Bassetts Scrap Book, Vol 3, No 9
Articles in this issue
- p. 1
A Thanksgiving miscellany of seasonal aphorisms declaring turkey the inspiration of Thanksgiving and mince pie the root of regret, alongside a historical note that Thanksgiving as an institution predates the Pilgrims by centuries, originating with the Aztecs of Tenoxtitlan.
- p. 2
A historical note quoting Sir Thomas Elyot's 1531 book 'The Governour', which calls football nothing but beastly fury and extreme violence that produces hurt, rancour, and malice, and demands it be put in perpetual silence.
- p. 3
A poem by Nixon Waterman puncturing male vanity by asking the self-proclaimed hero, wise man, and saint to consider whether the woman mending his socks at midnight shares the high opinion of him he broadcasts at the club.
- p. 5
A historical note tracing the custom of a wife taking her husband's name to Roman practice — Julia of Pompey, Octavia of Cicero — and the English legal ruling of 1568 that officially established it in law, though Catherine Parr refused to follow the custom as late as the sixteenth century.
- p. 14
A comic portrait of a vivid, theatrical preacher who roars when describing Daniel in the lions' den, brays when discussing Balaam's ass, and strikes the nail on the head when he comes to Jael — to the amusement, if not always the spiritual improvement, of his congregation.
- p. 6
An anecdote about a good joke — 'Did the theatre fire save anything? Yes, they carried out the programme' — that a man tells his wife and she misremembers so badly when repeating it to the grocer that no one can see the point.
- p. 7
An anecdote about Dr. Johnson waking in a rage from a dream in which Burke completely routed him in argument, only calming down when it occurs to him that as it was his own dream, he himself was the one who supplied Burke with all his devastating arguments.