TRIVIA.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20026, 6 September 1930, Page 13

TRIVIA.

The id«al way to get a Day Off is to edit an anthology. —Christopher Morley. It is simpler, however, to steal Mr Morley'g. —J.H.E.S. Sail locker should be dry and clean. The Chief Mate should see that all officers know the stowage of the locker, so that a required sai' may be taken out at night without much trouble. If the ship is troubled with rats, place a good deal of dry newspaper in the locker for the rats to chew on.— Felix Riesenberg: "Standard Seamanship." * A man once went up in my esteem under the following circumstances. Speaking of a certain critic, I said that what I objected to in him was that his necktie was always crooked. When I went upstairs before dinner I noticed that my own necktie was conspicuously crooked. My friend had not mentioned tho fact, or even hinted at it He knew that I was bound to discover it for myself. An example of masterly self-control.—Arnold Bennett: "Things That Have Interested Me." * Nothing to do but work, Nothing to eat but food, Nothing to wear but clothes To keep ono from going nude. Nothing to breathe but air, Quick as a flash 'tis gone; Nowhere to fall but off, Nowhere to stand but on. Nothing to sing but songs, Ah, well, alasl alack! Nowhere to go but out, Nowhere to come but back. —Ben King: "The Pessimist." * Women, music, poetry, art, science, and pure speculative philosophy, all requiring lazy days ... to them all, Lin coin's answer was spoken in the quaint gingerbread story, the Indiana boy blurting mournfully, '' Abe, I don't spose there's anybody on earth likes gingerbread better 'n I do—and gets less'n I do."—Carl Sandburg: "Abraham Lincoln." * When a university course convinces like a slumbering woman and child convince, When the minted gold in the vault smiles like tho night-watchr -n's daughter, When warranty deeds loafe in chairs and are friendly companions, I intend to reach them by hand and make as much of them as I do of men and women. —Walt Whitman: "Leaves of Grasß." # Here, more than anywhere else in the world, tho daily panorama of human existence —the unending procession of governmental extortions and chicaneries, of commercial brigandages and throatslittings, of theological buffooneries, of aiPthetic ribaldries, or legal swindles and harlotries —is 80 inordinately extrava gant, so perfectly brought up to the highest conceivable amperage, that only the man who was born with a petrified diaphragm can fail to go to bed every night grinning from ear to ear, and awake every morning with the eager, unflagging expectations of a Sunday school superintendent touring the Paris peep-shows. —11. L. Mencken: "On Living in the United States."

The art of life is to be so well known at a good restaurant that you can pay bj cheque.—E. V. Lucas: "Over Bemerton'a." The Odium of success is hard enough to bear, without the added ignominy of popular applause. Those who fail have their revenge on the successful few, having kept themselves free from vulgarity, or having died unknown. —R. B. Cunninghame Graham: "Success." * There are people who appear to think only with the brain, or with whatever may be the specific thinking organ; while others think with all the body and all the soul, with the blood, with the marrow of the bones, with the heart, with the lungs, with the belly, with the life.—Miguel de Unamuno: "Tho Tragic Sense of Lifo." * An open mind is all very well in its way, but it ought not to be so open that there is no keeping anything in or out of it. It should be capable of shutting its doors sometimes, or it may be found a little draughty—Samuel Butler: "Notebooks." * Expectation of tho vulgar - is more drawn and held with newness than goodness; we see it _in fencers, in players, in poets, in preachers, in all where fame promiseth any thing; bo it bo new, though never bo naught and depraved, they run to it, and are taken.—Ben Jonson: "Sylva.' * I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes." —Thoreau: "Walden." *■ The flute is not an instrument which has a good moral effeot; it is too exciting. The proper time for using it is when the performance aims not at instruction, but at the relief of the passions.—Aristotle: "Politics." * Permit me a few words respecting conversation with ladies. In general association with th* fairest ornaments of creation, agreeability rather than profundity, should be your aim in the choice of topics. Playfulness, cheerfulness, versatility, and courtesy should characterise colloquial intercourse with ladies; but the deference due them should never degenerate int. mere ser vile acquiescence. All slang phrases, everything approaching to double entendre, all familiarity of address, are in ad missable. —' 'The American Gentleman's Guide to Politeness." (1857). * Sabina has a thousand charms To captivate my heart; Her lovely eyes are Cupid's arms, And every look a dart: # But when the beauteous idiot speaks, She cures me of my pain; Her tongue the servile fetters breaks And frees her slave again. —Amphion Anglicus, 1700. . * He was a rationalist, but he had to confess that he liked the ringing of church bells.—Anton Chekhov: Notebook. I shall read a passage of Shakespeare every Sunday at ten o'clock—you read one at the same time, and we shall be as near each other as blind bodies can bo in the same room. —John KeatS: Letter to George Keats. * Have a glimpse of incomprehensibles. and Thoughts of things which Thoughts but tenderly touch. —Sir Thomas Browne: "Christian Morals." —From Christopher Morley's "Bowling Gieen," in the "Saturday Review of Literature."