Weeds, and Women ! " it is a very common 
 toast ; yet dear Peruser how exceedingly different arc these 
 three, if you will only think it out : The two former . . . 
 improve by age : the — ah — the latter .... don't! 
 
 Yes, clever boy, you are quite right ; the Old Masters 
 are preferable to the Old Missuses. 
 
 We should almost be inclined to imagine that some of 
 the very charming young married women who so often act 
 as chaperones, were more in want of guardians for them- 
 selves than the spinsters of a certain, a very certain age, 
 they frequently act for : however, if these pets of ball room, 
 &c, Cerberuses don't mind it, and u Society " says, " it 's all 
 
 3 
 
34 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 right," what is it to us ; only we should say that a pooty 
 chaperons was fatal to the chaperon^/, for she is far less 
 dangerous to throw sops to than the poor souls she guards. 
 With the Cerberus of fable, they chucked him — a cake : 
 with our Cerberus you 'd like to— to — chuck her .... 
 under the chin ! 
 
 *-£? 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 35 
 
 Spoonful VIII. 
 
 EADER, there is nothing like 
 accustoming your chil- 
 :5=\ dren early to the influ- 
 ence of great, very great, 
 men ! Miss Nomer, the 
 nursemaiden here, when 
 she puts on her smart 
 p^rkvisits, and then the 
 Ptfrk visits, evidently 
 
 thinks so, at any rate. How sold the household troops 
 
 would be if it were not so ! 
 
 " Without the smile from partial beauty won, 
 Oh! what were man? A world without a sun!" 
 
 . . •. . . and heir! 
 
 "On the 28th instant, the wife of the Rev. Septimius 
 Godolphin Jones, M.A., of a son, stillborn." P.S.— N.B.— 
 
36 Sage Stuffing fc 
 
 or 
 
 The Rev. Mrs. Septimins Godolphin Jones, (M.A.-ma) has, 
 however, several other small sons who do their very best to 
 make up for this mishap, by living — as noisily as possible ! 
 
 In France, ce 11 est que le (snake colour, indeed) ce nest que 
 le premier pas qui cotite, in our pays, in England, il riy a 
 que poor Pa pays. 
 
 Did any one ever hear a very short man acknowledge he 
 would like to be as .tall as a household troop, six feet three 
 or so ? Did any one ever live in a very seedy lodging, the 
 landlady of which had not once . . . kep' 'er carridge ? 
 
 Unfortunately lady! (land-lady). P.S.— But we do 
 
 hope she will be so very kind as to wash her hands before 
 making our pastry, as this " nature-printed " impression was 
 in replica on everything she touched this morning : 
 
 To think that Poverty, hated Poverty, keeps us under such 
 a dooced dirty thumb as this ; it 's too disagreeable ! 
 
 " A penny saved is a penny gained " ! Upon this principle 
 the way to win at pool and whist is (N.B. — This, dear boy, 
 is a certainty) . . . Don't play ; but if you must play, 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 37 
 
 do it for shillings : take away the £, and then perhaps you 
 may find p/ay — pay. 
 
 Familiarity — with your servant especially — breeds con- 
 tempt, and yet, if you never speak nicely to him, it breeds 
 discouragement and discontent ; have, therefore, O captain, 
 a. juste milieu- between the Scylla of treating him as an equal 
 and the Charybdis of treating him like a dog, and then 
 pcrJicips he will not go to Creeemorne in your best great 
 coat ; and then perhaps he will not — to pay you out — put 
 boiling water some morning in your — douche take him — ■ 
 shower-bath in place of cold ! 
 
 
 ^^g^ 
 
38 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful IX. 
 
 UNDAY outers! 
 Sunday trippers! 
 Petit monde en- 
 dimanche! Sun- 
 day three- 
 and-six- 
 pen ny- 
 Brighton- 
 and-back- 
 ers : Sun- 
 day excur- 
 sionists ! Sunday sandwiches ! there is one most excellent 
 maxim which — as the junketting season is now coming on 
 — you will do well to study in both its meanings ; it is, " Al- 
 ways keep your right foot forward " ! The sage, when he 
 said this, meant, " persevere,'' " do your best," " lose no time," 
 and such-like flatitudes ; when we repeat his words we use 
 
Green Goslings. 39 
 
 them altogether in another sense ! Oh ! Mr. Tompkings, 
 Messrs. Chepe and Gnarsties', the " eminent " haberdashers, 
 trusted and elegant assistant, O Mr. Tompkings, when, sir, 
 you so gracefully escort two (invariably two) of the young 
 ladies from the Millinery Department, who are kind enough 
 to keep company with you on your Sunday trips, would 
 you, oh, would you keyindly, MOST curly-hatted one, would 
 you confer the favour on us of keeping your right foot for- 
 ward, only provided the before-alluded-to two young damsels 
 from the M department keep their right foot forward too — 
 at the same time as yours : in plain language, why the dooce 
 don't you keep step ? And you too, O more distant tho' 
 not less elegantly oiled and curled and overpoweringly 
 scented Italian warehouseman (grocer), cavaleary servanty 
 to Susan and Matilda Martha, why the Mephistopheles do 
 you not never keep step neither ? 
 
 O dashing haberdasher, O light-hearted linendraper, O 
 tasty Tompkings, and O gracefully greasy grocer, please, 
 please keep step : to say nothing of the look of the thing 
 (N.B., you '11 never be taken for " officers " if you don't keep 
 it) we feel convinced it would be so much more comfortable 
 to do so : just try it and see ! 
 
 Brown — a rather un-tubbed man, in an office somewhere, 
 you know, clerk — says he is perpetually being " hauled over 
 the coals " by his chief (he looks as if he were), but that he 
 intends to "wash his hands" of the whole concern (good 
 thing anything makes him wash 'em at all), as he is u clean 
 
40 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 knocked over " by it ! {knocked over, Brown, possibly, but not 
 clean, certainly not clean !) 
 
 Where scent is in abundance found, 
 All 's not sweet and all 's not sound ! 
 
 Wonderful compass Smith's voice has : on Sundays on 
 the boat, he begins A flat, and goes right up to Kew ! Mar- 
 vellous, isn't it ? but what 's more extraordinary still, he 
 keeps it up all the way there ! Possibly you could do it; if 
 it 's not ex-sostenuto much, try. 
 
 " Vernal showers ? " says 'Any, who has come out in his 
 Sunday 'at ; " vernal showers be blowed ! zVz-vernal showers 
 I calls 'em ! " 
 
 P.S. — 'Any deserves to cadjer bad cold. 
 
 We beg pardon for asking it, but is it necessary for 
 counter-jumpers to use counter-feet ? We are thus inqui- 
 sitive, because they so often do. 
 
 Appropriate flower for some men's coats : not a daffa- 
 downdilly, but a differ down (Picca)-di\ly ! 
 
 Cleanliness may be godliness, yet hozv many men are 
 there not, who think a great deal more of having a-blue-tie 
 on than .... of ... . ablution ! ! 
 
 They say a man's style of dress gives a clue to his cha- 
 racter. What precious bad characters some of you fellers 
 are then to be sure. Augustus, any one can recognize you 
 in your lion's skin, and your Asstrachan skin, and your seal 
 skin ; it don't require one to be very z/2-telligent to tell a 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 4i 
 
 gent in-stanter, for that which you look upon as "nobby," 
 other people only look upon as — snobby : don't be a phool, 
 and pretend to be what you are not, for ... . you do 
 it so badly ! ! Miss Mary hanne 'igs of 'igate dear, borrerd 
 plooms is hojus ! Look at these ostriches without their lost 
 riches, their feathers ; well, they don't look half as bad with- 
 out them as you do ... . with 'em ! 
 
42 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful X. 
 
 •EEP-BO! Certainly; by 
 all means, PEEP-BO ! in 
 early youth, or with early 
 youth, is quite charming ! 
 great fun, immense ex- 
 citement ; but don't have 
 to play peep-bo later on 
 with the parties who — 
 send out those beastly afo/z-coloured documents ; with the 
 people who use those disgusting dark blue "wove" enve- 
 lopes and letter-paper; don't have to play it with duns, 
 creditors, harpies, who '11 be — each one — only too harpy to 
 be, however well you may talk, creditor jump down your 
 throat if you attempt to put 'em off. They '11 say " Bo " to 
 you, O goose, in a jififey, if you give them but half a chance : 
 not peep-bo, but — limbo ! Do not do it. 
 
 We are told "to take care of the pennies, and that the 
 
Green Goslings. 43 
 
 pounds will then take care of themselves ;" we don't believe 
 a word of it ; you take care of the sovereigns — and fivers, 
 dear boy— and hang the coppers. 
 
 Buying "jewellery" and . . . paying for it, are two 
 utterly different matters. 
 
 The burnt child may dread the fire, but it don't prevent 
 his keeping on burning his fingers. 
 
 We are constantly hearing the remark that " So and So 
 has .... got it in him!" Do for goodness' sake, So 
 and So, if you have " got it in you," do, DO let 's have it 
 out ! 
 
 We call the Spaniard — indolent ! he calls an Englishman 
 — Ing-lazy ; the difference between the two is sometimes 
 this : with the indolent Spaniard, ask him to do anything, 
 no matter what, everything is ... . " Manana" to- 
 morrow ! With the indolent Inglazy spendthrift everything 
 is ... . buy an' buy ! ! With the Spaniard how sad this 
 is, perhaps said by an ecclesiastic . . . when he ought 
 to pray ; with the spendthrift how sad this is, perhaps said 
 when — -for — a necklace he has tick . . . and he ought 
 to pay ! 
 
 Walk in the path of Virtue ! N.B.— Provided .... 
 it 's your own. 
 
 The housemaid who — ah — rises in the social sphere — 
 from the use of a broom in Belgraveyah, to the use of a 
 brougham in Brompton — simply drops one more H : she 
 has dropt many in her time, but this last one puts a straw- 
 
44 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 coloured chignon on the camel's back : hitherto cleaning out 
 hearths has daily been her first occupation ; now her entire 
 daily ditto is doing ditto to ... . hearts ! 
 
 The wicked man who is rich is not by any manner of 
 means a wicked man ; Oh dear, no, he 's . . . " a naughty 
 man!" 
 
 Here's something for little Smirk, M.P., to dodge up to 
 bring into his next speech ; it may pass for original, for his 
 own — among strangers. 
 
 Mr. Mayor and gentlemen, "the Wooden Walls of Old 
 England " are quite put in the shade just now by the 
 
 ah . . . . . Ram-parts of our Iron-clads 
 
 (laughter and brayvo); may they, however (Hear, hear, and 
 cheers), may they prove /zardships to our foes ! (Brayvo, 
 hooray) may they (Hear, hear, 'ear, 'ear) may they ('ooray 
 for Smirk, angcore) may they ('ear, 'ear) in their sea-ram-ic 
 quality (immense cheering — from two men, who alone see the joke) which 
 we Englishmen have spent a — a — Minton (same two men 
 cheer again), never prove brittle (No, no, and great applause 
 from all parts of the house) — no, never prove brittle, but 
 — ah — but — Breaking ! ! ! ! 
 
 Smirk, M.P., think of this. 
 
 We hear people spoken of as " not having a second idea." 
 Pshaw ! that 's nothing ; we know a lot of people who 
 haven't even a first one. 
 
 The part of the Park men like to bask in — alone: The 
 Lady's smile. 
 
Green Goslings. 45 
 
 Dining with " the Blues," and having the blues at dinner, 
 is not in the least the same thing. 
 
 The difference between having a swell face and a swellV 
 face is very unpleasant, is very distressing, is most disagree- 
 able. 
 
 You may learn something from the very greatest fool 
 . . . . what NOT to do ! 
 
 Many a man who is put up for " a club " gets it : 
 
 ■»: 
 
 I 
 
 Ahem ! three black balls ! and rely upon it that — to make 
 it quite perfect — some mauvaise languc, some kind friend, 
 will most certainly be found only too ready, and willing, to 
 supply the little black tail afterwards ' 
 
 Reader, gentle reader, never act against a conviction, 
 never : if you feel that you are about to commit a sottise — 
 in plain language, about to make a thundering ass of your- 
 self — refrain ! and let no amount of bamboozlement make 
 you leave off refraining. Look at Bridges Loader, below: he 
 acted — against a conviction ; observe the result. Disagree- 
 able, eh ? Very much so, indeed, and this is how it happened. 
 
 You know the way amateur theatrical dresses, sent down 
 to country houses, invariably arrive incomplete : Charles II. 
 
46 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 gets no wig, and — unless some lady will take compassion 
 on him, and kindly lend him one of her evening head- 
 dresses, a curled one — has to appear cropped like a convict 
 or a cornet ; or Claude gets no white tights, and has to 
 adore his Pauline in his own black velvet knickerbockers ; 
 well, it was something like this happened to Bridges Loader 
 with his dress as "The Assassin of Henry of Navarre:" 
 
 and he will navarre forget it. He got no sword ; but, 
 
 as he had to run a sword slap through poor Henery, a sword 
 was indispensable : he got, as you can perceive, his legs all 
 right, ones warranted not to come down or turn round — 
 unlike poor Robinson's when he did Henry VIIL, whose 
 calf, which was not kept up tight by the " Honi soit que mat 
 y pense" business, came down with a run before he had been 
 two minutes before his audience — but good stiff ones, awk- 
 ward to sit down or even bend the knee in, but good service- 
 able stalwart limbs ; he got these all right, and his big copper 
 chain with the emeralds and rubies, &c, worth ^2,000,000 
 a-piece in it, and his &c, but no weapons ; nevertheless it 
 was a beastly shame of Clinker, man in the Tenth, persuad- 
 ing him against his conviction into wearing, not only his — 
 Clinker's — reg'mental sword, but, hang it all, his sabretasche 
 as well, which, don't you know, even when you are used to 
 it, and wear it the proper side, is the most swinging, bang- 
 ing, twisting, boring thing out ; however, here you see 
 Bridges Loader, Esq., at the moment of his taking the oath 
 to assassinate the Huguenot monarch ! 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 You will, no doubt, agree with us in considering that — all 
 through Clinker's fault — the imposing effect of the foul 
 assassin's adjuration was much, very much, impaired ! 
 
 Bridges Loader thought it was, at any rate ! 
 
 No : let nothing ever tempt you to act against a convic- 
 tion. 
 
48 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XL 
 
 O U T H ! 
 
 charming, 
 
 real blush - 
 
 rose -bloom 
 
 tinted 
 
 youth, sea- 
 
 V- son of be- 
 
 ingbelieved 
 
 and of believing, season of being beloved and of beloving, 
 
 season of being blushed at, which is delicious ; season of 
 
 being blushed for, which is less agreeable ; youth, 
 
 jejuney mooney and spooney, it would perhaps be as well 
 for you to bear in mind that Woman's Love — Love N.B., 
 
Green Goslings. 49 
 
 not gammon, Love, " that faith whose martyrs are the broken 
 
 heart " — is perishable goods ; sweet, whilst sweet, 
 
 ah ! what can be more sweet, for can anything be more 
 ecstatic, more deliriously delicious, than looking, deeply 
 deeply looking, into the eyes of her you love, than inhaling 
 the soft breath of her who loves you, in fact, can language 
 say how sweet Love is ? but, like that flower in your coat, 
 let it only once begin to fade, let it only once begin to 
 droop, do what you will, you '11 never bring it back to its 
 pristine freshjiess, no power can ever again make it what it 
 was. We are so apt not to realize it when we are well off, 
 the just washed dog rolls in the mud to dry himself, the 
 just got-up, oiled, curled, and figged out child mouchers 
 himself on his cambric frock, the happy youth just come 
 into ;£ 10,000 a year takes to racing, the lucky stock- 
 jobber or city swell isn't content to try and rough it on " a 
 undred thousand pound," but speculates, and the man with 
 a doting wife doesn't one bit appreciate the glorious prize 
 he has won but — seeks for more ! Alas, we never know 
 when we ought to be content, but look to this, if anybody 
 loves you, REALLY loves you — and there is no mistaking 
 the real thing, if you are so blessed as to possess it, for the 
 counterfeit — prize that love, oh prize it, see that it is not 
 your fault if it fade, see that it is through no idiocy of yours 
 if it cool, see that you have not your stupid self to thank if 
 it dwindle and disappear, for when " your voice has lost its 
 power," when " your smile has lost its charm," you '11 never 
 
50 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 regret it but once, but that once, O dear boy, will be — for 
 ever ! 
 
 Love is like sunshine : as the latter softens your bear's- 
 grease, yet hardens the varnish on your boots, so does Love 
 affect different natures, so does love make that which was 
 crusty, crummy, and that which zvas soft, zAamant. 
 
 Love is like moonshine, absurdly like moonshine, as it 
 whitens and brightens, and otherwise heightens and lightens 
 the object it strikes on only, leaving everyone else the shadier 
 by comparison. 
 
 Love is like champagne : intoxicatingly charming whilst 
 the fiz and sparkle last, but given to get flat after a time ; 
 not only that, but like champagne when over-iced, it loses 
 its flavour from coldness. 
 
 Love is a magnifying glass, which does not give enchant- 
 ment, only lenz it, to those in it. 
 
 No one, no, no one is ever deaf to the voice of Love : we 
 have all of us an ear in our heart that catches its faintest 
 whisper. 
 
 What, oh what, are widows but — w h eed-ling creatures ! 
 
 Wonderful it is, isn't it, how different, how extraordinarily 
 different, different things look in different lights : for in- 
 stance, all the doctors are unanimous in saying that they 
 think Mrs. Attekynnes-Attekynnes wants "keeping up ; n 
 Attekynnes-Attekynnes, on the contrary, says he knows she 
 wants keeping down I 
 
 Then again, look at the Burlesques as seen from your 
 
Green Goslings. 51 
 
 point of view and from your wife's, and yet, you know, she 
 likes putting on her tightest and newest and pootiest boots 
 on the windyest days, and then you can't for the life of you 
 get to see 'em in the same light others do ; but pshaw ! we 
 might if we had space, or time to think it out (will some 
 day) give ycu a thousand examples, but let one more suffice ; 
 our sketch at the end of this chapter, look at it; do, there 's 
 a good feller ; well, you no doubt suppose it 's meant to 
 represent one of those humbugging little legless tumblers, 
 which you see seedy Italian parties selling in the street, you 
 think it 's simply an Ottoman with a feather in his cap, and 
 a very badly drawn one too, now don't you ? but just oblige 
 us by turning him upside down will you, and then look at 
 it* *■*#****'*# 
 
 eh ^ How about it now ? ah, things are deceptive, arn't 
 they ? You see now that it is not an ottoman, but a lovely 
 woman sitting on one ; the pride of the Sir Walter Raleigh 
 oh! (pshaw! — Sirraleigho, we mean) the joy, the light of 
 the Harem ! the Peri of Pera ! a gal at a Galatta window, 
 
 Shown sitting by the Bosphorus, 
 With eyes as bright as phosphorus, 
 
 anything, in fact, but a legless tumbler ! 
 
 Dear boy, in this mundane sphere it is very frequently 
 
 dangerous, and nearly always disappointing to judge 
 
 solely by appearances, for seeing is not always believing : 
 we have let you down verv easily ; you thought you had 
 
 4—2 
 
52 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 only a legless tumbler, and you find you have — a lovely lady, 
 but be careful, O be careful, or you may some day reverse, 
 horribly reverse the order of things, and, thinking you have 
 
 got the lovely lady, find alas you have only got — ■ the 
 
 legless stumbler ! ! 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 53 
 
 Spoonful XII. 
 
 VERYBODY, from the 
 " monstrum erudi- 
 tionis " to the mer- 
 est abecedarian, 
 knows that the deaf 
 adder won't listen 
 to the voice of the 
 charmer, however 
 in deaf adder gabble 
 the charmer may 
 be in trying to make 
 himself charming; 
 or at any rate, 
 heard ; therefore, 
 O deaf adders, we 
 give you a picture full of double meanings instead of boring 
 
54 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 ourself, and you too, with writing many words ; but though 
 our croquis a double entente is meant to represent a rustic E, 
 we do hope it may not prove a rusty key to you, but altro y 
 that it may open the door of a cell in your brain big enough 
 to take in our meaning. 
 
 We are asked this question : If riches be a possession to 
 be desired in this life, what is richer than wisdom ? Don't • 
 try and give an anser goose ; don't say " pork chops " or 
 " stewed eels," or guess like that ; it isn't a riddle, it 's a 
 maxim : we are asked, we say, what is richer than wisdom ? 
 but, as the rich heathens and shethens, the deaf adders of 
 Society, don't agree, or try to appear to look as if they 
 wished to act as if they didn't agree to this, and certainly 
 go on as if they didn't want their children to agree to it, 
 hinc illce — silly, because useless — lackrhymoe, lack-rhyme-ae, 
 which however don't lack reason. 
 
 Paternal, maternal, elder sorornal, and big-brotherly 
 Reader, every sort of branch is most easily bent and 
 trained — N.B. — Especially the " Olive branch " — when 
 young ! An old dog learns no new tricks — unless he 's " a 
 sad dog :" if you want to teach him anything you must take 
 him in statu puppy-lari, whilst he 's a puppy : so 't is with 
 your olive branches : then is the time to see that erotics 
 and erratics sap not away the rising sap of sapience in 
 the olive branch's brain ; then is the time to see that the 
 
 olive b.'s mind is^not undermin'd with trash ; then is 
 
 the time to see that the olive b.'s " food for thought " is not 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 55 
 
 only toothsome, but digestible and — nourishing ! You don't 
 give babies in arms beefsteak pudding with horse-radish 
 sauce and stewed mushrooms " removed " by Norfolk dum- 
 plings, with Clos Vougeot or gin-sling, in place of " Lieb- 
 fraumilch," to wash 'em all down, not you ; why, then, let 
 young girls — who don't see the precipice you allow them to 
 hang over — have, even before they are " out," all the spiciest, 
 
 lLIB.1:. 
 
 \ T. 
 
 ._-. -JM | : | - — 
 
 —4 
 
 I'^-i 
 
 most decousne literature, that is to be got for money as their 
 mental pabulum ? 
 
56 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Ah ! if we were not such a lazy d — 1 (beg pardon, we 
 mean such a Lazydaemon), if we were not such a Lacedsemon 
 in being so sparing of our words, what a lot we could say on 
 this most pregnant theme ! 
 
 O goosey pater ! O mater ditto ! when you read the 
 writings of Genius (if you ever do?), when you see the 
 paintings of Genius (more probable, as it 's fash'nable to go 
 to the place where they can at any rate be looked at), when 
 you hear the music of ditto (also probable, thanks to the 
 Monday Pops, &c, being in vogue), and stumble unwittingly 
 over all the innumerable glorious works of innumerable 
 glorious dittos, doesn't it make you who have never done 
 anything in your lives but read novels with preposterous 
 heroes and harrowin' heroines, and .... your best to 
 look pretty, doesn't it make you — feel rather small, rather 
 bored, just perhaps a trifle sorry you have wasted your oppor- 
 tunities so much ? Doesn't it at any rate determine you to 
 try and train up your olive branches in such a manner that 
 they may turn out a little, just a little, more useful than 
 yourselves, your purely ornamental selves ? 
 
 O patres familiasses ! O wives of same ! spare not your 
 rods, and spoil not your olive b.'s ! ne putes Papa te tunc 
 amare filium tuum, quando ei non das some birches ; for 
 remember this, the great thing is — to be a good Toby tickler, 
 and not to be tobytickler about how often you do it ! O by 
 all means, if you insist upon it, be most pharmacopious with 
 the stimulating pil : hydrarg : and with the fullest bodied 
 
Green Goslings. 57 
 
 blackest doses ! spare not the oily oil of castor, " drawn," 
 if it so please you, in the " coldest " possible manner, but, 
 don't, oh do not, neglect in your medically affectionate 
 anxiety for a healthy corpus, the absolute necessity of the 
 epicene olive b.s' mind being made healthy also. O permit 
 not the olive b.'s to waste quite all their time in flying, flit- 
 ting and flirting, butterfly — flutterby — like, from leaf to 
 leaf .... of a novel, from flower to flower .... 
 of honied monied love talk ! O grudge not the pecuniary 
 outlay which a strong-lunged, strong-armed, strong-minded 
 AB — BA, Able Bodied Birchelor of Arts, for your male 
 olive b.'s will entail ; and if you would duenna good with 
 your female o. b.'s, have so undeniably ugly a governess, of 
 such very mature years, that no one can by any earthly 
 possibility flirt with her, who will therefore perhaps kindly 
 spend her time in seeking to make her charges admirable, 
 NOT .... herself admired. 
 
 Lastly, and above all, O ye sweet-scented and still 
 blooming May-trees, O ye fruitful but dilettanti Patres of 
 youth, remember, O please Papa and Mama dear remember 
 this, that as years glide on you will get the very reverse of 
 thanks from the olive b.'s for your neglect of their mental 
 manurage, as 'tis only when your o. b.'s have grown into 
 trees that they learn to appreciate, from seeing it in others, 
 the value of that which they have failed — from your faults 
 alone — to acquire during juvenility; for, believe us, they 
 soon are made to find out that the sharpest and most useful 
 
58 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 edge in this world is ... . Knowledge. They soon 
 are made to find out that of all the rotten branches, in all 
 creation, the rottenest, the very rottenest is .... an 
 ignoramus / 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 Spoonful XIII. 
 
