Various

“ He roams among the beauties of nature, seeking its sweets from every bud and leaf. All thoughts that flit across his microscopic brain are free from blood and war. He loves the beautiful wherever he finds it in the visible and tangible world and even in the fascinating buzz of his mosquito prima donna. But as ideally good as he seems to be, he, like man, has his faults and frailties. He is fond of travel and has been caught with many of his female companions stealing long rides on Pullman palace cars and ocean steamers. ”

“ The traveler looking upon Niagara sees the onward rush and surge of countless drops of water. They sweep by and pass on, and return not again. Still other countless millions of drops follow them, and forever follow, and so in spite of separateness, there is perpetuity and permanence. Niagara is immortal. The teachers, heroes, apostles, prophets, singers and entertainers, come and go, and pass out to the great sea beyond, but others come with word and song and smile, and forever shall they come, and so as with Niagara, there is perpetuity and permanence. The Lyceum Platform is immortal. ”

“ Who can portray the possibilities of a country which has produced the stalwart and sinewy men of the rank and file, who followed the stars and bars through the smoke and flame of every desperate battle and stepped proudly into history as the greatest fighters the world has ever known?—a country so richly blessed not only with brave men and beautiful women, but whose blossoming hills and fertile valleys are so generous and kind, and whose mountains are burdened with coal and iron and copper and zinc and lead enough to supply the world for a thousand years ”

“ Crabtree were to be married again; by a preacher, with a license, in a church, with a gold ring. Orleeny was to be maid of honor, and Cato, in all the glory of white cotton gloves and other festal accessories, was to be usher in chief. In his honest soul Mr. Crabtree thought the whole thing unmitigated nonsense; but, like many a man with a lighter skin, concluded that, if nothing else would make his wife happy and give her proper éclat before the members of her S’ciety, he would consent to be a reluctant victim on the altar of matrimonial precedent! ”

“ At the close of the Civil War Texas was a wilderness, but now the howl of the wolf has given place to the whistle of the engine, and the whoop of the Indian has been hushed by the music of machinery. From Texarkana to El Paso prosperous cities and towns have sprung up like prairie flowers where the wild horse once galloped and the buffalo grazed, and great geysers of coal oil have solved the fuel problem. ”

“ With the God-like power of genius, he leads us out of the thorn-hedged paths of everyday life, into the happy garden of the ideal where the flowers of sentiment bloom perennial, and the song of every bird is a lilted fragment of the universal chorus of love. This magic garden on the margin of the dusty field of reality from which we dig our daily bread, is an oasis to which we may not long repair, but to linger for an hour rests us from toil and refreshes us for labor. ”

“ Perchance it is midnight’s holy hour when he is suddenly awakened by a still small voice more pricking than the voice of conscience. He springs up and lights the gas or lamp and tries to draw nigh unto lady mosquito as did her enchanted knight with wings; he is thirsting for her life while she is thirsting for his blood.
But not only is our heroine celebrated in history as a warrior and a vocalist, but as a most dangerous enemy of mankind. Nature has seen fit to give her a long nose, or proboscis, which, according to the Darwinian theory, might prove her to be related to the elephant. ”

“ And now, my grizzled old friends who once wore the gray, in the name of the young men I congratulate you upon having lived to see the dawn of a brighter day for your battle-scarred and war-swept country. You must soon answer to the roll call of eternity and join your comrades on the other side. I give you the pledge of your sons that they will ever defend the record you have made and themselves live up to the traditions of their fathers. ”

“ Thus the dismal tale of history runs; hopes of free government are crushed; dreams of liberty are shattered; blind Samson nurses his wrath until his shorn locks grow out again; and then, with giant strength and insane rage, he lays hold of the pillars of the temple,
And with a crash republics fall,
Down go liberty, combines and all. This is the shady side of politics. But the burnished crest of the darkest cloud reflects in golden arcs the splendors of the sun, and the angels of hope hang a rainbow on its bosom. ”

“ In the full development of this new idea of transforming our raw material into finished goods lies our hope of regaining our prestige and power in the management of national affairs, and of winning back billions of wealth which were wiped out by the destroying angel of war. God grant that our beloved old South may be as happy in reaping the golden harvest of prosperity in the years to come as she has been brave and true through the suffering and woes of adversity in the sorrowful years of the past. ”

“ Since the earlier days, the Lyceum has taken on an entertainment phase, which, while not wholly related to the lyceum idea, serves admirably in meeting and filling the desire there is and ever will be in the human heart for the joyous pleasures of life. The entertainment side of the Lyceum belongs to the realm of the heart paramountly, if not wholly, while the work of the lecturer appeals to the intellect and the conscience, and so the “three thirds” which make men up—the Mind, the Heart and the Conscience—are accorded that which strengthens and enriches. ”

“ I wonder why the poor huddle in the smoke and filth of crowded cities when Texas smiles and beckons them to her landscapes of beauty, where the prairie flowers bloom and the sunshine plays with the zephyrs from the Gulf and sometimes scuffles with a cyclone. I wonder why toiling millions dwell amid blackened walls only to be slaves to heartless masters, when untouched fields invite the happy home and virgin soil still waits for the plowman and his merry song. ”

“ For generations to come mankind, on the whole, will go hungry and half naked. The true principle is not to try to reduce the product but to provide for a general increasing buying capacity and particularly for the case of the undeveloped peoples of the earth, by increasing their opportunities to work for the world’s market, and to make the wages necessary to purchase the products. If we could only be sure that peace is to prevail, so that the market of China would be restored, and could go on increasing, I would not hesitate to urge against any reduction in acreage. ”

