We should like to know how the French attaché felt who, being at a soirée just after the dubious affair of the annexation of Nice and Savoy to France, met Lord Houghton, as he went towards the supper-room, and said, "_Je vais prendre quelque chose!_" "_Vous avez raison_," was the reply; "_c'est l'habitude de votre pays_."
But the French abound in the kind of wit which penetrates like a colorless North light, and sets a contrast in clearness, so that we admire its outlines, scarcely smiling; as when Hippolyte Taine said, "An Englishman would be exceedingly mortified if he had no faith in another life." When the Duke de Choiseul, who was a remarkably lean man, came to London to negotiate a peace, Charles Townsend, being asked whether the French Government had sent the preliminaries of a treaty, answered that he did not know, but they had sent the outline of an ambassador. This preserves the French flavor, which we recognize, for instance, in Ninon de l'Enclos, who, being asked one day by a Parisian lady whether she believed that St. Denys walked _all_ the way to Paris with his head under his arm, replied, "_Pourquoi pas, Mademoiselle? ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte._"
The best repartee must subsidize the pleasure of wit. When M. Scribe replied to the millionnaire who wanted him to lend the use of his genius for a consideration, that it was contrary to Scripture for a horse and an ass to plough together, the man instantly parried the snub by saying, "By what right do you call me a horse?"
Among the announcements in a French paper, we find that "a young man about to marry wants to meet a man of experience who will dissuade him." So Abraham Lincoln thought he would not marry, because "I can never be satisfied with any one who would be blockhead enough to have me."
Perhaps the purest instance of thoroughly French wit is to be credited to Mr. Emerson. An amiable rustic once heard him lecture, but could make nothing of it. Turning to a friend, he said, "Darn it! I'd like to know what Emerson thinks about God. I bet I'll ask him." He did, when Mr. Emerson came down the aisle. "God," replied he, "is the _x_ of algebra,"--that is, the unknown quantity in every problem. Nothing could be more admirable.
