Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-03-10

on cabbage? You go and marry grass
widow!"
Only one man is on record who gives his
mother in law credit for wit. His son swal-
lowed penny, and a few days afterward
she wrote the family inquiring if Ernest was
over his financial difficulties.
Newspaper women are usually very quick
at repartee. When Sallie Joy Whites first
baby came she showed it to James Murdoch
the actor "There!" she said. THAT is the
finest article ever did"
Marion Howard Brazier listened patiently
to the Boosting of woman who claimed
that never during the fifty years of their
married life had her husband been obliged
to get up and light the kitchen fire. IN
deed" said Miss B., "he must be the most
remarkable fire escape on record
Josephine Jenkins, for many years the
"Chatterer" of "The Boston Herald was
once asked, when she lived on a quiet
street in the debatable region between Cop
ley Square and Columbus-ave., If she lived
on the Back Bay well, yes. was her re-
plv, ain the small of the Back Bay
Another newspaper woman, sp1nster,
went to interview a member of one of the
leading firms in Boston, and was told to wait
five minutes for him to be at liberty. Three
quarters of an hour later he came hurrylng
toward her with, well. Miss W., would
never wait so long as this for any mani
"Oh, Mr.. Cole she retorted, If you had
waited fortv-fve years for a man you
wouldn't mind an extra half-hour."
THERE were Mary Mapes Dodge and
L Marion Harland and Mary Kyle Dallas
and Lucia Runkle-all quick at repartee.
There is story of Phoebe Cary who, when
asked by P. T. Barnum what was her favorite
brand of champagne replied, 1--WE drink
Heidsieck; but we keep AIumm.
Kate Field was one of the wittiest women
that ever lived. Agnes Repplier is sure to
say something genuinely witty during an
hours conversation.
Kate Sanborn keeps everybody around
her in a gale of laughter. In her book on
the Wit of Women she refers to Grace
Greenwood as one of the wits of her time.
There was day when she had to ride in one
of the old Fifth-ave. stages, and it pitched
and lurched worse than usual. A man who
was little the worse for wear got in, and
to steady himself would clutch wildly at the
laps of the women nearby. That evening
one of her friends described the performance.
"He was a perfect savage" she continued
angrily. ayes, of the Pawnee tribe, added
1ldSS NlSCllWOOO.
Rose Terry Cooke owed much of her sue
cess as writer to the witty things she put
into the mouths of her characters, as when
she referred to someone as decayed gentle
woman, "yet not Extensively So
The woman who wanted to hear Mozart S
Twelfth Mass because that was the reg
iment her husband belonged to, or the young
bride who wanted rubber plant so as to be
able to raise their own rubbers, did not intend
to say anything funny; but, as for that, the
genuinely witty woman never does. Real wit
is spontaneous; as, for instance, the woman
who said she would not describemarriage as so
much failure as temporary embarrassment.
Brander Matthews once told the follow
ing at the Players Club: "a literary woman
said one night to her husband, apropos of the
Shakespeare Bacon controversy, When l
get to Heaven am going to ask Shakespeare
whether or not he wrote those plays. - Per
haps he won't be there" chuckled the hus-
band. Then you ask him. was her quick
retort."
Are women witty? Ask the publishers Of
Marietta Holley's work, of Anna Warner
of Kate Douglas Wiggin, of @The Ladies
Home Journal, which has published col
lection of witty anecdotes about women.
One of them runs thus:
"If we please, Num-" said the wood
chopper in an appealing voice as he leaned
against the back door of a small New Eng