Page:The king's English (IA kingsenglish00fowlrich).pdf/188
Looking for all the world like...— D. Sladen.
Too funny for words.
These two phrases arc commonly employed to carry off a humorous description of which the success is doubted. They are equivalents, in light literature, of the encouragement sometimes offered by the story-teller whose joke from Punch has fallen flat: 'You should have seen the illustration'. Worthy and gallant are similarly used:
To hear the worthy and gallant Major resume his favourite topic is like law-business, or a person who has a suit in Chancery going on.—Hazlitt.
Home.—I would implore God to survey with an eye of mercy their unoffending bairns. Hume.—And would not you be disposed to behold them with an eye of the same materials?—Landor.
Two or three haggard, ragged drawers ran to and fro...Guided by one of these blinking Ganymedes, they entered...—Scott.
The ancient Hebe who acted as Lord Glenvarloch's cup-bearer took his part against the intrusion of the still more antiquated Ganymede, and insisted on old Trapbois leaving the room instantly.—Scott.
It may be doubted whether any resemblance or contrast, however striking, can make it worth a modern writer's while to call waiters Ganymedes, waitresses Hebes, postmen Mercuries, cabmen Automedons or Jehus. In Scott's time, possibly, these phrases had still an agreeable novelty: they are now so hackneyed as to have fallen into the hands of writers who are not quite certain who Ganymede and Hebe were. Thus, there are persons who evidently think that it is rather complimentary to one's host than otherwise to call him an Amphitryon; and others who are fond of using the phrase 'l'Amphitryon où l'on dîne' altogether without point, apparently under the impression that 'où l'on dîne' is an alternative version for the use of the uninitiated ('Amphitryon', that is to say, 'one's host').
Japan, says M. Balet, can always borrow money so long as she can provide two things—guarantees and victories. She has guarantees enough and victories galore.—Times.