John Boyle O'Reilly

“ Civilization impinges on humanity in Pennsylvania perhaps not more unfairly or cruelly than elsewhere; but the contrasts are shockingly apparent.
But we came to look at the hills and the river, not at the social relativities. And the hills are as sadly marked as the human moles who burrow into them. There is no desecration of a mountain so blighting as the sinking of a mine into its heart. The dark mouth of the shaft, high up on the side of the hill, is repulsive as a cancer to the eye searching for beauty. ”

“ Half-way down between the island and the shore we plunged into the swift current, intending to float after the canoes, holding on by the painter,—a most enjoyable and interesting thing to do. When you lie at utter rest in the water and watch the shore go by, it seems too delicious for waking life; but this is not the best. Let your whole body and head sink well under the surface, keeping your eyes open; the river becomes an aquarium,—you see the weeds, the stones, and the fishes as clearly almost as if they were in the air. ”

“ Here, for the first time since we left Port Jervis, the water ran slowly. It is hard to leave a spot so beautiful, where so few strangers are led. Here was Nature at first hand. To impress it deeper on my mind, I retrace our course, on the bank, to where, a hundred yards above the bend, a little singing river flows into the Delaware. Only a few inches deep, babbling over brown pebbles, bright as the sun itself in its flashes, coming down under a dim arch of trees and fringing underwood—a very dream of a little singing brook, that
"Knows the way to the sea." ”

“ He waits to see what his opponent is going to do. It takes five or six rounds to get his heart at full beat and his nervous reservoir opened.
But from the first instant of the fight, Sullivan is as fierce, relentless, tireless as a cataract. The fight is wholly to go in his way—not at all in the other man's. His opponent wants to spar; he leaps on him with a straight blow. He wants to breathe; he dashes him into the corner with a drive in the stomach. He does not waste ten seconds of the three minutes of each round. ”

“ Look at Abeham, here, just waiting while we have gone up a "gum road,"—for we tried faithfully to explore all the avenues, wet and dry, leading into the swamp, on our way round the lake.
The southern negro is the freest man in civilization, as he ought to be, for Heaven knows he has had enough of bondage. He is striking the balance now. He works just when he chooses, and he loafs when he chooses. He is not only politically, but socially, free. He has no ambitions, no pretensions, and hardly any responsibilities. He is the sugary element in the grinding sand of our civilization. ”

“ The Lake of the Dismal Swamp is the very eye of material anguish. Its circle of silvery beach is flooded and hidden, and still the pent-up water, vainly beseeching an outlet, is raised and driven in unnatural emnity to the roots of the tall juniper, cypress, and gum trees, that completely surround its shore. The waves that should murmur and break on a strand of incomparable brilliancy, are pushed beyond their proper limits, and compelled to soften and sap the productive earth; to wash bare and white the sinews of the friendly trees, and inundate a wide region of extraordinary fertility. ”

“ All that is worth noting and testing of courage, temper, strength, tenacity, endurance, force, rapidity, precision, foresight, can be as completely proven, or rather can be better or more plainly proven, in a glove contest than in a bare-handed fight.
Such a change as is hero contemplated was never dreamt of even ten years ago. British boxing was a lamentable exhibition at all times; but for twenty-five years past it has been sinking lower and lower in disrepute. The greatest and manliest physical exercise has been, for this reason, in danger of complete extinction. ”

“ On a natural system of diet, old age would be our last and our only malady; the term of our existence would be protracted; we would enjoy life, and no longer preclude others from the enjoyment of it; all sensational delights would be infinitely more exquisite and perfect; the very sense of being would then be a continued pleasure, such as we now feel it in some few and favored moments of our youth. By all that is sacred in our hopes for the human race, I conjure those who love happiness and truth to give a fair trial to the vegetable system. ”

“ Pittsburgh riots and Susquehanna devastations are children of the same parents,—Greed and Ignorance. Beautiful trees and beautiful souls, steeped in the coal-pits, scorched by the cinders, thundered over by the roaring wheels that carry treasures to the cultured and luxurious, there is a curse in your defilement and mutilation. Yet our moralists and socialists will not listen and understand.
But who shall be didactic in a canoe on a river that laughs into little rapids every few hundred yards? It was delightful to see Smith take his first rapid. ”

“ But the injured hills, like all old and strong children of nature, curse their destroyer as they die. The railroads have killed the trees, and the death of the trees is as surely killing the river. Year by year its life-blood decreases; it grows narrower, shallower, yet more fitfully dangerous. Scores and hundreds of miles it runs, drinking in the volume of the streams; but in all this distance its own volume does not increase.
Marvellous and shocking! The Susquehanna is no deeper at Harrisburg than at Towanda. Its evaporation equals its growth. The shorn hills can hold no moisture. ”

