“ In consequence they all had their experiences with men, and know that there is not one to be trusted. Not one, my child, not one! Believe your aunts."
"It seems impossible, aunty," declared the soft voice of Adnah. "Why, in that magazine were the pictures of some of the most noble-looking creatures—"
"Tut, tut, child, those are the very worst kind," hastily interrupted Aunt Matilda. "The more handsome they are, the more dangerous. Since you remain so incredulous, however, I suppose I shall have to tell you what we know about them."
The young man in the pool felt his circulation stopping. ”

“ Rollo leaned forward and tossed the ball toward his father very gently indeed, much as his sister Mary would have done, only, of course, in a more direct line. Mr. Holliday's eyes lit up with their old fire as he saw the on-coming sphere. He swept his bat around his head in a fierce semi-circle, caught the ball fair on the end of it, and sent it over Rollo's head, crashing into the kitchen window amid a jingle of glass and a crash of crockery, wild shrieks from the invisible maid servant and delighted howls from Rollo and Thanny of "Good boy!" "You own the town!" ”

“ Last year, when I was bulling the market, the longs all said that I was a kindhearted old philanthropist, who was laying awake nights scheming to get the farmers a top price for their hogs; and the shorts allowed that I was an infamous old robber, who was stealing the pork out of the workingman's pot. As long as you can't please both sides in this world, there's nothing like pleasing your own side. ”

“ Doggedly he fought his way around and through the swampy underbrush and presently stood blinking his delighted eyes in a little natural clearing that was a glorious climax to all the tantalizing coquetry of the creek. Encircled by drooping, long-leaved willows that were themselves enringed by stately trees, lay a broad, deep pool, clear as crystal, one side carpeted with velvety turf and screened with leafy draperies, and the whole canopied by the smiling blue sky. ”

“ ESPECIALLY MEN
He turned away impatiently. Dust, dust, dust! He could feel it pasty on his tongue, gritty on [Pg 161] his lips, grimy on his face. It had stiffened his hair, clogged his nostrils, sifted through his clothing, settled into his shoes. It was everywhere and all-pervading.
The forbidden creek, in the very refinement of derision, suddenly bubbled into a bar of clinking song—a perfect ecstasy of crystal notes—then as suddenly died down, babbling and gurgling, and flowed smoothly on, whispering and murmuring to itself of the delights to come in the heart of the cool woods. ”

“ To the inhabitants of Jupiter, our important globe appears like a small star of the fourth or fifth magnitude. We recollect, some years ago, gazing with astonishment upon the inhabitants of a drop of water, developed by the Solar Microscope, and secretly wondering whether they were or not reasoning beings, with souls to be saved. It is not altogether a pleasant reflection that a highly scientific inhabitant of Jupiter, armed with a telescope of (to us) inconceivable form, may be pursuing a similar course of inquiry, and indulging in similar speculations regarding our Earth and its inhabitants. ”

“ The Solar System is so called, not because we believe it to be the sole system of the kind in existence, but from its principal body, the Sun, the Latin name of which is Sol. (Thus we read of Sol Smith, literally meaning the son of Old Smith.) On a close examination of the Heavens we perceive numerous brilliant stars which shine with a steady light (differing from those which surround them, which are always twinkling like a dewdrop on a cucumber-vine) , and which, moreover, do not preserve constantly the same relative distance from the stars near which they are first discovered. ”

“ The Frenchwoman was right in declaring America to be le paradis des dames, and those women who exalt European gallantry above American honesty are as blind to their own interests as an owl at high noon.
There is no royal railroad to lecturing. At best it is hard work, but lecture committees "do their possible," as the Italians say, to lessen the weight, and that "possible" is heartily appreciated by such of us as inwardly long for a natural bridge between stations and hotels. A woman is never so forlorn as when getting out of a car or entering a strange hotel. ”

“ The wind blew, dust sought shelter within the recesses of eyes and ears and nose, but patient Griselda could not have behaved better than I. In fact, a woman who lectures must endure quietly what a singer or actress would stoutly protest against, for the reason that lecturing brings down upon her the taunt of being "strong-minded," and any assertion of rights or exhibition of temper is sure to be misconstrued into violent hatred of men and an insane desire to be President of the United States. ”

“ There are mighty few people who can see any side to a thing except their own side. I remember once I had a vacant lot out on the Avenue, and a lady came in to my office and in a soothing-sirupy way asked if I would lend it to her, as she wanted to build a crèche on it. I hesitated a little, because I had never heard of a crèche before, and someways it sounded sort of foreign and frisky, though the woman looked like a good, safe, reliable old heifer. ”

“ The composition of the Sun has long been a matter of dispute.
By close and accurate observation with an excellent opera-glass we have arrived at the conclusion that its entire surface is covered with water to a very great depth; which water, being composed by a process known at present only to the Creator of the Universe and Mr. Paine, of Worcester, Massachusetts, generates carburetted hydrogen gas, which, being inflamed, surrounds the entire body with an ocean of fire, from which we, and the other planets, receive our light and heat. ”

“ You needn't pay any special attention to this newspaper talk about the Comstock crowd having caught me short a big line of November lard. I never sell goods without knowing where I can find them when I want them, and if these fellows try to put their forefeet in the trough, or start any shoving and crowding, they're going to find me forgetting my table manners, too. For when it comes to funny business I'm something of a humorist myself. And while I'm too old to run, I'm young enough to stand and fight. ”

“ Holliday assumed the attitude of a timid man who has just stepped on the tail of a strange and irascible dog, and is holding his legs so that the animal, if he can pull his tail out, can escape without biting either of them. He then held the bat up before his face as though he was carrying a banner.
"Now, Rollo, you must pitch the ball directly toward the end of my bat. Do not pitch too hard at first, or you will tire yourself out before we begin." ”

