In the past the mood of the comic postcard could enter into the central stream of literature, and jokes barely different from McGill's could casually be uttered between the murders in Shakespeare's tragedies. That is no longer possible, and a whole category of humour, integral to our literature till 1800 or thereabouts, has dwindled down to these ill-drawn postcards, leading a barely legal existence in cheap stationers' windows. The corner of the human heart that they speak for might easily manifest itself in worse forms, and I for one should be sorry to see them vanish.

She didn't ask me to the christening, so I'm not going to the wedding.

Judge: 'You are prevaricating, sir. Did you or did you not sleep with this woman?' Co-respondent: 'Not a wink, my lord!'

'I've been struggling for years to get a fur coat. How did you get yours?' 'I left off struggling.'

The Jews have never produced a true poet. Heinrich Heine reached the point where he duped himself into a poet, and was rewarded by his versified lies being set…

It may happen in the next hundred years that the English novelists of the present day will come to be valued as we now value the artists and craftsmen of the l…

How have you left the ancient love That bards of old enjoyed in you! The languid strings do scarcely move! The sound is forced, the notes are few!