University of Virginia Library

XII.
Phrases and Filberts.

IT sometimes happens at the end of a dinner, when
jokes and walnuts are cracked together, that the
paternity of some trite quotation is put in question, and
at once the wit of the whole company is set wool-gathering.

If every printing office had a case filled with popular
phrases arranged in the manner of types, it would save
much manual labor, and the compositor would be surprised
to find how often he had occasion to use them. For
so inextricably are these “short sentences drawn from
long experience” entangled in the meshes of language,
that to eliminate them would be like drawing out of a
carpet, the threads that form the pattern. A few of these
phrases, usually found floating in the currents of ordinary
conversation, will be sufficient to consider in a paper like
this: if we were to include those embraced in literature
and oratory, it would require foolscap enough to cover
the sands of Egypt, and an inkstand as large as one of

the pyramids. Not being disposed to make such an investment
in stationery at present, we shall only play the
literary chiffonier and hook a few scraps from the heaps
of talk we meet with every day.

Mr. John Timmins, the broker, says of that stock,
“there is a wheel within a wheel,” without giving Paradise
Lost, Young's Night Thoughts, and the Prophet Ezekiel
credit for a phrase which may have saved him some
thousands; and when he tells his boon companions
at the club, that as for his wife, who is rather inclined
to be extravagant, “he would deny her nothing,” he does
not say how much he owes to Samson Agonistes for the
words he makes use of. When he reaches his house,
Mrs. Timmins takes him to task “for coming home at
such an hour of the night, in such a state;” to which he
replies, in a gay and festive manner: “My dear, `To
err is human—to forgive, divine,' ” from Pope's essay
on criticism; to which Mrs. T. answers in a snappish
way, “Timmins, `there is a medium in all things,' ” (from
Horace). Mr. T., disliking the tone in which this quotation
is delivered, “snatches a fearful joy” (from the
“Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College”), by saying
he does not intend, in his house, to have “the grey mare
prove the better horse,” (from Prior's epilogue). This only
“adds fuel to the flame,” (from Milton's Samson), and
Mrs. T. observes that if “we could only see ourselves as
others see us,” (from Burns), it would be better for some
people; that ever since he had joined that club “a change
had come o'er the spirit of her dream,” (from Byron):

that when she trusted her happiness to him she had
“leaned upon a broken reed,” (from Young's Night
Thoughts III, and Isaiah 36: 6), and winds up a long
lecture with the reflection that “evil communications cor
rupt good manners,” (from 1st Corinthians 15: 33). This
last expression exasperates Mr. Timmins, and he asks Mrs.
T., as he takes off his suspenders, “to whom she alludes?”
Is it to Perkins who had stood by him “in evil report and
good report?” (2d Corinthians 6: 8). Is it to Rapley?
“a man take him for all in all,” (Hamlet, Act I, Scene
Second), is “after his own heart,” (Acts 13: 22), and as
for Badger, who had extended to him in the tight times of
'36 and '37 “the right hand of fellowship, (Galatians 2:
9), he was as honest a man as ever breathed; and here
Mr. Timmins, with one boot in his hand and the other in
the boot-jack, eloquently adds, “an honest man is the
noblest work of God!” (from Pope's Essay). He was
proud of the friendship of such men, if she meant them.
Mrs. T., not at all carried away by such a flood of authorities,
rather scornfully says, “O Timmins, `what is
friendship but a name?' ” (from Goldsmith's Hermit); at
which Mr. T., who by this time is undressed, and “as
mad as a March hare,” (from the old English superstition),
puts out the candle “in the twinkling of an eye,” (1st
Corinthians 15: 52), lies down as far as possible from the
“weaker vessel,” (1st Epistle of Peter 2: 17), courts
“tired Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!” (Young's
Night Thoughts), and wakes next morning “a sadder
and a wiser man,” (in Coleridge's Ancient Mariner).

If we turn from the frescoed bed-chamber of Mrs.
Timmins to the white-washed kitchen of Jim Skiver, the
shoemaker, we find language not less elevated. Jim
throws a leg of mutton upon the table and says: “There,
Mary, I had `to take Hobson's choice,' ” although Jim had
neither read the 509th Spectator, nor knew that Hobson's
epitaph had been written by Milton. Jim, not “having
the fear of” Beaumont and Fletcher “before his eyes,”
(Romans 3: 18), says, if he can “catch that man wot gave
Bill Baxter a black eye the day afore his weddin' he'll
`lamm' him”, (King and No King, Act V, Scene Third).
To which Mary replies: “I thought somethin' would
happin: `the course of true love never did run smooth,' ”
(Midsummers Night's Dream, Act I, Scene 1), and Jim
responds, “That's so; and they've put off the weddin'
so often that it seems kind o' `hopin' agin' hope,' ” (Romans
4: 18). Jim thinks after they've had a “snack,”
(Pope and Dryden), they had better go see the Siamese
Twins; “twins tied by nature; if they part, they die,”
(Young's Night Thoughts); puts on “a hat not much the
worse for wear,” (John Gilpin), “dashes through thick
and thin,” (same authority and Hudibras), and after he has
seen the Siamese, requests to see the “Lilliputian King,”
(from Gulliver's travels).

