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By temper and conviction opposed to persecution, he connived at Catholic worship under the very walls of the Castle. The sour and jaundiced bigotry of the local oligarchy he encountered with bon mots and raillery. The only "dangerous Papist" he had seen in Ireland, he declared to the King on his return, was a celebrated beauty of that religion Miss Palmer.
"Excellent!" laughed Mr. Cayenne. Mr. Partenopex Puff was reputed, in a certain set, a sayer of good things, but he was a modest wit, and generally fathered his bon mots on his valet Booby, his monkey, or his parrot. "I saw you in the last number," said Cayenne. "From the quotations from your own works, I imagine the review of your own book was by yourself?" "What do you think Booby said?" "Mr.
There was the manager of the theatre in which the Nabob was a sleeping partner, Cardailhac, almost as renowned for his wit as for his failures, that wonderful carver, who would prepare one of his bons mots as he detached the limbs of a partridge, and deposit it with a wing in the plate that was handed him.
These days were far from being their dullest; for, what with the varied and scientific knowledge of Lucien, which he took pleasure in imparting to his companions what with the practical experience of Norman amid scenes of Arctic life, and the many "voyageur tales" he could tell what with Francois' merry jokes and bon mots and what with Basil's talent for listening not the least important element in a good conversazione, our quartette of young voyageurs found their indoor days anything but dull.
During the latter half of the eighteenth century no man had more friends in the select society which comprised those who were of the first importance in English politics, fashion, or sport, than George Selwyn. In one particular he was regarded as supreme and unapproachable; he was the humourist of his time. His ban mots were collected and repeated with extraordinary zest.
His smiling suavity, his gracious manner, had given place to taciturnity and Ore City's choicest bon mots, its time-tested pleasantries, fell upon inattentive ears.
But in his case they were sufficiently numerous, distinguished and enthusiastic to send the fame of his talk all over the country. Is he the only man whose "Bon Mots," as they were called, have been published in his lifetime? "A mighty impudent thing," as he said of it, but also an irrefragable proof of his celebrity. And on the whole his popularity, then and since, has equalled his fame.
If you wish it to do so, stifle your conscience, and do not let your superstitions affect you. But, by the way, you know French, do you not? Then here is a maxim that, in parting, I recommend to your attention it has some truth in it: Il y a une page effrayante dans le livre des destinees humaines: on y lit en tete ces mots 'les desirs accomplis." And she was gone.
It was truly remarked of Selwyn at the time of his death: "Many good things he did say, there was no doubt, and many he was capable of saying, but the number of good, bad, and indifferent things attributed to him as bon mots for the last thirty years of his life were sufficient to stock a foundling hospital for wit."* * Grenville Correspondence, vol. 11. p. 372.
No such characters as Bouvard and Pecuchet could ever have existed outside Flaubert's brain, and the reader's resultant impression is that the author has ruined a central idea which was well suited for a grand larkish extravaganza in the hands of a French Swift. But the spectacle of Flaubert writing in mots justes a grand larkish extravaganza cannot be conjured up by fancy.
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