 59 
 
 ARE you a fluffy gander ? Have you beards, and 
 moustarchios and wishkers, and so on ? Or, are you 
 a plucked, smoothfaced, young, cavalry-looking gosling ? 
 Well, in either case, what is your opinion of the other case ? 
 Look at these two boobies in arms, with no more sense than 
 two babies in arms, Colonel Stables here condescendingly 
 
6o Sage Stuffing for 
 
 walking with one of his cornets, well, they respectively say to 
 themselves, " What do women care for smoothfaced boys ? " 
 and, " Bet you a fivar, gals don't care for old duffers like the 
 colonel." Ha ! ha ! gooses, you 're both wrong ; why ? be- 
 cause there is no such deceiver as conceit : though, 
 
 what you say to yourselves, only makes us surer than ever, 
 that one of the greatest, the very greatest, and most com- 
 fortable blessings Providence can possibly bestow is . . . 
 giving you a thoroughly good opinion of yourself ! 
 
 " The thief sees in every bush an officer " ! Miss Araminta 
 Fitzlowgown says, " She only wishes SHE could ! " 
 
 P.S. — N. very B. — Are you " a military man " ? if so, this 
 is the sort of woman for you to marry, for her motto is — an 
 officer 's good as a feast ! 
 
 There is now, we much fear, an end of the Napoleonic 
 dynasty; we regret it sincerely, for Napoleon III. was not 
 only an emperor, but — a gentleman, and England's friend ; 
 we should, O so vastly, have preferred to have seen the end 
 of another dy-nasty instead ! need we say we allude to 
 Auricomania; to the Auricommon, golden-haired dye nasty, 
 dye very nasty ? 
 
 Lots of French maids about England now : bonnes with 
 no bonnets ; you know. We should never be surprised to 
 hear them sing to our lovely Peleecemen "Robert {i.e., Bobby) 
 toi que f aime ! " Dare say they do ; never mind ; let 'em. 
 
 You complain, O virtuous goose, of the shocking wicked- 
 ness of Paris, eh ? But why is she so wicked, our fair 
 
Green Goslings. 61 
 
 Lutetia; why? Because — simply because — the world and 
 his wife, you and we and everybody, go there. 
 
 Poor France ! Poor Frenchmen ! Your Marseillaise has 
 turned out but a sorry goose-step, a oie march in the wrong 
 direction after all ! To think that the Parisians should have 
 had to eat .... donkey ; to think that they should 
 not only have sung "aux armes, citoyens" but have had to 
 sing "aux dues, citoyens" as well ; to think that their "Jour 
 de Van " should have been a "jour de Vane" and y at six 
 francs a pound ! Poor baudets, poor bodies, we pity you 
 both, the eaten, and the eaters. 
 
 The eye of the master fattens the horse : perhaps — hippo- 
 phagistically — with a view to eating him, eh ? "curried" 
 perhaps. 
 
 P.S. — N.B. — This is where eating donkey has the pull 
 over eating horse .... you can't have a nightmare. 
 
 Ah ! curry may be warming, but there 's a much nicer 
 
 form of curry than that, which is more warming still : 
 
 Terpsi-curry : for you may talk of 
 
 Getting hot as chutney 
 Rowing down at Putney, 
 
 but, give us dancing, with a nice girl who 's a well set-up 
 figure, straight as a Terpshickory wand, and a good per- 
 former, for warming one thoroughly ; all over. 
 
 Quotation to make on seeing wild fowl at dinner : " T 'is 
 now the widgeon hour of night." 
 
 P.S. — N.B. — If it's not a widgeon, but a chicken or a 
 
62 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 turkey, and you still make this quotation, you must make 
 believe you thought it was a widgeon ; you understand. 
 
 He who touches pitch (and toss, for sovereigns, on wet 
 afternoons, at the club, &c.,) will not be denied, but cleaned 
 
 ... . out! 
 
 " Raising the neighbourhood," odd to say ; is easier, far 
 easier than — raising the wind ! 
 
 Having " a bit of a breeze " with your wife, is not calcu- 
 lated to cool either of you ! 
 
 We hear a great deal about the " the sac-rament of mar- 
 riage ; " Pshaw ! it isn't the sack-raiment of marriage people 
 go in for ; it 's the silk raiment, the purple and fine cambric 
 and double-milled - extra - superfine - Saxony - lined - through- 
 out-with-silk-and-velvet-collar-and-cuffs-raiment they want ! 
 Hy-men (and women) don't care a snuff of his torch for a 
 plain gold hoop, unless it has a good big diamond one to 
 be its keeper. 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 63 
 
 Spoonful XIV. 
 
 DERFUL, quite wonderful it 
 is how peculiarly appro- 
 priate the present manner 
 of abbreviating the word 
 " number " is ! People 
 write number one thus, 
 " No 1," and by Jingo they 
 are quite right ; for they 
 begin — very early in life 
 — to think of number one, and soon get to think of— No 1 
 else ! 
 
 We hear a great deal about " The seat of War " ! Ha, 
 ha, you needn't go far to look for " the seat of oie " for — it 's 
 your arm-chair ! 
 
 " The Fool's Pairodice : " two sixes ! (6\ at the very out- 
 side.) 
 
64 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Rottenborough — the very stoopidest of men — informs us 
 " he is going to Brighton : " we are really delighted to hear 
 it, and how glad his wife will be ! 
 
 Many people go to four and five balls every night of the 
 season : a party of the name of Legion, however, says the 
 interest is much more certain to be kept up if you only go 
 to three. 
 
 When borrowing money of a friend or acquaintance, 
 borrow the exact sum you value his friendship at, for, as 
 the fact of doing it at all will finish the business, you may 
 just as well go in for as much as you can get before . . 
 you cut him. 
 
 The man who comes into a fortune will soon let you know 
 
 what he has always wanted to be, a brick or a brute. 
 
 If he has ever been hard up himself — as he can appreciate 
 impecuniosity — it would do him no harm to think of those 
 still in his .... secdy-vant condition ! 
 
 Running after happiness is exactly like chevying your 
 blown-off hat : just when you think you have caught it . . 
 . . whiz ! . . . . away it goes again, and when you 
 do get it, you find it . . . earthy . . . muddy. 
 
 Life is just like a game of pool — we 're all against each 
 other, all try to get safe, all look for the pocket, all think 
 of number one, and so long as we 're not sold ourselves we 
 don't mind who is. In pool we are rather glad to put a 
 man in ; in life we don't much care if we put him out. In 
 pool we do our best to cut a man in tho' it kill him ; in life 
 
Green Goslings. 65 
 
 we do our very best to cut him out tho' it break his 
 
 heart ! 
 
 It 's a good thing, it 's a capital thing, being {l on your own 
 hook," always provided, dear boy, that your hook is not 
 " straightened " by " circumstances ! " 
 
 If you are a rake,— save your hay ! 
 
 Let other people make a fool of you if they can, and you 
 
 like it, but don't, don't, save them the trouble ; don't 
 
 make a fool of yourself! and for this very ample reason, if 
 for no other, that you only so very much delight your ill 
 wishers if you — do ! for pray remember this whilst " going 
 the pace," O anserine assinine specimen, that 'tis of the 
 wild oats which you sow, other people — make " a harvest " ! 
 
66 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XV. 
 
 NDOUBTEDLY Miss 
 Blooming May makes a 
 very tremenjuous mis- 
 take when .she permits 
 herself to be talked into 
 connubializing old Sir 
 Frozedup December. 
 Miss May's dismays 
 when she discovers all 
 his decemberling and shams will be too painful. Even 
 " Bonnie Dundee " in his bonnet de nuit didn't, we dare 
 swear, look half so nice as in his killing kilt, therefore only 
 imagine Sir Frozedup en deshabille ! No, no; let him take 
 
Green Goslings. 67 
 
 old Miss Tabitha Ann Gorer, and leave Miss May to his 
 juniors, for though " eighteen-seventy-one A.D." is very 
 agreeable, 18 and 71 a-gree in no other manner! 
 
 Here's a new name for "lovers' quarrels:" Cherie and 
 bitters I 
 
 Marriage : Miss-ing your freedom ! 
 
 " Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, 
 Which he gazed on so fondly to-day, 
 Were to change by to-morrow, and " &c, &c., &c. 
 
 .... he 'd marry somebody else, he would, indeed, and 
 nobody would be even civil to you ! 
 
 Remember this : it takes two people to quarrel, and that 
 bad-tempered people punish no one so much as themselves, 
 for — N.B., N. very B, in fact N as B as you possibly can N, 
 — " kicking up a shindy " generally but injures the kicker's 
 own shins. 
 
 Literal translation of " Divorce a mensa et thoro : " Relief 
 from being immensely and thoro'ly board ! 
 
 The great thing in married life, if yoic want to be happy, 
 is to believe, steadily believe, yourself to be all a woman can 
 by any possibility desire, and not to allow yourself under 
 any circumstances whatever to be talked out of going on 
 believing it. 
 
 De la Thompson-Thompson and his wife, the Lady Louisa 
 de la Thompson-Thompson, act in private theatricals : De 
 la T.-T. gets the part of a fast swell, his wife that of a pert 
 
 5—2 
 
68 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 chambermaid : in his role of " roaring blade " he has more 
 than once, in fact, very often, to kiss the pert chambermaid : 
 
 this comes natural enough to De la T.-T. if it wasn't 
 
 his wife. 
 
 Lady Louisa* de la Thompson-Thompson's lady's maid 
 is an impudent hussey, and very much in her way ; Lady 
 Louisa *s going to send her about her business : quite right : 
 
 especially as she was not only in her way, but in her 
 
 husband's. 
 
 A boned lark is a good thing for breakfast, isn't it ? Yes, 
 of course, but perhaps the nicest form of boned lark is — a 
 stolen kiss. 
 
 We are told that the daughters of the Midianites, etc., 
 many hundred years ago, were not quite all that could have 
 been desired ! well, some of our Midnight, etc., daughters 
 didn't daughter be allowed to go on as they do. But, there 
 can be no doubt about it, so long as Society only taps a man 
 on the arm with its fan, and calls him " Naughty creechar,'" 
 whilst it kicks a woman as hard as possible, and dances on 
 her when down, for the very same fault, that fault will be. 
 
 When a man is weak, and a woman is weak, the two 
 weeks together must be onfortni 't, though she gets the worst 
 of it, as we cannot imagine a weak woman possibly getting 
 a greater punishment than coming to see (as she inevitably 
 will) her inamorato wish she had not been weak. 
 
 Reader, Respectable Reader, we deplore it quite as much 
 as you do, BUT how many church-going apparently 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 69 
 
 pious people are there not, who entirely disapprove of doing 
 in public — under the mistletoe, let us term it — that which 
 they do not disapprove of doing under the rose ! 
 
Spoonful XVI. 
 
 i 
 
 T don't do to " look back " at anything extra nice, nor 
 at anything extra nasty : one is nearly as sad as the 
 
Sage Stuffing. 7 1 
 
 other — dreaming of HER, as she was when she first offered 
 you an undivided heart, some forty years ago, perhaps in 
 the reign of Gorgeous the Fourth, don't pay : the waking, 
 to find her, like yourself, obese, is so beastly. 
 
 In youth our joy has bounds ; in age our joy knows no 
 bounds : in youth our joy knows no bounds ; in age it knows 
 lots of bounds; it's very much bounded indeed. 
 
 In infancy we cut our teeth ; in age, alack ! alack ! 
 
 our teeth cut us ! 
 
 It is bad going to law, worse still having law come to 
 you : life is too short for botheration, envy, hatred, malice, 
 esclandre, Divorce Courts, etc., etc. : whilst we are wildly 
 making the journey to — Penzance, we are getting old, and 
 when we have got that — no more larx. 
 
 " Let us live to-day, for to-morrow we dye " — (our whis- 
 kers, moustaches, eyebrows, &c, and living isn't half such 
 fun as it was !) 
 
 When a man falls into the severe and yellow leaf, when 
 he gets into the fifties or so, he pats himself on the back, 
 congratulates and flatters himself — because he begins to 
 think more of himsylph than of sylph-like forms — that he 
 is leaving off his peccadillos ! Alas, insensate one ! his love 
 of flanering flaunting flirting and other Piccadillyuliarities 
 are leaving him off. 
 
 If you are young, remember, you are getting old ; if you 
 are old, never forget you too were once .... young! 
 
 Age, alas ! does damage ! 
 
72 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Much ado about nothing : A man with hardly hair 
 enough left to make a finger-ring, certainly not a watch- 
 chain, going about the country with his travelling-bag full 
 of big ivory hair-brushes ! Dear bald one, " out of nothing, 
 nothing comes;" why waste a lot of money on Bear's grease 
 and only make your bare poll look unbearably slippery and 
 greasy, when by simply following the lots of examples we 
 daily meet you might save your money, yourself disappoint- 
 ment, and get far more thought of: why not, as they do, 
 . . . . give yourself 'airs ? 
 
 A hint to old parties who try to dress themselves to look 
 as if they were their own grandchild : No matter what you 
 wear, you 're not it now ! 
 
 'Tis not until all his "teeth" are gone, that "the rake" 
 acknowledges his "progress" is of no avail. 
 
 How is it all the "night" cases get taken before Mr. 
 " Nox " ? and all the assault cases too ; poor Mr. Knocks. 
 
 " Nemo rcpente fuit turpissimus " does not mean, though 
 it would be very true, that no one was ever very wicked 
 without having to repent it some day; no, it means that 
 our vices are like our grey hairs : at first they come one at 
 a time, but, after a little, by twos, threes, seventies, twenty- 
 nine trillions and so on, until, unless you shave your head 
 or blow it off — getting rid of 'em is impossible. 
 
 Many a man has died of a stupid doctor. 
 
 Old Puffer Blowhard has married again. " She 's a little 
 duck, Sir," he says, " quite young, Sir, quite young ! " He 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 73 
 
 deplored his dear departed first most truly (for twenty 
 years before she went) and — rewived : well, tho' the experi- 
 ment is dangerous, he ought to be happy ; his wife is 
 young, pretty, graceful, and evidently fits her position as 
 number 2 very well indeed ! 
 
74 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XVII. 
 
 HE Latin for tree 
 is — "arbor" : won- 
 der what the Latin 
 for family tree is ? 
 a bore perhaps, for 
 that certainly is 
 the plain English 
 of it, when people 
 expect you to sit 
 under the chilling 
 shade of theirs — or 
 rather put you up 
 it — whilst they narrate its rummyflcations ! We agree with 
 the wag who said, " That the man who has nothing to boast 
 of but his swell ancestors is like the potato plant, as the 
 only good belonging to him is underground ;" and we, 
 
Green Goslings 75 
 
 moreover, remark that we never yet came across the man 
 whose Williamtheconquerfication was much good to him, 
 or who could write himself a cheque on his pedigree, though 
 we do think that ought not to prevent his managing to keep 
 a small one — on his tongue when branching off to this most 
 U-passe theme. 
 
 Mr. Darwin, in his new book on the origin of man, says, 
 " We are descended from some animal, probably arboreal 
 in its habits : " quite right, Sir Darwin, and what is more, 
 we stick to our original arboreal habits nowadays, and con- 
 tinue to get " up a tree " as often as possible ! 
 
 Remember this, O dear dawdling dilettante dandy duffer, 
 that, in going over a crossing, it is better to rim over your self 
 than to be run over be an omnibus, possibly full of vulgar hot 
 and heavy people ! 
 
 Brown says, it isn't the ladies that run any danger walk- 
 ing home alone, it 's the gentlemen ! 
 
 As you never know whom your "after-dinner" stories may 
 offend, — if you must tell them — let their only relation to the 
 chimney be that they are told sootto vochy. 
 
 It is very, very sad, but, the chief consideration of many 
 people whilst listening to the sermon is simply .... 
 * Wonder if he 's nearly done ? " 
 
 A book is the sort of friend to have ; it has not only 
 occasionally dogs' ears, but has always a dog's fidelity to its 
 owner, for, as some one has said, you can take him up or 
 put him down, or shut him up, or even cut him, just as you 
 
7' 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 think fit, without his feeling it. What a pity it is women 
 don't care for books, that is, books that teach 'em anything, 
 for alas ! as a rule they think far more of HIS story than of 
 history, far more of ribbon than Gibbon, far more of a 
 bookay than of a book ably written, more of what they can 
 get for ... . une livre sterling than of what they can 
 get from .... tin Stirling livre, and far, far, far more 
 of a page in ... . buttons than in ... . struction ! 
 
 Ah, what a pity it is, but how frequently are not young 
 
 ladies' heads only like a filbert shell either full of " the 
 
 delightful colonel," or empty ! 
 
 Some beauty — we take the liberty of observing — is a 
 great deal more than skin deep ! 
 
 Who says high heels are immoral ? Ignoramass : ladies 
 wear such high heels with precisely the same object that 
 they go to church (in new bonnets) ; they wish to — to save 
 their soles ! 
 
 Where "people expect to go to" when defunct, appears 
 to be quite a secondary consideration ; The . difficulty is 
 " where to go to " before that unhappy event. 
 
 There is nothing in this world more certain than dis- 
 appointment : expect a sell and you probably won't be sold 
 . . . . in getting it ; so, though your great great grand- 
 mother is always saying " she will leave you well off," though 
 saying this is her zvont, don't think too much of her .... 
 WILL, for believe us, O extravagant gosling, it is SO much 
 wiser, better, and safer, to — Leave Yourself Something than 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 11 
 
 to be making toujours too sure of being left something — by 
 somebody else ! ! 
 
 O rapid Goose, forget not the fable of the race between 
 the combatose tortoise and the fast hare ; think of the 
 peignes the hair has felt ever since, pains which that which 
 is tortus alone can give, pains which the " broken" heir 
 alone can fully realize ! and O learn from this sad fabulous 
 narrative how sure slow respectability is " to comb it over 
 
 you " in the long run, how certain it is that 
 
 Virchew will be trihumfunt in the hend ! 
 
78 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XVIII. 
 
 IT'S all very well talking about "the pale of Society," 
 and so on, but pretty much the same little game, Beggar 
 my Neighbour, goes on both sides of it. The ci-devant 
 
Green Goslings. 79 
 
 agricultural labourer, Private Spade, fait son cceur to Miss 
 Heart, the prosperous milk-person, simply with an eye to 
 her pocket, precisely as old Arlington Boodles goes in for 
 the " Widow's Lozenge," when it 's a diamond one. 
 
 It 's all very well saying " call a spade a spade and have 
 done with it," but that won't do in Society ; Booh ! not at 
 all ; why, hang it, if we were not all, all, ALL the most 
 utter hypocrites, the world would be simply unbearable. 
 Fancy if one did live in a " Palace of Truth " the atrocities 
 one would be constantly hearing ; the wind would then soon 
 become very ill tempered to the shorn lamb, and no mistake. 
 Imagine telling people your real opinion of them, and, St. 
 Jingo ! only imagine getting their real opinion of you ; what 
 a lot of knocking down we should all have to go in for ; zvhat 
 a lot of black eyes and sanguineous noses there 'd be in 
 Society's drawing-rooms ; and the eye-painters (we don't 
 mean bella-donnafying ladies, but men whose business it is 
 to paint out a black eye) what a trade they would drive ! 
 Fancy saying to some Hyde Park Gardens Croesus : " Well 
 you utter cad, you don't look half washed, you 're the utterest 
 idiot I ever met, and you haven't one single spark of good 
 breeding or agreeableness about you, BUT — you 've got a 
 jolly lot of money, and with it have bought Society's only- 
 to-&?-bought smile, therefore I smile too, and you 've got a 
 dooced good tap of claret, or something curious in sherry, 
 and smoke first-rate baccies, and have also bought a most 
 charming girl for a wife, and your house is in other ways 
 
8o 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 well furnished, so I 'm going to be civil to you, and mean 
 to make use of you, and get all I can out of you ! " 
 
 Fancy this, or telling women about their pinchings-in, 
 and paddings-out, and of their (most patent to the nearest- 
 sighted men) blacks and whites and reds on their faces ! 
 
 Only imagine it ! 
 
 But yet, don't you know, it's what would be said, and 
 uncommonly often too, if Truth only did come out of her 
 well, and the fine old crusted Conventionalisms of Society 
 went into it in her place ! 
 
 No, no, don't, on any account, let us call ajspade a spade, 
 let's all call him a club, a gentleman, and try and make 
 him suppose we think him one : much more comfortable 
 for us, and very much more comfortable for the creature 
 from whom we want to get un-ceuf, the fowl — not to say 
 fool, or goose even — " stuck up " atop of his golden eggs. 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 81 
 
 :'• 
 
 Spoonful XIX. 
 
 ONESTY is the 
 best policy, after 
 a 1 1 , and Miss 
 Fatemma Tray- 
 ! loorde — who'd be 
 priceless in Con- 
 stantinople tho' 
 she isn't of much 
 - account ; in Eng- 
 land—don't mind 
 frankly acknow- 
 ledging that her version of " Love me, love my dog," simply 
 means "if you will only be good enough to love; me, hang 
 the quadroopid, you may do what you like with him" 
 
 Reader, this is an opportunity which may not occur again. 
 We invite you to lose no time in seizing it: make her yours 
 for ever, and, rely upon it, ydu will -never regret it; iiever 
 
 6 
 
82 Sage Stuffing for ■ 
 
 mind her having the Grecian bend .... turned the 
 wrong way, that don't interfere with her heart's being in the 
 right place, as she, to quote what some wag has said, is in a 
 far happier frame of mind than Diogenes, simply being "on 
 the look out for a man," a husband, and not intending — pro- 
 vided he have a nice moustache— to be too particular in. her 
 inquiries as to his antecedents, to see if he be an honest one 
 or not. 
 
 A great many people we meet are much favoured ; ex- 
 ceedingly favoured ; really very much favoured indeed — 
 ahem ! — ///-favoured i 
 
 Blindness would not be such an infliction to some women, 
 as to others, who — make greater use of their eyes ! 
 
 The height of im-probability : a man cook asking a po- 
 liceman to supper ! ! ! 
 
 The proverb says, " Providence sends us boiled pheasant 
 with celery sauce," or cotelettes d'agneau aux concombres or 
 points d'asperge, or suet pudding, or potatoes a la nature (or 
 any other favourite dish), and that Mephisto sends cooks to 
 spoil 'em ! quite so ; cooks are stewpid, and do occasionally 
 make unseasonable hashes of things, and their minds are 
 always going to pot, and their want of " savoir faire" is 
 immense ; but that 's not what we were going to say : we 
 simply want to give you a new reading of the old proverb, 
 if you will kindly for potatoes read policeman : thus . . 
 Providence sends us Policemen, and the D . . . . Evil 
 One sends cooks to spoil 'em ! 
 
Green Goslings. 83 
 
 If too many cooks do spoil the broth, only imagine the 
 clearness of Brigham Young's clear soup ! the mind refuses 
 to grapple with any such fearful vision ; it puts one in a 
 perspiration thinking of it. 
 
 Apropos of perspirations, Jones of Ark is the very hottest 
 man you ever met in your life : bet you anything you like 
 he is ; why, he sometimes absolutely — SMOKES ! ! ! Oh 
 yes, it 's true ; we have ourself seen him positively smoking, 
 although, Nota Bene, although .... sitting up — to 
 his chin 'n' water ! ! 
 
 We always used to be quite happy with a glass of dry 
 Curagoa or a thimble-full of Maraschino after our ice pud- 
 ding, but fashions alter, and people have taken to giving 
 one " Chartreuse " and its twin beastiality " Trappestine," so 
 — as we dare say you like to be in the fashion — we may as 
 well give you a receipt for making these invigorating pre- 
 parations : save you ten bob a bottle at the least. Beat up 
 the yolks of forty-eight eggs until they .... pshaw ! 
 that 's another prescription ; this is it : Take one pint of the 
 commonest whisky you can purchase, half a three-and-six- 
 penny bottle — you know, the little straw ones — of Eau de 
 Cologne (needn't be genuine), a teaspoonful of ess bouquet, 
 and — after putting in the above ingredients — fill up an 
 imperial quart bottle with methylated spirits of wine ; shake 
 up well, and add sugar to suit the palate, and then take half 
 a tumbler-full of it after a roll-up jam pudding made with 
 treacle, and see what visions of bliss you will get that night 
 
 6—2 
 
£4 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 :when you have ;" sought your pillow "- !' talk about hatchis ; 
 Pshaw ! hatchis can't hold a candle to.it 
 j: .Try it and; see: its delishual • : ,'. - :. .., e»J 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 % 
 
 Spoonful XX. 
 
