The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1865-03-22
WEDNESDAY, MARCH: %.


matt RS OF state, kIcAt P0ao"oo, ~SJ
nreeent business Of importance. and any
CASE chat deserveth pity" This is most
true. aud however prone We may be 70
violate il, We should not desire or dare 70
contradict il. Ba, because We see that b
,bere are some matters uu6t for ridicuie
aud resting. there ia no reason Why We i
should suppose persons occupied win re-
lision or matters Of state to be incapaoie
Of a Joke or wit.icism. We do not mean
sninis. statesmen aud magnates Of to-day;
eyer7 body knows thai the fruck does not
Of necessity silence the joker, aud that,
as for statesmen and msgnates, Legislation
is. becoming nightly more impossible with
out "great laughter )" but saints states
men and magnates of hundreds, even
thousands Of years ago-the ancients
men whose names stink in the nostrlls
of the schooIboy and are seen in the foot
notes of the man of research. Repartee
is not peculiar TO the moderns, any more
than bon mots to the French. Musty
classics can show epigrams as pointed
and salies as lively as the best thing writ
ten or said By Rochester, or Sheridan or
De Ia Eochefoutauld, or Montesquieu, or
Talieyrand.
There never was q moro graceful re-
joinder than that which the putative
Father Of History tells of Crfrsus, carried
off from his boards, and dragged about
among the lords in waiting of Cambyses.
"Cresus," asked the crazy tyrant,
"which is the greater man or my faith.
or?" The captive must have known
that Is his adroitness failed him he would
probably be offered an immediate mark
for the sciuitars of the escort; but it did
not. "Cyrus," he replied, "was greater
than you. II in other respects you are
your fathers equal, you W i'll never have
so great son.
We might get good m sny witty bits
from this sama Herodotus but. aot to
dwell on The airy imper,ine nee of the re-
ply of Amasis to Patarbemis, or the re-
mark of the Spartan on the arrows at
Thermopy'a, that he could eight all the
better in the shade what can be better
than the rebukc of Them istocles to the
obscure rascal who grumble ed ct his honors
because they we're paid g not to the man,
but to the Athenian Z" 6 You, Gil" said
the hero Of the day, " would not have
won them, ii You bad bee an Athenlan ;
nor. il were citizen OF no better place
tan you''-or the repartee Of G &c US TO
Cyrus, when the conqneror's soldiers
we're soaking Ssrdis: "They are pillagine
your treasures" said Cyrus. mot 81
all" said his ready captive, "they are
pillaglng you're
Philip and his son ha Fe been two rich
mines for historians and sotry tellers. tth'
Two are by no means sbnouymous) blu
they seem to have deserved their reputa
ton for their Wit. Try them BY brie
specimens. A friend OF Philip died. oils
had lived long enough" said an oficiou
comforter. dong enough for him-no
long enough for me TO repay him all Ii,
lore owe him.
Our own aushter-lo7ing King" wa;
humorously urbans, Va know, even or
his death. bed, aud apologized for the IN
considerable time occupied in his dissola
ton. Alsxa, der preserved his fscult,
fss ssying good thing IS long. "Wher'
are your treasures bidaen?" he was ask
ed "In the purses of my fr.ends," ant
what more feicitous rendering of trit
common place can there be than his re
mark that he "owed as much more to Ar
istotle than to his father, as i. is better /,
live we'll than to live"
Moliere, it would seem, has been antic
ipated By Ambiguous. It was not tn
great Frsnohman who first discovere,
that no man was great to his valet 4
fatterer said to Antigonus, "you are di
viue." "Ask my valet he will tell 20,
otherwise"
Here are more scraps for such "tabl
talk" as might have been written BY tn
Ilssus or the Tiber:
"If ever the people lose their senses,
says Demosshenes to Phocion, "thcy vii
kill you" !" If they recover them the,
will kill you," was the reply.
Montesque says that the princes ouph
always to do what is fort REASONABLE 90,
to raisoaner fort pen; and who was i
who told the young cadet in the IndiaI
civil service that his decisions wouls
probably be right, but did he attempt t,
defend them his reasons would be sure t.
be wrong. Demoslbenes said Of Phocior
that he upset by his logic what he set u
By his rhetoric.
Carlyle's speech is silvern, but sienc,
golden IS only another version of De
mosthenes' observation that We have ON
tongus and two ears, because we ought t,
listen twice as much as talk.
The pinching shoe, it would seem. wa
proverbial in Rome When astonish
men. was expressed that Enilus Paulu
should repudats wife both virtuous an,
we'll born, he pointed 60 his boots, tn
work, no doubt, of the most fashionsbl
cordonnier Of the day. and observed
"You can see that they are we'll made
but not where they hurt"
Everybody knows" q lying phras
introduced by writer's IS half apolog
for repeating what few know; every
body knows how tho Conqueror, tumble
ing down as he sprapg on the SUISSE
coast, rose with his hands full Of sand an
cried, "By the splendor of God / hol
Eogland in both my handsl' Wac ,hi
original. or was he initiating Caesar, o
whom nearly the same words on a sim; a