pen portraits

Soon after the death of a well-known composer, someone who did not keep up with the news asked Sir Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan fame, what that particular composer was doing. Gilbert said that he was doing nothing. ”Surely he is composing?” the fellow persisted. “On the contrary,” commented the wit, “he is decomposing.”
2.
Madame duBarry (1741-1793)
Illegitimate daughter of a cook she became the favorite mistress of Louis XV, who declared that she was the only woman who made him forget he was 70-something.
As a young girl she was put in a high-class brothel where she was bewildered by exaggerated affections and mannerisms of her colleagues. She felt out of place and lost, which her mother tried to comfort thus, ”Don’t worry, men tire of always eating capons and delicate fruit; a good cabbage now and then delights them.”
benny