 EADER, we have al- 
 ready told you that 
 we Consider it lucky, 
 peculiarly lucky, for 
 their own sakes, and 
 their owners', that pet 
 dogs have no compre- 
 hensible voce di petto y 
 can not talk, and that 
 they can not make a 
 /apsus linguae in any 
 other than their pre- 
 sent method : we re- 
 peat it; we, are glad that it is so; that your "Old Dog 
 Tray " is a dumb waiter, and not a tale-bearer in two senses, 
 or goodness only knows in what colours poor Tray might 
 
86 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 not poor-Tray you to your wife when you got home ; or 
 goodness only knows what fearful suspicions he might not 
 indogtraynate into her gentle bosom if he were not tongue- 
 tied ! We rejoice that your pointers can not point you, that 
 your hounds can not, indiscreetly, give tongue, that your 
 toy terriers can not turn out terrier-bull toys, and that you 
 may pooh pooh poodles et setter-ra in security, without 
 having either to get them stolen on purpose, or to carry a 
 whacking warning whip to make them cave caiiem, beware of 
 the cane, instead of yourself. BUT, Beloved Reader, but 
 only imagine if there were not only " Sermons in Stones,"' 
 but mouchard-ness in lath and plaster, only imagine if Walls 
 had tongues as well as the ears they are said to possess, only 
 imagine it for one instant, what, what, WHAT a lot of 
 business would have to be conducted in the open country ! ! I 
 You have, most probably, already heard the two first of 
 the four following lines, though, possibly, not the two last 
 ones, but, as we think it perhaps as well that you should, 
 we here transcribe them for you : 
 
 " 'E vot prigs vot isn't 'isn'n, 
 Ven he 's cotched '11 go to pris'n, 
 If not cotched he thinks all 's well, 
 'E quite forgets he goes to . . . . to . . . 
 
 the next paragraph, if you will be so very good. 
 
 "Ho7ii soit qui mal y fiense I /" We quote this bon motto 
 as many soi-disant good people tell us they object in toto 
 
Green Goslings, 87 
 
 to seeing the ordinary title of " the Evil One " in print ! 
 We can only say, O may their lives ever be such that they 
 may never see him in any worse form I 
 
 He who listens through the wall 
 Of himself hears precious small ; 
 
 or, in plain English, listeners never hear any good of them- 
 selves. Quite so ; and they don't often hear much good of 
 anybody else either, unless — N.B., unless — " anybody else " 
 happens to be present. 
 
 We may as well here observe that if your "Little 
 pitchers" have "great ears!'-' it would perhaps be as well 
 
 for you to break 'em at once — — 
 
 of the habit of using them. 
 
88 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XXI. 
 
 E don't one bit believe in the ancient fable 
 of Perseus and Andromeda, not one bit, 
 that is, not in the Andromeda part of it, 
 
Green Goslings!, 89 
 
 but ;in\ every form of Purse-use we . put our faith ' most 
 greedily and thoroughly,, for — apropos of sea-monsters, &c. 
 —we unhesitatingly affirm that life is like a lobster, natur- 
 ally dark and black, and only coideur de rosy-red when one 
 is rich enough to - — - put the pot on ! 
 
 And yet, O treasured Reader, the man who thinks of 
 nothing but money, and loves Plutus plutol than he fears 
 Pluto, whose idea of anything dear is applied only to the 
 money market, whose way of spelling cher— if he ever heard 
 that foreign word— is S: H. A. R. E., who is ascetic in every 
 passion but the passion for assets, who don't think anything 
 you possess equals that which is " mine," who cares for no 
 races but— The Ledger and The Guineas, and infinitely 
 prefers good "paper" to Good-wood, whose favourite scents 
 are per cents., and £ : ess : bouquet, whose favourite dish is— 
 somebody else's tete de veau \ia la financier e y whose favourite 
 play is "Money," who can swallow the heaviest dot without 
 having any indigestion, who thinks more of property than 
 propriety, more of manors than manners, more of a merely 
 mercantile good buy than the friendliest how d' ye do, more 
 of Roths-child than his own perhaps, may possibly "enjoy" 
 every luxury the 'world can give, but we doubt particularly, 
 most particularly, if he ever thoroughly enjoys— the greatest; 
 blessing 'man can enjoy. . . ' . himself ! 
 
 In speculating, a great .many rnen go in so utterly, so 
 recklessly, so overheadandearsedly, for the "£•* that the 
 necessity of taking care of the "s. " gets quite forgotten, and 
 
90 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 that is probably why, so very frequently, speculating be- 
 comes simply peculating. 
 
 We are informed that Miss de Testable, a lady remark- 
 able not so much for her embonpoint as her en bone point, 
 "gives herself great airs and graces." Ah! when we were 
 presented to her the other evening we saw the airs — and 
 
 between ourselves, the traces of the hare's foot — but 
 
 we utterly failed in perceiving a single one of the graces ; 
 nevertheless the worship of Mammon (and she came into a 
 jolly lot of it the other day when old De Testable died) 
 makes young Kensyngtone Gardenne of the Fusileers 
 throw himself rapturously into that now almost obsolete 
 position before her, its priestess (which we regret to say no 
 other worship has made him take since the days he used 
 to try and shirk chapel at Eton), and then . . . gammon 
 her; for, like "experienced Nestor in persuasion skilled," 
 who, you may possibly remember, "words sweet as honey 
 from his lips distilled," he is good at talking, and what is 
 more, she believes him ! I poooar stoopid weak old woman, 
 she believes him ! She believes he adores her, and not . . . 
 her money. 
 
 Well, well, after all there is some consolation in being a 
 pauper; then, at any rate, when one is loved, one gets loved 
 for one's self, and not for one's pelf; then one gets adored 
 for one's propria persona, and not because, simply because, 
 one is ... a. purse-owner. 
 
 Bah ! Reader, we must be permitted to observe enthusi- 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 9i 
 
 astically — Bah ! We talk about steam power, and wind 
 power, and water power, and fire power, the power of Love, 
 and a power of other things, but, of all, ALL the motive 
 powers, what power is there which would have got Ken- 
 syngtone Gardenne on to his knee before this hideous deaf 
 old idiot except . . . the power of MONEY ? 
 
 O dear us 1 Anri sacra whatsitsname, quid non mortalia 
 pec tor a drive to. 
 
9 2 
 
 Sage 'Staffing for 
 
 Spoonful XXII. 
 
 NNOCENT youth, we do 
 not wish to terrify you, but 
 when, hazardously, you are 
 about "to shake your el- 
 bow," remember Mephisto, 
 the original Diceheaver, is 
 at it to help it shake ! Be- 
 ware ! let nothing in-Deuce 
 you to meddle with this 
 box, or the oldest "Nick" 
 i may turn up some de to 
 yourpreju-dice ! Never for- 
 get " The Deuce " is really 
 
 inside it, only waiting die-abolically for you to rattle him 
 
 up, to spring out upon you and do for you. 
 
 Ah ! dear boy, if every dice-box but bore on its rim the 
 
 motto " Honi soil l qui mal y pense" — not to be pronounced 
 
 nor understood as having anything whatever to do with 
 
Green Goslings. 93 
 
 French, but as a simple Jine of English— ifcwpuld, as, regards 
 the enemy of mankind, be but too true, ;for indeed and in T 
 deed— " On his zvalk he may leap hence" X 1 
 
 Mind your P's and Q's, says the sage, and we heartily echo 
 the sage's, saw, but of the two we fecommend you to .mind 
 the q's, they may bring a man to grief:; true we should have 
 no Pyramids nor Pool without p's; but it 's handling the q 
 is the dangerous part of them ! as > . . . P's shell out ; 
 Q's make you do it ! ! : : ; ; 
 
 There is no position in wjiich a man'9 wife .can place her- 
 self so utterly unflattering to Iter, as in that of ,a-q-sir! as 
 then she; 's a tail-bearer-. ,, > 
 
 We beg most respectfully to suggest that if you have just 
 got fitted with a new set of— of— of masticators, you could 
 not employ a more apropos interjection than by Chew- 
 better and Chew-now ! It sounds much more fauci-b\e than 
 by Jawge ! or even than — by gum ! P.S. — Don't chew for- 
 get this. 
 
 If the dentist, by-the-bye, in his advice gratis should ever 
 say to you " Hold your jaw ! " reply to him immediately — 
 "You hold jaws!" 
 
 When going up in a balloon, as you never know where 
 you may have to get out again, . . -„; . . put on a 
 parachute-ing boots. : ~ • 
 
 P ens ee fugitive &X. the Zoo on being assured of the jwon- 
 derful muscular power of some of the ferocious specimens : 
 —If the wild animals only are half as strong as they \ . 
 
94 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 as the .... as their .... natural bouquet, HOW 
 strong they must be ! 
 
 Apropos of seeing the beasts fed, here's a receipt for 
 making a good devil. "Bonis nocet, quisquis peperccrit 
 malis ! " Bonis means bones, and pepercerit is a misprint 
 for — pepper it sir. Of course. 
 
 Good thing a devilled bone, eh ? well, the bone of con- 
 tention has generally a pretty good lot of pickings on it, 
 and it makes a capital devil : people couldn't make much 
 more row over it when they're picking it, if it was — a 
 trom-bone. 
 
 We constantly hear fellows say, " That 's hard lines," or 
 " This is hard lines," or " t' other 's hard lines," but if you 
 want to know what IS hard lines .... be ruled over! 
 
 Never despair, Gosling, never at random say nil despe- 
 randum : if you should lose all your money, you may be 
 quite certain that an immense number of dear friends, if 
 they don't leave you a legacy at their deaths, will at any 
 rate leave you a loan whilst they live ! 
 
 Many a man is lucky enough to find " castles in the air," 
 Chateaux en Espagne, act as his Spanishea for all the ills of 
 life ; to find Hope with her anchor buoy him up and anchor- 
 age him in all his undertakings ; but tho' we grant you she 
 is charming in poetry, music, and painting, tho' we admit 
 her to be solid in statuary, what, oh, what a humbugging 
 ignis fatuus is Hope in reality ! 
 
 Ah, youth, may you who pass so many of your hours in 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 95 
 
 Hope's fairy palaces dreaming, mayjjw/ never have to realize 
 WHY " castles in the air " are " Chateaux en Espagne" for 
 \ is because .... they 're An-delusion ! 
 
 ?mm 
 
96 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XXIII. 
 
 a 
 
 \ 1 7HEN charming youth its perfect blooms maintains, 
 
 Thoughtless of age, and ignorant of pains," 
 
 how exceedingly nice, how very peculiarly nice, it looks, 
 especially when .... female ! 
 
 All young things are nice : chickens, rabbits, lambs, 
 
Green Goslings. 97 
 
 leverets, pigs, peas f potatoes ; but sweet, youthful young 
 ladies— ah! Reader, sweet youthful young ladies, are they 
 not nicest of all ? 
 
 Don't, please do not do the Job-ly comforter, and remind 
 us that Beauty is only skin deep ; it may be so, it may.be 
 only skin deep, but that is deep enough for it to be most 
 delicious, is it not ? therefore, bel homme, what a nuisance it 
 is to think that all that which is now so fresh, so frank, and 
 so fifteenish, or so sunny, so smiling, and so sixteenly, may 
 one day become so fat and fierce and fifty-fiveish, or so 
 skinny snarling sixty-sixish ; it 's too, too sad ! 
 
 To think that those girlish eyes now shining in their skyey 
 blueness, with innocence and milk of human kindness over- 
 flowing them, may one day overflow with . . ah . . 
 rheum .... for improvement ! To think that those 
 now brightly glancing hazel eyes may some day not glance 
 brightly, but only — hazel-eye, very hazily indeed. To think 
 that those soul enthralling orbs, black as midnight Ere- 
 busian, which now flash Cleopatra's like (we sincerely trust 
 no one will be so brutal as to tell us Cleopatra had blue eyes) 
 and make of every man an Antony, a fool, a slave, a cypher, 
 may one day become so changed that, to speak metaphori- 
 cally, they will only flash in their pans, harmlessly, 
 
 unincandescently, over any amount of powder (viokt not 
 violent powder), causing no danger to the bystanders, no 
 effect, no report — save one perhaps from the tongue of 
 scandal : it's too detestable, too diabolical to think of! 
 
 7 
 
9 8 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 O mirth and innocence ! O milk and water ! 
 Ye happy mixtures of more happy days," 
 
 How soon do you not begin 
 
 to turn sour ? 
 
 Before you have time to value your youth, your invaluable 
 short, short, golden, halcyon, day — hour ! minute ! ! — of 
 youth, it . ... it ... . is GONE!!! 
 
 Pause, adolescent Reader, you who already, so to speak, 
 feel the profoundest disgust for the innocencies of youth, 
 and long to fight in the battle of life, to be in its smoke, its 
 flashy puffs, its sham reality and real shams, its noise, 
 turmoil, and insincerity, oh ! pause. And you, youthful 
 Readeress, you who are about to rule and direct the destiny 
 of real mankind, and twist it round your fingers as easily 
 and entirely as but a year or so ago you did the movements 
 of your toy man — oh, pause too, and look at this : 
 
 YOUR YOUTH IS GONE! 
 
Green Goslings. 99 
 
 Think it out ! do you realize what it means ? it means ■ 
 
 it 's Irrevocable ! it means, that before you know where you 
 are, your youth is — a thing, a vision, a remembrance only of 
 the PAST ! an atom sunk to the bottom of the unfathom- 
 able sea of eternity ; sunk, perhaps without leaving behind 
 it one bubble, one solitary bright-hued memory, to help you 
 to look upon your Joss with less regret ! 
 
 O — (put, if you please, printer, one of your largest O's) 
 — O Primavera, Spring-time, Hobbledehoyhood, Hoidenism, 
 Tomboydom of Life, how little, how particularly little are 
 you appreciated ! O " tender bloom of heart " how, how, 
 HOW soon are you not .... smudged off! 
 
 We talk about Wasting Money ; there are twenty thou- 
 sand maxims against wasting money ! Money ! Bah, what 's 
 wasting money to wasting youth ? What 's Jewvenality to 
 Juvenility ? What 's the power of enjoying wealths to the 
 power of enjoying healths ? can Ops coming to us ever make 
 up for our hops leaving us ? ask yourself, can he ? 
 
 We grant you that money is agreeable, very agreeable : 
 that it is grand, glorious, superb ; we even grant you that it 
 is indispensable ; we all feel that every day, every hour of 
 the day, and every minute of the hour ; but can it buy the 
 blooming cheek, the joyous laugh, the timid blush, the 
 sincere hand-pressure; the elastic and ;z<?/-to-be-crushed 
 heart, the goupthreestairsatatimeedness of youth ? No : 
 can it purchase, however much of it you may have, the 
 
 blessings which Lovely Youth gives us for nothing, 
 
 7—2 
 
ioo Sage Stuffing for 
 
 and which blessings — Yahoos that we are — because they 
 cost us nothing — we value not, nor care one bit to — 
 save ! 
 
 O ! (may we trouble you once more, Mister Printer, if 
 you will be so good, for another melancholy-sized O) O 
 what a world this would be, what a nice, agreeable little, 
 planet, if we could only all stop young, fresh, sincere, trust- 
 ing, tender ; why can't we ? what a bore it is ! yet we never 
 think thus until — like the Old Parr-ty with the pills — we 
 are getting into the serious and very yellow leaf ! we only 
 pick up wrinkles with wrinkles ! w r e never believe — no, no- 
 thing can make us believe it — that we are fools until — we 
 are old enough to take one retrospective glance at our past, 
 which one glance, however, suffices, amply suffices, to prove 
 the dismal, the lugubrious fact. 
 
 If we were to tell you, O Reader, that you most probably 
 have hitherto entirely wasted, are entirely wasting, and mean 
 to go on entirely wasting — your life, and that therefore, 
 though you consider yourself A I, you prove yourself A 
 double S, you would certainly pitch this book into the fire, 
 and very likely write and pitch into its author ; quite so ; but, 
 question your own past life about your wisdom or goose- 
 dom, about your sageness or assininity, about opportunities 
 you have thrown away, chances you have lost, sottises you 
 have committed, D-T-isms you have but narrowly escaped, 
 and any amount of et ceteras, and you will find that mntato 
 nomine, dear boy, D.T. — very probably— -fabula narrator I 
 
Green Gosling's. 101 
 
 " Ah world unknown ! how charming is thy view, 
 Thy pleasures many, and each pleasure new ! 
 Ah world experienced ! what of thee is told ? 
 How few thy pleasures, and those few . . . how old !" 
 
 Of course, we don't expect you to believe in that Crabbe's 
 clause ; but wait a few years, O Champagney Charles, and 
 see if too much " Roederer " and " Ruinart " don't lead per- 
 haps along the .... Road to Ruination ! wait and 
 
 5.ee if too much re-creation does not lead to 
 
 wreck-creation ! wait and acknowledge, O jeitne ass dove, 
 that 't is in going " the pace " you are most likely to make 
 — an irretrievable faux pas ! 
 
 Boys in their boisterous buoyancy only want to reach the 
 age of . . . . ah . . . . of ^-discretion, to be 
 men, and all the young ladies at the Misses Whooknose's 
 establishment but wanting time to pass " more swiftly than 
 the swallows wing," think of nothing but leaving school and 
 — alas, not of the three R's, Reading, Riting, and Rithmer- 
 tick — but of the three M's .... Millinery, Marriage, 
 and Maternity. There they are : turn back a page or two 
 and look at them ; have we made them lovely ? are they 
 darlings ? well, yes, perhaps they have a trifle of — of — of — 
 purchased " ornamental hair " in one or two instances among 
 "the more advanced pupils," and yet each Miss pines for 
 one tress more .... the tress which will turn her 
 from a miss into a mistress ! She pines to be miss-taken, 
 and she very likely will be I 
 
1 02 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 O " pliant wax " of youth, permit not such imbeseal im- 
 pressions to be made on you ! O inane, thoughtless, pretty 
 but vapid Juvenility, O Loonatic Loveliness, well indeed 
 may it be said " all flesh is grass," for are you not verdant ! 
 O silly stoopid delishus but noodle-ey youngness, what a 
 vast facility and talent you show for following in the foot- 
 steps of ... . Jenny-ass, in preference to following the 
 footsteps of , ... Genius! 
 
 O Reader, Reader, how like, alas \ is the folly age of 
 youth to the foli-age of spring, for — — are they not both 
 ........ GREEN!! 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 103 
 
 Spoonful XXIV. 
 
 L 
 
 IFE is a journey towards Death," says some very 
 cheery old sage ! Aha ! do it pooty fast and 
 comfortably though, some of us human racers along life's 
 Via, life's flower-strewn V.R. eh ? do the V.R. in a Victoria! 
 
1 04 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Ah Victoria Victoria, victoria victorious, but for the victis — 
 fe-ar, and V-R-ful Vse ! 
 
 [P.S. — The reader will kindly notice that each of our 
 four horses has been carefully made an historical — Italian 
 operatic — character ; each one of them is . . . Anna 
 Bolena ! in fact, there could not be four annabols more 
 lena ! 
 
 Agreeable form — in a Victoria for instance^-of " in medio 
 tutissimus ibis : " Sitting bodkin ! 
 
 We would remind everybody, but especially those who 
 agree with the Frenchman in considering that a horse is an 
 animal that "bites you with one of his ends, kicks you 
 with the other, and pitches you off with his middle," that 
 Harnesty is the best policy ! 
 
 You know what " Captain " de Courcy Norfolk Howard 
 de Tabley Smith calls himself, don't you ? he calls himself 
 
 a " betting man : " we call him a well cher ami, we 
 
 won't be severe as he 's a friend of yours. 
 
 A man may be a tremendous swell at Boolong, and not 
 of much account in London ! from which indisputable fact 
 we come to the touching conclusion, that it is much better 
 to stop at Boolong with your appreciative boolongings, 
 than to Boulogne-Xy and neglected by yourself in London ! 
 
 Thinking you speak French, and doing it, are two most 
 utterly different things : look here, for instance, at what 
 happened to Mrs. Ampstead Clapham in Paris. " Pardon, 
 Madame, mais on n 'entre pas ici avec un chien," says Law 
 
Green Goslings. 105 
 
 at the door of the Louvre. " Ser nay par ooon sheang 
 Moosoo sayt 00011 pity pooopy," says Mrs. Ampstead Clap- 
 ham. " Non, Madame, ce n'est pas une poupee du tout, c'est 
 parfaitement un chien," says Law. "Pardong, Merseer, 
 Pooopy, not a cheang," says Mrs. A. C. " Chien, Madame, 
 pas poupee," says Law ! And yet you know Mrs. Amp- 
 stead Clapham thought herself a very " elegant " French 
 scholar indeed ! 
 
 However, it don't do to talk French or German or Italian, 
 or play the piano, &c, "like a bird," flu-ently, too well, or 
 some kind soul is sure to give out that you were — educated 
 for a courier or a governess ! 
 
 They tell us it 's a short sea passage from Blown to 
 Folkestone : " deux Jieures " they say : ah ; it was four when 
 Smith came over : detix henres on board, and douceur to 
 the steward, that made it four ; besides it was exceedingly 
 rough, there were mountains labouring, not for mice, but 
 for another ///r-pose, and he was oh ! so very, very unwell ! 
 Oh yes, it certainly zvas — qitatre heures for Smith ! 
 
 [P.S. — Poor Smith — he said it seemed like six ! 
 
 Life is like a sail on the ocean ; we mostly start in plea- 
 sant weather, whilst the fancies of youth, like Sunshine, 
 make every worthless drop of spray look like a diamond, 
 but we're nevertheless pretty generally sick at heart and 
 thoroughly damped before we Ve done with it ; our life-long 
 game of pitch and toss, and " the world " feels our indi- 
 vidual griefs no more than does the sea the sorrow it causes 
 
io6 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 when engulphing a freight of hearts, hopes, happiness, and 
 humanity ! et sic of everybody ; as in our sail we are sold, so 
 are we in life ; there we are, up one minute down the next ; 
 some of us get a fine time of it, others most certainly don't, 
 but instead, get a turmoil on the waters, and have friends 
 trying to throw what they term oil on the waters, which 
 invariably makes matters 827 times worse than they were 
 before. Some of us get "faventes aurse," no "breezes," 
 but agreeable ones, others get blown up by the wind which 
 is ill, as it blows no one any good .... the equi- 
 nuptial gales ! Some of us are occasionally favoured both 
 by Posidon and Possessions, but Neptune, like Fortune, is 
 capricious and amer, and, alas alas, as by getting too much 
 of the one we are driven on the breakers, so by getting too 
 little of the other are we not .... broke ? You may 
 possibly, in your voyage through Life, manage to steer 
 clear of Charybdis, and not get absolutely wrecked on that 
 other Scylla-brated mantrap, but how few of us are there 
 who have not to go through some " straits " at one time or 
 another, which end by stranding us, if not at Messina, at 
 any rate in a mess ! 
 
 Goslings, it is Sad but is So. 
 
 It is not only in France the tongue is called langue ; not 
 at all ; plenty of people have very langue, exceedingly lorng 
 tongues in London : but this is a theme we will not lingua 
 over. 
 
 Permit us to tell you what is your duty to your neigh- 
 
'Green Goslings. 
 
 107 
 
 bour, as we feel perfectly convinced, from your manner of 
 
 going on, that you don't know it. It is to — to — mind 
 
 your own business. 
 
 You complain of the English way of spelling words end- 
 ing in "ough" do you? And you also object to tongues 
 not being spelt as pronounced, tungs : Ha ! ha ! quite so ; 
 but don't you know why tongues are spelt more like tongs 
 than tungs, eh ? Why ... it 's to give you a hint 
 
 to hold yours. 
 
io8 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XXV. 
 
 o 
 
 H dear, no, you are quite mistaken, you are com- 
 pletely in error, this is not meant for Smith learning 
 
Green Goslings. 109 
 
 to do the trapeze ; certainly it is not : neither is it a picture 
 of a shell bursting in the late Paris business " from a draw- 
 ing by our special artist taken on the spot ; " shell bursting 
 indeed ! not a bit of it : no, it is simply a family group 
 showing how Tompkingson has just advertised his better 
 half, his wife, that he purposes going down to Greenwich 
 to-morrow with "a few friends." It would appear, judging 
 from the missileaneous assortment of missiles thrown at and 
 after him, that his said better half, his dttlce lenimen, objects 
 to his so doing. 
 
 From the above most interesting domestic incident we 
 may draw this beautiful moral, that it is always better and 
 kinder, if possible, to spare our wives a pang, and that there- 
 fore, in order to do so, when we do go where we please, we 
 certainly shouldn't talk about it — at any rate not until after 
 we Ve been ! 
 
 Rochefoucauld says, " If you get in a passion and over- 
 blackguard your servant for not painting your boots pro- 
 perly, he doesn't so much mind it when you accuse him of 
 theft, smoking your biggest cigars, &c, &c., &c." This is a 
 maxim married ladies would do well to take to heart : if 
 they " make it too warm " for their husbands for thinking 
 
 of going anywhere, what have they left to do and say 
 
 after he 's been and gone and done it ? 
 
 A man can be too " large hearted " : oh dear, yes : when 
 he finds room in it, not only for his wife, but for somebody 
 else ! 
 
1 1 o Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Morn at eve : Cree-morne ! 
 
 You are mistaken ; it is not only at Baden, etc., you see 
 Rouge an' noir ; you can see it in London, Rouge an' pies j 
 Paint, and the little geese who use it ! 
 
 Yes, indeed ; Alas ! Alas ! Alas ! no one knows how we 
 regret it, but it is So ! we have no longer any doubt about 
 it ; a Miss IS as good as e'mail ! ! ! 
 
 Whenever a " party," whom you know to be — a nobody, 
 swaggers and brags too much of his this, his that, and his 
 t'other, and then offers to put you up to a good thing or two 
 
 in the way of investing your money avoid him ! for 
 
 remember this, that nobody in this world ever does anything 
 for nothing, and that a man may live a flash villa-in and be 
 one himself, or may live in a square, yet not act on it, or 
 in a mansion yet do many un-mansionable things, or in a 
 Row and get you into one, or in a terrace and soon give you 
 a good cause to quote " jam satis terrace " with a vengeance; 
 for, you may rely upon it, many a a party " who is dressed by 
 Poole would be none the worse for another sort of— dressing 
 by — a horse-pond ! 
 
