Booth Tarkington

“ He perceived, as he had never perceived before, the shadowing of something enormous and indomitable—and lawless; not to be daunted by the will of nature's very self; laughing at the lightning and at wounds and mutilation; conquering, irresistible—and blindly noble. For the first time in his life Bibbs began to understand the meaning of being truly this man's son.
He would be the more truly his son henceforth, though, as Sheridan said, Bibbs had not come down-town with him meanly or half-heartedly. He had given his word because he had wanted the money, simply, for Mary Vertrees in her need. ”

“ We must Grow! We must be Big! We must be Bigger! Bigness means Money! And the thing began to happen; their longing became a mighty Will. We must be Bigger! Bigger! Bigger! Get people here! Coax them here! Bribe them! Swindle them into coming, if you must, but get them! Shout them into coming! Deafen them into coming! Any kind of people; all kinds of people! We must be Bigger! Blow! Boost! Brag! Kill the fault-finder! Scream and bellow to the Most High: Bigness is patriotism and honor! Bigness is love and life and happiness! Bigness is Money! We want Bigness! ”

“ She had reached the steps, and at that she turned, offering him the response of laughter and a gay gesture of her muff toward the lighted windows of the New House, as though bidding him to run home to his dinner.
That night, Bibbs sat writing in his note-book.
Music can come into a blank life, and fill it. Everything that is beautiful is music, if you can listen.
There is no gracefulness like that of a graceful woman at a grand piano. ”

“ Against such a background, Bibbs was not incongruous, with his figure, in black, so long and slender, and his face so long and thin and white; nor was the undertaker's coupe out of keeping, with the shabby driver dozing on the box and the shaggy horses standing patiently in attitudes without hope and without regret. But for Mary Vertrees, here was a grotesque setting—she was a vivid, living creature of a beautiful world. And a graveyard is not the place for people to look charming. ”

“ But the New House was of a kind to change hands without emotion. In our swelling cities, great places of its type are useful as financial gauges of the business tides; rich families, one after another, take title and occupy such houses as fortunes rise and fall—they mark the high tide. It was impossible to imagine a child's toy wagon left upon a walk or driveway of the New House, and yet it was—as Bibbs rightly called it—“beautiful.” ”

“ What's the use of being big just to be hideous? I mean I don't think all this has meant really going ahead—it's just been getting bigger and dirtier and noisier. Wasn't the whole country happier and in many ways wiser when it was smaller and cleaner and quieter and kinder? I know you think I'm an utter fool, father, but, after all, though, aren't business and politics just the housekeeping part of life? And wouldn't you despise a woman that not only made her housekeeping her ambition, but did it so noisily and dirtily that the whole neighborhood was in a continual turmoil over it? ”

“ Or to YOU, Bibbs Sheridan!”
He looked at her steadily, and his gaze was as keen as it was steady. She met it with unwavering pride. Finally he nodded slowly, as if she had spoken and he meant to agree with what she said.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “I won't come into the smoking-room again. I'm sorry, Edith. Nobody can make you see anything now. You'll never see until you see for yourself. The rest of us will do better to keep out of it—especially me!”
“That's sensible,” she responded, curtly. “You're most surprising of all when you're sensible, Bibbs.” ”

“ The rooster is a dependent; he depends upon the farmer and the weather. Midas is a dependent; he depends upon the farmer and the weather. The rooster thinks only of the moment; Midas provides for to-morrow. What does he provide for to-morrow? Nothing that the rooster will not have without providing.
The rooster and the prosperous worker: they are born, they grub, they love; they grub and love grubbing; they grub and they die. ”

“ Across the face of one of the buildings there was an enormous sign: “Sheridan Automatic Pump Co., Inc.”
Thence they went through streets of wooden houses, all grimed, and adding their own grime from many a sooty chimney; flimsey wooden houses of a thousand flimsy whimsies in the fashioning, built on narrow lots and nudging one another crossly, shutting out the stingy sunlight from one another; bad neighbors who would destroy one another root and branch some night when the right wind blew. ”

“ And then, roused from trance by the door's closing, he accepted the fact of Sheridan's presence. The barber remembered that there are no circumstances in life—or just after it—under which a man does not need to be shaved.
He stepped forward, profoundly grave. “I be through with this man in the chair one minute, Mist' Sheridan,” he said, in a hushed tone. “Yessuh.” And of a solemn negro youth who stood by, gazing stupidly, “You goin' RESIGN?” he demanded in a fierce undertone. “You goin' take Mist' Sheridan's coat?” ”

“ Edith met him at the station. “Well, well, Bibbs!” she said, as he came slowly through the gates, the last of all the travelers from that train. She gave his hand a brisk little shake, averting her eyes after a quick glance at him, and turning at once toward the passage to the street. “Do you think they ought to've let you come? You certainly don't look well!”
“But I certainly do look better,” he returned, in a voice as slow as his gait; a drawl that was a necessity, for when Bibbs tried to speak quickly he stammered. ”

“ There are women who make you think of pine woods coming down to a sparkling sea. The air about such a woman is bracing, and when she is near you, you feel strong and ambitious; you forget that the world doesn't like you. You think that perhaps you are a great fellow, after all. Then you come away and feel like a boy who has fallen in love with his Sunday-school teacher. You'll be whipped for it—and ought to be. ”

