George Ade

“ No doubt the one great reward of the persistent traveller is to find new varieties of his fellow man. Cairo is the pousse café of humanity—probably the most cosmopolitan city in the world. The guide books talk about rock tombs and mosques, but the travellers find their real enjoyment in the bazaars and along the crowded streets and on the sheer banks of the Nile, which stand out as an animated panorama for hundreds of miles. The first hour in Cairo is compensation for many an hour of tedious travel. ”

“ During many wakeful hours she had recalled each minute detail of that amazing interview in the garden, and had tried to estimate and foreshadow the young man's plan of escape from the secret police.
Perhaps he had been taken during the night. The greatest good fortune that she could picture for him was a quick flight across the frontier, which meant that he would never return—that she had seen him once and could not hope to see him again.
In her contemplation of the luminous figure of the Only Young Man, she had ceased to speculate concerning her own misfortunes. ”

“ He was a True Business Guy. Even after subtracting all Cats and Dogs he could still total the magnificent Sum of One Hundred Thousand Dollars.
When he looked at this Mound of Currency, he felt like a Vag and a Pauper. For he had climbed to the table-lands of High Finance and taken a peek at the Steam-Roller methods of the Real Tabascos.
"Make it a Million," said Ambition, leaning across the Table and tapping nervously. "Are you going to be satisfied with a Station Wagon and a Colored Boy when you might have a long-waisted Vehicle with two pale Simpsons in Livery on the Box? ”

“ The modern streets in Cairo, with their attractive hotels, residences, and shops, suggest a blending of Paris and the Riviera—consistent architecture, trees, palms, gardens. The streets are of boulevard width, and the houses of cheerful colouring, many of them bearing coloured frescoes in delicate shades. We who live in a country of rainfall and smoke and changing temperatures are impelled to stop and gaze in wonder at a mansion of snowy white with a pattern of pale blossoms drooping down the front of it. That style of decoration would last about twenty minutes in Chicago. ”

“ When it came to lifting one corner of a Piano or hanging Pictures he was a sad Bluff and he knew it.
"How about Paradise?" he asked one day. "I understand that inside of the Pearly Gates, each Family has Permanent Quarters. There are no Folding Beds to juggle down Back Stairways, no Picture Cords to Shorten, no Curtain Poles to saw off, no Book Cases to get jammed in Stairways. I am sure there will be no Piano Movers, for I have heard their Language. Do you think you can be happy in the Promised Land?" ”

“ It was his unbiased Opinion that London consisted of a vast swarm of
melancholy Members of the Middle and Lower Classes of the Animal
Kingdom who ate Sponge Cake with Clinkers in it, drank Tea, smoked
Pipes and rode by Bus, and thought they were Living.
Standing beneath the rippling folds of Old Glory, the proud Citizen of the Great Republic declared that we could wallop Great Britain at any Game from Polo up to Prize-Fighting and if we cut down on the Food Supplies the whole blamed Runt of an undersized Island would starve to death in a Week. ”

“ A desperate experiment is better than inaction. I have much to gain and nothing to lose. I must exhibit Kalora. I shall bring the young men to her. Some of them may take a fancy to her. I have seen people eat sugar on tomatoes and pepper on ice-cream. There may be in Morovenia one—one would be sufficient—one bachelor who is no stickler for full-blown loveliness. I may find a man who has become inoculated with western heresies and believes that a woman with intellect is desirable, even though under weight. ”

“ You cannot estimate the real dignity and artistic value of a camel until you see him or her silhouetted against a sky of molten gold just at twilight. I have made two or three attempts to describe the glory of a sunset in the desert, but I find myself as helpless as Mr. Peasley, who, after gazing for five minutes at the flaming horizon can only murmur a low but reverent "Gosh!" ”

“ You have ruined your own prospects; you have condemned your poor sister to a life of single misery, and you have made your father the laughing-stock of all Morovenia! If I can not reform you and make you a dutiful child, at least I can make an example of you! ”

“ As a matter of fact, London is principally a sense of dizziness. This dizziness comes of trying to keep an intent gaze on too many human performances. The mind is in a blur. The impressions come with rolling swiftness. There is no room for them. The traveller overflows with them. They spill behind him. You could track an American all around London by the trail of excess information which he drops in his pathway. ”

“ It is no disgrace to be branded as a thief, because all business transactions are saturated with treachery. But to call another a "Christian dog" is the thirty-third degree of insult.
Popova writhed in spirit when he was called "Christian," but he covered his wrath and remained in the nobleman's service and waited for his revenge. And now he was sacrificing the innocent Kalora in order to punish the father. He said to himself: "If she does not fatten, then her father's heart will be broken, and he will suffer even as I have suffered from being called Christian." ”

“ We held back the Pyramids and the Sphinx so as to make our visit to them the cap sheaf of the stay in Cairo. As for sightseeing, most of the time we just rambled up one street and down another, looking in shop windows, watching the workmen kill time with their prehistoric implements, smelling the bazaars, dodging dog carts, donkeys and camels, and having a fine time generally.
Aimless excursions are the best, after all. It is more fun to drift around a new town and rub up against the people than to deliver yourself, body and soul, over to a guide. In Egypt the guide is called a dragoman. ”

“ I have made it a rule not to work out my neighbor's destiny."
"What can I do?" asked Kalora, seemingly impressed by the earnestness of the consul's wife.
"Leave Morovenia. Keep at your father until he consents to your going. Here you are despised and ridiculed—a victim of heathen prejudice left over from the Dark Ages. Get away, even if you have to walk, and take my word for it, the moment you leave Morovenia you will be a very beautiful girl; not a merely attractive young person, but what we would call at home a radiant beauty—the oriental type, you know. ”

“ But for splendour of composition and majesty of design, the passport makes all other important documents seem pale and pointless. There is an American eagle at the top, with his trousers turned up, and beneath is a bold pronouncement to the world in general that the bearer is an American citizen, entitled to everything that he can afford to buy. No man can read his own passport without being more or less stuck on himself. ”

“ Jeneka was the name of the one who had been blessed abundantly. Several of the younger men in official circles, who had seen Jeneka at a distance, when she waddled to her carriage or turned side-wise to enter a shop-door, had written verses about her in which they compared her to the blushing pomegranate, the ripe melon, the luscious grape, and other vegetable luxuries more or less globular in form.
No one had dedicated any verses to Kalora. Kalora was the elder of the two. She had come to the alarming age of nineteen and no one had started in bidding for her. ”

“ Taken by themselves, as mere mouldering chunks of antiquity that have been preserved to us because they happened to be dropped down in a dry climate, the fragmentary remains of old Egypt are not very inspiring. They were big, but seldom beautiful. As records proving that humanity—old-fashioned, unreliable humanity, with its fears, jealousies, hatreds, and aching ambitions—is just about the same as it was five thousand years ago, the temples and the decorated tombs seem to bring us direct and heartfelt messages from our brethren of the long ago. ”