PRO ARIS ET FOCIS
[Sidenote:  Percy Anecdotes]

At the establishment of volunteer corps, a certain corporation agreed to form a body, on condition that they should not be obliged to quit the country.  The proposal was submitted to Mr. Pitt; who said he had no objection to the terms, if they would permit him to add, “except, in case of invasion.”

THE GENTLE READER
[Sidenote:  Anon.]

  No British Museum the fisherman needs: 
  He simply goes down to the river and reeds.

CLERGYMEN AND CHICKENS
[Sidenote:  Samuel Butler]

Why, let me ask, should a hen lay an egg, which egg can become a chicken in about three weeks and a full-grown hen in less than a twelvemonth, while a clergyman and his wife lay no eggs, but give birth to a baby which will take three-and-twenty years before it can become another clergyman?  Why should not chickens be born and clergymen be laid and hatched?  Or why, at any rate, should not the clergyman be born full-grown and in Holy Orders, not to say already beneficed?

MELCHISEDEC
[Sidenote:  Samuel Butler]

He was a really happy man.  He was without father, without mother, and without descent.  He was an incarnate bachelor.  He was a born orphan.

EATING AND PROSELYTISING
[Sidenote:  Samuel Butler]

All eating is a kind of proselytising—­a kind of dogmatising—­a maintaining that the eater’s way of looking at things is better than the eatee’s.  We convert the food, or try to do so, to our own way of thinking, and, when it sticks to its own opinion and refuses to be converted, we say it disagrees with us.  An animal that refuses to let another eat it has the courage of its convictions, and, if it gets eaten, dies a martyr to them....

It is good for the man that he should not be thwarted—­that he should have his own way as far, and with as little difficulty, as possible.  Cooking is good because it makes matters easier by unsettling the meat’s mind and preparing it for new ideas.  All food must first be prepared for us by animals and plants, or we cannot assimilate it; and so thoughts are more easily assimilated that have been already digested by other minds.  A man should avoid converse with things that have been stunted or starved, and should not eat such meat as has been overdriven or underfed or afflicted with disease, nor should he touch fruit or vegetables that have not been well grown.

Sitting quiet after eating is akin to sitting still during divine service so as not to disturb the congregation.  We are catechising and converting our proselytes, and there should be no row.  As we get older we must digest more quietly still; our appetite is less, our gastric juices are no longer so eloquent, they have lost that cogent fluency which carried away all that came in contact with it.  They have become sluggish and unconciliatory.  This is what happens to any man when he suffers from an attack of indigestion.