“ For the moment Sibyl gave no sign of having heard him, but seemed interested in the clasp of a long “rope” of pearls, a loop of which she was allowing to swing from her fingers, resting her elbow upon the table and following with her eyes the twinkle of diamonds and platinum in the clasp at the end of the loop. She wore many jewels. She was pretty, but hers was not the kind of prettiness to be loaded with too sumptuous accessories, and jeweled head-dresses are dangerous—they may emphasize the wrongness of the wearer. ”

“ Altogether, the New House was a success. It was one of those architects' successes which leave the owners veiled in privacy; it revealed nothing of the people who lived in it save that they were rich. There are houses that cannot be detached from their own people without protesting: every inch of mortar seems to mourn the separation, and such a house—no matter what be done to it—is ever murmurous with regret, whispering the old name sadly to itself unceasingly. ”

“ It is man who makes me ugly, by his worship of me. If man would let me serve him, I should be beautiful!”
Looking once more from the window, Bibbs sculptured for himself—in the vague contortions of the smoke and fog above the roofs—a gigantic figure with feet pedestaled upon the great buildings and shoulders disappearing in the clouds, a colossus of steel and wholly blackened with soot. ”

“ It seems odd, doesn't it, that people down-town are hurrying to trains and hanging to straps in trolley-cars, weltering every way to get home and feed and sleep so they can get down-town to-morrow. And yet there isn't anything down there worth getting to. They're like servants drudging to keep the house going, and believing the drudgery itself is the great thing. ”

“ Love is demanding and claiming and insistent. Friendship is all kindness—it makes the world glorious with kindness. What color you see when you walk with a friend! You see that the gray sky is brilliant and shimmering; you see that the smoke has warm browns and is marvelously sculptured—the air becomes iridescent. ”

“ Music and beauty and kindness—those are the three greatest things God can give us. To bring them all in one day to one who expected nothing—ah! the heart that received them should be as humble as it is thankful. But it is hard to be humble when one is so rich with new memories. It is impossible to be humble after a day of glory. ”

“ Neither knows beauty; neither knows knowledge. And after all, when Midas dies and the rooster dies, there is one thing Midas has had and rooster has not. Midas has had the excitement of accumulating what he has grubbed, and that has been his life and his love and his god. He cannot take that god with him when he dies. I wonder if the worthy gods are those we can take with us.
Midas must teach all to be as Midas; the young must be raised in his religion—
The manuscript ended there, and Sheridan was not anxious for more. ”

“ There is a midland city in the heart of fair, open country, a dirty and wonderful city nesting dingily in the fog of its own smoke. The stranger must feel the dirt before he feels the wonder, for the dirt will be upon him instantly. ”

“ This was the fringe of Bigness's own sanctuary, and now Bibbs reached the roaring holy of holies itself. The car must stop at every crossing while the dark-garbed crowds, enveloped in maelstroms of dust, hurried before it. ”

“ Through the open country Bibbs was borne flying between brown fields and sun-flecked groves of gray trees, to breathe the rushing, clean air beneath a glorious sky—that sky so despised in the city, and so maltreated there, that from early October to mid-May it was impossible for men to remember that blue is the rightful color overhead. ”

“ When a man attended to anything outside his business, eyes were upon him; his credit was in danger—that is, his life was in danger. And the old priests were as ardent as the young ones; the million was as eager to be bigger as the thousand; seventy was as busy as seventeen. They strove mightily against one another, and the old priests were the most wary, the most plausible, and the most dangerous. Bibbs learned he must walk charily among these—he must wear a thousand eyes and beware of spiders indeed! ”

“ Sheridan exclaimed, gaily. “You certainly stand up for your own town, if you stick to sayin' you'd rather live there than you would here. Yes, SIR! You sure are some patriot to say THAT—after you've seen our city! It ain't reasonable in you, but I must say I kind of admire you for it; every man ought to stick up for his own, even when he sees the other fellow's got the goods on him. Yet I expect way down deep in your heart, Mr. Farver, you'd rather live right here than any place else in the world, if you had your choice. Man alive! ”

“ There shall be no clean thing about me: my wife shall be dirty and my child shall be dirty, but I will get Wealth!” And yet it is not wealth that he is so greedy for: what the giant really wants is hasty riches. To get these he squanders wealth upon the four winds, for wealth is in the smoke. ”

“ That is natural—but there are women whose laughter is like the whirring of whips. Why is it that certain kinds of laughter seem to spoil something hidden away from the laughers? If they do not know of it, and have never seen it, how can their laughter hurt it? Yet it does. Beauty is not out of place among grave-stones. It is not out of place anywhere. But a woman who has been betrothed to a man would not look beautiful at his funeral. A woman might look beautiful, though, at the funeral of a man whom she had known and liked. ”

“ When you walk to church with a friend you know that life can give you nothing richer. You pray that there will be no change in anything for ever.
What an adorable thing it is to discover a little foible in your friend, a bit of vanity that gives you one thing more about her to adore! On a cold morning she will perhaps walk to church with you without her furs, and she will blush and return an evasive answer when you ask her why she does not wear them. ”