Mark Twain

Name: Roughing It — Chapter LVIII
Author: Mark Twain

Summary

“Roughing It — Chapter LVIII”, published in 1872, is a work by Mark Twain. It explores elements such as San Francisco, earthquake and street.

Quotes from Roughing It — Chapter LVIII (Mark Twain)

Mark Twain, Roughing It — Chapter LVIII (1872)

“ The plastering that fell from ceilings in San Francisco that day, would have covered several acres of ground. For some days afterward, groups of eyeing and pointing men stood about many a building, looking at long zig-zag cracks that extended from the eaves to the ground. Four feet of the tops of three chimneys on one house were broken square off and turned around in such a way as to completely stop the draft.
A crack a hundred feet long gaped open six inches wide in the middle of one street and then shut together again with such force, as to ridge up the meeting earth like a slender grave. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Mark Twain, Roughing It — Chapter LVIII (1872)

“ There was great difference of opinion, at first, as to the course or direction the earthquake traveled, but water that splashed out of various tanks and buckets settled that. Thousands of people were made so sea-sick by the rolling and pitching of floors and streets that they were weak and bed-ridden for hours, and some few for even days afterward.—Hardly an individual escaped nausea entirely.
The queer earthquake—episodes that formed the staple of San Francisco gossip for the next week would fill a much larger book than this, and so I will diverge from the subject. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Mark Twain, Roughing It — Chapter LVIII (1872)

“ The street car had stopped, the horses were rearing and plunging, the passengers were pouring out at both ends, and one fat man had crashed half way through a glass window on one side of the car, got wedged fast and was squirming and screaming like an impaled madman. Every door, of every house, as far as the eye could reach, was vomiting a stream of human beings; and almost before one could execute a wink and begin another, there was a massed multitude of people stretching in endless procession down every street my position commanded. Never was solemn solitude turned into teeming life quicker. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Mark Twain, Roughing It — Chapter LVIII (1872)

“ After the first shock, an Oakland minister said:
"Keep your seats! There is no better place to die than this"—
And added, after the third:
"But outside is good enough!" He then skipped out at the back door.
Such another destruction of mantel ornaments and toilet bottles as the earthquake created, San Francisco never saw before. There was hardly a girl or a matron in the city but suffered losses of this kind. Suspended pictures were thrown down, but oftener still, by a curious freak of the earthquake's humor, they were whirled completely around with their faces to the wall! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Mark Twain, Roughing It — Chapter LVIII (1872)

“ Dozens of men with necks swathed in napkins, rushed from barber-shops, lathered to the eyes or with one cheek clean shaved and the other still bearing a hairy stubble. Horses broke from stables, and a frightened dog rushed up a short attic ladder and out on to a roof, and when his scare was over had not the nerve to go down again the same way he had gone up. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Mark Twain, Roughing It — Chapter LVIII (1872)

“ Stocks went on rising; speculation went mad; bankers, merchants, lawyers, doctors, mechanics, laborers, even the very washerwomen and servant girls, were putting up their earnings on silver stocks, and every sun that rose in the morning went down on paupers enriched and rich men beggared. What a gambling carnival it was! Gould and Curry soared to six thousand three hundred dollars a foot! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Mark Twain, Roughing It — Chapter LVIII (1872)

“ A month afterward I enjoyed my first earthquake. It was one which was long called the "great" earthquake, and is doubtless so distinguished till this day. It was just after noon, on a bright October day. I was coming down Third street. The only objects in motion anywhere in sight in that thickly built and populous quarter, were a man in a buggy behind me, and a street car wending slowly up the cross street. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Mark Twain, Roughing It — Chapter LVIII (1872)

“ A working capital of $1,000,000 has been paid into the treasury, and machinery has already been purchased for a large quartz mill, which will be put up as soon as possible. The stock in this company is all full paid and entirely unassessable. The ores of the mines in this district somewhat resemble those of the Sheba mine in Humboldt. ”

Mark Twain

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Quotes from Roughing It — Chapter LVIII (Mark Twain)

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