“ The violin told a story of human life: Two lovers strayed among the elms and oaks and down by the river side where daffodils and pansies bend and smile to rippling waves, and there, under the bloom of incense-breathing bowers, the old, old story—so old and yet so new, conceived in heaven, first told in Eden, then handed down through all the ages,—was told over and over again. ”

“ All power is inherent in the people, and there are patriotism and courage enough in their bosoms to weather the storms that rise dark o’er the way, if they do not get lost in the Adirondacks of Prosperity and drink from the jug of indifference and sleep too long on their rights.
Combined capital is digging its own grave when it becomes the Diana of modern machine politics. ”

“ We are not yet far enough away to forget Murfreesboro, Missionary Ridge and Chickamauga, and the hundred other fields of death and courage, where the flower of the South, the bravest of the brave and the truest of the true, fought for the cause they thought was right, and died for the land they loved. ”

“ In the mad pursuit of pelf and position little heed is being given to the omnipresence of bacilli, bacteria and other mischievous, pernicious and fatal agencies. Why will people supinely continue to court death in street cars, theaters, churches and at crowded entertainments, where the most casual movement sets into motion myriads of germs that are inhaled, eaten and absorbed by those present? And why will they disregard common caution by eating food in hotels, cafés, restaurants, Pullman cars and at home, when all food is known to be gorged with murderous molecules of one sort or another? ”

“ Historians will some day sit down on our battlefield and write true history—history that will surpass the wildest dreams of fancy that were ever woven into fiction; and poets will linger among our graves and sing sweeter songs than were ever sung before. For each monument is within itself a volume of wild and thrilling adventure, and every tombstone tells a story touching as the soldier’s last tear on the white bosom of his manhood’s bride, tender as his last farewell. ”

“ PART SECOND. What is this life but a whirling tide of pleasure and pain—glowing with gladness, darkening with grief, leaping with rapture, eddying with tears, now kissing the smiling cliffs of hope, now dashing against the frowning crags of fear and then vanishing in the darkness! What would it all be worth to us unblessed by love and mercy and the milk of human kindness? What would it all be worth to us bereft of music, that noblest gift of the soul? ”

“ I collected my tribute money in the Alabama town and mounted a grasshopper train and went hopping and stridulating from rail to rail until I found a patch of clover in a rich and aristocratic Georgia town where I lounged and exchanged anecdotes with traveling men and with the natives until the lights were turned on and I stood all robed in my “swallow tail,” in the midst of as delightful an audience as ever listened to a sap-sucker speech or laughed at the unwinding of my little ball of yarns. ”

“ To be a millionaire is greater in the estimation of modern worshipers of mammon than to be a Goldsmith; and a multimillionaire is greater in their gold-jaundiced eyes than a William Shakespeare. The highest aspiration of these nervous and strenuous generations is the acquirement and hoarding of gold. Religion is tinged with it. Politics is its ally—and alloy in the ratio of sixteen of gold to one of Patriotism. ”

“ The eyes of the world have been thrown upon China, and the point of the wedge has been entered. A few decades can see marvelous growth in this young giant of a market. I estimate that before this century is half turned, China, properly opened up, will add more than $5,000,000,000 annually to the world’s commerce, and one of the chief staples of this commerce will be cotton, first the goods, then the raw materials, creating a consumption as great as that of all Europe combined. ”

“ As we go marching on. Then the band begins to play, and the elephant moves around, bearing on his spacious back the anointed high priests of Pie and Power, followed by a great procession of worshipers, and heralded by a flourish of trumpets in the hands of the jugglers, who alternately blow and shout, crying out, as with one voice, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians, who hath the world by the tail and a down-hill pull! ”

“ But in most cases I find a steadfast purpose growing,—to work straight on where they are for the present, and save every cent possible to educate the coming generation and set their feet in the path that leads to freedom. I have even found several young men and women putting aside money to go to school on when enough is saved, and many go to school and work through alternate half years.
But how can they save money? clamor those who have been studying the comparative wage-scale of Northern and Southern factories, without acquaintance with the actual conditions of the latter. ”

“ His eyes swept hastily over the audience and then became fixed on a box near the stage.
“I knew she would be here,” he murmured softly; “she could never keep away from this music.”
It was a pretty picture he found to gaze upon and it was little wonder that he looked but seldom at the stage. More attractive even than the rows of gorgeously dressed girls in the chorus was that box near the stage. Seated toward the front was a young girl, just rounding into the beauty of the woman—while retaining all the freshness of girlhood. ”

“ When the contemplation of the foot lost interest, the young woman—for she was hardly more than twenty-three—would draw from its hiding-place behind the rose-colored velvet loveknot a medallion set in brilliants attached to a slender gold chain of exquisite workmanship, whose fine thread fell upon her delicate shoulders from the necklace of spinel rubies which embraced her swan’s throat like linked pomegranate seeds or tiny drops of transparent blood. ”

“ When time has measured off a thousand years, the world will not forget the sufferings and the sacrifices of the brave men who so freely gave their fortunes and shed their blood to preserve the most brilliant civilization that ever flourished in any land or in any age, for literature loves a lost cause. ”

“ These are the ruling elements of the platform. Around them are built all the successes of the Lyceum, and the lack of them is responsible for all the failures that stand like tombstones, along the route, as we journey with the truly great.
We are all agreed on the efficacy of humor, and we join without dissent in lauding the man who has the power to make the world laugh. He is as much our benefactor as the man whose scholarly and laborious research solves for us some great scientific problem which sets civilization forward ”