 We have positively known men who " hadn't a leg left 
 to stand upon " walk beyoutifully at Boulogne-sur-Mer. 
 Odd, eh ? However, the Boulogne-sur-Mer air we have 
 always heard was very invigorating to the legs : it must be. 
 
 Sweet youth, if you are a scamp and begin to think you 
 are not a scamp, it is a very bad sign. There is nothing 
 much more stupid than thinking yourself good enough and 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 in 
 
 to spare : believe us, the first step towards improvement is 
 — acknowledging there is room for it. 
 
 The portrait below is taken from nature. The voracious 
 animal it represents, which will eat anything, from diamond 
 rings to marble-topped washhandstands, is in the possession 
 of the author. It is a very fine specimen. Its plumage is a 
 mixture of white, dirty slate-colour, and dun. It is a great 
 nuisance. It is not at all a vara avis. The Zoological and 
 Charitable Societies of London refuse to purchase it. Its 
 owner is heartily tired of it. 
 
 He calls it " an unfavourable anser, or the real tailor 
 bird," which you know is a sort of a goose who don't — 
 feather his nest, but — but — setvs it up ! 
 
112 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XXVI. 
 
 RETTY Miss 
 Dolly Varden is 
 so nice, really so 
 like a Watteau, 
 that we hardly 
 know watteau 
 say to express 
 our admiration 
 for her: her eyes 
 shine like the 
 shimmer of sun- 
 beams on a sum- 
 mer sea, her lips 
 make one think 
 that should she ever eat cherries 't would be cannibalistic : 
 
Green Goslings. 1 1 3 
 
 Innocence and charming girlhood, so to speak, envelope 
 her ; but, silly little woman, she has allowed herself to be 
 persuaded into following the present idioticly outrageous 
 fashion, and has boxed up her feet in tight — oh, so very 
 tight — high-heeled shoes. Ah, goodness ! on a hot summer's 
 day, those unyielding shoes, oh, what delight ! Why do it, 
 O jolic Dolly V. ? Why squeeze up your charming tooties, 
 why ruin them, encourage bunions and suffer through 
 high heels perhaps one of the direst agonies known to 
 more-tall ? Why do it ? Oh, why, why do it, until you 
 have, alas ! to exclaim in the very identical words of 
 Hamlet .... 
 
 " O my poor feet ache so '11 my ankle !!!!'" 
 
 Even as they prefer worrying their old aunty's footman 
 to troubling their old Dante's page ; even as they prefer 
 sitting at Gwendoline's or Gertrude's feet to Gamaliel's; 
 even as they think more of whip-thongs than diphthongs ; 
 even as they think more of a red homard, than of Homer 
 read, so do goslings think more of ankles than uncles ! 
 
 Boobies ! do they not prove themselves " tetes de veau" 
 
 bul-lock-heads, thus to re-veal their de-veau-tion to 
 
 Neat feet. 
 
 Procrastination is the thief of time ! it is : the only sort 
 of delay which is at all good for anything is a roun-delay ! 
 P.S. — We never hear this word roundelay without thinking 
 of a garter : don't you see ? a roundelay and — around a leg I 
 
 8 
 
1 1 4 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Honi soil que female y pense ! don't be in such a precious 
 hurry to find fault ; we mean Henry the Eighth's. 
 
 In crossing a muddy road on a dark night try and do it 
 opposite a lamp, that its light may enable you to avoid 
 puddles, &c, &c., &c. ; so in Life's road, if you would make 
 it a Via happier, let good nature be your lamp ; for there is 
 nothing, positively nothing, which acts so perfectly as cegis 
 against all the bores of life as good humour ; humour say 
 what you like, but there isn't. 
 
 Joneson swims quite wonderfully, and floats like a cork : 
 he accounts for it by saying he has such a very large and 
 such a very light heart : well, he may be right, but we should, 
 have attributed it, not so much to the vastness and lightness 
 of his heart, as to the complete emptiness of ... . his 
 head. 
 
 Flowers of Speech : " Sesgutpe-dahlia verba I " 
 
 Do you know what the effect of dining with a screw is ? 
 Why .... getting bored ! 
 
 People are constantly saying " we can't do two things at 
 once : J ' wish they couldn't, then they wouldn't talk with 
 their mouths full. 
 
 Man's last meal : Biting the dust ! 
 
 All the world may be a stage, but there is one act in all 
 our lives no one can re-hearse . . . our leaving it. 
 
 You may chaff the poor scribbler about his dining at a 
 pothouse, but do not the swellest authors equally get their 
 dinner — — from the public ! 
 
Green Goslings. 115 
 
 The attributes of the "Jack" are — biting and snappish- 
 ness : as you go through the world you will find it is not 
 unusual for mankind to assume the Jack's fishy attributes 
 . . . . when in office. 
 
 To every one in the world, except perhaps cardinals, to 
 
 every other living soul we emphatically say avoid 
 
 hat-red ! for . ' . . . it is a loa-thing. 
 
 And yet, O Reader, how many^a friendship gets snipped 
 almost in the bud through worldly considerations, and how 
 often do those who to the end of Life's journey might have 
 venerated and respected each other, get — through some 
 trifling adverse circumstance — to feel such a friendsy of 
 hate, such a mutual detestation, that they absolutely, yes, 
 absolutely, come to dread being ever again . . . thrown 
 together. 
 
 8 — 2 
 
n6 
 
 Sage Stuffi,7ig for 
 
 Spoonful XXVII. 
 
 E never pass a butcher's shop, 
 nor hear a bullock's voice, 
 without thinking of amateur 
 vocalists. The bullock's voice 
 may be contralto — that is low 
 — and the other's soprano 
 perhaps, or anything else, but 
 that makes no earthly dif- 
 ference, as they both so inva- 
 riably — after once being herd 
 — end in ... . being cut 
 up ! 
 
 Many a woman gets loved 
 for her voice, for her ability to 
 follow the charming example 
 of Titiens, Patti and Caux, for her " tonic sol fa " accom- 
 plishments : that is the reason, we must presume, why girls 
 
Green Goslings. 1 1 7 
 
 sing so much more than they play : they don't want a — 
 play-tonic sol-fa, but a sort of a burning sol-fa to make each 
 of them a la si a-do-ree ! 
 
 When a young lady proposes music, answer, " S'il votes 
 play." 
 
 If two young ladies sing, say, after it 's over, that you feel 
 like a flower refreshed with the dew-wet ! 
 
 P.S. — Never talk about getting up a treeo, or people won't 
 be able to think quatuor driving at. 
 
 If you want anybody to admire your daughter's singing, 
 or your wife's piano-teasing, or your son's wit, don't boast 
 too much about it all beforehand ; for it 's easier, very much 
 easier, to disappoint people than to please them. 
 
 Never treat your olive branches as you would your gera- 
 nium cuttings ; never .... " strike them in heat !" 
 
 Love is blind, there 's no doubt about it, for what hideosity 
 finds mates ! yes, he must be very blind, and that is why 
 couples, we presume, like to make — spectacles of them- 
 selves for his sake. 
 
 It is unnecessary to tell us Justice is blind, she just is, or 
 she would see how juiced few of us get any of her company. 
 However, don't think we mean to say Fie at Justice, not at 
 all, we only say Fiat Justitia ! 
 
 The healthiest form of "B. and S.": Brighton and South 
 Coast ! 
 
 A bona fide spirit trap : Gin ! 
 
 A beery month : Fe-brewery ! 
 
1 1 8 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 A tipsy man is like a smoking lamp : he should be — 
 turned out. 
 
 Doctors, "The Faculty," may tell you, by-the-bye, that 
 all those heavy " nails," brandies and sodas, and sherries and 
 bitters, and gins and seltzers, and curagoas and lemonades (!), 
 &c, &c, &c, which you insist upon imbibing at all hours of 
 the day, are killing you by inches ! Don't you believe the 
 Faculty : they are not killing you by inches : no, certainly 
 not ; not at all ; they 're not killing you by inches, but 
 by yards, poles, furlongs, miles — fast as possible ! O dear 
 Gosling, let the worm eat us when Charon 
 
 takes us and, Mors the pity, Sticks to us ; but before that 
 unhappy event, beware, O beware of the other worm, which 
 
 gnaws our vitals while yet we live the fatal 
 
 "fltit ver/" 
 
 " As you make your bed so you must lie upon it ! " Non- 
 
Green Goslings. 1 19 
 
 sense ! get up like a man, and put the feather-bed atop of 
 the mattress. 
 
 P.S. — Wish they 'd feather the birds properly they make 
 the feather beds of; believe they sometimes put in the bird, 
 claws, beak, an' all, and NOT the feathers : dooced uncom- 
 fortable, ain't they ? All lumps and prickles : can't make 
 up our mind which is the worst, the lumps or the prickles, 
 or the prickles or the lumps ; sometimes think the lumps 
 are, until we get on the prickles, then we think the prickles 
 are, until we again get on the lumps, and so on . . . on 
 . . . .on ... . on through the nightlightless and 
 dreary hours of darkness, until, worn out in mind and body, 
 slumber sinks our weary senses in semi-forgetfulness, alas ! 
 but to make us dream magnifiedly of more and bigger and 
 sharper lumps and prickles than ever : both brutal. 
 
 Apropos of making beds, &c, we are reminded to suggest 
 that if chambermaidens in hotels would only take a little 
 of our common sense they should be heartily welcome ; but, 
 hang 'em, it's our Ess Bouquet and Jockey Club they 
 prefer, and they won't leave our Ealing-Ealing in its proper 
 station, and they also won't leave our eau de Cologne alone, 
 but insist upon separating the " odour " from the " Cologne " 
 by cribbing half of it, and then adding eau de London to 
 fill up the bottle. Too bad. 
 
 Meet a tipsy friend, and ask him to name an animal 
 draughtsman on wood whom he thinks wonderfully clever, 
 and we bet you — if he knows the make of any other sort of 
 
1 20 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 beast besides himself, if he knows anything of drawing not as 
 applied to corks — that his answer will name the artist, and 
 be your opinion of his drunken self . . . il s y est grise ! 
 
 A composer : Arditi ! 
 
 A dis-composer : Ah ! . . . " D.T. I" 
 
 " There 's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip," as the 
 old gentleman with chronic " D.T." found to his cost ! : — he 
 spoiled three waistcoats a day for seventeen years, until he 
 hit upon the plan of putting his table napkin or pocket- 
 handkerchief over the back of his neck, and through its 
 help hauling up his right hand — the one with the glass in it 
 — with his other one ! It 's old, the story ; but if you 've got 
 the jumps, it may be useful to you to know it. 
 
 If it were not for the fear of — of — being caught doing 
 naughties, what a Pandemonium this civilised Christian 
 world would be. O ! if what is now " Naughty but Nice " 
 
 were only Religion, what a religious really 
 
 joyous lot all you fellers would become, and Jingo ! the 
 new churches that would have to be built ! ! ! and wouldn't 
 the subscriptions just flow, gush, rush in ! ! ! ! eh ? rather. 
 And yet after all. don't you know, people do pray ; pray a 
 great deal ; an immense deal ; are tojours prets to pray, but 
 . . . . it 's on one another ! 
 
 If men would never drink except when thirsty, screwy- 
 ness and limpness, tightness and much consequent loose- 
 ness would be next to unknown ; and not only that, but 
 they would avoid making most confounded fools of them- 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 121 
 
 selves into the bargain ; for we feel no hesitation in saying 
 that nothing D.T.riorates a man in every way like drink, 
 and that the man who is tipsy is not ipse ! 
 
 Vanity is a sort of drunkenness, for the looking-glass 
 intoxicates some people quite as disagreeably as the wine- 
 glass does others. 
 
 Yes, Respectable Reader, you are perfectly right, there is 
 ONE more disgusting thing in the world than a tipsy man : 
 yes, one, but only one .... it is .... a tipsy 
 woman. 
 
122 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XXVIII. 
 
 mony more, perhaps, than to any other. 
 
 ITTLE can they 
 who start on "par- 
 ties of pleasure" 
 calculate how said 
 " parties of plea- 
 sure" may termi- 
 nate, and of all 
 "parties of plea- 
 sure " this remark 
 applies to matri- 
 Union, you fondly 
 
Greeii Goslings. 123 
 
 imagine, is strength ! it isn't ; if you haven't got — we are 
 speaking hymeneally — if you haven't got a precious lot of 
 .precious money ! on the contrary, it 's anything but strength, 
 it 's simply the greatest weakness you can indulge in. We 
 know very well that " Ubi mel ibi apes " ! which, being trans- 
 lated properly, bel homme, means Ubi where — mel there 
 
 is a sweet creechar — ibi there — apes monkeys are sure to be 
 after her ! We grant you this is but natural, we acknow- 
 ledge it is only human nature to think "union is strength." 
 But, O dear boy, whilst advising you very strongly, unless 
 you are dooced badly off, not to unionize for money, we 
 advise you more strongly, O we advise you much more 
 strongly, unless you are dooced WELL off, not to unionize 
 
 for HONEY ! 
 
 Jeunesse which is not dore'e, don't — — marry for love. 
 Jeunesse which is not d, do not do it ! Jeunesse which is 
 not doree, sans £, you are better off sans elle! Female 
 ditto, sans louis d'or, you are better off sans lid you ad-ore ! 
 J which is not d, without a tocher don't touch 'er ! F ditto, 
 without a doty don't ! For remember this, O single sparks 
 — and sparkesses — who are inclined to puff yourselves into 
 a state of ardour, that poor, impecunious, out-at-elbows 
 Love is precisely like a house on fire — it ought to be put 
 out, extinguished, have cold water thrown on it, see what 
 wet — very wet — blankets can do for it, end in smoke before 
 its flames, after having gained too great an ascendancy to 
 be put out, go out, die out, smoulder out, of themselves, 
 
1 24 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 leaving nothing that's tender, only that which is tmder 
 behind them. 
 
 You may possibly, O spooney Solomon, argue, as a great 
 many spooney Solomons do argue, that " riches don't make 
 happiness : " ah ; possibly not ; we don't know : we never 
 tried 'em ; but, notwithstanding your assertion, we neverthe- 
 less cordially recommend you (remember we are speaking 
 from a connubialistic point of view) to patiently wait for 
 the Gilded Purgatory, the 'eldorado, you abuse, in preference 
 to rushing after a cheap wedding and life in a 30$". a week 
 lodging, that poor man's oasis, where your sherry wine 
 immediately becomes made-dearer, half of it being invari- 
 ably "partaken of" by your landlady; where they will 
 blacken your varnished boots ; when your friends won't 
 visit you; where "the cat," from what you are given to 
 understand, has a weakness for silk socks and cambric 
 pocket handkerchiefs, and where coals — bad ones — are nine 
 guineas a ton, that is, 6d. a scuttle — a small one — and 
 kitchen fire — where your plain (uncommonly) dinners are 
 invariably spoiled — is extra ! 
 
 Riches, as you say, may not bring happiness, but the 
 gilded ones, my friend, get all the honey, you get all the 
 work and the whacks ; the gilded ones get all the honey, you 
 
 get only the stings of the bees, and the cells ; the 
 
 pecunious ones get all the honey, you get only the — jars ! 
 they get all the roses, you only get the thorn in your side, 
 not a Thorne of the Vau-deville sort, but a deville of a thorn 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 125 
 
 without any (tete de) Veau, to which we are all so de-veau-ted. 
 Riches may not make happiness, but we ask you now, do 
 Poverties make it ? Your present position may not be all 
 you could desire, but might it not easily be worse ? 
 
 To " wear a golden sorrow " may not be quite all you 
 could wish, but is wearing a pewter one any better ? 
 
 The tup'ny-ha'pe'ny 200-a-year style of hymeneal altar 
 is pitched into, and ever has been pitched into enough, good- 
 ness knows ! and yet the poor male marryer, before he 
 nuptializes an equally poor female marryer, insists upon 
 steadily overlooking all everybody has ever said upon the 
 subject ; insists upon NOT remembering the one most 
 
1 26 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 important fact in the whole history of this sublunary spear, 
 viz., that though he may look upon his inamorata as an 
 angel, and call her one, she most indubitably will require 
 feeding, and that therefore beef and beer, and when very 
 Amphitryonically disposed, puddings — Yorkshire and other- 
 wise — to say nothing of soles ct la Norma7ide, or au gratin, 
 Cliquot, curlpaper cutlets, &c, &c, &c, are absolutely in- 
 dis-pen-sa-ble to prevent his turtle doveing becoming a mere 
 mock-turtie-ery in no time. 
 
 It 's no use your arguing that you don't want cucumbers 
 all the year round with your fish, strawberries at half a crown 
 a piece, grapes at two guineas a pound, and salmon and 
 lamb at five bob an ounce ; it 's no good your persuading 
 yourself you can contentedly "do it cheap ;" you can't ; all 
 that is cheap is beastly ; besides, if you can, your wife pro- 
 bably won't; though you may be contented to stand vile 
 
 lodging-house cooking and impertinent sauce 
 
 a la landlady, the woman you marry will most certainly 
 prefer French cooking and sauce . . . a la maitre d* hotel! 
 
 But that 's not it ; it 's the fact of the whole business being 
 simply detestable ; it 's the fact of your being pooh-pooh'd 
 by a lot of monied vulgarians — " carriage people " ! ! ! — and 
 sat upon and snubbed by everybody ; it 's the fact that we 
 are all envious ; it 's the fact that we all detest being only 
 tantalized with the sight of others' comforts ; and it 's the 
 confounded fact that the demon impecuniosity — in about 
 eight cases out of every ten — brings untidiness in a wife, 
 
Green Goslings. 127 
 
 and then, by St. Jingo, you get the curlpapers without the 
 cutlets, and in place of anguilles a la Toulouse, &c, ankles a 
 la too loose, and slippery down-at-eel boots in no time ! 
 
 Reader, in place of a famous sole with sauce tartare, you '11 
 possibly catch one, not a famous sole, a Tartar, who '11 want 
 to be a femme sole, and then it 's tar tar to all sorts of jolli- 
 ness ! 
 
 O dear impecunious but hymeneally-inclined Gosling, 
 don't believe all their goody goody twaddle about " Love in 
 a cottage ;" don't believe that money doesn't bring happi- 
 ness ; don't believe that gold is dross ; don't believe that 
 £. s. d.-\$m is wicked ; don't believe this, that, and t'other, 
 but — us, when we assure you, confidently assure you, that, 
 if you, a possibly corpulent Cupid, would — en homme solide 
 — fan up — and keep up — rthe flame on the altar of Love, 
 there is nothing on earth so useful, so extraordinarily useful, 
 for doing it with as .... a good full purse. 
 
128 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XXIX. 
 
 
 ti£L 
 
 HYMEN'S link, when supported on bankers' books 
 and bullion bags, cheques and consols, riches, roses, 
 and so on ; when there are no duns, no bothers, no anxieties 
 no complications, no unbuoyed sunken businesses, rocks, 
 torpedoes, quicksandifications, maelstroms, shoals, &c, is 
 
Green Goslings. 129 
 
 all plain sailing enough : the charm of returning home to 
 the loving arms of Beauty when the loving arms of Beauty- 
 have nice bracelets on 'em ; when the fingers of Beauty 
 which twine your hair round 'em (if you 've got any, and 
 like having it twined round fingers — we don't) glitter with 
 gem-cracks ; when Beauty is nicely got up, in pooty shoes, 
 pooty peignoires, flowers and freshness, &c., &c, &c. ; when 
 Beauty in fact has lots of money and nothing to do, the 
 charm of all this must be immense, no charm we imagine 
 can well be much immenser : Beauty will then, if inclined, 
 have time to be amused at your amusements ; never make 
 a " piece of work " unless it be to knit you unwearably 
 gorgeous Berlin wool machines in impracticable colours ; 
 make you braces for which you '11 give embraces back ; and 
 when you 've been out shooting probably be pleased and 
 proud — as we have delineated her above — to .... count 
 your game ! 
 
 Ah ! all this, though perhaps not very intellectual or 
 useful, must be very delishus at any rate ; but look at the 
 other side of the hymeneal medal ; if your Hymenish link 
 is not supported as above, if instead of having the fingers 
 of Beauty in rings twining your ringlets, the fingers of 
 Beauty have to be always darning the children's clothes ; if 
 the loving arms of Beauty, instead of being used as bracelet 
 expositors, have to become acquainted with the wash-tub ; 
 if Beauty, instead of having nothing to do, has to do an 
 immense deal ; if there are duns, bothers, complications, 
 
 9 
 
1 30 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 etc., etc., etc., cum multis aliis quce nunc — as the Latin 
 grammar says — perscribere would be a bore ; if in fact 
 you Ve no money, look at it then ; when the honeymoon's 
 monthly new-broomy roses have fallen, and their greenness 
 has gone, and you find your link simply supported on thorny 
 stalks, where are you then ? O where are you ? 
 
 Idiots congratulate themselves — whether they can afford 
 marriage or not — on being accepted by their poundless 
 shillingless and penniless loves, and exclaim, " Oh Rapchar; 
 I may kneel hymeneally ! " Boobies ! they forget that that 
 which is enough — very likely barely enough — for one is of 
 no earthly use for TWO ! They forget that that which is 
 of no earthly use for two may possibly — and very probably 
 will — have to be enough for 4, 6, 10, 15, or even 20 ! They 
 forget that they can not count their olive branches before 
 they are at-hatched to the parient stem, and that olive 
 branches on a small income are incomebranches of the worst 
 sort, as they can not be lopped off ! They forget that the 
 ringing of one finger may lead to the — wringing of four 
 hands ! They forget that in Poverty the hymeneal haltar 
 ties them hands and feet, and what they will have to sacri- 
 fice on this same altar to keep it going even moderately 
 straight, and to .... " yet brokenly live on ! " They 
 forget that by getting spliced, and so made fast, they may 
 be utterly un-done ! They forget that it invariably turns 
 out for the female marryer — this poor hymenial business — 
 all of the "menial" with nothing of the "hy" about it 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 131 
 
 whatever, unless she consider it, as we feel confident she 
 eventually will, all her hy ! They forget that if, even when 
 people are well off, 
 
 " Life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim," 
 Love's enchanted couple find it just the sim ! 
 
 They forget if the wife should perversely dislike becoming 
 a sort of servant-of-all-work, that their chance of a domestic 
 donna and bliss, is not half as great as their chance of 
 domestic donner and blitzen ! They forget their Missis may 
 become their Ne-missis ! They forget that marriage, not 
 only in one case, as the Greek has it, but in all cases, is a 
 gamwon which, un-like bacon, whether it can be cured or 
 not, must be endured ! They forget that though courtship 
 makes all things couleurde rose, matrimony frequently makes 
 the very same things couleur de rows ! They forget that no 
 
1 32 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 man can tell whether he really does love a woman until he's 
 been married to her for at least two years. They forget 
 that an ar-dent, AR-dent, wish for the Sacrament of Mar- 
 riage not in-frequently turns to a still more ARDENT wish 
 to give each other the sack with-out the raiment ! They 
 forget that the very worst cases that ever appeared before 
 Sir Dresswell Dress-swell or Lord Penzance had — we must 
 presume — HAD — to begin with — a honey moon! And, 
 worst of all, the Boobies, the honeyluna-tics, they forget 
 that Marriage is such a tremendous goer, a Derby winner, 
 a "Gamos" with such staying power, that being once started, 
 
 nothing can by any possibility stop him but death, or 
 
 the long dirty and expensive journey to the 
 
 Wilds of Penzance ! 
 
 Ah, dear boy, how fashions alter ! Society doesn't put 
 peas in its shoes now-a-days, it puts 'em in its mouth ; 
 scallop-shells are kept for oysters, not for pilgrimising in ; 
 hair shirts are obsolete, and have all been made into chig- 
 nons and patent friction businesses for opening the pores of 
 the skin comfortably ; people don't fast, only go so ; don't 
 wear chains unless, at the least, 18 caraters ; and, though 
 they do flageolet their neighbours, certainly dorit flagellate 
 themselves nor let anybody else do it if they are aware of 
 it, no thankee; and as for sackcloth and ashes, where do you 
 ever see them except over a coalheaver's head on a wet day ? 
 No, no ; the Penance we do now is spelt with a z after the 
 Pen, as . . . we marry ... on nothing a year ! 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 133 
 
 Ah, Reader, had many an improvident — hymeneally- 
 minded Gosling but less hope to begin with, he 'd not be 
 
 hope-less to end with. And if, Reader, instead of 
 
 going to the altar of Hymen, a lot of people would only 
 have strength of mind enough to go to to Ma- 
 jorca, it would save Majorcawardness to all parties after- 
 wards. 
 
134 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XXX. 
 
