When Madame de Staël published her celebrated novel of _Delphine_, she was supposed to have painted herself in the person of the heroine, and M. Talleyrand in that of an elderly lady, who is one of the principal characters. "They tell me," said he, the first time he met her, "that we are both of us in your novel, in the disguise of women."
Rulhières, the celebrated author of the work on the Polish revolution, having said, "I never did but one mischievous work in my life." "And when will it be ended?" was Talleyrand's reply.
"Is not Geneva dull?" asked a friend of Talleyrand. "Especially when they amuse themselves," was the reply.
"She is insupportable," said Talleyrand, with marked emphasis, of one well known; but, as if he had gone too far, and to take off something of what he had said, he added, "it is her only defect."
BUSS--to kiss. Re-bus--to kiss again. Blunder-buss--two girls kissing each other. Omni-bus--to kiss all the girls in the room. Bus-ter--a general kisser. _E pluri_-bus _unum_--a thousand kisses in one.
"YOU want a flogging, that's what you do;" said a parent to his unruly son. "I know it, dad; but I'll try to get along without it," replied the brat.
The following anecdotes were told by the late Bishop of Chichester, as having occurred to himself.
AT the annual examination of the Charity Schools, around the city of Chichester, he was seated in the front row of the school room, together with his daughters, and the family of the noble house of Richmond, when the Bishop kindly took part in the examination, and put several questions. To one boy, he said, "We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now, does that passage mean that _every one_ of us has sinned?" The boy hesitated--but upon a repetition of the question, the lad replied, "Every one except your Lordship, and the company sitting on the front form." The same Bishop, at one of his Confirmations, saw a school girl inclined to be inattentive and troublesome; he therefore held up his finger as a warning. These children, being accustomed to _signs_ from their teachers, of which they were expected to declare the meaning, did not suppose that the elevation of the Bishop's finger, was an exception to their general rule of reply to such tokens, they therefore all arose together, and from the middle of the Church exclaimed in an exulting tone, "_perpendicular_," to the astonishment and consternation of the better inclined, and to the amusement, we fear, of not a few of the congregation.