“Alas! death has a strange divorce
    Effected in the sea,
  It has divided me from you,
    And even me from me.

  “Don’t fear my ghost will walk o’ nights,
    To haunt, as people say;
  My ghost can’t walk, for oh! my legs
    Are many leagues away!

  “Lord! think, when I am swimming round,
    And looking where the boat is,
  A shark just snaps away a half
    Without a quarter’s notice.

  “One half is here, the other half
    Is near Columbia placed: 
  Oh!  Sally, I have got the whole
    Atlantic for my waist.

  “But now adieu—­a long adieu! 
    I’ve solved death’s awful riddle,
  And would say more, but I am doomed
    To break off in the middle.”

TABLE-TALK OF JOHN SELDEN
[Sidenote:  John Selden]

Old friends are best.  King James used to call for his old shoes; they were easiest for his feet.

* * * * *

’Tis sometimes unreasonable to look after respect and reverence, either from a man’s own servant, or other inferiors.  A great lord and a gentleman talking together, there came a boy by, leading a calf with both his hands:  says the lord to the gentleman, “You shall see me make the boy let go his calf”; with that he came towards him, thinking the boy would have put off his hat, but the boy took no notice of him.  The lord seeing that, “Sirrah,” says he, “do you not know me, that you use no reverence?” “Yes,” says the boy, “if your Lordship will hold my calf, I will put off my hat.”

* * * * *

King James said to the fly, “Have I three kingdoms, and thou must needs fly into my eye?”

HOW MARK WAS SOLD
[Sidenote:  Mark Twain]

It is seldom pleasant to tell on one’s self, but sometimes it is a sort of relief to a man to make a sad confession.  I wish to unburden my mind now, and yet I almost believe that I am moved to do it more because I long to bring censure upon another man than because I desire to pour balm upon my wounded heart. (I don’t know what balm is, but I believe it is the correct expression to use in this connection—­never having seen any balm.) You may remember that I lectured in Newark lately for the young gentlemen of the Clayonian Society?  I did, at any rate.  During the afternoon of that day I was talking with one of the young gentlemen just referred to, and he said he had an uncle who, from some cause or other, seemed to have grown permanently bereft of all emotion.  And, with tears in his eyes, this young man said, “Oh, if I could only see him laugh once more!  Oh, if I could only see him weep!” I was touched.  I could never withstand distress.

I said:  “Bring him to my lecture.  I’ll start him for you.”

“Oh, if you could but do it!  If you could but do it, all our family would bless you for ever more, for he is so very dear to us.  Oh my benefactor, can you make him laugh? can you bring soothing tears to those parched orbs?”