The Wit of Women
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Sanborn Kate. The Wit of Women
PROEM.1
CHAPTER I. THE MELANCHOLY TONE OF WOMEN'S POETRY – PUNS, GOOD AND BAD – EPIGRAMS AND LACONICS – CYNICISM OF FRENCH WOMEN – SENTENCES CRISP AND SPARKLING
THE VEGETABLE GIRL
CHAPTER II. HUMOR OF LITERARY ENGLISHWOMEN
THE TALKING LADY
THE SENSIBLE WOMAN
THE FIRST QUARREL
CHAPTER III. FROM ANNE BRADSTREET TO MRS. STOWE
JOSHUA'S COURTSHIP
SAM LAWSON'S SAYINGS
THE CANAL-BOAT
CHAPTER IV "SAMPLES" HERE AND THERE
MISS LUCINDA'S PIG
A GIFT HORSE
MISS SLIMMENS SURPRISED
CHAPTER V. A BRACE OF WITTY WOMEN
AUNT ANNIKY'S TEETH
THE RADICAL CLUB
CHAPTER VI. GINGER-SNAPS
THE INDIAN AGENT
MISTRESS O'RAFFERTY ON THE WOMAN QUESTION
DOCHTHER O'FLANNIGAN AND HIS WONDHERFUL CURES
THE OLD-TIME RELIGION
AUNTY DOLEFUL'S VISIT
A THANKSGIVING GROWL
CHAPTER VII. PROSE, BUT NOT PROSY
OLD-TIME CHILD LIFE
MRS. MEEKER
PARSON MEEKER
A FATAL REPUTATION
A BLACKSMITH IN LOVE
"MISS LOIS."
THE CIRCUS AT DENBY
NEW YORK TO NEWPORT
CHAPTER VIII. HUMOROUS POEMS
THE FIRST NEEDLE
THE FUNNY STORY
A SONNET
WANTED, A MINISTER
THE MIDDY OF 1881
INDIGNANT POLLY WOG
"KISS PRETTY POLL!"
THANKSGIVING-DAY (THEN AND NOW)
CONCERNING MOSQUITOES
THE STILTS OF GOLD
JUST SO
THE INVENTOR'S WIFE
AN UNRUFFLED BOSOM
HAT, ULSTER AND ALL
AUCTION EXTRAORDINARY
A APELE FOR ARE TO THE SEXTANT
CHAPTER IX. GOOD-NATURED SATIRE
A MODERN MINERVA
THE BALLAD OF CASSANDRA BROWN
THE TENDER HEART
PLIGHTED: A.D. 1874
A FRAGMENT
THE THREE POETS
BEDTIME
THE ROBIN AND THE CHICKEN
WHY POLLY DOESN'T LOVE CAKE!
KITTEN TACTICS
BOTH SIDES
CHAPTER X. PARODIES – REVIEWS – CHILDREN'S POEMS – COMEDIES BY WOMEN – A DRAMATIC TRIFLE – A STRING OF FIRECRACKERS
STRUGGLING GENIUS
ACT I
Отрывок из книги
To begin a deliberate search for wit seems almost like trying to be witty: a task quite certain to brush the bloom from even the most fruitful results. But the statement of Richard Grant White, that humor is the "rarest of qualities in woman," roused such a host of brilliant recollections that it was a temptation to try to materialize the ghosts that were haunting me; to lay forever the suspicion that they did not exist. Two articles by Alice Wellington Rollins in the Critic, on "Woman's Sense of Humor" and "The Humor of Women," convinced me that the deliberate task might not be impossible to carry out, although I felt, as she did, that the humor and wit of women are difficult to analyze, and select examples, precisely because they possess in the highest degree that almost essential quality of wit, the unpremeditated glow which exists only with the occasion that calls it forth. Even from the humor of women found in books it is hard to quote – not because there is so little, but because there is so much.
The encouragement to attempt this novel enterprise of proving ("by their fruits ye shall know them") that women are not deficient in either wit or humor has not been great. Wise librarians have, with a smile, regretted the paucity of proper material; literary men have predicted rather a thin volume; in short, the general opinion of men is condensed in the sly question of a peddler who comes to our door, summer and winter, his stock varying with the season: sage-cheese and home-made socks, suspenders and cheap note-paper, early-rose potatoes and the solid pearmain. This shrewd old fellow remarked roguishly "You're gittin' up a book, I see, 'baout women's wit. 'Twon't be no great of an undertakin', will it?" The outlook at first was certainly discouraging. In Parton's "Collection of Humorous Poetry" there was not one woman's name, nor in Dodd's large volume of epigrams of all ages, nor in any of the humorous departments of volumes of selected poetry.
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Madame de Sévigné's letters present detached thoughts worthy of Rochefoucauld without his cynicism. She writes: "One loves so much to talk of one's self that one never tires of a tête-à-tête with a lover for years. That is the reason that a devotee likes to be with her confessor. It is for the pleasure of talking of one's self – even though speaking evil." And she remarks to a lady who amused her friends by always going into mourning for some prince, or duke, or member of some royal family, and who at last appeared in bright colors, "Madame, I congratulate myself on the health of Europe."
I find, too, many fine aphorisms from "Carmen Sylva" (Queen of Roumania):
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