 A telegram from our Spe- 
 cial Commissioner informs 
 us that all the probable 
 starters for " the great race " 
 are on the spot ; and that 
 the field will be an unusually 
 big one. Midnight betting 
 still points to Count Toutlemonde's French-bred mare 
 " Bottines " as first favourite ; she is said to have something 
 wrong with her heels, but her backers seem pretty confident. 
 The Earl of Thompson's " Butler " is spoken of as being a 
 regular screw, and as having certainl" something queer with 
 
 ri&W^ 
 
Green Goslings. 135 
 
 one of his hocks, nevertheless, any money you put on him 
 is taken freely. Mr. Rutter Ridjit's " Burlesque " is said to 
 look too cart-horsey and leggy, and anything but very fit ; 
 a " walk over " is what would suit her ; as it is, she '11 pro- 
 bably — break down. " Small Waist" is well spoken off; her 
 staying power is hinted at as being immense. Mr. F. O. 
 Clerk's " The Toady " may be safely backed to get a place. 
 Lord de Jones's "The Outlaw" has been made the sub- 
 ject of keen inquiry, as some of the knowing ones pretend 
 to think that if he gets a good start he '11 never be caught. 
 Mr. Day's colt "Decolletee" has put her shoulder out. 
 " Miss Lightsome " has been scratched for all her engage- 
 ments. " Lazarus " has been tremendously kicked by his 
 stable companion "Dives," and is quite horse de combat. 
 " The Vixen " cast a plate on arriving at her quarters ; there 
 was not much damage done ; she 's sure to come to the 
 scratch. Mr. Senex's "Dowager" is out of the betting. 
 Viscount Smith's " Crinoline " looks in a miserable condi- 
 tion, fearfully tucked up, ribs coming through her skin, 
 over-trained. Prince Piccadeeli will be represented by 
 " Grecian Bend :" she is rather too hollow-backed and over- 
 knee'd an animal to suit us, but is freely supported at a 
 good figure. 
 
 As regards the match between Mr. Foralltime's " Shake- 
 speare" (aged), and Mr. British Youth's "The Ballet," 
 Shakespeare was nowhere, the mare, although looking as 
 stale as possible, won in the very commonest o' canters. 
 
136 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 We, however, believe the whole thing was a put up affair, 
 as " Shakespeare " was too heavily weighted, whilst " The 
 Ballet" carried next to nothing; we feel confident that if the 
 old hoss had been properly handled and asked the question 
 at the right moment, it would have been quite as hollow a 
 thing the other way. 
 
 A pot o' money changed hands over this event. The 
 legs got it. 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 *37 
 
 Spoonful XXXI. 
 
 0^; 
 
 WE beg leave to defy you, however thoroughly con- 
 versant with the French language you may be, to 
 find a more perfect Parisian idiom for — real pleasure than 
 . . . cham-pagne ! 
 
 Oh, yes, quite so : we know as well as you do that the 
 French for rapture is not champagne, but Verve, but then, 
 don't you know Veuve is the very best form of champagne ? 
 and so we still defy you ! 
 
 Old Moosoo is bad French: "Ay Mousseux " is very good ! 
 
1 38 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 One of the most agreeable cliques in all Society is — 
 Cliquot ! 
 
 We don't so much mind his "silence" and his want of 
 sparkle when our friend is " Mumm ! " 
 
 Love is like "Sillery:" with HER, all fiz and sparkle; 
 without *er . . . . Silly ! 
 
 Whenever you dine at Greenwich or Richmond, etc., and 
 at the next table the lady and gentleman mix their liquors 
 freely, and drink champagne cup, moselle cup, sherry wine, 
 claret, port, curocoa, brandy, coffee, etc., etc., et cetera, and 
 talk and laugh away like anything, do not make their 
 acquaintance; but if they have the coffee-room dinner, a 
 pint of sherry, and no conversation, you may take them to 
 your boosom in confidence — if you want to, and they permit 
 it : they are highly respectable. 
 
 Never tell a Government clerk he has .... nothing 
 to do ; or you wound him thereby in a Whitehall part ! 
 
 P.S. — Good name for a Home Office or Treasury feller: 
 "Whitehall Spark." 
 
 It is not so bad being only a little " loose," it 's the being 
 frequently " tight " that is so objectionable. 
 
 If you make a very favourable impression on your first 
 visit anywhere .... don't call again. 
 
 If you ever should have the misfortune to " let the cat 
 out of the bag," never, NEVER try and stuff her back 
 again ; it 's such a mistake, you only make, inevitably make, 
 matters forty times worse. 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 139 
 
 You are kind enough to say that you consider Saws 
 Ubject, Esq., a fool for doing this that or t'other : you are 
 wrong, entirely wrong : if Saws Ubject likes it, he would be 
 a fool not to do it. Just mind your own business, for of all 
 the nasty fruits which grow on the Tree of Evil, perhaps 
 one of the nastiest is the meddler ! But if people will only 
 sensibly follow our advice, he can be easily squashed : our 
 advice is ... . whenever you see people about "to 
 have a finger in your pie " make it hot for 'em ! 
 
140 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XXXIL 
 
 creatures, for — oh ! that ' 
 for external show," for — 
 
 <^^ADY-BIRDS, sea- 
 girls, and so on, are 
 tremendously in their 
 element at the sea- 
 side : 
 
 Women go there to 
 get married, if single ; 
 Women, when mar- 
 ried, go there to get — 
 shingle ! 
 
 They are very pretty. 
 They look very nice : 
 their dresses all cut 
 each other out ; they 
 are exceedingly bril- 
 liant ; they are most 
 harlequinesque ; But 
 "~- r -"""-* . . . they are dear 
 relish of realities," that " passion 
 
Green Goslings. 141 
 
 Oh ! the vast expanse of heaving waters ! 
 Oh ! the vast expense of having daughters 
 
 and wives — who insist upon going there — how many 
 
 a husband has laid a burd-en on himself to enable his lady- 
 bird to do it, until he has wished — not himself — but them — 
 father ! 
 
 "Impressions de voyage :" Footprints in the sands! 
 
 To readers of Bradshaw : Keep your tempus I 
 
 P.S. — Don't say this joke is contimetable ; it is not at all 
 contemptable, not in the least. 
 
 The most disgraceful fool in Europe : The Paris foule ! 
 
 Freedom, we believe, did Kosciusko the honour to shriek 
 when Kosciusko fell ! quite so ; and she did pre-cisely the 
 same thing, only she did it perhaps a trifle louder, when 
 
 omitil tell in love with old Mrs. Grumbleby Creeses 
 
 money, and — married it. 
 
 " Laus Deo Semper ! " yes, indeed ; but we notice that 
 most people not only write it, this noble phrase, but prefer 
 
 also to worship it abbreviated : exceedingly 
 
 abbreviated and transposed ; with them it is not Laus Deo 
 Semper, nor L. D. S., but . . . £ s. d.l ! 
 
 By the time you see this, in all probability the Tichborne 
 case will be over, settled, a thing of the past, nevertheless 
 the Solicitor-General will be still as hard at work as ever, 
 as he has unceasingly been from the days of . . . Adam. 
 
 Need we say we allude to THE Solicitor-General — 
 
 Love! 
 
142 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Should you be surprised to learn that the voluptuous 
 animal below is a new found land dog ? Should you be 
 surprised to learn that he is a Wagger Wagger dog ? And 
 should you be surprised to learn that, upon the well-known 
 principle of the retina of the eye retaining a bit of burnt stick 
 in it for more than eversolong, the Wagger Wagger's tail is 
 true to nature ? 
 
 You would ? Ah, we thought you would ; nevertheless 
 out of all your friends (and if you have any money you have 
 friends) not one of them is as sincere, as uninterestedly 
 sincere, as your Wagga Wagga, for HE wouldn't wag his tail 
 at you unless he loved you. 
 
 It would of course be simply imbesilly to expect your 
 relations to wag their tails at you, and overlook, and assist 
 to hide, any fault you may possibly commit ; but remember 
 this : the friends who do wag their tails at you, and who 
 secretly — would have helped to conceal the knife with which 
 you had just committed an undiscovered murder, or who 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 H3 
 
 would have applauded, as a very clever performance, your 
 running away with your best friend's wife, and have rather 
 congratulated you as a gay Lothario for doing it, will also 
 unhesitatingly be among the first to cut you dead, if — you 
 art found out not paying your bootmaker or your laundress ! 
 
 No, no, dear boy ; if you insist upon doing things you 
 oughtn't to do, which by-the-bye, though it 's not the very 
 slightest use, we recommend you not to do ; if you insist 
 upon doing things " under the rose," choose a cabbage rose, 
 a large one, for the rose in use at the present era is not one 
 quarter big enough, which is a mistake : for you may safely 
 rely upon it that of all the sins which Society commits, 
 against " the laws " of Society, the most unpardonable, the 
 
 most utterly and hopelessly unpardonable, is being 
 
 found out ! 
 
 O Pious Peruser, is not this true ? but though we may 
 abuse our friends, how, how, HOW few of us are there, if 
 
 we were to " make a clean breast of it," but 
 
 would be found .... all dickey ! ! 
 
144 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XXXIII. 
 
 H E knee plush . ultra of 
 folly is — a lady marrying 
 her footman. Folly rather 
 more plus ultra than that 
 is — a gentleman marrying 
 his cook, because she's a 
 pretty good cook, and folly 
 rather morer pluser ultraer 
 even than the last is — his 
 marrying her if she 's a 
 plain cook ! This is all we say on this theme : we refrain 
 from telling the man who enjoys conjugating " Amo amas 
 amavey, O such a pretty slavey, a-Mary, to love " and so on 
 what our candid opinion of him is ; we have, in fact, too 
 
Green Goslings. 145 
 
 much Pollytesse to say what is custo-Mary on this appalling 
 subject ; we will simply observe and show in our initial how 
 astonishingly charming a nice young lady looks when putting 
 her shoulder to the wheel .... and ham tart : Bless 
 her ! may she be the girl of all periods ! — get your wife, or 
 your sister, who, let us hope, can dress a cutlet as welt as 
 herself — to do it, and judge for yourself if anything can look 
 more deallegtable than that " dresser ; " and then go and 
 call on some feller who has married his cook, and see how 
 very nasty she looks when making not a pie, but .... 
 a lady ! Not only that, but we feel convinced that if there 
 is one man in the whole world who would NOT — N.B., NOT — 
 get his wife to make him a pudding, grill him a bone, or 
 cook anything for him but his goose perhaps, that man is 
 he who .... has married his cook ! 
 
 Advice to pretty young ladies about their spoons : There 
 is safety in numbers. Many admirers and you rule the lot; 
 one, and he — rules you. 
 
 However, young ladies who have many beaux to their 
 string — that is, strings to their bow — should make "a knot" 
 
 in one of them, or the whole lot may slip through their 
 
 fingers. 
 
 Let nothing tempt you to marry, knowingly, a jealous 
 woman ; let neither boots, beauty, money, shoulders, nor 
 connections, tempt you to do it ; but if, having un-know- 
 ingly married her, you begin to see her jealousy for you 
 dying out . . . . it is a bad sign. 
 
 10 
 
1 46 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 " Melting moments?" says old Crusty, "melting moments ? 
 — Bah ! melting into tears ! " " Orange blossoms ? Non- 
 sense I Cupid clothes all his female victims the same : he 
 gives them worry antique." 
 
 Milk-sops out of the whey. Ladies don't like spooneys 
 and boobies : the female duck — unfortunately for Jierself — 
 prefers a sad drake. 
 
 I. O. Hughes's wife says that quite the worst of all 
 I. O. Hughes's "short comings" are .... his long 
 goings ! 
 
 Let the Germans say " du " to their loves, but don't you 
 "du" it with yours, unless there's a lot of"t/iou"s surely 
 forthcoming. 
 
 People tell us to " feather our nest !" How can we feather 
 our nest, if we 're not worth a penna ? 
 
 The safest branch to feather your nest on is one which 
 grows out of a good strong bank. Try the London Joint 
 Stock : it is ever blooming. 
 
 The happy mean : Old gent who did not have the plate 
 held out to him in church last Sunday. 
 
 Infancy and old age are the same to a T : one waddles, 
 t'other .... /-waddles ! 
 
 Reader, we are told that " Love is blind ; " we agree with 
 
 this : he is blind — very blind ; especially when it is his 
 
 interest to be so ; for it is very sad, but if an old boy can 
 only come down heavily on a bank, the Cupidinous woman 
 don't one bit mind his inability to run lightly on a lawn — 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 '47 
 
 as what does she care for his age, his dot-age, provided the 
 dot be all right — provided he will kindly for her ... do 
 dot and go one ! If he 's a peer, what does she care for his 
 appearance ! However, we think, as a rule, she marries her 
 man too young ; for if we were a woman — ecstatic thought ! 
 — and a filthy lucre'd husband-hunter, or wanted some lord 
 or baronet simply for his name, we wouldn't look at a man 
 under eighty or ninety — hundred-and-twenty if possible, 
 older the better .... don't you see ? . . . less 
 long to wait ! 
 
 .ev^¥>^:^ 
 
148 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XXXIV. 
 
 F course, dear boy, 
 you Ve heard the 
 \l saying, that "a fool at forty is a 
 fool indeed ;" you know this ; and 
 probably will agree with us in thinking that, if he ever 
 
Green Goslings. 149 
 
 should reach any old age at all, it will most certainly be— 
 a green one ; eh ? Well, look at old De Jones for instance : 
 that 's his case, his very sad and stchewpid case. 
 Sir Walter Scott says 
 
 " Some feelings are to mortals given, 
 With less of earth in them than heaven." 
 
 It may possibly be so, but not with old De Jones ; not with 
 De Jones, Esq. ; we rather fear he 's more of earth, etc., in 
 his ridiculous old composition than most doters ! 
 
 Of course it 's exceedingly wrong, our showing him to 
 you in the sanctity of his chamber ; but there he is never- 
 theless, and dreaming, dreaming of his adoration 
 
 The Ballet ! 
 
 Mind you, he 's not " a patron of the Drarmer ; " oh, dear 
 no ; as for going to see anything really fine, Shakespeare, 
 or anything in that way, pshaw ! he 'd as soon think of going 
 out for a morning walk in his evening trousers ! As for 
 Music, he ignores her unless as assister to her Terpsicory- 
 pheeing sisters! as for Handel, Pooh! he prefers sandals; as 
 for Mendelssohn, Mozart, etc., Bah ! does he want to sup 
 full of horrortorios ? not he ! He 's a balletolater, simply a 
 balletolater ! He'd have every dance, as performed by the 
 young persons who dress en coryfee, encore if he — could ! he 
 applauds — till he splits his gloves, and his neighbours' ears ; 
 what does he care ? he would do anything to coryphee-vom 
 with the coryphees ! 
 
 Each of the young women — many of them weighing, 
 
1 50 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 we should say, certainly thirteen or fourteen stones — be- 
 comes, in his idea, light as gossummer air : each fat female 
 might in his hallucinationated thought have been born on 
 Quinquagossamer Sunday: he ignores the celebrated theory 
 of the three graces, the graceful, the ^//graceful, and the dis- 
 graceful, and believes only in the graceful, and each lady, 
 when she puts on her muslins, leaves her individuality, and 
 steps forth before his ravished eyes la fine fleur de la haute 
 cocoa-tree : Polly and Sookey — wives possibly of the stage 
 carpenters or scene - shifters, and mothers perhaps of a 
 good, big, dirty (or possibly otherwise) family — remain be- 
 hind with their ordinary apparel in the dressing-room ■ — 
 where, by-the-bye, they occasionally slap each other — and 
 it might be the Lady Mary and the Lady Susan for all 
 De Jones thinks to the contrary, who come to prance and 
 plunge about before him. 
 
 Alas! alas! alas! (we can't put too many alasses, highhose, 
 etc., for De J). Alas ! poooar old Idiot ! poor old Driveller ! 
 Had the late lamented Mrs. De Jones (whose portrait — only 
 kit-cat, as our space is limited — we promise to give you 
 next spoonful) had she been still spared to us, had she not 
 been cut off, how different all this would have been. 
 
 Reader, Mrs. de Jones would have taught him not to make 
 — an old newdle of himself. She would have taught him — 
 mirabilissime dictu — to go through the world — without feet. 
 She would have taught him that what we pity in youth, we 
 despise when a man gets old enough to know better, that 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 15' 
 
 grey hairs merit respect only when they are respectable, but 
 that nothing can be more dis-respectable than the wighead 
 senile sinner ; and that there is certainly no man in the 
 world so thoroughly deserving of chaff, as he who is . . . 
 bad-in-age. 
 
 And, Reader, she would most certainly — and with justice 
 — have served him, her grey man, as the early Italians served 
 their grey-men, their miserable down-trodden gramen, she 
 would have pulled him up in his Greeness ! 
 
152 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XXXV. 
 
 ROMISES, we know 
 very well, are usually 
 like pie-crust, only 
 " made to be broken " 
 — but we keep ours. 
 We promised you, a page or two back, the kit-cat portrait 
 of poor Mrs. De Jones, who, you may remember we told 
 you, had been — cut off. Well, here she is: look at her! 
 She must have been a very fine woman. Our pictorial initial 
 perhaps is not quite in the pet-of-the-ballet style of the last 
 spoonful ; but we consider that, taken as a whole — as a repre- 
 sentation of what the French call tooty la bootick — it makes 
 a very beautiful drawing nevertheless, 
 
 Mrs. Sophonisba de Robings was — at 19 — only nineteen 
 inches round the waist, but very silly; Miss Gwendoline de 
 Robings is 19, and only nineteen inches round the waist, 
 and very silly ; Mrs. Sophonisba de Robings is now nine- 
 
Green Goslings. 153 
 
 teen inches, at the very least, round the — ah — top of her 
 Balmorals, and just a trifle cleverer. Well, well, who knows ? 
 perhaps one of these days Miss Gwendoline de Robings 
 may lose Jier silliness, and have as fine an understanding as 
 her mother. If you, who are about to espouse her, wish it, 
 so do we — ardently. 
 
 Joneskins and Atkings are two jealous men. Joneskins 
 is married ; Atkings isn't. The difference between the two 
 is this : Atkings sings his wine songs, love songs, and other 
 chansongs in peace to his friends ; whilst Joneskins is obliged 
 to keep his ridiculous soup-songs to himself! 
 
 From this most highly interesting narrative we may draw 
 the conclusion that some men are born bachelors, and have 
 no business to marry and go in for the sweets of Hymen ; 
 for as honey to the man with defective teeth produces tooth- 
 ache, so does marriage to the man who isn't fitted for it 
 produce heartburn. 
 
 Mule extraordinary ! Now on private view ! ! Admission 
 on presentation of address card. Smithkinson, after one of 
 the most extraordinary musical performances on record — ' 
 harping on one young lady for three weeks — has now done 
 another. He spent two hours under Miss Blanke Dash's 
 window the other wet night, playing his concertina ; accor- 
 dionly, he thereby proved himself a great ass, and now he's 
 a little hoarse ! Poor fellow ! hitherto he had confined him- 
 self to sowing only wild oats, but he has positively finished 
 now. — He has sewn himself .... up ! 
 
1 54 Sag e Stuffing for 
 
 Here 's a new name for crinoline : The dress circle ! 
 
 Here's a new name for the Ballet: The un-drcss circle ! ! 
 
 Here 's a new name for the stalls : The eye-land of ankle- 
 see .! 1 ! 
 
 Not quite all the world 's a stage, though all the men and 
 women may be players. Had Shakespeare lived now-a- 
 days, he would, we feel sure, have agreed with us in pro- 
 nouncing Society only only Private Theatricals S 
 
 Avoid v/eeping and gnashing of teeth at all times, but 
 more especially if you paint, and your teeth are — are — very 
 perfect (and expensive) ! 
 
 P.S. — Why don't people who wear false teeth, have them 
 sometimes made a little less regular — upon the principle of 
 the sensible grey wigs we often see and admire ? 
 
 A word to the liar's friend : Don't believe him, but leave 
 him be ! 
 
 Owe a man a grudge if you choose : owe it as long as 
 you please, but ; . . . . grudge paying it. 
 
 A truckling- cad, who uses so much courtesy that it 
 'enables you the cur to see, is simply like the lamp over a 
 billiard-table ; he is used to be over pool-light. 
 
 The hypocrite's mind is for all the world just like behind 
 the scenes at the play : it looks so nice and fresh and pretty 
 and simple and smooth to the spectators ; w T hilst behind, it 
 is only preparations for acting. 
 
 P.S. — When will talking and shouting at the opera and 
 theatre be put a stop to ? Why are people allowed to go 
 there only to see the music and hear — each other? 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 155 
 
 Wait a minute : here 's a P.P.S. We remark that "opera- 
 tic fathers " are invariably bass voiced — deeply, profoundly 
 base. How is this? as whilst lovers — that is, before marriage 
 — they are equally invariably tenors ! We can understand 
 disappointed suitors being baritones — that's natural enough ; 
 but not why the O.F. should become base. Can any one 
 explain it ? Does marriage spoil their notes and take away 
 their tenners, that they become thus gruff? — does an occa- 
 sional raz/-set-to so scare them, that they lose their false- 
 set-to, or what is it ? W T e cant make it out ; it 's verv odd 
 indeed. 
 
 P& 
 
156 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XXXVI. 
 
 i i 
 
 
 -^ 
 
 THERE'S a good deal of cackling going on amongst a 
 certain class of goose about " Doing away with the 
 House of Lords ! " Bah ! Radicalous nonsense ! Who 's to 
 
Green Goslings. 157 
 
 do it ? May all who try Peerage in the attempt ! for 
 
 " Finis coro7iat opus " is not .... a coronet the 
 
 finest work of man ! 
 
 How many of us would rather get a barren poohpoohy 
 lardydardy nod from a lord, than the heartfelt laud of a 
 real well-wisher ? 
 
 The flattering sickeningophantic enemies of a rich man 
 who snubs a real, though perhaps plain-spoken friend, must 
 feel like the mice when they see so many kittens drowned 
 dooced glad of it. 
 
 Are you a real live lord, or only one of nature's noble- 
 men ? If the former — if you are really a peer — don't go to 
 Brighton, because there ladies are always looking forward 
 with the greatest pleasure to .... a band on the 
 pier, and you don't want to be abandoned — at least, we 
 trust you don't. 
 
 His Serene Highness the Grand Duke of Brighton Old 
 Stein, or any other heavy swell, is not only a magnate — he 
 is a magnet as well .... he attracts the observation 
 of the vulgar. 
 
 If " looking down " on people prevented our looking 
 people up, how many an agreeable house would be closed 
 against us ! 
 
 People give you the cold shoulder because we can only 
 presume they want to — pick a bone with you ! 
 
 There is hardly ever such a thing in the world as a real 
 accident ! An accident is generally only another name for 
 
1 58 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 carelessness. We don't recommend the stoopid Paygunism 
 of giving 100 guineas for a breechloader, any more than we 
 recommend the vile Vandalism of shooting as many tame 
 pheasants as you can in one day with it ; but it isrit an 
 accident if you give £$ for a Brussels gun, and it bursts in 
 your hand. Again, you knew there was a stair-rod loose, 
 yet down you come two steps at a time, and get a cropper. 
 Do you call that an accident ? No, serves you right. 
 Never mind : Howlaway's ointment : two table spoonfuls 
 in a wine-glass of water at bed-time ; and, if you wake in 
 the night, repeat the dose ! 
 
 If you would do a thing well .... do what you 
 like. 
 
 " The commonest of canters : " Al fresco clericals ! 
 
 You may buy a horse for a big figure which isn't worth a 
 poney ! Don't. 
 
 The smell of a stable is not very agreeable, and yet a 
 sniff of the " white horses " is very healthy. Have some : 
 take a few. 
 
 P.S.— N. tremendously B. It is a mistake to call the 
 waves " white horses." They 're all mers ! 
 
 The pressure of the wind on the 33rd ult. was 29 lb. 18 oz. 
 to the square inch (see morning papers), but poor fat old 
 Smith alone knows what its pressure was on him ! P.S. — 
 He 's been suffering agony, lumbago-ny, ever since ; but 
 then, don't you know, he 's no very great shakes at the best 
 of times — or rather he is. 
 
Green Goslings. 159 
 
 The cordiality (!) with which some flabby-handed people 
 grasp your hand is also .... no very great shakes. 
 
 Apropos of shaking hands, fancy what's-his-name, Briareus, 
 and the other hundred-handed feller shaking hands : what 
 fun they must have been ! 
 
 Tact is a modern Gyges also with a hundred hands, two 
 of the most serviceable of which you will invariably find to 
 be — humility and deference. 
 
 P.S. — Our servant, we feel convinced, reads our Lem- 
 priere, because this morning, when we told him to look 
 sharp about something, we heard him mutteringly mum- 
 bling to himself, "'E hexpex heverybody to be a Hargus 
 with a 'undred 'ands to do heverything in a jiffey ! " 
 
 P.P.S. — Hate people who mutteringly mumble to them- 
 selves. If they've got anything to say which they want 
 you to hear, let 'em say it out ; if not, hold their tungs. 
 
 P.P.P.S.— They won't. 
 
 Theatrical Burlesque Managerial motto: " Liber tas in 
 legibus." 
 
 P.S. — It wouldn't be bad dog Latin for a big opera hat — 
 would it? — libertas in legibus. 
 
 We hear people complain of German bands, brass bands, 
 boy bands, etc. ; but of all bands, what band can be so 
 thoroughly discordant a band, or so perfectly harmonious a 
 band, as a husband! 
 
 When making two great ewes of our eyes — far too great 
 use of them — and trying too much to do our best to look 
 
i6o 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 killing with the gl 'amour of love, we are sometimes only 
 
 too apt to look sheepish ! 
 
