George Washington Cable

“ Sevier felt, right here at this door-step, that, if this was to be the last of the Richlings, he would feel the twinge of parting every time they came up again in his memory.
He looked at the house opposite,—where there was really nothing to look at,—and at a woman who happened to be passing, and who was only like a thousand others with whom he had nothing to do.
“Richling,” he said, “what brings you to New Orleans, any way?”
Richling leaned his cheek against the door-post.
“Simply seeking my fortune, Doctor.”
“Do you think it is here?”
“I’m pretty sure it is; the world owes me a living.” ”

“ Richling, gather fagots for pastime if you like, though it’s poor fun; but don’t think that’s your mission! Don’t be a fagot-gatherer! What are you smiling at?”
“Your good opinion of me,” answered Richling. “Doctor, I don’t believe I’m fit for anything but a fagot-gatherer. But I’m willing to try.”
“Oh, bah!” The Doctor admired such humility as little as it deserved. “Richling, reduce the number of helpless orphans! Dig out the old roots of calamity! A spoon is not what you want; you want a mattock. Reduce crime and vice! Reduce squalor! Reduce the poor man’s death-rate! ”

“ Who could say that this man might not any day make just such a lion’s leap into the world’s arena as Garibaldi had made, and startle the nations as Garibaldi had done? What was that red-shirted scourge of tyrants that this man might not be? Sailor, soldier, hero, patriot, prisoner! See Garibaldi: despising the restraints of law; careless of the simplest conventionalities that go to make up an honest gentleman; doing both right and wrong—like a lion; everything in him leonine. All this was in Ristofalo’s reach. It was all beyond Richling’s. ”