“ Having journeyed up and down the land to the extent of twenty thousand miles, I am persuaded that a woman can go anywhere and do anything, provided she conducts herself properly. Of course it would be absurd to deny that it is not infinitely more agreeable to be accompanied by the "tyrant" called "man"; but when there is no tyrant to come to lovely woman's rescue, it is astonishing how well lovely woman can rescue herself, if she exerts the brain and muscle, given her thousands of years ago, and not entirely annihilated by long disuse. ”

“ I was told the other day by a New York lady (who was quite tired of the queer unmeaning things which are generally put on India ware) , that she had sent a pattern for a tea-set, drawn by her daughter, and that every article came out with the identical device beautifully done on the china, all in the proper colors. She said it was talked of all over New York, and that people who had never been at the house before, came to look at and admire it. No doubt it was a great feather in her daughter's cap."
"Possibly, madam," said Gummage. ”

“ Thanny shouted "Foul!" ran under it, reached up, took it out of the atmosphere, and cried:
"Out!"
"Thanny," said his father sternly, "another word and you shall go straight to bed! If you do not improve in your habit of language I will send you to the reform school. Now, Rollo," he continued, kindly, "that was a great deal better; very much better. I hit that ball with almost no difficulty. You are learning. But you will learn more rapidly if you do not expend so much unnecessary strength in throwing the ball. Once more, now, and gently; I do not wish you to injure your arm." ”

“ The San Diego Herald is published weekly on this planet, for five dollars per annum, payable invariably in advance. As the Earth is by no means the most important planet in the system, there is no reason to suppose that it is particularly distinguished from the others by being inhabited. It is reasonable, therefore, to conclude that all the other planets of the system are filled with living, moving and sentient beings; and as some of them are superior to the Earth in size and position, it is not improbable that their inhabitants may be superior to us in physical and mental organization. ”

“ Many a whisper now ran through the room as to the "tones," and more particularly the "crank"; none could see them.
Miss Patience took her seat, ran her fingers over a few octaves, and if "Moses in Egypt" was not perfectly executed, Moses in Hardscrabble was. The dulcet sound ceased. "Miss," said Cash, the moment that he could express himself, so entranced was he by the music,—"Miss Doolittle, what was the instrument Mo Mercer showed me in your gallery once, it went by a crank and had rollers in it?" ”

“ Coming among us unheralded, almost unknown, without claptrap, in a wagon drawn by oxen across the plains, with no agent to get up a counterfeit enthusiasm in her favor, she appeared before us for the first time at the San Diego Lyceum last evening, in the trying and difficult character of Ingomar, or the Tame Savage. We are at a loss to describe our sensations, our admiration, at her magnificent, her super-human efforts. We do not hesitate to say that she is by far the superior to any living actress ”

“ Adnah had gradually hitched closer to him, and now her hand, unreproved, stole affectionately to his shoulder. Aunt Matilda was wiping her eyes. Aunt Ann openly sniffled. Aunt Sarah cleared her throat most violently.
"Your references are all that we could wish, young man," she presently admitted in a businesslike tone. "We shall waive, in your favor, our objections to men in general. If we must have one in the family we are to be congratulated upon having one whose mother is proud of him." ”

“ Modern advances in science and the use of Lord Rosse's famous telescope have demonstrated the absurdity of all these speculations by proving conclusively that the Moon is mainly composed of the Ferro—sesqui—cyanuret, of the cyanide of potassium! Up to the latest dates from the Atlantic States, no one has succeeded in reaching the Moon. Should anyone do so hereafter, it will probably be a woman, as the sex will never cease making an exertion for that purpose as long as there is a man in it. ”

“ And someways, the whole drove always showed up safe and dirty about meal time.
I've no doubt she thought a lot of Bud, but when a woman has fourteen it sort of unsettles her mind so that she can't focus her affections or play any favorites. And so when Bud's clothes were found at the swimming hole one day, and no Bud inside them, she didn't take on up to the expectations of the neighbors who had brought the news, and who were standing around waiting for her to go off into something special in the way of high-strikes. ”

“ That's no way to pitch a ball! Pitch it as though you were playing a gentleman's game; not as though you were trying to kill a cat! Now, pitch it right here; right at this place on my bat. And pitch more gently; the first thing you know you'll sprain your wrist and have to go to bed. Now, try again."
This time Rollo kneaded the ball gently, as though he suspected it had been pulled before it was ripe. He made an offer as though he would throw it to Thanny. Thanny made a rush back to an imaginary "first," and Rollo, turning quickly, fired the ball in the general direction of Mr. Holliday. ”

“ Earth may be altered and it be steered with the same ease and regularity through space and among the stars as a steamboat is now directed through the water. It will be a very interesting spectacle to see the Earth "rounding to," with her head to the air, off Jupiter, while the Moon is sent off laden with mails and passengers for that planet, to bring back the return mails and a large party of rowdy Jupiterians going to attend a grand prize fight in the ring of Saturn. ”

“ Suggs, then, very naturally, felt ineffably indignant that an individual who had never seen any collection of human habitations larger than a log-house village—an individual, in short, no other or better than Bob Smith—should venture to express an opinion concerning the manners, customs, or anything else appertaining to, or in any wise connected with, the Ultima Thule of backwoods Georgians. ”

“ These are the planets of the Solar System, which have no light of their own—of which the Earth, on which we reside, is one—which shine by light reflected from the Sun—and which regularly move around that body at different intervals of time and through different ranges in space. ”