Eugene Manlove Rhodes

“ A nation with a navy may be more likely to go to war than if it had none, but it is also less likely to be wronged or to be the subject of attempted wrong. There are crimes besides violence; and the violent man or the warlike nation does not submit to them. I might agree that it would be better if a man didn't pack a gun and a nation didn't tote a navy, but I'll never believe one is right and the other wrong. ”

“ You people come out here and go hurrahing industriously about, ruthlessly plucking beams from our eyes like a steam stump-puller on a new farm, and if we so much as twist the corner of a silk handkerchief to go after one tweenty-weenty little mote in your northeast eye, you have the infernal impudence to accuse us of sectionalism! ”

“ You beat us on another count: our manners lack the pose of Vere de Vere. But, morally, I believe men are divided, there as here, along the same lines—brute, bully, bounder, blackguard, knave, fool, cad, snob, prig, bore, sham, dupe and true man."
"Well" gasped Lena. "I must say! What chance has a poor woman of picking the true man from that lot? That's even worse than the old classification of rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief!"
"Poor woman, you completely misunderstand me. I didn't say men were classified that way. I said they were divided that way. ”

“ Thus hard beset by three, the Professor fell back. "A great war for a great principle is not the same thing as reckless regard of any law that does not meet your approval, leading inevitably to contempt for all laws," he protested. "And we were speaking of specific law or laws regulating the slaughter of game."
"What is wrong for the individual is wrong for any aggregation of individuals; and what is right for many is right for one," said Don oracularly. ”

“ More than in any other corner of the nation, we live in and for today. We have learned nothing from the past and we care nothing for the future. I'm inclined to think that, aside from these two points—in both of which I grant that the distinction is in your favor—we are very much of a muchness. ”

“ Those cave-dwellers were all dead, anyhow, and the Professor felt suddenly very much alive; unearthing, in the attic lumber-room of memory, the dusty monograph of a famous literary doctor, who—at forty—had resolutely maintained that a man was at the prime and vigor of life between forty and forty-five; later revising this opinion to make fifty the meridional year. ”

“ If you don't believe it, try your clause alone and see what sort of an amendment it makes. 'A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state——' Incomplete, isn't it? The sense is all in the other part of it."
"They meant that training of militia companies should never be prohibited," said the Professor doggedly. "Not that bearing of arms by individuals should not be regulated." ”

“ Yes, I know that many learned jurists construe the passage to mean that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall be infringed, but the right of the people to keep and bear gold lace shall not be infringed. ”

“ The truth always lies somewhere between the two extremes," agreed Otis amicably. "But it will be hard to cite an instance of our erroneous legality to offset the recent glaring excesses here in the Southwest."
"Easiest thing there is! Only, I shouldn't have 'named it'—as Hiram says—without this invitation," rejoined Kennedy. ”

“ And, pardon me—there is a venerable myth to the effect that the poor men are supposed to do the guessing." (As you will observe, Don was not free from the masculine weakness for satirizing the effeminacy of woman.) ”