The origins of Absolutism

     "To lose one's temper at golf is foolish. It gets you nothing, not even relief. Imitate the spirit of Marcus Aurelius. 'Whatever may befall thee,' says that great man in his 'Meditations,' 'it is preordained for thee from everlasting. Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.' I like to think that this noble thought came to him after he had sliced a couple of new balls into the woods, and that he jotted it down on the back of his scorecard. For there can be no doubt that the man was a golfer, and a bad golfer at that."

(from "Ordeal by Golf," by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Simple - just kill George

     "By the way," I said, looking round, "where is your fiance?"

    "I have no fiance," she said, in a dull, hard voice.

    "You have broken off the engagement?"

    "Not exactly. And yet - well, I suppose it amounts to that."

    "I don't quite understand."

    "Well, the fact is," said Celia, in a burst of girlish frankness, "I rather think I've killed George."

    "Killed him, eh?"

    It was a solution that had not occurred to me, but now that it was presented for my inspection I could see its merits. In these days of national effort, when we are all working together to try to make our beloved land fit for heroes to live in, it was astonishing that nobody before had thought of a simple, obvious thing like killing George Mackintosh. George Mackintosh was undoubtedly better dead, but it had taken a woman's intuition to see it.

    "I killed him with my niblick," said Celia.

    I nodded. If the thing was to be done at all, it was unquestionably a niblick shot.

(from "The Salvation of George Mackintosh, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

She doesn't like golf?!

     "Peter, old man, that girl aid golf bored her pallid. She said she thought it was the silliest game ever invented." He paused to mark the effect of his words. Peter merely smiled a faint, wan smile. "You don't seem revolted," said James.

    "I am revolted, but not surprised. You see, she said the same thing to me only a few minutes before."

    "She did!"

    "It amounted to the same thing. I had just been telling her how I did the lake-hole today in two, and she said that in her opinion golf was a game for children with water on the brain who weren't athletic enough to play Animal Grab."

    The two men shivered in sympathy.

    "There must be insanity in the family," said James at last.

    "That," said Peter, "is the charitable explanation.

(from "A Woman Is Only a Woman," by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Concerning knitting

 No masculine eye can reckon up purls and plains and estimate the size of chest which the garment is destined to cover. Moreover, with amateur knitters there much always be allowed a margin for involuntary error. There were many cases during the war where our girls sent sweaters to their sweethearts which would have induced strangulation in their young brothers. The amateur sweater of those days was, in fact, practically tantamount to German propaganda.

(from "A Woman is Only a Woman," by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Wagering on love

 So little was known of the form of the two men, neither having figured as principal in a love-affair before, that even money was the best you could get, and the market was sluggish. I think my own flutter of twelve golf balls, taken up by Percival Brown, was the most substantial of any of the wagers. I selected James as the winner. Why, I can hardly say, unless that he had an aunt who contributed occasional stories to the "Women's Sphere." These thing sometimes weigh with a girl. On the other hand, George Lucas, who had half-a-dozen of ginger-ale on Peter, based his calculations on the fact that James wore knickerbockers on the links, and that no girl could possibly love a man with calves like that. In short, you see, we really had nothing to go on.

(from "A Woman Is Only a Woman," by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Nothing he can be proud of

    "Where you headed for, son?"

    "Riley McClean shrugged. "This is as good a place as any. I'm hunting a job."

    "What do you do?"

    "Most anything. It don't make no difference."

    Now when a man says that he can do most anything, it is a safe bet he can do nothing, or at least that he can do nothing well. If a man has a trade, he is proud of it and says so, and usually he will do a passing job of anything else he tackled.

(from "The One for the Mohave Kid," by Louis L'Amour)

Enough to make a preacher cuss

 Invariably, in the course of a man's struggle with a collar button it would slip from his fingers and roll into the most inaccessible place in the room. It was never possible to simply stoop down and pick up a collar button. One always had to get down on one's knees and reach under whatever piece of furniture was nearby and feel around for the missing object. It has been reliably reported that even ministers of the gospel used unseemly language on such occasions.

(from "McQueen of the Tumbling K," by Louis L'Amour)