Josh Billings - The Complete Works of Josh Billings

Biles are az old az religion. Job, the proffit, waz the first champion ov biles, and he iz currently reported tew hav more biles, and more pashunce, to the square inch, than enny one, two very rare things to be found, in enny man.

Biles and pashunce ! i should as soon think ov mixing courting and muskeeters together, for luxury.

I hav got a grate deal more faith than i hav pashunce, but i hain’t got enough faith in biles. I wouldn’t trust a bile, even on one ov mi boots.

I think faith iz a better artikle than pashunce. Faith sumtimes iz an evidence ov brains, and pashunce quite often iz only numbness, but i don’t thinkin these smoothe shod times it iz best to have too mutch capital invested in either ov them.

But i am out ov the road. I must git back onto biles agin.

If a fellow begins tew wander, and git out ov the straight and narrow path, it is curious how quick he will begin to go to the – . Biles are very sassy; sumtimes when yer go to set down, they will get between yer and the chair; this iz one evidence ov their ill-breeding, and i had one once plant herself on the frunt end of mi nose, which was a most remarkabel piece ov bad manners, for there iz no room on mi noze ennywhere fora bile, for when it iz even ebb tide with mi noze, it covers half ov mi face. Biles are sed tew be helthy, and i guess they am, for i hav seen sum helthy old biles, az big az a hornet’s nest, and az full ov stings. I always want to be helthy – i am willing tew pay the highest market price for a good deal ov helthy – but if i had to hav 2 biles on me, awl the time, in order to be helthy, i should think that i was bulling the market.

There iz one more smart thing about biles; they are like twins; they hardly ever cum singly, and i hav known them to throw double sixes.

What! twelve biles on one man at a time! This is wus than fighting bumblebees with your summer clothes on.

Biles are sed, by the edukated and correkt spellers ov the land, to be an operashun ov natur tew git rid ov sumthing which she wants to spare. This is so without doubt, but it don’t strike me az being a very polite thing in natur, tew shov oph her biles onto other folks. I say, let evry boddy take care ov their own biles.

But say aul yer kan about biles, call them all the mean names current amung fishmungers, revile and persecute, and spit on them, groan, grin and swear when they visit yer, hit them over the head and set on them if yer pleaze, there iz a time in their career when they concentrate aul the pathos ov joy that a man haz on hand to spare, and that iz – when they bust!

This iz bliss, glory, and revenge on the haff shell. A man leans back in rektified comfort, az innocent and az limber az a mermaid.

This pays for the fretful nights and nervous days while the bile haz been hatching. Exit Biles.

Iwould jist like to kno who the man waz who fust invented tite boots .

He must hav bin a narrow and kontrakted kuss.

If he still lives, i hope he haz repented ov hiz sin, or iz enjoying grate agony ov sum kind.

I hav bin in a grate menny tite spots in mi life, but generally could manage to make them average; but thare iz no sich thing az making a pair of tite boots average.

Enny man who kan wear a pair ov tite boots, and be humble, and penitent, and not indulge profane literature, will make a good husband.

Oh! for the pen ov departed Wm. Shakspear, to write an anethema aginst tite boots, that would make anshunt Rome wake up, and howl agin az she did once before on a previous ockashun.

Oh! for the strength ov Herkules, to tare into shu strings all the tite boots ov creashun, and skatter them tew the 8 winds ov heaven.

Oh! for the buty ov Venus, tew make a bigg foot look hansum without a tite boot on it.

Oh! for the payshunce ov Job, the Apostle, to nuss a tite boot and bles it, and even pra for one a size smaller and more pinchfull.

Oh! for a pair of boots bigg enuff for the foot ov a mountain.

I have been led into the above assortment ov Oh’s! from having in my posseshun, at this moment, a pair ov number nine boots, with a pair ov number eleven feet in them.

Mi feet are az uneazy az a dog’s noze the fust time he wears a muzzle.

I think mi feet will eventually choke the boots to deth.

I liv in hopes they will.

I suppozed i had lived long enuff not to be phooled agin in this way, but i hav found out that an ounce ov vanity weighs more than a pound ov reazon, espeshily when a man mistakes a bigg foot for a small one.

Avoid tite boots, mi friend, az you would the grip of the devil; for menny a man haz caught for life a fust rate habit for swareing bi encouraging hiz feet to hurt hiz boots.

I hav promised mi two feet, at least a dozen ov times during mi checkured life, that they never should be strangled agin, but i find them to-day az phull ov pain az the stummuk ake from a suddin attak ov tite boots.

But this iz solemly the last pair ov tite boots i will ever wear; i will hereafter wear boots az bigg az mi feet, if i have to go barefoot to do it.

I am too old and too respektable to be a phool enny more.

Eazy boots iz one of the luxurys ov life, but i forgit what the other luxury iz, but i don’t kno az i care, provided i kan git rid ov this pair ov tite boots.

Enny man kan hav them for seven dollars, just half what they kost, and if they don’t make his feet ake wuss than an angle worm in hot ashes, he needn’t pay for them.

Methuseles iz the only man, that i kan kall to mind now who could hav afforded to hav wore tite boots, and enjoyed them, he had a grate deal ov waste time tew be miserable in, but life now days, iz too short, and too full ov aktual bizzness to phool away enny ov it on tite boots.

Tite boots are an insult to enny man’s understanding.

He who wears tite boots will hav too acknowledge the corn.

Tite boots hav no bowells or mersy, their insides are wrath, and promiskious cussing.

Beware ov tite boots.

The lam iz a juvenile sheep.

They are born about the fust ov March, and menny ov them die just az soon az green peas cum.

Lam and green peas are good, but not good for the lam.

Lam are innosent az shrimps, they won’t bight, nor skratch, nor talk sassy.

They don’t kno mutch, only to skip, turn summersets on the grass, kik up their heels, pla tag, plauge their mothers and hav phun generally.

I luv the lam, i even luv them after they bekum mutton, i luv lams ov all kinds, i had rather hav one lam than 4 wolfs. This may look like oddness in me, but it iz mi sentiments enny how.

Mary had a little lam. I wish i had a little lam, and if i had a good deal ov lam it wouldn’t diskourage me.

Mary waz a good girl – an ornament tew her sekt.

Mary’s lam waz a good lam – an ornament tew hiz or her sekt, i don’t remember which.

It iz plezant tew reflekt that theze things are stubborn fakts.

When a lam gits thru being a lam, they immejiately bekum a sheep. This takes all the sentiment out ov them.

There ain’t mutch poetry in mutton.

Sheep are mutton.

Mutton iz sumtimes prekarious.

When youth and innosense ov enny kind groze old, it loozes most all ov its lamness.

This fakt iz too well known tew require an affidavid.

The lam iz an artikle ov trade, az well as diet, they are wuth from four tew 10 dollars, ackording tew the way things am.

It iz strange that so mutch innosense az the lam iz possessed ov should be for sale.

It iz jiss so with most all the innosense and purity in this world – it iz too often brought to the shambles.

I suppoze if i could hav mi way, the lam would stop growing when he got to be about 8 weeks old; but then, cum tew think ov it, this would make mutton awful skarse.