June, 2006
Anecdotes
** Handel **
This eminent composer of music possessed a rough humor,
though he had a kind and generous nature. It's related of him that Dr. Greene,
a personal friend and great admirer of the musician,
brought to him an anthem of his own composition, and requested, as a particular favor,
that Handel would give him his candid option of its merits. Handel received it,
promised to examine it, and invited the doctor to have breakfast next day.
Dr. Greene, accordingly, waited upon his friends, and was treated with greatest cordiality
by his host, who, however, carefully avoided any allusion to the anthem. Greene,
unable to control his impatience, at length said,
"My dear friend, keep me no longer in suspense; tell me,
I pray you, what you think of my anthem."
Handel, who had found it scientifically written,
but lacking in melody, replied, with the utmost affability,
"O, it is ver fine, my dear doctor; ver fine indeed;
but it do vant air, and zo I vlung it out of de vindow."
Mind-benders
In the following initial letters form a large naval city in England, the final letters tell where it's:
- A city in Prussia.
- A Lake in the United States.
- A county in Pennsylvania.
- A part of Austria
- A chain of mountains in Asia
- A sea in Asia
- One of the United States
Check the answers next month
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