“ He can "duck" lower than any featherweight boxer in America; he can strike more heavy blows in ten seconds than any other man in a minute, and he watches his opponent with a self-possession and calculation that do not flurry with excitement, but only flame into a ravening intensity to beat him down, to spring on him from a new direction, and strike him a new blow every tenth of a second, to rush, hammer, contemn, overmaster, overwhelm, and appall him.
Look at "The Boxer" as he leaps on the stage and stands gazing at his opponent, waiting for the referee to call "time." ”

“ Instead of lecturing? a young woman on the folly of fashion, tell her, and prove to her, that her beauty will be murdered; that her eyes will grow dim; that she will die an old maid, sour and wrinkled, if she continue to outrage the laws of Nature by tying herself in the middle with corset-strings like a living blood-pudding. Horrible taste! Tell her to open her bed-room window, and let in the part of her that is outside,—the fresh part, the sweet air that belongs to her heart, that her poor blood is rotting for. ”

“ We thanked him; read "yes" in each other's eyes; and in five minutes the canoes were on board, and we were having a new and pleasant sensation.
The canal-boat is no greyhound: it moves solemnly and firmly at the rate of two miles an hour; but it pushes ahead day and night, and, like the tortoise of the fable, it might win a race against a heedless hare. The Susquehanna Canal Company's service employs about two thousand men and boys, and heaven knows how many mules. And splendid mules they are, big as horses almost, and comely to the eye. ”

“ His mind is quicker and more watchful than a chess-player's. He has to gather his impulses and hurl them, straight and purposeful, with every moment and motion. It is not the big, evenly-disposed opposition of nature he has to overcome, like the swimmer or the runner, but the keen and precise cunning of an excited brain, that is watching him with eyes as bright as a hawk's.
There is no emulation or controversy so hot, so vital, so deliciously interesting, as the boxer's. The ecstacy of the single-stick is rude and brief; the wrestler's tug is comparatively slow and laborious ”

“ A boxer, in training for a contest, ought not to confine his sparring to one or two men. He ought to spar with new and able men, and with as many as possible. It is a radical and common error to confine the exercise to one opponent, no matter how good he may be. After a dozen bouts together, two men know every stop on each other's gamut—even the variations are not surprises. New men, new ways. The boxer or the swordsman who uses himself only to a single opponent, is very apt to lack confidence with a stranger. ”

“ For a long time after its disappearance the upward rays flamed on the face of the great cliff across the river, the red gleam moving higher and higher, and the darkness creeping up the wooded wall like a vast tide. When the line of light had cleared the brow of the cliff the trees above, diminished to a finger-length, blazed in gold and crimson; and then, almost suddenly, the light left them,—rose over them, and was lost in space, and they, too, were swallowed up in the night.
"The light that shoots over the heads of trees or people," said Moseley, "might as well not exist." ”

“ All along the river, down to Middletown, hundreds of miles away, we found, at intervals, this remarkable kind of sand-bank on which one may take a race, and dive directly into deep water. And yet the bank is not straight, under water, but a rapid incline, easy and pleasant for landing.
What need of details? Miles in a voyage are of no more account than years in a life: they may be filled with commonplace. Men live by events, and so they paddle. ”

“ It is no longer regarded as deplorable for a youth to aspire to be an athlete. The whole country hangs in suspense over a college race or foot-ball game. Above all, we are in a fair way to rescue boxing from the boxers, and to restore to its proper place in the training of youth the exercise that leads all others in fitting them to be fair-minded, confident, courageous, peaceful and patriotic citizens. ”

“ The Greeks and Romans kept boxing in its proper relation to every-day life; not as a brutal exhibition of skill or strength, but as a healthy exercise to invigorate the body, expand the chest, strengthen and quicken the muscles, and render mind and body free, supple, strong, and confident.
"There is nothing that interests me like good boxing," said Sir Robert Peel. "It asks more steadiness, self-control, ay, and manly courage, than any other exercise. ”

“ Below Trenton the Delaware is uninteresting for canoemen. We were so used to swift water that we seemed to be anchored while paddling under adverse circumstances. We stopped at Florence that night, and next day shipped our canoes on a river steamer, and ran down to Philadelphia.
Looking back, we salute the Delaware with love and admiration. It has filled our minds with memories and pictures to be cherished for a life time. Noblest of rivers for canoemen, but only for those who come before the middle of July. In the freshets of May and June, a run down the Delaware must be a revelation of joy. ”

“ This is why we ought to love and value the country, and hate the city. We are truly and actually part of the place we live in: its life enters with every inspiration into our lives. We are one with the reeking streets; with the foul exhalations of bar-rooms, with their stale drinks and hideous spittoons; of smoke-filled cars; of crowded halls; and, again, we are one with the fresh morning air of the fields ”

“ Now, Athens, go down and bathe at the place where we had this intoxicating bath; and believe that never was there siren or naiad in the rivers or springs of old Athens to ravish with sweeter melody than your own beautiful Susquehanna holds for you.
It would be better, perhaps, if I could follow, the river features seriatim, as we saw them; but then there are so many miles of every river that are only one uninteresting feature. No one cares for the names of little unheard-of villages, themselves quite featureless. ”