 And yet, O Readah,— you yourself must have experienced 
 it — how often — oh, how often — do not the eyes save the 
 tongue the trouble of speaking ! 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 161 
 
 Spoonful XXXVII. 
 
 HEN girl cuts girl, then comes the 
 tug of war ! 
 
 But we should like to know 
 this : how is it that Miss Lightly 
 Vittefille can, with impunity, can 
 — and still know Duchesses — do 
 fifty things in the flirting flounc- 
 ing, flaunting, philandering way, 
 any one of which, if done by 
 Miss Proper Person, would bring upon her devoted chig- 
 non the shrieks, shrugs, winks, whispers, obloquy, back- 
 bitings, slanders, upturned noses, yells and execrations of 
 all Society ! 
 
 il 
 
1 6 2 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Virtue is very often but another name for necessity. 
 You, for instance, who pass nearly all your time in writing, 
 drawing", painting, pianoing, etc., and get such kudos for 
 doing it, you like larx as well as anybody, eh ? if you only 
 had time ; but you must be virtuous or — you go without 
 your dinner. 
 
 Some one — French feller — says, "Nobody ever believes 
 Virtue to be Virtue unless she appears as a bore." " Ennuy- 
 cuse" Sir Frenchman, is your word, but we 're not on wi' 
 you, sir, because — fortunately — it isn't true: 'twould indeed 
 be hard lines if there were nothing for us between the demi 
 and the dummy — monde. 
 
 To the pure all things are pure. Well, we don't know ; 
 it depends a good deal on the sort of pner ! but there is 
 one thing we are quite sure of, which is . . . . that to 
 the im-pure nothing is ever impure enough. 
 
 Yes, bread is the staff of life, but how different are the 
 sorts of bread we have to put up with. Some of us get but 
 broken crusts, whilst others have .... rent rolls. 
 
 A toast : May we never have to drink our own healths 
 . . . . in physic ! 
 
 Another toast : May the lover who 's a spoon never find 
 he 's not got sugar enough, may the grouts never come to 
 the surface, and may he never find .... a stranger 
 in his cup. 
 
 Love is to man what the sun is to the sun-dial ; he is 
 simply nothing without it. 
 
Green Goslings. 163 
 
 " They manage these things much better in France ! " 
 We talk of " Love," simply love ; they say £ amour ; there 
 you rarely find £ amour without his needful £, the article 
 he revels in. 
 
 Here's a new name for ladies' cigarettes : Duck-weeds. 
 
 It is very sad, but how many a little duck is a great 
 
 goose. 
 
 If you ad-mire and follow an ignis fatuus over marshy 
 places and get " let in," morass you ! 
 
 No man is so likely to be done as he who, considering 
 himself " all there," is but only " half sharp." The razor 
 which won't shave us may be sharper than one's pocket- 
 knife, yet it 's no use at all. However, any one who is done 
 twice with the same trick deserves his fate. 
 
 People should be careful how they pay compliments. 
 Atkins, for instance, says, " Tomkins has more in his head 
 than meets the eye W Tomkins was awfully savage, and 
 denied it. 
 
 " Soaring above our nature does no good ; we must return 
 to our own .... flesh and blood !" Quite so, or it's 
 the two-stool business to a certainty: the — ah — the— ahem 
 — the what-you-may-call-it — the parasite, who leaves the 
 unwashed mendicant in the hopes of pasturing on the clean 
 man, simply gets caught and annihilated for his pains. 
 
 Talking of parasites naturally brings us to the needle of 
 the compass, for it is true to the pole ; so, as he deserves 
 encouragement, any sort of truth now-a-days being quite a 
 
 n— 2 
 
164 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 treat, here 's a lot of polls for him to be true to, and have 
 his choice of : — harem scarum idea, isn't it ? Poor old 
 needle, S. E.W.N, up whichever way he turns, he'll have a 
 young lady ready to meet him, and join him in the matri- 
 monial N.E.W.S. 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 165 
 
 Spoonful XXXVIII. 
 
 c 
 
 ONSCIENCE," we are told, "makes cowards of us 
 all." No doubt, but every one who has little or 
 much Shakesperience, must agree with us when we state it 
 
1 66 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 as our belief that there 's many a man a cur who never had 
 a conscience. Look at the anonymous letter-writer for 
 instance: what do you think of him? Do you think he 
 ever had a conscience, and isn't he a cur ? We ask you 
 now, isn't he ? 
 
 " Showing the white feather " is detestable enough at all 
 times, but the miserables who dip it in their ink, and use it 
 as we describe — and they are equally Gillotty when using 
 a steel pen — to stab others behind their backs, are they not 
 the veriest dastards modern civilization can boast of ? 
 
 The thief who prigs your watch, or your cigar-case, br 
 your handkerchief (it 's the watch they handkerchiefly after), 
 though a blackguard, takes his chance like a man of being 
 caught, and either well thrashed or hauled up for it ; but 
 the snake in the grass, the pitiful sneaking hound who 
 steals your friend's love, your wife's comfort, your em- 
 ployer's confidence, and who only dares do it because he 
 
 runs no danger — what is he ? The cur only 
 
 ventures to try to perhaps ruin you with a stroke of his 
 white feather, because he" can do it with impunity, without 
 even the slightest risk of discovery i — because he is safe. 
 
 Really, Printer, what is the use of your having notes of 
 admiration and all sorts of other printing gimcrackeries, 
 and yet having nothing, positively nothing, to express dis- 
 gust ? It 's ridiculous ; make something ; make it big, and 
 put it in here ; make something that there can be no mis- 
 take about — something that will signify detestation, loath- 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 167 
 
 ing, and contempt, and while you are about it, put in tzvo 
 of them. Stop a minute, Printer ; we Ve caught sight of 
 our own face in a mirror, thinking of this anonymous pen- 
 viper, and an exact delineation of its expression saves you 
 the trouble of making what we asked, and finishes this 
 spoonful without our having to insult any other member of 
 the community by even speaking of him on the same page 
 as — the anonymous letter-writer. 
 
1 68 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XXXIX. 
 
 D 
 
 ID you ever read or hear the story of how a party of 
 the name of Actaeon caught the dipping dripping 
 
Green Goslings. 169 
 
 Diana in her al fresco bath, of the terrific fate which befell 
 him in consequence of his peeping-Tomness, of how fear- 
 fully he must have regretted going to see wimmin swimmin', 
 and have hated every damp place even ever afterwards ? 
 Did you ever hear this fable ? — because we see a good deal 
 of feminine al fresco tubbing and Actaeonising going on 
 every morning at the sea-side, and you ought to remember 
 the first instance on record of a man's .... going to 
 the dogs through doing it — except, by-the-bye, we had 
 almost forgotten it — there is a difference : then it took a 
 goddess to change what 's-his-name into a stag, for catching 
 her in some stagnant or running water ; but, now-a-days, 
 there is not the very slightest occasion for her or any other 
 supernatural female swell to arrive ex machind to turn a 
 man, who systematically makes it his morning's pastime to 
 obsurf her bathing in the billows, into a beast, for . . . 
 he so indubitably is perfectly capable — as he proves — of 
 making one of himself. 
 
 Reader — it is very odd, but some men's entire time 
 appears to be passed betwixt — " Delicacies " and in- 
 delicacies ! 
 
 Apropos of Actseon and stags, let us beg you to kindly 
 remember that your i-ervi are simply servants, and can only 
 go a quarter of an hour's walk in fifteen minutes ; they are 
 not ^rervi — though we grant you they are dear — to do the 
 distance in five. 
 
 When we are at the sea-side, or on board somebody's 
 
170 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 ship, we are constantly hearing sailors talk of " a nice 
 dancing breeze." At Ryde or Brighton, we presume this 
 is the breeze that makes the sea to be — a pier-a-wetting. 
 
 P.S. — Odd, ain't it ? but at this season of the year at 
 Brighton, Ramsgate and Margate, &c, the wind is pretty 
 generally Jew-ess't ! 
 
 Distance lends enchantment to the view ! — lends, you will 
 observe, the enchantment which proximity takes away 
 again, for as the pearl grey blue of the distant hills is gone 
 when we get there, so, but too frequently, vanishes the snow- 
 whiteness of that cotton stocking we admired so much 
 . . . . from the other side of Regent Street. 
 
 We know a lady with golden hair — so, perhaps, do you. 
 We know a lady — bless her ! — with silver hair ; and so, per- 
 haps (if you are lucky), do you ; but yesterday, mirabile 
 dictu, we had the pleasure of being introduced to a lady 
 with real Platina hair ! ! — most wonderful thing you ever 
 saw in your life : real, you know, not bought — growing, 
 positively growing. It must be very rare. 
 
 Idleness was the mother of Boredom : the active-minded 
 man is like a bright fresh clear running stream, not neces- 
 sarily a " babbling " one ; the idle, mildewy-brained party, 
 au contraire, is like a stagnant old pond, of no use, no 
 earthly use but for feeding ducks .... (at Greenwich 
 or Richmond), and the ducks are quite right to try and 
 clean him out. 
 
 Remember this — the most accidental introduction may 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 171 
 
 rule the destiny of a life, and that it isn't what melodrama - 
 tists call " villains of the deepest dye " you need mind so 
 much — every gosling can see through them : it's villainesses 
 of the lightest dye who do the mischief! 
 
 No, we never liked crinoline : nevertheless, we do think 
 it might — on occasions — be an improvement. At any rate, 
 it would render the female form a trifle less like a statue 
 wet than it invariably is now on leaving the ocean, and we 
 feel convinced would be most comfortable for natatory pur- 
 poses, to say nothing of to a certainty doing away with 
 Actaeonising. 
 
 _ — — - — - w^ 
 
172 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XL. 
 
 UR drawing represents 
 what zoologists would 
 call "a group of bears 
 at play;" they gambol 
 in and out of the mouth 
 of the cave, their home,. 
 happy as the day is long, 
 with no thought for the 
 morrow, no prescience 
 that they will one day 
 be put in pots with their 
 portraits on the top, pre- 
 paratory to their being 
 eventually rubbed on 
 and into the heads of 
 bald humanity. Yes, it 
 is very unfortunate, most 
 unfortunate, but now, at this particular moment, they are 
 
Green Goslings. 173 
 
 gambolling z/zside the mouth of the cave, and therefore 
 perhaps, as the cave is rather dark, you cannot distinctly 
 see them ; but we assure you they are there nevertheless. 
 You don't believe it ; you think it 's all fudge ; all gammon 
 and spinach ? Ah, dear gosling, that 's just your error : 
 you will judge by appearances, and insist upon thinking 
 because you don't see a thing that there 's nothing to see ; 
 you imagine because you don't understand it, it's not worth 
 understanding ; you suppose because all a man knows is 
 not swaggered out, he knows nothing ; because everything 
 people have is not on the surface, that there is nothing to 
 put there ; because a fifty-gun frigate on the horizon looks 
 only a white speck, you ignore the millions of ropes, sails, 
 men, guns, flags, bilge-water, marlingspikes, lee scuppers, 
 and goodness only knows what, all which are there if you 
 could see them. Oh, you booby ! Oh, the mistake you 
 make : and even more so if you think because all ap- 
 pears in the whitened szpulcJier line, fair outwardly, that 
 it must be so in reality ! When you bit that apricot yester- 
 day, did you bargain for the wopsy inside ? And that new- 
 laid-looking egg at breakfast this morning, eh ? what a lot 
 of chickenerie may be covered by a white and smooth 
 exterior ! So 't is with us all : we won't believe in the quiet 
 unassuming man, but insist upon making a confidant of the 
 assuming one ; we pooh pooh the sheep, and make a friend 
 of the wolf in the sheep's get-up ; ignore that which is, and 
 rush headlong to grief through believing in that which is 
 
1 74 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 not. Sweet youth, remember this, " The knave " is never 
 so dangerous as .... when he's " a trump !" 
 The Sharper's Paradise: A well-furnished "flat!" 
 Who 's Griffiths ? We hope you know, because we don't ; 
 haven't the most remote idea ; but people tell us he 's a 
 " safe man : " however, whether he is or is not, here is one : 
 
 m 
 
 Let us call him the guardian of our goods ; we 
 
 mean it for a policeman on the key vive, but you may call 
 it a padlock if you prefer it, it won't alter his name, it won't 
 prevent his being still useful to your safety 
 
 P.S. — His portrait, especially his legs, was two keysily, 
 was took very easelly, very easily indeed, notwithstanding 
 his feet were going for wards all the time we were doing 
 them. 
 
 P. P.S. — A French friend who sees this Peeler, says that 
 
Green Goslings. 175 
 
 his legs at any rate, whatever his body may be, are mortal 
 clay. 
 
 P.P.P.S. — By-the-bye, he spells clay clefs; but never 
 mind. 
 
 Apropos of taking portraits, &c, if any one of your 
 sketching artist friends should kindly offer to " knock you 
 off something in a minute," see that it is neither a ladder 
 nor a horse. 
 
 The male heart has been likened to a bad luck .... 
 pshaw, padlock, which opens only with a particular word : 
 we are told to find that word and enter at our pleasure ; 
 quite so : we 've found it : the word is — dinner. No ? you 
 mean to say it isn't ? Well, then, it 's money I Bet you 
 it 's money : get some one to leave you a couple of hun- 
 dred thou., and see whose heart will remain closed to you : 
 not many ; certainly not ours. 
 
 Fashionable brown has become for women's gowns, espe- 
 cially the tint we call in a cow "dun :" funny we should 
 have mentioned a cow in alluding to Buff a la mode. 
 
 New name for a lady's bathing-costume : A sea-weed ! 
 Why not ? It 's a sea-gar-meant ! 
 
 Rufflestone, who hates "the water," went out in a boat 
 yesterday, to " oblige a lady S " On returning, he was much 
 praised for his sea-row-ic conduct ! 
 
 All's fair in love and war! P.S. — That is, if you are 
 much bigger and stronger, than the other feller. 
 
 Sad reflection on passing a young ladies' school : As in 
 
1 76 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 joiner's work a board becomes a door, so in life does a 
 boarder become ador'd, and so again sometimes, alas, when 
 she ceases to be ador'd does she once again become bored. 
 
 Proper-minded mammas, who bring up their daughters 
 in the way they should go, and steadily keep before them 
 the idea of the value of an " establishment " and a dolce far 
 niente life, will, we feel quite convinced, thank us sincerely 
 for the valuable hint given below ; and toy-shop keepers, 
 we are rather inclined to imagine, will also find it very re- 
 munerative indeed ! 
 
 Here 's a hint for the " establishment " and the DolXce (;) 
 funny aint he ? 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 177 
 
 Spoonful XLI. 
 
 OME ! — grand old 
 Rome! the 
 Eternal City — 
 and Greece, glo- 
 rious Greece — 
 the birthplace 
 of Phidias and 
 Practiseitalittleless, or Praxiteles, or whatever his name 
 was, have from time immemorial been the cradles, the 
 schools of all that is superb in art, of all that is graceful in 
 form. Is it not so ? and who dares say they are not so 
 
 12 
 
1 78 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 still? for, lookee here — "the Roman fall;" " Romanus 
 some ! " The Roman foll-y ! and the Greekly bent one — 
 are they bewchus ? They are indeed. 
 
 Miss Thomson likes dark moustaches, and yet Miss 
 Thomson don't quite detest fair ones ; and for that reason 
 she is glad she didn't live in " Old Rome," because then — ■ 
 upon the principle that "all flesh is grass" — all gentlemen 
 must have been "grey-men / " 
 
 A false quantity is a thing very much to be avoided ! 
 We are not speaking chignonsensically : we don't mean it 
 for a plat-e'tude about hair ; but seriously, we mean that the 
 man who says " Boerdishyer," or Omphale, or theaytur, or 
 Mansolus, or Cree-morne, or Pegasus, or floreat Etona, and 
 so on, is simply very wrong, and annoys our ear, but of all 
 false quantities a false quantity of — of — onions is the very 
 worst, as it not only annoys our ears, but our noses as well 
 — one dare not, on nose pas, as the French put it, say how 
 much. It is a very painful thing talking to anybody — or 
 sitting even within three stalls of him or her at the play — 
 who has been drinking bad sherry, or who — who — keeps up 
 his spirits ; but if possible the false quantity of onions is 
 worse, as it — it — gives rise to great on-I-ons, very great 
 annoyance indeed, to non-lovers of that ought -to -.be -for- 
 bidden f-root. 
 
 You pronounce the word " Gaelic," " gay-lick," eh ? Well, 
 you are wrong : you ought to pronounce it " garlic," for are 
 not the Scotch themselves — Call-ed-0-nions ! 
 
Green Goslings. 179 
 
 Why do people who are not Scotch, who have never been 
 in Scotland, who have no Scotch connections, and in fact 
 nothing whatever to do with Scotland, why do they insist 
 upon perpetually ''being so kind" as to "favour us" with 
 songs all about " ganging awar Jammy," and others of the 
 same sort ? We don't know any greater bore out than that 
 confounded "Jammy" — Jammy forsooth ! Jammy 's a beast-! 
 
 Pound-foolish-penny-wisdom : Giving six or seven, or even 
 fifteen or £20 for a gorgeous letter-weighing machine for 
 your writing-table, to save you an occasional penny. 
 
 After-thought, and no fore-thought, 
 Many a man to grief has brought : 
 
 Yes, and if some women — and men — only knew how 
 utterly hideous they look when in a good passion, they 
 would certainly think twice, and count twenty, like Tatty- 
 coram, before — indulging themselves. 
 
 Ladies, wear French boots if you like ; certingly, by all 
 means, if you prefer it, let your boots be cuire t but don't — 
 please don't — let your tempers be — queer too ! 
 
 Do you know what you should be chary of letting your 
 wife have too much of over you ? eh ? — you don't ? Well, 
 then, ass send an' see ! 
 
 Of course we are open to correction, but we think we 
 have sometimes found that a moral man is not necessarily 
 a pious man, and that a pious man is not, invariably, a moral 
 man. 
 
 12 — 2 
 
( 1 80 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 There ought to be as much rejoicing over one real penny- 
 tent, as there is ever is tinder a £50 marquee ; but there 
 
 isn't. Now-a-days we rejoice and kill the fatted calf to 
 feed the ninety and nine sinners : the Prodigal Son must 
 look out for himself. P.S.- — Alas poor P. S. ! 
 
 Indecision is the bane of many characters, and we never 
 see it more painfully exhibited than when a man can't make 
 up his mind which side of the pavement to pass you upon. 
 If ever two men (it 's not so disagreeable when a pretty girl 
 does it), if ever two men look like two fools, it is at this 
 most inauspicious moment. Your only chance is to walk 
 straight at him. 
 
 Capital place for seeing yourselves — plate glass windows 
 — eh, Narcissuses ? You look so contentedly at 'em : don't 
 mind acknowledging it ; bless you ! it does not follow that 
 though you freely confess your faults, you should quit them 
 — oh, deax no, not a bit : don't be frightened. 
 
 SYNONYMS. 
 
 Unpleasant ..... Rather a baw. 
 More unpleasant . . . Doocid awkward. 
 Most unpleasant^, . . Dayvlish disagreahble. 
 
 P.S.— Though gentlemen talk like this, it don't follow 
 that doing it makes a gentleman. At any rate, don't you 
 do it, as they 're usually but empty-headed noodles who do. 
 
 Big baccies you goslings have taken to regale yerselves 
 with lately. Let 's see — are they £20 a hundred, or only 1 5 ? 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 181 
 
 Why not have 'em bigger and stronger and dearer still, eh ? 
 Would if we were you — why riot ? — of course ! Make your 
 retainers useful. Have not only cab boys but cabana boys, 
 two pueri to every puro. They won't object, not a bit — at 
 least, as we never yet came across a feller's fellow who wasn't 
 delighted to help his master smoke his biggest cigars, dare 
 say you '11 find it the same : hope so, at any rate, for your 
 sake. 
 
1 82 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XLII. 
 
 upposikg 
 
 you take it into your head to vaise 
 four times running with that charm- 
 ing girl Miss de Twister Twister — 
 who, by-the-bye, is good at valsing — 
 and people begin to look ahemified 
 at you, and to ask you, " I say, when 's 
 
Green Goslings. 183 
 
 it coming off?" or to say, " 'gratcharlay char, ole f'lar, 
 when 's the happy day to be ? " and so on, you know what to 
 answer, don't you ? You mean to tell us you dorit f Why, 
 simply reply .... one good turn deserves another ! 
 
 Church bells : Parson's daughters if pretty. 
 
 P.S. — But remember this, if you marry a positive belle : 
 she '11 either make you comparative or superlative to a cer- 
 tainty ; we mean your belle will either make you .... 
 beller or bellest — beller with woe, or blest with joy. 
 
 P.P.S. — However, we ought to remember that belles are 
 only meant for ringing, and ought not, therefore, to be dis- 
 appointed if they turn out a trifle — hollow ! 
 
 The depth of a man's hatband, and of the black edge 
 round his note-paper, is not a criterion of the depth of his 
 grief. 
 
 Pense'e fugitive : How lucky "the mark of the beast " is 
 not visible! 
 
 New and respectable name for Burlington Arcadians : 
 B. A.'s ! 
 
 People are always saying, " Look sharp ! " They 're 
 idiots. Dont look sharp : be sharp without looking it. 
 
 A green youth, whose only ability, perhaps, is incap- 
 ability, who is very "well-to-do," is alas, but too often 
 considered by his friends only — good to be done. However, 
 it is cruel to be kind to him — much kinder to be cruel if 
 it makes him smart. 
 
 The military and the marine lobster should both be — 
 
1 84 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 bowled ; for in either case he is most esteemed and admired 
 when he 's-a-lad — bond fide, or only in a shell jacket ! 
 
 When you go out and are not "made at home," make 
 yourself at home ; go home. 
 
 How very sad it is, but instead of getting es-steam, we 
 frequently only get into . . . . " the hot water ! 
 
 A roaring trade : The costermonger's. 
 
 The bore's art of punctuation is invariably learnt in 
 other people's houses : he won't learn to stop . . . . at 
 home. 
 
 The original bore : The serpent, the snake in the grass, 
 the unguis in herbd who first brought Eve anguish, in 
 her-bd-hies ! 
 
 If you are about to be kicked out of any place, leave the 
 room before they begin ! This sounds as if we were chaffing 
 you — doesn't it ? but we are not— not at all ; we are quite 
 as serious as we usually are. We mean this : supposing 
 either your inamorata, or your friend, or your tailor is getting 
 sick of you — get sick of them first ; and then, don't you see, 
 you are not humiliated, but . . . ■ . they ure / This is 
 Christian, we think, quite en regie, eh ? 
 
 Self-denial is said to be a virtue. We deny it — we deny 
 it emphatically : for instance, saying "'not at home," when 
 you 're at lunch, is a crammer ! 
 
 Jones hates Robinson, and always takes every oppor- 
 tunity of running him down, but the other day, at Christie's 
 sale of the Duke of Ditchwater's gimcracks, &c, we sup- 
 
Green Goslings. 185 
 
 pose he must have relented, as he took every opportunity 
 of .... ah ... . running him up ! 
 
 The early bird (? swallow) picks up the worm ; it 's the 
 late bird who gets picked up himself. 
 
 Are you a racing man ? Well, then, if you would avoid 
 becoming quite horse de combat — if you would not leave 
 yourself only a miserable life-long nightmare — and if you 
 would not take all the gelding off your gingerbread, — don't, 
 when you have found a mare's nest, don't .... lay 
 ponies on it ! ! ! 
 
 Motto for the tops of the bears-grease pots : Bear and 
 for bare ! 
 
 We have a sort of a vague impression of having been 
 told, or of having read or dreamt, that some adventurous 
 M.P. — little Smirk perhaps — was going to bring in a bill to 
 make it fellowny for any widow to get married in any town 
 or village, the population of which was under 500,000, until 
 all the presentable girls over twenty-five were provided for 
 therein ! We don't believe that bill will ever become law ; 
 for of all females, the Fast Young Widow is perhaps the 
 indiwidowal men admire with most awidowty; therefore we 
 take this opportunity of observing that for their sakes as 
 well as hers, we are glad Didoism, Sutteeism, &c., are not 
 de rigeur in England : we are glad the F. Y. W. has not to 
 immolate herself on any funeral pyres, to turn herself into 
 an Indian, that is, a fire-indian, (you Hindostan what we 
 mean), and thereby — put herself out. But whilst thus as- 
 
1 86 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 suring her of our gladness that such a burning shame is not 
 our law, we do nevertheless rather wish she wouldn't look 
 quite so ready to light a Hymen's torcher for somebody 
 else! 
 
 Does the cap by any chance fit you> ma'am, very becom- 
 ingly ? Well, then, you have our free permission to . „ 
 . . wear it. 
 
 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 i8 7 
 
 Spoonful XLIII. 
 
