A Book of Burlesques

Chapter 26

Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later. For another thing, they die earlier.

-- 2.

The man who marries for love alone is at least honest. But so was Czolgosz.

-- 3.

When a husband"s story is believed, he begins to suspect his wife.

-- 4.

In the year 1830 the average American had six children and one wife. How time transvalues all values!

-- 5.

Love begins like a triolet and ends like a college yell.

-- 6.

A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the dark.

-- 7.

Man"s objection to love is that it dies hard; woman"s is that when it is dead it stays dead.

-- 8.

Definition of a good mother: one who loves her child almost as much as a little girl loves her doll.

-- 9.

The way to hold a husband is to keep him a little bit jealous. The way to lose him is to keep him a little bit more jealous.

-- 10.

It used to be thought in America that a woman ceased to be a lady the moment her name appeared in a newspaper. It is no longer thought so, but it is still true.

-- 11.

Women have simple tastes. They can get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love.

-- 12.

Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner"s inquest.

-- 13.

How little it takes to make life unbearable!... A pebble in the shoe, a c.o.c.kroach in the spaghetti, a woman"s laugh!

-- 14.

The bride at the altar: "At last! At last!" The bridegroom: "Too late!

Too late!"

-- 15.

The best friend a woman can have is the man who has got over loving her.

He would rather die than compromise her.

-- 16.

The one breathless pa.s.sion of every woman is to get some one married. If she"s single, it"s herself. If she"s married, it"s the woman her husband would probably marry if she died tomorrow.

-- 17.

Man weeps to think that he will die so soon. Woman, that she was born so long ago.

-- 18.

Woman is at once the serpent, the apple--and the belly-ache.

-- 19.

Cold mutton-stew; a soiled collar; breakfast in dress clothes; a wet house-dog, over-affectionate; the other fellow"s tooth-brush; an echo of "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay"; the damp, musty smell of an empty house; stale beer; a mangy fur coat; _Katzenjammer_; false teeth; the criticism of Hamilton Wright Mabie; boiled cabbage; a c.o.c.ktail _after_ dinner; an old cigar b.u.t.t; ... the kiss of Evelyn after the inauguration of Eleanor.

-- 20.

Whenever a woman begins to talk of anything, she is talking to, of, or at a man.