Theodore Winthrop

“ Clara Denman, Dead I watched Churm, as he smoked.
Love, disloyalty, penitence, death, — were these all unrealities, that he could speak of them in his own history so calmly? Could a man be hurt as he had been, and overlive unscarred? I had heard cool men say, that “the tragedies of this life become the comedies of another, and that we should some time smile to recall our cruellest battles here, as now we smile to watch the jousts of flies in a sunbeam.” Churm’s tragedy was still tragedy to him. ”

“ Never loses a bet; never fails in a project! Such a glass of fashion! Such a favorite with the fair sex!’”
“Pah! ‘Fair sex!’ I can fancy the loathsome fellow’s look and tone,” I exclaimed.
“Then, in a pause of his sea-sickness,” Churm continued, “he spoke of the Denmans. ‘Mr. Denman so princely! Daughters so charming! For his part he admired Emma,’ — ‘Emma,’ the scrub called her. ‘But then there was something very attractive, very exciting, about Clara, and he didn’t wonder that Densdeth had selected her, — lucky girl!’ ‘What do you mean?’ cried I, appalled. ”

“ Noman’s Land, the day the road was done, would become Everybody’s Farm. Nowhere would back into the wilderness. Up would sprout the metropolis of Somewhere. Swindle, Robert? Your term is crude.”
“I suppose Van Beester did not offer it to the English gudgeons under that name.” ”