Theodore Winthrop

“ Eyes never lighted on higher art than the top cake, and even the one next the plate utterly refused to be soggy. Indeed, each pancake was a poem, — a madrigal of Sappho’s most simply delicate confectioning, round as a sonnet, and subtle in flavor as an epigram.
These pearls Voltaire cast before the party. Nobody partook. Nobody appreciated. Nobody noticed. The three appetites of the three headaches were too dead to stir.
The old fellow was retiring, when Mrs. Brothertoft addressed him roughly.
“I shall promote Plato and break you, Voltaire, if you are taken sick at the wrong time again.” ”

“ She was taking lessons — this fair novice — in what a woman’s face is made for; — namely, to look cool when the heart is fiery; to look dull, when the wits have just suffered the whetstone; to look blank, when the soul’s hieroglyphs will stare out if a blush is only turned on; to look tame, when the spirit is tiger; to look peace, when there is no peace ”

“ Such responses Lucy would probably have made to her mother’s attempts at breakfast-table talk. Do these answers seem inconsistent with the great sorrow and the great terror in the girl’s heart? Our passions, like our persons, are not always en grande tenue. It is a sign that the heart is not quite broken, when its owner has life enough to be pettish. The popgun is the father of the great gun. Silly skirmish and bandying of defiance precede the great battle for life and death. ”