PREFACE
Until some fortunate being—wit, student, and man of the world (he will have to be all three)—can, in a cunningly chosen library, write the history of the Epigram, and the birth and growth of epigrammatic thought, we shall always be in doubt as to what an epigram is, and most people will be in doubt as to where the best epigrams are. The word itself is as difficult to define as its own essences—wit, humour, style, etc. We recognise the epigram when uttered or printed just as swiftly as we recognise beauty in a woman, yet rarely can we describe either. The sheer study that awaits the historian of the Epigram has, doubtless, been a great deterrent; he would have to consider epigrams from the Bible and the apocryphal writings downwards! In “Woman and the Wits” I have brought together some of the wisest, wittiest, and tenderest epigrams, proverbs, axioms, adages or short, pithy sentences—call them what you will—relating to the woman and women, and also to the passions, affections, sentiments, and emotions generally.
My thanks are due principally to Mr. Morton and Mr. Du Bois for many excellent epigrams and for hints as to arrangement.
G. F. MONKSHOOD.
London, 1899.