How much language would be left us if these estrays
were returned to their lawful owners, is a question. How
could we console the dying if we had to give up to Gay's
twenty-seventh Fable the phrase, “while there is life

there's hope?” and what could we say to the good in misfortune
if we had to restore to Prior's Ode, “Virtue is her
own reward?” The shopkeeper who ends his long list
of fancy articles with “and other articles too tedious to
mention,” makes use of a sentence as old as the Latin
language, and we would take the point from Byron's hit
at Coleridge, if we were to replace in “Garrick's Epilogue
on Leaving the Stage,” “a fellow-feeling makes us wond
rous kind.” So, too, must Goldsmith's Hermit lose “man
wants but little here below,” if Young's Night Thought,
IV, had its own property: and “all the jargon of the
schools,” from Burns' 1st epistle to J. Lapraik must be
rendered up to Prior's “Ode on Exodus,” which has a
prior claim to it. Mr. Achitophel Scapegrace thinks the
biggest stockholders in the Roaring River Canal Co. will
have the best chance, as “all the big fish will eat up the
little ones,” (Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act II, Scene First),
and Mr. Bombastes Linderwold talks of a “platform” in
precisely the same sense as Cromwell did two hundred
years ago, (Queries in Letter 97, Carlyle). It is in Cromwell's
seventh letter that we find for the first time that
apt conjunction, “a gentleman and a Christian,” now
somewhat threadbare from misuse, and if we want
“mother-wit,” we must look for it in Spenser's Faërie
Queen, Book IV., Canto X, verse 21. Every body has
seen the man in Greek costume who sells soap by the ball
but nobody but Mr. Leviticus Gaylord suggested, “that
if another Greek should meet that Greek then would be
a tug of war,” and he has authority for saying so in the
Rival Queens, Act IV, Scene First. We have to go
back to Thomas ä Kempis for “man proposes but God
disposes;” but “what if thou withdraw and no friend
takes note of thy departure?” was written by a young man
only eighteen years of age nearly fifty years ago.[1] If
we want to look up “the solemn brood of care,” we can
find that, “and each one, as before, will chase his favorite
phantom,” in Thanatopsis. There, too, we will see the hills
“rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,” but “old as the
hills” is older than the “oldest inhabitant,” and like him,
has lost its parent. If we need “to point a moral and
adorn a tale,” we must get Dr. Johnson's “Vanity of
Human Wishes,” and “he that runs may read,” in
Cowper's “Tirocinium,” and “he may run that readeth
it,” in Habakuk 2: 2. If any person wish to “consume
the midnight oil,” let him read Gay's Shepherd and Philosopher,
and in Congreve's “Mourning Bride” he will
find “music hath charms to soothe a savage breast.” “To
be in the wrong box,” will occur to him who has dipped
into the sixth book of “Fox's Martyrs,” and Napoleon
found “that from the sublime to the ridiculous there is
but one step,” in Tom Paine's works translated and published
in France, in 1791. We take “buds of promise,”
from Young's “Last Day,” “and men talk only to con
ceal their mind,” from his “Love of Fame,” although
we attribute the thought to Talleyrand. “Good breeding
is the blossom of good sense,” is not quite so familiar, but
it is also in the “Love of Fame,” from whence we get
the original of what Matilda Jane Peabody believes when
she ties up her hair before the looking glass and says that
“Louisa Perkins and Betsey Baker can't hold a candle to
her.” “To hold their farthing candle to the sun” is in
her mind, or its equivalent. “Who shall decide when
doctors disagree?” is a question we may well ask between
the Allopathists and the Homœpathists, and Pope puts it
in his “Fourth Moral Essay.” In “Lochiel's Warning”
we find “coming events cast their shadows before.” So
Tim Taffeta thinks as he sees the shade deepen upon the
brows of his creditor. So Dr. Senna thinks as he sees the
premonitory symptoms of coming apoplexy in the fail
round proportions of Alderman Broadbutton, and so
thinks Peter Pipkin as the delicate adumbration is visible
in Mrs. Pipkin's “nature's last best gift,” (Paradise Lost,
Book 5, line 19), who finds herself “as women wish to
be who love their lords” (Douglass, Act L., Scene First),
“not wisely, but too well.” (Othello, Act V, Scene Last).
It is impossible to see the Ravels on the tight-rope without
thinking of “the light fantastic toe,” and L'Allegro;
and “thoughts that breath and words that burn,” live in
the magic atmosphere that surrounds the orator, as well
as in “Gray's Progress of Poesy.” To make a complete
collection of these phrases would be the labor of a life;
so numerous are they, that if the door is once opened,
they pour in “thick as the leaves in Valambrosa,” (Paradise
Lost, Book I, line 303); and although the “labor of
love” (Hebrews 6: 10), might entertain the scholar, yet if
he were to cast these pearls before an undiscriminating
multitude, after he “had borne the burden and heat of
the day,” (Mathew 20: 12), his only recompense would be
that he had made every one as wise as himself, which the
true scholar cannot abide. “Brevity is the soul of wit,”
(Hamlet, Act II, Scene Second), and we must make our
discourse “fine by degrees and beautifully less,” (Prior's
Henry and Emma). These sentences—“jewels, five words
long that on the stretched forefinger of old Time sparkle
forever.” (Tennyson's Princess), are not to be scattered
with too liberal a hand, and, therefore, we shall conclude
with a quotation peculiarly appropriate: “Forsake not
an old friend: when wine is old, thou shalt drink
with pleasure.” Eccl. 9: 10.