 AITHFUL to her 
 
 charge is pretty 
 Miss Amy Cherry's 
 chaperoneous 
 maiden aunt — that 
 is, as faithful as she 
 is permitted to be, 
 two being com- 
 pany, three none — 
 and rather than that 
 her sweet niece 
 should be debarred her innocent amusements, she braves 
 the elements ; for you will observe that she is walking in 
 the wind — a high one. Heroic lady! her chignon, for- 
 tunately securely fastened on by strong elastic ligaments, 
 is blown as far from her head as the stretching powers of 
 
 <yj& 
 
1 88 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 the said ligaments permit ; and yet she minds it not : 
 when the wind lulls, as it will almost immediately, let us 
 sincerely hope her brains may not be dashed out by the 
 sudden return of her ornamental head-dress to its proper 
 position. Well, she walks here, and has to brave this dis- 
 comfort, this, we may say, dangerous discomfort, simply 
 because Miss A. C. likes flirting with young Fitzcoupons ; 
 and, what is more, she may go on walking there in the 
 wind : what do they care ? She be blown ! who thinks 
 of the sacrifices, bunions, boredoms, damp feet, late hours, 
 &c, &c, &c, of the chaperone, the poor, unamused, 
 uncared-for, and yet indispensable chaperone ? And so 
 'tis with all the little lads and lasses of tender rage: 
 boys of eighteen or so think only of themselves, and are 
 never so happy as when flirting with -the little lasses, and 
 what fine specimens of little asses they thereby make of 
 themselves, eh ? Ah ! spare the rod and spoil the child is 
 a whacks him .... pshaw ! maxim .... a 
 most anterosting maxim, one should very especially and 
 sternly apply to the youthful devotees of that idiot Cupid, 
 for they want it. They want it very much. Usher-by 
 Booby, on the tree — (a good big birch) — top, might be 
 quoted and acted on with advantage long after they leave 
 the nursery ; but if you find that sort of a rod is only as 
 
 good as a wink to your blind puppy, we should, for a 
 
 change, give him a good punch on the head, for there is no 
 earthly doubt, as our cookeress would put it, but that manv 
 
Green Goslings. 189 
 
 a fine bird has been spoiled simply for the want of a 
 
 basting. 
 
 De Vaudeville Tompkins is precisely the sort of person 
 usually described by novelists as " a man of imposing 
 presence!" Ha, ha! you have only got to talk to him for 
 about five minutes to quite easily understand why . . . 
 lie is an impostor. 
 
 A dear friend : A sponge ! 
 
 P.S. — You mustn't throw him up ; it 's actionable : but 
 you may throw him over. Do. 
 
 P.P.S. — Pity bores are so slow; wish they'd more "go." 
 
 The cabman's and umbrella-maker's motto : Make hay 
 whilst the sun don't shine ! but the undertaker is better off 
 than either of them, and makes his hay by the hundred 
 acres whether it shines or not. 
 
 Never bet for gold : never do it for anything but shil- 
 lings, introduce the "j" system, and then a bet is best ; but 
 keep on with the £ and you soon won't have a shilling to 
 accom-penny you. 
 
 What good-looking girls there are in some of the hair- 
 dressers' shops ! P.S. — We merely mention this fact be- 
 cause it so fully accounts for the masculine jeimesse dore of 
 the present era going about with its hair cut like a con- 
 vict's you see, they go very often to the hair- 
 
 cuttersV 
 
 Cogitating thus how frequently youthful folly requires 
 ''putting in the corner" leads us on to making one observa- 
 
190 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 tion on the science of minding your q's, whatever you do 
 with your p's, leads us in fact to — - — Billiards. 
 
 Yes, there can be no doubt about it, Billiards is a noble 
 game ! and the amount of attention some men pay to it 
 highly, most highly, praiseworthy, as irrespective of its 
 merits as an intellectual employment for our youth in the 
 very nicest sort of society, and its gentle exercise in very 
 pure air, rendering anti-billiards pills, &c, quite unnecessary, 
 and restcueing us from all chance of taking gold, does it not 
 give such excellent and natural opportunities for showing 
 off? We do not allude to the showing off of your billiard 
 skill, no, not even if you are a second Bowles, and play with 
 that professor's consummate ease and elegance, no, but 
 • • • • if y° u have satin backs to your waistcoats, and 
 your coats lined with silk, none of your beggarly alpaca 
 businesses with only silk sleeve-linings, but the whole thing, 
 how can you so unaffectedly display them as at billiards ? 
 The man with the diamond ring too, what a paradise must 
 be billiards to him ! What a bore the non-billiards player 
 must find it always having to scratch his nose with his dia- 
 mond ring finger to show its water (the ring's, not his nose's) 
 to people ; whereas at billiards nobody can, of course, for 
 one moment imagine it unnatural for him to poser on his 
 cue with the diamond shining well to the fore, the satin 
 waistcoat-back resplendent in the rear, and the silk-lined 
 garment negligently chucked on to a sofa with the silk out- 
 wards — N.B., with the silk outwards ! Silk socks trouble 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 191 
 
 some men a great deal to show them sufficiently, and seal- 
 skin waistcoats, too, admit of much admiration, and form a 
 superb background for the bringing well out of the festoon- 
 ment of gold chains with many lockets ; but the sport of 
 billiards is THE thing, and the man with the diamond ring 
 on his left-hand little finger, and a satin back to his waist- 
 coat, and his coat lined slap through with silk, he 's the man 
 for billiards. Oh ! how we admire the man with all these 
 expensive luxuries, who has the good sense and courage to 
 let you plainly see he means to show 'em, and .... 
 who does it. 
 
 Look at Pilkington Brouwne : well, he 's going to have a 
 game now. Oh ! don I you wish you were going too 
 
19: 
 
 Sage St tiffing for 
 
 Spoonful XLIV. 
 
 .OOK around you, and tell us if we have 
 any chance of getting rid of it : look around you and see if 
 we complain without cause : look around you, O Burlington 
 Arcadians ; " circumspice," O oiled and curled modern 
 Assyrians ; see for your scented selves, O deboshed-looking 
 
Green Goslings. 193 
 
 Pall Mall Pale Males, O Aldershooters, and then say if it is 
 not with us — and apparently as a fixture — in its worst form, 
 in its direst shape ..." the foot and mouth disease " 
 . . . . Pinched-up feet and painted lips ! 
 
 Pad yourselves out and pinch yourselves in by all means 
 if you like it, dear sirs ; pinch yourselves in and pad your- 
 selves out by all means if you think it improves you, dear 
 madams ; but don't, oh, please, please do not .... 
 puff yourselves up ! 
 
 No, all is not gold that glitters : for instance, bracelets 
 are occasionally brasslets ! 
 
 Here 's a new name for the Auricommon dyed hair : 
 The light fantastic tow ! 
 
 A man of many checks but not one cross : Rothschild ! ! 
 
 Exchange is no robbery ! isn't it ? ah ! the felonious feller 
 who said this never changed an English ten-pound note in 
 Jerusalem, or he would purrobberbly have altered his 
 opinion. 
 
 Mouths are uncommonly like teeth ; most of them can 
 be stopped .... with gold. 
 
 In this world " patronage " is everything : it is precisely 
 to man what the sun is to the burning-glass ; you 're no use 
 without it. 
 
 What "coign of vantage" equals £l ? 
 
 People may say " brevity is the soul of wit," and it may 
 be, but our creed is that beef-tea not brevity has something 
 to do with it : what lamp, much less that of wisdom, will 
 
 13 
 
194 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 burn without oil, and what wit is not sharpened by a clear 
 soup, a mite of fish, a cutlet and a bird ? Booh ! there 's no 
 doubt about it, Beef-tea is the soul of wit. 
 
 P. S.— Beef-tea, etc. ! 
 , Don't be too proud of your mental capacities — it 's not 
 "nous" that is cared for now-a-days ; it's an 'ouse where 
 you can give dinners ; your " noos " may be superb, but if 
 you 've no 'osses you 're nobody. 
 
 Kickton Wipptton suffers a good deal at dinner some- 
 times from — his wine going down " the wrong way." We 
 can only imagine that a good many of his disagreeable and 
 mean speeches wishing to come up that way disagree with 
 the generous fluid gowing down. It's no joke to him, how- 
 ever ; wish it was — a choke. Pah ! we hate him. 
 
 P.S. — Pah ! is not an affectionate term ; not at all : when 
 we say Pah ! to a man who is not our father, it 's rather a 
 sign we wish he was ! 
 
 P. S.— Much farther. 
 
 Yes, we have always been given to understand that the 
 world is round, and we. know that there are some people 
 who firmly believe it to be flat ; as for ourself, however, 
 though our theory may be original, having travelled a great 
 deal, we have come to the sad conclusion that it is ... . 
 sharp at both ends ! 
 
 Did you ever go up the Nile ? We did, and found out 
 this fact when we got back again, that " the painted goose/' 
 said to be peculiar to Egypt, Nubia, and thereabouts, is 
 
Green Goslings. 195 
 
 not peculiar to Egypt, Nubia, and thereabouts ; oh, de-ar, 
 no, you can see her feeding on the banks of the Thames at 
 Greenwich, and Richmond, any day 1 
 
 Api'opos of Egypt, travelling, and these lovely wor- 
 shipped birds, we may as well mention that a good rule to 
 apply to your position in a railway train is ... . in 
 medio tntissimns — ibis ! 
 
 Talking of ibises, reminds us of camels, and to assure 
 you that though we cannot vouch for it as a fact -that any 
 one straw ever did break any camel's back, that thirty-nine 
 dozens and a half of " straws " (6\, five buttons, you know, 
 7/9 a pair) very nearly broke a certain donkey's bank ; that 
 we can vouch for ; we know that to be a fact. 
 
 P.S. — By-the-bye ; camels; did you ever get up to the 
 top outside of one ? Awful bad riding, ain't they ? most 
 tremendous case of " Packs an' bellow " their being loaded, 
 isn't it ? 
 
 Our drawing below represents a gentleman — " living 
 within his means!" but as his "means" means absolutely 
 nothing, w r e have put him in an empty purse, in fact, gone 
 "hammuck-er !" We should not have mentioned it at all, 
 only there was an argument in one of the sporting papers 
 some time ago as to whether the Jack Snipe does or does 
 not sit on a rail, and we thought that our drawing of an- 
 other sort of long-billed feller might serve to throw some 
 light on the subject ! What we mean is this, that though 
 the Jack Snipe may not sit on a rail, the Jack-ass does get 
 
 13—2 
 
196 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 up a tree, and that — considering all things — we affirm to be 
 infinitely more wonderful. What do you think ? 
 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 Spoonful XLV. 
 
 197 
 
 EADERESS, sweet and 
 charming Readeress, the subject we are about not to touch 
 upon — the Fates forbid ! — but to write about, is one which 
 requires the greatest finesse and delxatesse in the handling 
 
198 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 but as you, belle dame, yourself will overdo it, our subject, 
 in such a horrid way, we trust we may be pardoned if, by 
 any accident in following your example, we, in our way, 
 should also lay it on too thick. 
 
 The — ah-article we approach thus timidly, with such awe 
 
 and trembling, is is Paint ! Rouge ! ! Bloom of 
 
 Whatshername ! ! ! (Pig-me^nt) Carmine ! Enamel ! " Bleu 
 pour Veines," and all the horrid collection of detestable 
 and unwholesome compounds sold under fifty different 
 
 names, for the purpose of making the female face 
 
 RED ! for the special purpose of proving .... a 
 miss is NOT as good as email f 
 
 When a woman who has once been beautiful, when she 
 who might have sat as a model for a painter's angels, when 
 she who has been as nearly divine perhaps as earthly nature 
 permits woman to be, sees herself, day by day, getting 
 more and more and ever more passee, we can understand 
 and pardon her weakness in trying to replace on their 
 stems once again the fallen petals of her beauty, in trying 
 to rebud the roses which the for-ever-past spring-times of 
 youth and summers of full bloomyness have withered and 
 decayed : when she finds her eyelashes beginning to fall 
 out and her cheeks beginning to fall in, her teeth getting 
 loose and her breath tight, her waist getting thick, her hair 
 thin, her face fade, her figure fat, her eyes and ankles heavy, 
 and the bloom which ought to be on her cheeks turning to 
 blue M'm which ought not to be on her lips — then we can 
 
Green Goslings. 199 
 
 understand her going in for " one touch of un-nature," for 
 . . . . the hare's foot versus the — crow's, for a little of 
 this, that, and t'other, to assist the wreck of her girlhood, 
 the remnant of her beauty, to look as well as it can be 
 made to, as much like what it was, as possible. Yes, as we 
 put five coats of varnish on an old shoe to vainly try and 
 hide its wrinkles, and as Dick Swiveller inked his old hat 
 to hide Time's white ravages, we can understand this ; but 
 we can not understand young girls — fresh fair dimpled 
 blooming young girls — doing the same : we can not under- 
 stand inking a new hat ! 
 
 We know, alas I that the sort of uprightness so much in 
 
 vogue just now — in this "year of grace," comes from 
 
 the dressmaker — that grace of figure is more important to 
 a great many people's swell-being than grace of heart, and 
 that being dis-graceful is not much — if at all — worse in 
 some opinions than being un-graceful. We know that if it 
 were but " the fashion," " the thing," " chic" and some heavy 
 female swell — some " comme-il-faut" party — painted her 
 face pea-green, sky-blue, lemon-yellow, or Chinese orange, 
 that each Mary Ann or Susan, each Louisa and Theresa, 
 each Charlotte we meet, would probably paint hers the 
 
 same gashly hue, to be — comme il faut and comme 
 
 elle fansse. But why ? Cui bono ? — what 's it all for ? It 
 must be to please themselves, for men are for once unani- 
 mous in sneering at, laughing at, chaffing at, in detesting, 
 and in setting— no joke meant — their faces against it, and 
 
200 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 would tell you, O self-paintresses, if they were honest, and 
 not intent on always humbugging you, that whenever they 
 see very much got-up faces, lips, eyes, hair, etc., etc., etc., 
 etc., etc., etc., they are thereby warned as plainly as if 
 " Mantraps " were illuminated in black letters on your 
 
 foreheads, instead of ill-omen-ated in red on your lips and 
 cheeks ; and, if conceit were not, as well as Love, Fortune, 
 and Justice, blind, you would see the proofs of what we 
 say, and acknowledge that whereas femme sotte se cognoit a 
 la cotte, it is the simple girl, though she may not look like 
 mischief, who — as regards marriage — does the most. 
 
 Readeress, paint is like taking flattery, sal volatile, and 
 other stimulants. You get accustomed to it, and think you 
 
Green Goslings. 201 
 
 can't do without it. You put on a little to begin with, 
 then a little more, then a little more, THEN a little more — 
 e sempre crescendo, as the music says — go on, on, on until 
 you arrive at f.f.f. and your face looks like a Clown's, or 
 like the "lean and slippered paint alone," without your 
 having the least idea that it is distinguishable, that it is 
 rather too loud. But, stop a minute, we beg pardon — per- 
 haps we are wrong : we ought to ask is it meant to 
 
 deceive ? is it meant to take us in, or is it put on like the 
 "187 1 chignon," without any wish whatever for conceal- 
 ment of its shamness ? Do you, O lovely lady paintress 
 — do you — can you, for one moment, in this case, believe 
 
 that Use IS second Nature ? Are you weak enough to 
 
 think men don't know you are painted ? Do you put " kohl " 
 in your eyes with any hopes of throwing dust in ours ? Say, 
 brilliant-eyed bella donna, is it all meant to look like nature ? 
 —because, if it is, it don't : not a bit ! it 's a failure — literally 
 a miserable little bottle, that is — a fiasco ! Bring a looking- 
 glass out into the sun some day, and see the astounding 
 enlightenment you will get on the subject of — Use being 
 second Nature. 
 
 Again, DO you think it improves you ? Do you ? O 
 don't think it does : O dont think it improves you — it 
 doesn't. Pray don't make what the lower orders call " the 
 bloomin' error" of thinking Charmin' is spelt — Carmin', 
 that enamelling is enamouring, and that putting on blanc de 
 this, de that, and t'other which don't naturally blanc to you, 
 
202 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 suits you ? Why paint the lielie ? Why try and do the 
 butterfly more butterfly than Nature has already done ? 
 Why use " eyebrow pencils " — unindiarubberable, unendur- 
 able eyebrow pencils ? Why do it all ? Why, O female 
 goose, think it necessary to sally forth in your oie paint ? 
 Is it because red is the complementary colour of green ? — 
 is there not enough natural fire in your eyes without your 
 putting kohl in 'em ? — is not the natural glow of warmth in 
 
 your cheek preferable to any fire-lit powder ? 
 
 Do you do it because you dislike anything "slow," and the 
 hare foot is — fast ? Surely, there must be a happy mean 
 betwixt the demi and the dummy -monde — between putting 
 kohl in your eyes and ashes on your head ; between — pain 
 and paint. 
 
 Oh, lave and leave it all off! Don't be talked into buying 
 it by those who find your paint and their pay in't ; burn it 
 — make your rouge-pot, your pitiful pot aux folles, a pot au 
 feu, for it won't wash in any sense. Let us see Nature's 
 Tricolor in its sweet and kissable beauty : the red which 
 can turn white, the white which can turn red ; and let us 
 not ask in win for the blue, but do not let your Tricolor be 
 a trickier which wipes off when you — you — dance, runs fast 
 when it should stand firm, does its best to make the bright 
 and blue ocean which floats you so nicely into a Red Sea, 
 cracks when you smile, and when you weep makes you shed 
 tears of — Red Paint ! 
 
 Ah, dear Readeress, we are quite aware that by saying 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 203 
 
 these few words, we prove ourself a nincompoop, a very 
 noodle ; as the man of the world, though he disdain to tell 
 you a lie, knows it is much more dangerous as a rule to tell 
 people the — Truth ; but, having told it you, don't treat that 
 
 truth as you do your hair, don't— make light of it — dont 
 
 keep it dark ; for, believe us, that with men whose 
 
 love is love, and worth having, there is no such anteros 
 as paint ; for, believe us, with men whose admiration is 
 worth gaining — Beauty unador/ied 's adored the most ! 
 
 Readeress, there are people who consider that — " sham " 
 is four-fifths on the road to ... . shame ! 
 
204 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XLVI. 
 
 ALK about the dan- 
 ger of getting un- 
 der the influence 
 of the Upas tree : 
 Pshaugh ! what 's 
 that to the danger 
 of getting under 
 the influence of the 
 Cocoa tree, the 
 witching female 
 coquetterie ! ! 
 
 Love is said to 
 be blind I He is ; 
 
 and the scales he has in his eyes are but too often .... 
 
 banker's balances. 
 
 You know what the male B an' S is, of course ; soda we : 
 
 it 's eau de wie. But what 's the female T an' S, eh ? why, 
 
 tea and scandal ! 
 
Green Goslings. 205 
 
 How many a lady takes upon herself the place of doctor : 
 she gives us ... . cast o' 'er ceil. 
 
 Reader, are you a drinksman and a smokist ? Well, if so, 
 remember this — and we are not singular in our opinion — 
 that though we don't mind your post-prandial pipes, we do 
 thoroughly object to your boast brandyal braggings. 
 
 New name for a deadly poison : Sunkeneye'd of pot- 
 house-ium ! — Beg pardon, we mean cyanide of potassium : 
 excuse our error; you see the train of thought which led 
 to it. 
 
 "Absence makes the heart grow fonder " ! how true this 
 is ! there are positively some people we quite like when 
 they 're a long way off. 
 
 " Poeta nascitur, 11011 fit" 
 
 And so are . . . gentlemen and wit. 
 
 Odd, isn't it ? — how exceedingly like one parvenu is to 
 another parvenu — how peculiarly the mushroom resembles 
 the toadstool, eh ? There 's mushroom for improvement in 
 both these fun-guys. We are, however, funkgi they won't 
 believe us ! Mushrooms, as some wag has put it, are like a 
 man in a balloon — everybody they see they look down upon, 
 and imagine he looks "uncommon small :" they forget how 
 very small they look to everybody else ! Icarus-like, they 
 think to soar above every one, forgetting all about the un- 
 reality of their wings, and that they are — themselves and 
 their wings too — but cham-pignons after all. 
 
 It is so ; and we may add, that though the estimation we 
 
206 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 are held in by about seventeenth-eighteenths of " Society " 
 consists not in the very least by what we are, but solely by 
 what we have, if you, a poor gentleman, want to be tho- 
 roughly sneered at, thoroughly — not sham-pooh'd (Shoddy 
 don't do much in that line) but pooh-pooh'd, thoroughly sat 
 upon and treated like dirt, simply because you are impecu- 
 nious, you must have the operation performed by a.- parvenu, 
 by some nouveau riche who 's invented a patent dust-bin 
 and made a fortune ! However, Providence is kind, most 
 kind, and to make up for it, has given us this consolation : 
 that we know Shoddy, Esq., would give about seventy per 
 cent, of his dust-bin booty to be us, and that if he thinks 
 us hardly worth speaking to, we don't think he's worth 
 speaking to at all, and therefore when he meets us, if he 
 will but be half as sparing of his words — especially the H'y 
 ones — as he is of his sovereigns, we shall be — mutually, we 
 have no doubt — gratified and contented. 
 
 Whatever vices you have, avoid envy and selfishness ; for 
 the first punishes you, and not in the very least .... 
 
 the envied. And as for selfishness Bah ! 
 
 Pooh ! the manger dog in the horse's salle a mangy, who 
 couldn't eat his meat himself, but yet carefully prevented 
 others from eating it, was not only a brute, but a stoopid 
 quadroopid into the barking : but perhaps, if possible, a 
 more disagreeable brute still than the selfish man is the 
 sham generous man! "You like those cigars?" he says. 
 " Ah ! I '11 send you a box of 'em." And so on. Does he ? 
 
Green Goslings. 207 
 
 does he send you a box of 'em ? Not a leaf. However, like 
 the scandalmonger, he gets known and loved accordingly, 
 
 for believe us, dear boy, egotism is all my I ! 
 
 You are not perhaps aware that in small foreign hotels 
 (and English ones, too, for all we know to the contrary), on 
 steamers, etc., etc., etc., they have but one sort of Rhine 
 wine, but every possible sort of label : for instance, we order 
 Steinwein, you Johannisberg, somebody else Liebfraumilch, 
 and so on ; the waiter gives us all the same wine, having 
 previously labelled them to suit our wishes. Now, is not 
 this precisely what a toady does with his face ? does not the 
 beast weep with you and laugh with us at the very same 
 thing f Is not that the one-wine-different-labels business, 
 eh ? Ah ! hang it all ! we cant help it, but we never see a 
 toady without wishing he was .... toe'd : we don't 
 use this word in its German sense, goodness forbid, we only 
 mean we wish he was kicked. And yet what a lot of toadies 
 we all are. You now, for instance — we dare you to deny it 
 — if the writer of these humble papers were only a friend 
 of the Prince of Wales, or some equally heavy Hyperion, of 
 course it wouldn't make any difference in your opinion of 
 his powers ? you wouldn't immediately feel a sort of a kind 
 of a craving to know him, now would you ? you don't think 
 you would incontinently ask him to dinner, now do you ? 
 and then, of course quite casually, mention that that feller, 
 " don't you know, that friend of the Prince of Wales (or 
 Wales is perhaps your way of putting it) who writes those 
 
208 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 etc., etc., etc., 's going to dine with me to-morrar," eh ? You 
 don't think you would ? you don't think you would then 
 find more in him than you thought for? No ? you wouldn't ? 
 You mean to say that you would not f Then bless you, O 
 Reader, you at least are a man after pur own heart ! for YOU 
 are NOT .... a Toady ! 
 
 3^ 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 209 
 
 Spoonful XLVII. 
 
 HE moon-rays thickly silver o'er 
 The ruin old and grey, 
 Whilst lighter star-beams float upon 
 The ripples in the bay : 
 
 The pebbly beach gives back again 
 The kisses of the waves, 
 
 Which, curling, form a white moustache 
 Around the mouth of caves ! 
 14 
 
210 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 They ripple on, they ripple on, 
 
 On, on, for aye, for ever, 
 They cover cherished mem'ries o'er, 
 
 And living loves they sever ! 
 
 Each star perhaps shines o'er the spot 
 
 Where monsters horrid keep, 
 With dead men's skulls for drinking- cups, 
 
 Their revels in the deep ! 
 
 Ye ghouls ! ye demons ! give me drink 
 
 From out those ghastly cups, 
 I 've . . . . got a female dawg at home, 
 
 I '11 chuck yer all her pups ! 
 
 Quite so : no doubt you think this very fine, witty, touch- 
 ing, and so on ; but should you not be able, O Maevius, to 
 
 do anything better than this, dont write any more 
 
 poems ; for remember the dictum of the sage, " that though 
 every poet may be a fool, it is NOT every fool who is a 
 poet!" 
 
 We have been told that there are certain embers which 
 never die out till towards the end of a year, and that they 
 are November and December; but there is yet another 
 ember, which, alas, but too frequently does die out before the 
 end of a year : it is . . . . rem-ember. 
 
 A man may Not marry his gran'mother ! ! Who, let us 
 ask, in tones of undisguised indignation, WHO was the 
 miserable sinner who wanted to do so ? Who was he that 
 gave occasion for this tremendous prayer-book law ? Where 
 is he ? His gran'mother ! ! The ruffian ! ! ! 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 211 
 
 Treasured Reader, we hear a great deal about " the height 
 of fashion ; " but what is the height of fashion, eh ? Why 
 
 . . . . heels ! ! 
 
