Marginalia
Top Ten: Cuppy Love
Illustrations by Matthew Elliot
Humorist Will Cuppy, AB 1907, AM 1914, was the author of eight books, beginning with Maroon Tales in 1910. We mined The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), How to Get from January to December (1951), and How to Attract the Wombat (1949), for a few bon mots.
10. The Age of Reptiles ended because it had gone on long enough and it was all a mistake in the first place.
9. Armadillos make affectionate pets, if you need affection that much.
8. The more snuff Frederick [the Great] took, the more memoirs he wrote. He loved literature, but not enough to let it alone and stop trying to improve it.
7. [Catherine the Great’s] early years were very unhappy, and she decided she would have a good time if she ever got a chance. Later on, she overdid it a little.
6. Older men say such interesting things, and [Madame du Barry] was always a good listener. Anything you said was news to her.
5. Other kings let their ministers make their mistakes for them, but Louis insisted on making the important mistakes personally.
4. Attila was now sixtyish. His mind was weakening and he decided to marry again, as he had been terribly misunderstood the first three hundred times.
3. The Phoenicians employed an alphabet of twenty-one consonants. They left no literature. You can’t be literary without a few vowels.
2. Carthage was governed by its rich men and was therefore a plutocracy. Rome was also governed by its rich men and was therefore a republic.
1. The Ancient Egyptians considered it good luck to meet a swarm of Bees on the road. What they considered bad luck I couldn’t say.
