HAPPY IMPROMPTUS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13456, 5 June 1907, Page 9

HAPPY IMPROMPTUS.

The wit of the late Sir William Harcourt lis proverbial; , but the following piece of humour may have escaped the cars of the majority. Talking . one clay to Sir William cm the subject of smoking, the late Lord Tennyson' remarked that the first pipe before breakfast ; was .the most delightful smoke of the day. ■— " I see,, I see!" Sir William replied seriously; " the first sweet pipe of the half-awakened bard." The reconstruction '■■', of the' quotation' from the poet's . own ; verse .to suit the -occasion, a reconstruction only involving one vowel, was exceedingly happy. .

As ■ the" celebrated author of Night Thoughts" was ■',' one day . walking in his .garden Jit Wehvyn with-two ladies, , one of whom he afterwards married, a servant I came to tell him - that a. gentleman wished to see him. "Tell him," said the doctor, "I am too happily engaged to change my situation." The ladies ; insisted that he should go, as his visitor was a man of rank, - his patron and his friend. . As persuasion had no effect, one took him by the right arm, the other by the ; left, and led him to the garden-gate; when, finding resistance was vain, he, bowed, laid his hand upon: his heart, and, in that expressive manner for which he was so. remarkable, spoke the following lines: — .

Thus Adam look'd when from the garden '. driven,, • •,.■■■'..•'■:;,.,. v.,-; ■/-:*■. And thus disputed orders sent from heaven. Like him. I go; but yet to go am loth; Like him, I ' go, for angels drove us both. Hard was his fate; but mine still more un- ■•' kind: : "■■-;••■;, '.";■■. ' -■:. ' His Eve went with him,- but mine stays be- ' ..> hind.; - ' ' v "■-«-'.'.'■ • ■."

It is not likely that'many have read the autobiography, of Bishop Wateon, of Llandafl (1783-1813) a clever, j political, disappointed man, and a Whig. > The Prime Minister of that day expected him, shortly after,his appointment to his see, to support the Government in a certain measure in the House of Lords. Said, the bishop, "I do not consider it consistent with the Christian religion to support such a measure," to Avhich 'the Minister replied, " Nor do _ I think it consistent with the Christian religion that the first thing a newly appointed bishop should do is to forget his Maker." , . ■ ■■ j

The danger of the use' of metaphor in argument was well illustrated recently trur,ing a discussion between a Ritualist and a Protestant. "You will admit," urged the former, "that Music is the handmaid :of Religion." "Yes/' agreed the latter but I -wish Religion would give her a month's Chambers' Journal.