 We knew a man once who got so bored that he bought a 
 lot of those counterpanes, you know, common counterpanes, 
 nasty heavy things with no warmth in them, that have little 
 hard cotton'pills sticking up all over them : well, this feller 
 bought seven or eight of them and went to bed and stopped 
 there until he had pulled all the little knobs off every single 
 counterpane ! Why ? Because he said he had nothing else 
 to do and this was a little change for him ! " Nothing to 
 do ! ! " Do you by any chance ever say you have " nothing 
 to do " ? How about your roving rambling revelling dash- 
 ing driving drivelling snivelling grinding shrieking sneaking 
 
 14—2 
 
2 1 2 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 speaking crying talking walking swimming shooting sailing 
 sleeping snoring basking meandering toadying playing dip- 
 ping plunging grubbing reading writing drawing lawing 
 moaning mourning moving mooning spooning jogging trot- 
 ting betting raging worrying stewing flurrying slandering 
 standing lying buttering flirting flaunting lounging longing 
 loving envying dressing cutting snubbing shopping smoking 
 eating praying, eh ? Oh, de-ar fellow, il diavolo tempts 
 everybody, but the lazy man tempts il diavolo. Why not 
 avoid this lazy fair -e, this lazy alley style ? " A dead and un- 
 pleasant fish can swim with the stream, but it takes a live 
 one to swim against it," and you never know when it may 
 not be necessary for you to look alive at any rate. " No 
 one e'er found a happy life by chance, or yawned it into 
 being with a wish ; " and it is our deliberate opinion that 
 no man need evcy suffer from ennui whose motto is , . . . . 
 Ennui go ! 
 
 " Nothing to do ! " Bah ! Time is like a wedding ring, 
 or a fried whiting with his tail in his mouth — we can't see 
 the end of him, though we all have plenty of warnings to 
 show us how he slips away. Don't, O cceci, O dillydallytory 
 duffers, despise these warnings because they are small. We 
 are not all as lucky as Belshazzar, but our warnings ought to 
 be none the less patent to us on that account. Look at the 
 little busy bee below — how he improves each shining hour ; 
 
 whilst you stand idly by and simply do the "humming," 
 
 instead of remembering that Time is the party to malce 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 213 
 
 much of, for we shall never see him again as he was yester- 
 day, and may not see him at all to-morrow ; and every 
 
 tomb-in-its in its tomb is two mimts less time left us to 
 make up our mind to do it. 
 
 O baby seconds ! O little minutes ! O bright hours of 
 day ! O grey horce hours of night, how do we not waste 
 you ! O Time, how are you. not murdered ! but ven- 
 geance is thine own, and when the day comes for one of 
 those little fleeting seconds to be worth an empire, shall we 
 have it spared us ? No, not one. 
 
 Ah, indeed and indeed, well may they say, " tempus 
 fugit" and indeed and indeed, well may we add . . . . 
 few-get tempus ' 
 
214 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Spoonful XLVIII. 
 
 HERE are 
 
 a number 
 of things 
 which al- 
 ways strike us when we dine out : for instance, we never 
 sit next a sweet woman, whether her hair be like the raven's 
 or the canary's wing, without thinking of that old old joke 
 of " Sweets to the Sweet ; " we never sit next a sour one 
 without thinking of tarts to the tart ; we never sit next a 
 
Green Goslings.. 215 
 
 pretty, well-shaped, trembling one without thinking of — 
 — blancmanges anx anges, and we are never helped on with 
 our great coat by Jeames de la Pluche without mentally 
 ejaculating . . . „ Douceurs to the Dooce ! 
 
 The Bill we all receive with pleasure : The Bill of Fare ! 
 
 Very nice, isn't it ? walking home after dining out, on a 
 bright starlit evening, for 't is then, on a fine night, we can 
 best realize the infinenight. 
 
 How easily man is upset by trifles ! a new shoe for in- 
 stance can make us anewshoeally wretched, or a fly in one's 
 eye is very monche in the way. 
 
 Telling a "mauvaise langue" not to abuse his neighbour 
 is waste of breath, but telling him he 's libel to be prosecuted 
 if he does, may have more effect. 
 
 Reader, the scandalmonger is just like the ermine : he 
 — has always a black tale ready for anybody ! 
 
 There is nothing a doctor requires so much and yet so 
 thoroughly and entirely could do without as ... . the 
 gratis patients ! 
 
 A tour de Nail: Scratching. 
 
 Receipt for doing a heart : Stuff it ! 
 
 P.S. — Is a very light heart ever — a hollow one ? We are 
 afraid so. 
 
 Dear boy, how many a man who before marriage was 
 looked upon as an angelus y turns out afterwards not to be 
 . . . . aii jealous ! ! 
 
 A disappointed siitor : Ha, ha !" an unpaid bootmaker. 
 
2l6 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Hear goslings, it is quite as safe to play with the very 
 edgeiest tools, the use of which you are completely unac- 
 quainted with, as to talk about things you don't understand, 
 you must certainly— come to grief; for as by means of the 
 
 smallest keyhole we can see slap into the next room, so 
 through one ignorant remark may you allow people to per- 
 ceive your utter and complete ignorance. 
 
 People say that a very loquacious man is generally an 
 ass ; it may be so, but Corpo di Whatshisname ! haven't we 
 just known reserved fools too, eh ? rather : and of all fools 
 what fool can equal the solemn fool, eh ? No one. 
 
 Saying "Haw haw!" and so on, is what the Germans 
 
Green Goslings. 217 
 
 call — having ein nasal pronunciation : they don't mean 
 speaking through your nose, but . . . . like a donkey. 
 
 Wonder; why Messrs. Peace and Loving advertise their 
 decoctions as obtainable throughout " the Queendom " ? 
 ah ! suppose it is that they being so accustomed to strong 
 salts, wish also to show their knowledge of the Salic law! 
 
 No amount of familiarity seems to breed contempt be- 
 tween the bon vivant and his plat. 
 
 Nothing greases the wheels of time like .... sweet 
 /oil ! Have some. 
 
 Dear boy, it is no joke — making jokes. 
 
 We constantly hear people say, " I 'd give the world for 
 this, that, or t' other 1 " Give the world for it ! yes, we 
 notice people are always most ready to give away — what 
 don't belong to them. 
 
 Gratitude is not only a chimera, but a chimera obscura ! 
 
 The last canard : When a man says, " Mon cher, je suis 
 mallard" look out for quacks ! 
 
 How many a widow, like a duellist, has .... killed 
 her man ! 
 
 Ladies, excess of trimming don't make you trim . 
 
 P.S. — How is it, zvhy is it, as a general rule, that girls 
 with pimples on their shoulders wear their gowns lower than 
 girls with dimples on their shoulders ? We want to know. 
 
 Funny idea struck us the other night at the play : how 
 lucky it is the musicians choose different instruments ; 
 suppose they 'd all studied the drum, for instance, eh ? or 
 
2l8 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 supposing they'd all been bassoons, or triangles, or even 
 floots : be a bore, wouldn't it ? 
 
 Got bunions ? mean to say you have ? what big, bad 
 ones ? poor old chap ! we 're awfully sorry : never mind : 
 hide 'em : conceal 'em : . . . . rosettes on your 
 BOOTS ! ! ! why not ? eh ? why shouldn't you do it as much 
 as your wife, eh ? of course : look very well : try it : velvet : 
 we think we 'd have 'em velvet : looks so very rich : put 'em 
 on next Sunday, and live to bless us for the suggestion ! 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 219 
 
 Spoonful XLIX. 
 
 OW like is the 
 farthing doll we 
 shy four shil- 
 lings' worth of 
 sticks at at the 
 races — without 
 knocking it 
 down — to ex- 
 perience ! "We 
 can, if we like, get it for next to nothing from others, yet 
 we prefer to give our youth and money to get it for our- 
 selves. Yes, and notwithstanding experience is the most 
 
220 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 costly article in the world, what, what an immense deal of 
 it one has to purchase before having even a very little bit 
 of it to show for your money ! 
 
 When trying to listen to faint though lovely strains of 
 distant music (most probably only thus lovely because thus 
 distant), is there not sure to come rattling past a cab, or 
 yelling past a costermonger, or something row-y, just at the 
 very moment ? They don't mean it : they don't do it to 
 annoy you : they don't know you — you "wish them farther." 
 So 't is with taking offence in seriouser matters. The great 
 thing is not to steal offence — that is, before you take it, 
 make sure it is meant — to be given ; for remember, there 's 
 nothing ill-said till it 's ill-taken ; but, if ever anybody 
 should positively offend you — kick you, for instance — you 
 may be sure it is meant, and being kicked, stern necessity 
 obliges you to — hit him again ! Then, for goodness sake ! 
 do nothing by halves : let him see you are no near-fight 
 at near fighting, but hit him as hard as possible — as 'Any 
 says, " Let 'im 'ave it !" and we can confidently recommend 
 a spot to aim at, which, on more than one occasion, we have 
 found very superior to between the eyes or the bridge of 
 the nose : it is — just under the chin. If you fetch your 
 offender one there, he will not kick you again for at least a 
 quarter of an hour — which will give you time to take a 
 hansom, get to the club, wash your hands, cut into a rubber 
 or take a ball at pool, and forget the whole beastly business. 
 
 Don't forget this— but to impress upon your memory the 
 
Green Goslings. 221 
 
 highly important fact how necessary it is, O goslings, to 
 avoid getting into a row, unless you are quite capable of 
 getting out of it again, we have made you the following 
 conundrum : try and remember it. 
 
 If you cannot my first, shun, as you would Myfistawfulis, 
 my second, or you will probably be laid, where my whole 
 dines . . . . in the road : . . . . SPAR-ROW! 
 
 A coup de vent, a good blow in front, is much more agree- 
 able than a kick in the opposite direction. 
 
 A drawn battle : One feller's " sketching it " from another. 
 
 The man who is " utterly without fear " runs an exceed- 
 ingly good chance of some day getting his head broken. 
 
 There are two sorts of fighting: fighting, and fighting 
 shy ; but he who fights and runs away, isn't half such a 
 coward as he who doesn't run away— simply because he 
 declines fighting at all ; and yet, we maintain it, after all is 
 said and done, it must require a great deal of courage to be 
 a thorough cur. 
 
 People talk about " shaking the dust from off their feet " 
 when they leave the house of a man who has insulted them. 
 Pshaw ! what 's the use of shaking the dust off your feet ! 
 Do you think the insulter cares ? — not a bit : not one atom! 
 Much better go and call upon him and not — carefully 7^/— 
 shake the dust off, before you put your feet up on his velvet 
 sofas. That would be much more to the purpose. 
 
 When hitting a man on the nose, see that you don't 
 
 cut your own knuckles. 
 
222 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 Every man's house is his castle. Pooh ! fancy a castle at 
 Putney ! We don't putney faith in this aphorism. 
 
 We frequently hear it said, " Booh ! Tomkins can't hold a 
 candle to Smithkins," You ask Tomkins whether he could 
 or not, and see if he don't look as if he 'd like to burn his 
 house down. 
 
 Thinking that a woman's tongue is, like the bee, often 
 laden with sweets, but that, beelike, it can sting, reminds 
 us to ask you to sit in your garden any summer's day, and 
 observe that as fast as one bee leaves a flower another 
 comes to it, and apparently finds every reason to be satisfied 
 with his possession : so 't is with men and women : ladies 
 apparently possess — equally with flowers — the power of 
 making honey — or, at any rate, what passes as honey — for 
 any amount of bees. She whom Bee Tomkins has come 
 to detest, to positively and absolutely fear ever even meet- 
 ing, Bee Smith finds honey itself, until he in his turn gives 
 place to Bee Brown, etc., and so on. It 's rum — very rum ; 
 but it 's true. Watch for yourself, and you must indeed be 
 honey-dew-cated in the art of love if you don't see the truth 
 of our observation. 
 
 Remember this, ye amorous goslings : you may be twenty 
 times married, but .... you can only have one mother. 
 
 The Persians — we think it was the Persians, it may 
 have been the Medes, but we take the Persians for choice — 
 were very particular, if we remember aright, in teaching 
 their children how to ride, shoot with the bow, and 
 
Green Goslings. 223 
 
 speak the truth! Yes; and isn't it extraordinary how we 
 
 moderns follow in the Persian footsteps that is, as 
 
 regards the riding ; as for the other two precepts, the bow- 
 shooting and truth-telling, we combine them, to a great 
 extent, in one, for are we not always at our Talks-of-a-light 
 Society, and in doing it do we not shoot with bows whose 
 extreme length would have rather astonished Cambyses or 
 any other stalwart Persian that ever breathed ? We are. 
 We do. And yet, don't you know, the man who tells one 
 such quite preposterous bungers must be either a fool him- 
 self or, worse, far worse .... take you for one — to 
 think you will believe him, to think you are green enough 
 to put any belief in his outanouters, which are quite as 
 transparent in their falseness as the crackers of our friend 
 Mr. Merriman, on the next page, when he says, " Me, Mr. 
 Peleeceman ? me take the fish, sir ? me steal the sarsengers ? 
 me crib the guce, sir ? I ain't see'd 'ere a one on 'em, sir, 
 since the day after to-morrer ! " 
 
 However, we don't want tomorrer-lies, to preach. It has 
 always been so from the days of our common mother, belle 
 Eve, and we don't belle Eve it will ever alter. 
 
 What nonsense it is for the roundhand copy-books to tell 
 us, " Never listen to the man who speaks an untruth." What 
 waste of ink ! Why, if one did not, you might almost as well 
 go to bed for life ! However, there 's a maxim or two we 
 should be flattered to impress on the chronic liar's memory. 
 They are very simple, and quite as useful as the one about 
 
224 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 the necessity of his having a good memory, if possible more 
 so, and their moral is certainly better. They are : 
 -v Be most careful, when shooting with the long bow, that 
 you don't shoot . , , , over the mark : don't judge the 
 veracity of others by your own, and never give the lie : bear 
 in mind the fact that the worst person in the world you can 
 deceive is . . . . yourself: never draw your long bow 
 when, by so doing, you can injure any other person : and, 
 oh 1 if you would prosper, remember this — though, unfortu- 
 nately, you may be unable to prevent yourself occasionally 
 telling people a lie — that it is .absolutely imperative on you, 
 O dear liar, to sedulously avoid— always avoid — entirely 
 avoid .... ever telling people THE TRUTH !! ! 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 225 
 
 Spoonful L. 
 
 m. ***- 
 
 EAR BOY, if you 
 have right on your 
 side . . . stick 
 to it. What is it 
 makes the boldly 
 burglarious bad 
 bandit of Bermond- 
 sey quail before the 
 eye of A 1, a pos- 
 sibly skinny, weak, 
 ill-conditioned and- 
 shod policeman ? what is it ? Why, that A 1 has right on 
 his side! Why, that A i's beat is equally the Beautiful 
 Path of Virtue ! We grant you that at this precise moment 
 of time the boldly burglarious bad b of Bermondsey is not 
 quailing ; no, he is not : we grant you that the peeler held 
 tightly, disagreeably tightly, by the garroted artery, is get- 
 ting a precious deal the worst of it : we grant you that it 
 does occasionally happen that it is so — that the eye of the 
 law gets punched and variegated in its natural black or 
 blueness, that the arm of the law gets twisted and even 
 
 15 
 
226 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 screwed, that the limbs of the law — the lower ones — have 
 frequently beastly bad boots to keep them in limb-o ; that 
 the tumtum of the law has to ignaw the pangs of hunger, 
 and that in fact the law's whole body gets fatigued and 
 tired, weary much so ; but this does not do away with our 
 maxim, this does not prove that though Virtue gets " sent 
 to the wall" now and again, there should be no Virtue; for do 
 you think that in the long run Virtue ever goes unrewarded ? 
 
 It never does : lookee there, 
 
 what do you call this 
 
Green Goslings. 227 
 
 Would the boldly burglarious bad bandit of Bermondsey 
 ever get that ? Would the boldly b b b of B ever have 
 such billin' and cooin', such bilin' and coo-ookin' as THIS ? 
 Pshaw ! lar, maffische, pas de tout, niets, yock, nein, niente del 
 tutto, not a bit of it ! ! for it is to Male Virtue Triumphant 
 alone such joys are known ! Look at him. Oblige us by 
 looking at M. V. T. Regard, if you please, Male Virtue Tri- 
 umphant. Is 'e 'appy ? is 'e all there ? is he off his beat 
 beat-ified ? is he in a lonely suburb or no thoroughfare noiv, 
 or simply suburb himself, quite a-no-ther affair ? does he 
 look delighted, policed, overjoyed ? does he find too many 
 cooks spoil the broth he revels in ? does he not know, well 
 know, that 't is the female cuckoo always turns the nests of 
 other birds to her own private uses, and does he never find 
 a female cook who does it for him ? — to be sure ! And 
 would she step out of her — her — floury paths to dough it 
 for the b b b b of B ? would her heart beat behind her stiff 
 corset and coarse a-pron for him ? would she employ her 
 witcherries, her black art, that is, her black currant art, for 
 anything but manly ^zV-chew ? We have already stated, 
 emphatically stated, that she would not; that she would 
 decline pudding even a finger out to anything which sugar 
 faith in its purity — that, in fact, she would .... see 
 him farther first. And it is, therefore, with this beautiful 
 and interesting moral before us that we say 
 
 Walk, dear boy, O walk ever, in the Paths of Virtue : 
 though they be rough and lonely at times, they are more 
 
 15—2 
 
228 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 safe travelling than the slippery paths of (V)ice, and the re- 
 ward for so doing will assuredly come, sooner or later, in 
 some pleasant form or other, be it money, love, or cooking, 
 or in the charming self-contentment such behaviour invari- 
 ably brings ; and believe us, O believe us, though your pre- 
 sent lines be hard, they '11 quickly melt into those soft ones 
 which invariably fall in pleasant places, if you will but only 
 . . .. .. . take the first turning to the Right, and — keep 
 
 straight on! 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 229 
 
 Spoonful the Last. 
 
 EADER, our pen- 
 non waves farewell 
 to you ; our pen an' 
 ink flags ; like the 
 humble but busy 
 bee, we pull in our 
 antennae, because there ant- 
 ennae occasion to keep them 
 out : Goslings, our cackle-easy scribendi is over; our free 
 
230 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 and easy friand-ises are finished ; we have reached the end 
 of our journey and our paper ; we are about to give you our 
 
 last spoonful, and we are about to write it on your 
 
 tongue ! 
 
 Peruser, we are told that speech was given us to conceal 
 our thoughts (stuttering certainly was), but does it ? or at 
 any rate, does it conceal them agreeably ? No ; and 't is 
 because the concealing our thoughts agreeably is so very 
 important an art, so necessary an accomplishment, that we 
 venture before leaving you to give you one or two theoretic 
 suggestions on the subject, and if you can only practise them 
 you are infinitely cleverer than we are. 
 
 One of the great secrets of being considered an agreeable 
 talksman consists not so much in being able to apparently 
 agree with everybody, as in being a good conversational 
 wheel greaser : you don't, we really hope you don't, imagine 
 that nine people out of every ten want to hear you talk, do 
 you ? not a bit of it ; they don't ; they want you to hear 
 them; therefore, when you see your man beginning to run 
 down, grease his wheels, wind him up, so to speak, with 
 something sweet, and off he goes again 927 to the dozen, 
 and thinks you a most charming person ; for remember — 
 and this rule applies to every mortal condition — only make 
 a man contented with himself, and he 's sure to be contented 
 with you ! this in fact is the keystone of the whole business. 
 
 Listen attentively to a clever man (he may say some- 
 thing you can repeat as your own), but talk to the fool who 
 
Green Goslings. 
 
 231 
 
 can't talk as if you thought him a very sharp feller who 
 could talk if he liked, and so content him. 
 
 Don't get into the trick of capping other men's stories : 
 some fellers would rather you bonneted them in the street 
 than capped their tales. 
 
 Do please give your grandmother credit for being able 
 to get what there is in an egg out of it as well as you can ; 
 but if you must teach her how to do it . . . . see that 
 the eggs are fresh. 
 
 Never try to sustain or even listen to two conversations 
 at once, it is conducive to lunacy : if you take old Lady 
 Flabby down to dinner and Miss Firm sits on the other 
 
232 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 side of you, be contented to converse with Lady F., and 
 don't try and listen as you do it, to what Captain Bond 
 Streeter is amusing Miss Firm with : it 's no good, we 've 
 tried it, you only get to feel imbecilly and to look it. 
 
 Never laugh at your own jokes, but if you must laugh at 
 them, pray wait till others set you the example. 
 
 If you can make a respectable mot don't cast your pearl 
 before swine — for the most perfect joke in the world falls 
 
 flat on the unappreciative ear: keep it for better 
 
 men. 
 
 Never repeat a scandal which won't bear /^-repeating as 
 coming from you as its author ; never tell the man sitting 
 next you that so an' so is a fool for doing so an' so ; the 
 man you say it to most likely does the same. 
 
 Never tell people your secrets : people who would keep 
 them, don't want to know them ; it is only those who don't 
 keep them who are greedy for them. 
 
 Don't, when you fail to see a point or a pun, sit snigger- 
 ing feebly and slightly gasping to try and imitate laughing 
 enjoyment ; much better to boldly ask what it means, for 
 no man in the world yet who did not see a joke ever could 
 look in the very least as if he did. 
 
 Remember — that too much flattery tho' well meant may 
 be — for its recipient .... over — whelment ! 
 
 Lavater your man before making him your confidant, if 
 you would Lavaterwards ! 
 
 If you think a youth will take your advice, be his Mentor; 
 
Green Goslings. 233 
 
 if he won't, leave him alone ; you only waste your own 
 time, and you 're not mentor be his tor-mentor. 
 
 Adapt your talk to your audience and draw them out, for 
 as there is gold in the earth, a pearl in the oyster, and music 
 in a corny-a-piston, so is there, if you are skilful, fun to be 
 got out of the greatest ass in London. 
 
 Never tell people " You don't look very well to-day ! " 
 No one, no, no one, not even the hypocondriacest hypocon- 
 driac likes it : he enjoys telling yotc he is very ill, but don't 
 like you to tell him so. 
 
 Never volunteer your opinion on any subject whatever. 
 
 Don't ride your hobby roughshod over people ; don't talk 
 shop, soldiering, sailoring, shooting, balmorals, ballet, bur- 
 
 lesques, &c, to people of opposite tastes : you may be in- 
 tensely fond of horses and racing, for instance, but don't 
 forget there may possibly be one or even two people in the 
 
234 Sage Stuffiing for 
 
 world who take less interest in the pedigree and past per- 
 formances of every screw you insist upon talking about by 
 the hour together than you do ; and if they don't let you 
 see they are bored to death with your horse talk, they prove 
 themselves far better bred than you are in boring them. 
 
 You should always stop talking when you Ve no more to 
 say : we know it is exceedingly difficult, but you should ; 
 besides, you would become original, as nobody does it. 
 
 Yxzy dont tell people long-winded, pointless stories whilst 
 they are eating their dinner. If they are well-bred people, 
 they listen to you, and naturally wish you at Jericho for 
 interrupting them ; if they are not, they don't pay any 
 attention to you — so what 's the good of doing it ? 
 
 Never start a conversation about " Religion." Faith is 
 only represented with a cross owing to the intense crossness 
 this subject has for hundreds of years provoked. 
 
 Dress and Babies are safe conversational topics with 
 ladies. 
 
 Don't make distitches with a blunt needle ; we mean, 
 don't try either in manner or sense to be sharp too bluntly, 
 for even though your needle may not have — much point, 
 people don't like being prodded with it. 
 
 Remember that " naive'' is sometimes spelt with a K, and 
 that now and then naivete is sharp, that knifete may be 
 cutting. 
 
 Never, never, never buttonhole a man, nor bonnet-string 
 a lady. If you are wanted, you will be remained with ; if 
 
Green Goslings. 235 
 
 not — though you may be able to out-Nestor Nestor in talk- 
 ing — you'll be wished at the very juice: the buttonholed 
 
 or bonnet-stringed one may be expecting to meet some 
 
 one else. 
 
 Being too Satyrical is bad : being too Fauning is worse. 
 
 Never " take a man up sharp," not even when by so doing 
 you can "put him down thoroughly." 
 
 Never forget that one of the most unpleasant chasms for 
 your friends to have to plumb the depths of, is . . . . 
 sarcasm ! 
 
 Remember, soft words do butter parsnips, and avoid, as 
 you would Mephisto, " Argument." " The man convinced 
 against his will is precisely and most entirely — in fact, 
 rather more — of the same opinion still ; " and not only that, 
 but suppose you h^at him in arguing, he detests it, and if 
 he beats yon, he thinks you an ass. What do you gain 
 either way ? 
 
 Bear in mind the fact that, as people prefer talking of 
 themselves and their belongings to any other earthly thing, 
 you must — if you can stand it (we can't) and wish them to 
 think you agreeable — encourage them to tell you all about 
 their dogs, cats, cows, connections, horses, houses, aches, 
 pains, children, chilblains, teeth, &c, &c, &c, but must 
 never allude to yourself, as it 's egotistical — it 's piling up 
 the egony : people don't like it, and it } s considered very 
 bad form indeed. 
 
 And lastly and above all, O sweet youth, let us implore 
 
236 
 
 Sage Stuffing for 
 
 you as a friend, if you would be happy and make others so, 
 never, never, never, never, never, NEVER forget this— (or 
 \ is the nutshell in which lies the whole secret of everything 
 agreeable in our mutual intercourse in life — never forget 
 that, in " Society," the great thing, THE great thing, is not 
 so much the saying what you ought to say, as ... . 
 the not saying what you ought NOT to say ! 
 
 
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