C. C. Goodwin

“ There in the strong arms of the mountains it is rocked, and whin the winds ruffle the azure plumage of the beautiful wathers, upon wather and upon shore a splendor rists such as might come were an angel to descend to earth and sketch for mortals a sane from Summer Land."
"You are right, Corrigan," said Ashley. "If the thirst for money does not denude the shores of their trees, and thus spoil the frame of your wonderful picture, Lake Tahoe will be a growing object of interest until its fame will be as wide as the world. ”

“ The telephone is the most poetical of inventions. There is a metallic sound to the click of the telegraph, as though its chief use was to further the work and the worry of mankind. There is something like a sob to the perfecting press, as though saddened by the very thought of the abuses it must reform. There is a something about a steam engine which reminds one of the heavy respirations of the slave, toiling on his chain, but the telephone has a voice for but one ear at a time, and when it is a voice that we love its messages come like caresses. ”

“ There slumber great kings and princes, and queens who were beautiful in life, but there under the seal of death a higher royalty is recognized—the royalty of great hearts and brains; the royalty that comes to the soldier when in the face of death he saves his country; the royalty of the statesman who turns aside the sword and opens new paths and possibilities to his countrymen; the royalty of the poet when he sets immortal thoughts to words, which once spoken, go sounding down the ages in music forever. ”

“ The ruling thought of Andy Barlow is to be a fighter, and he can draw and shoot in the space of a lightning's flash. The dream of George Washington, he having no children, was to create and adopt a nation which should at once be strong and free, and the result is, his grave is a shrine. But, as the eight notes of the scale, in their combinations, fill the world with music—or with discords, so the work of an editor covers all the subjects on which men have ever thought, or ever will think, and the best that any one editor can do is to handle a few subjects well. ”

“ The next day the conversation was resumed and carried on with much spirit, until Sedgwick, who had been reading through it all, laid down his book, and in a brief pause of the talk said:
"Neither fruitful fields, rich mines, nor skilled artisans, nor all combined, are enough to make great nations. A hundred nations existed when Rome was founded. They had as fair prospects as did Rome, but ninety of the hundred are forgotten; the other ten are remembered but as inferior nations. It was the stock of men and women that made Rome's grandeur and terror. ”

“ There something of the energy that creates that endless panorama is comprehended; all the deep throbbings of the mighty river's pulses are felt; all the magnificence is seen.
"In the reverberations that come of the war of waters one hears something like God's voice; something like the splendor of God is before his eyes; something akin to God's power is manifesting itself before him, and his soul shrinks within itself, conscious as never before of its own littleness and helplessness in the presence of the workings of Nature's immeasurable forces. ”

“ Grace thought a moment, and then said: "There's more than all that to this, love; you men do not know much when it comes to the hearts of women. She had some other and good reason when she refused the true-souled man."
"I believe now that you are right, my little sorceress," said Sedgwick, "and I believe that the reason has since been removed, and her great grief now is in thinking of Jordan's sorrow and than she cannot find him." ”

“ Carlin noticed the country and said:
"This must be almost on the spot where poor Wright saw his wonderful mirage."
As he spoke the bending rays of the rising sun swept along the sterile earth, and a shimmer in the air close to the ground revealed how swiftly the heat waves were advancing.
"It is as Wright said; the desert grows warm at once, so soon as the morning sun strikes it," said Harding. "Heavens, how awful a desolation. It is as though the face-cloth had been lifted from a dead world."
"Do you remember what Wright told us, about the appalling stillness of this region?" asked Ashley. ”

“ When the light of civilization well-nigh went out in the land where it was first kindled, it was re-lighted on these shores, and though it burned slowly for a long time it never quite went out; rather, it grew brighter and brighter until its sheen began to fill the world. Bright souls have peopled both sides of this channel; both are lands of fair women and brave men; their literature has made the world gentler and higher; their laws dominate mankind; their power is a controlling force among the nations; they make the center of the world's wealth ”

“ Sometime all these wires will work in accord, and the good-nights and the kisses in the souls of men will materialize into harmony and fill the world with music."
"That is, Brewster," said Corrigan, "supposin' the wires do not get crossed and the girls do not kiss the wrong papas."
"Suppose, Brewster," said the Colonel, "that at the final concert it shall be discovered that certain gentlemen have not settled their monthly rents for a long time, and their connection has been cut off?"
"There is no music where there are no ears to hear," said Wright. "What if some souls are born deaf and dumb?" ”

“ Then she continued: "That is the kind of monsters these men are. They beg and tease and protest until we women take pity on them and marry them, and then when the woman's chances for getting a good man are all spoiled, they rush off on the slightest provocation to America, or India, or Australia, or China, or some other barbarous place, and all a woman can do is to mope and threaten that next time she will know better."
And then she laughed, and then as suddenly cried and said: "Poor dear old Jack! May the seas be merciful, and may the good ship bring him safely back and be quick about it!" ”

“ If you never experienced it you don't know what the silence of the desert means. Take a day when the winds are laid; when in all directions, as far as your vision extends, thar is not a moving thing; when all that you can see is the brazen sky overhead, and the scarred breast of the earth, as if smitten and transfixed by Thor's thunderbolts, lying prone and desolate like the face of a dead world, before you; and withal not one sound: absolute stillness; and strong nerves after awhile become strained. ”

“ The two elder ladies and Sedgwick's bride entered the other carriage.
True to her promise, Grace gave to her husband, who stood near, a smiling good-bye, but when the carriage was driven away, she broke into uncontrollable sobs, wrung her hands piteously, and not until she reached home did the paroxysm of grief subside. She went to her room, laid by all her bright dresses and ornaments, robed herself in simple black—"in mourning," she said, "for my lost honey-moon."
Sedgwick and Jordan entered a carriage, and from it boarded the Dover train. ”

“ She is my Nora, my Nora. She, beautiful as she is, would in her divinity have bent and married a coarse mold of clay like myself, and poor, too, as I was; but her father said: 'Not yet, Joe. Go out into the world, make a struggle for two years, then come back, and if by that time you have established that you are man enough to be a husband to a true woman, and you and Nora still hold to the thought that is in your hearts now, I will help you all I can. ”

“ As the waves of light increased in the east, the snow on the high mountains to the west took on the hue of the opal, and when the last shadow fled away and the sun flashed gloriously above the eastern horizon, and another day was born, I knew just how the ancient Fire Worshipers felt when they bowed their heads in reverence before the splendors of the rising sun. ”

“ It makes a man a better American to go up the Columbia to the Cascades and look about him. He is not only impressed with the majesty of the scene, but thoughts of empire, of dominion and of the glory of the land over which his country's flag bears sovereignty, take possession of him. He looks down upon the rolling river and up at Mount Hood, and to both he whispers, 'We are in accord; I have an interest in you,' and the great pines nod approvingly, and the waterfalls babble more loud. ”

“ But when we think how, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, the woods were made to give place to gardens, fruitful fields and smiling homes; when we think that the majority of those families had each of them less to start with than any one of us gets for a month's labor, and yet how they subdued the land, pressed back the savage, reared and educated and created a literature for their children, until over all the vast expanse there was peace, prosperity, enlightenment and joy, then it is that we begin to grow proud. ”

“ I am bound by a promise to remain until Jack's marriage, and, in the meantime, in spite of myself, I, the farmer, the cowboy, and the miner, have dared to look upon your daughter, and my soul is groveling at her feet. I love her with such intensity that I have feared sometimes I should break down and beseech her to have pity on me. ”