Ellis Parker Butler

“ I have postponed saying that I was visiting Aunt Eldora and Uncle Edgar because I am a novelist and I hoped to write a novel of small-town life—something to picture the deadening influence of the small town on the more noble faculties, that sort of novel being the rage just then. I had come to study Aunt Eldora and Uncle Edgar. But nothing had happened. Of course, in many modern novels nothing happens but I did not wish to leap from my former romanticist style in one leap. I wanted to taper off gradually. As a matter of fact, gradually is the only way one can taper off. ”

“ I was indeed surprised, however, to have Aunt Eldora say to me quite seriously one day:
"Edward, have you ever took notice how like these here Russian story-novel heroes Sam Cussak is? He don't do a mite of work, and he's drunk most of the time, and they do say he beats his poor wife just awful. I guess maybe he's a hero."
"He's a low brute," I said.
Cussak was the man who brought the ice. I had seen little of him, but Clara had once said she was surprised that he was working. He seldom worked. "I don't think it is right to send such men to nice houses," she said. ”

“ You can put a penguin in a gilded cage, but the only way to make it sing satisfactorily is to kill it and stuff it and put a phonograph in it. And it is almost impossible to rig it up for flying purposes; even the most enthusiastic airplane-maker never began the construction of a flying machine by choosing a tub of lard as its base.
I remember quite well that when Cousin Clara suggested that Aunt Eldora might like to join the Ladies' Literary Club a shiver of doubt ran down my spine. ”