Various

“ But nothing could blaze more brightly and cheerfully than the two large wax candles; or if aught could rival them, it was the flaming, bickering fagots in the chimney, that sent at once their gleam and their warmth through the snug apartment; which, notwithstanding the general antiquity of its appearance, was not wanting in the least convenience that modern habits rendered either necessary or desirable.
"This is an old-fashioned sleeping apartment, general," said the young lord; "but I hope you find nothing that makes you envy your old tobacco-cask." ”

“ John Greenleaf Whittier was a Massachusetts Quaker of rustic manners and great simplicity of life, who viewed Nature with the sympathetic eyes of a born poet, but always serious, simple, and sincere. Eugene Field was a Chicago journalist, full of irreverent American humor, rollicking and sometimes boisterous, although he too had a vein of tenderness in his nature and a sympathy with the finer things of life. ”

“ Happily, the patronage of the public to the Herald is nearly twenty-five thousand dollars per annum—almost equal to a President's salary. But property in the world's goods was never my object, Fame, public good, usefulness in my day and generation—the religious associates of female excellence—the progress of true industry—these have been my dreams by night and my desires by day. ”

“ Davager came, to my boy Tom.
There never was such a sharp boy of fourteen before, and there never will be again, as my boy Tom. A spy to look after Mr. Davager was, of course, the first requisite in a case of this kind; and Tom was the smallest, quickest, quietest, sharpest, stealthiest little snake of a chap that ever dogged a gentleman's steps and kept cleverly out of range of a gentleman's eyes. ”

“ Of course, we turn out teams and individual athletes unequaled anywhere else in the world. But what good does that do you and me, who are shut out from participation in the games because we are not giants in point of strength or wizards in point of skill?
We are compelled to be mere onlookers at the present-day baseball or football game, or track meet, to watch the players with mingled feelings of awe and admiration, much as the Romans of old sat about the amphitheater and marveled at the exploits of the gladiators. ”

“ As there were no automobiles in those days for him to blow it in on, he invested in a much more foolish and infinitely more hazardous luxury—a dramatic company of his own. He had the itch to act, and, being unable to get on the stages controlled by others, he decided that now was his chance to manage a stage of his own.
And what do you suppose he sent himself out in? Nothing less than Robertson's "Caste," with "little Willie" as Eccles! Of course the troupe went to smash, but young Hopper had tasted of the life, and there was no staying him now, not even the Quaker blood in his veins. ”

“ It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ”

“ Slow to anger and slow to calm down, the subjects of Taurus will harbor a grudge and will be hard to reconcile. They are fearless, kind, and generous.
This sign gives its subjects a mind straightforward, just, inquisitive, and shrewd. It makes them hard to fathom, and endows them with the essential qualities of a diplomat. Their passions are fiery, but not persistent.
They are generally very much attached to their own sentiments and opinions; they are taciturn and tenacious; their will is steady, persevering, and determined to reach its purpose. ”

“ I was ashamed of myself as a man and a soldier, and still more so at feeling my own extreme desire to escape from the haunted apartment, which, however, conquered all other considerations; so that, huddling on my clothes with the most careless haste, I made my escape from your lordship's mansion to seek in the open air some relief to my nervous system, shaken as it was by this horrible encounter with a visitant, for such I must believe her, from the other world. ”

“ Speaking to a New York audience a few weeks ago, Mark Twain made passing reference to the communications which he receives from strangers who ask for his counsel or advice. "Here is such a request," he said. "It is a telegram from Joplin, Missouri, and it reads: 'In what one of your books can we find the definition of a gentleman?' I have not answered that telegram," he continued. "I couldn't. It seems to me that if any man has just, merciful, and kindly instincts, he will be a gentleman, for he will need nothing else in this world." ”

“ Does the getting of great wealth by individuals necessarily involve injustice to others? If it does, is it possible to prevent men from making much money without at the same time destroying the energy and initiative which spring up in the presence of opportunity? ”

“ What I mean is that the people should own in common all the means of production, the sources of wealth, and divide the results. The talk of economical equality is no more ridiculous now than was the talk of social equality years ago.
Suppose Alfred G. Vanderbilt has five million dollars invested in his railroads. Say there are twenty-five thousand employees. Out of his investment he receives, say, five per cent, which is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. He doesn't turn a wheel, he doesn't move a locomotive, he doesn't do a thing for the railroad. He simply owns it. ”

“ The test should be the good accruing to the nation at large. Athletics should build us up as a people, raise the standard of average manhood, and thus benefit us as a nation, rather than develop a selected few who use their strength and skill chiefly as a means of earning money.
In America, we love our players rather than our games. The result is that only one man in a thousand acquires the strength and proficiency which make him an acceptable player. Our athletics develop the few, and benefit us but little, if at all, as a people. ”

“ But the American press, on the whole, seems favorable. For example, the New York Times says:
The number of people who are vehemently in love with the difficulties, absurdities, inconsistencies—and crystallized ignorances—of our present spelling is very small, and neither their denunciation nor their ridicule will weigh at all heavily upon the great majority, who look upon spelling as a means to an end, and to an end quite different from the preservation of etymological history in the most clumsy, expensive, and deceptive of forms. ”

“ Sometimes death comes instantaneously; sometimes the blow is received from which recovery is impossible, and the actor lingers on with nothing but suffering and death before him. Both tragedy and comedy have been the scenes of actual death on the stage. ”

“ I will restore it to the solitude to which the better judgment of those who preceded me had consigned it; and never shall any one, so long as I can prevent it, be exposed to a repetition of the supernatural horrors which could shake such courage as yours."
Thus the friends, who had met with such glee, parted in a very different mood; Lord Woodville to command the Tapestried Chamber to be unmantled and the door built up, and General Browne to seek in some less beautiful country, and with some less dignified friend, forgetfulness of the painful night which he had passed in Woodville Castle. ”

“ Take away the opportunity for winning either money or distinction by rendering such services, and few men, as human nature is constituted, would render them.
It is right that competition between men should be brought within constantly narrower and narrower rules of justice. This is possible without taking away the initiative which makes men do things, and seems to me the direction in which, in spite of obstacles, humanity is tending. ”

“ What they may be I know not; time alone can tell. My ardent desire has been through life to reach the highest order of human excellence by the shortest possible cut. Associated night and day, in sickness and in health, in war and in peace, with a woman of this highest order of excellence, must produce some curious results in my heart and feelings, and these results the future will develop in due time in the columns of the Herald. ”

“ He often says that that which is important for the welfare and the power of the people is not so much the existence of a few isolated characters of extraordinary powers as a good general level of public spirit.
Effort, individual energy, the sentiment of responsibility, a primordial decision to go straight ahead and not be diverted—all this, combined with a sociable disposition and a willingness not to go to the end of one's right out of regard for one's neighbor, is what he most appreciates.
As a pastor, M. Wagner was struck by the depth of religious feeling in the United States. ”

“ It is obvious that the only thing feasible is to abolish wealth and go back to the tree-climbing days, to that period of primitive apehood when each plucked his own cocoanut and had no thought of ownership, tainted or untainted. ”

“ James Gordon Bennett, who founded the New York Herald, was well over thirty-five years of age when he left the office of the old New York Courier and Enquirer. He had learned what a newspaper should be, he believed, and he was going to put that knowledge into operation. He had toiled early and late all his life, and when he was ready to start for himself he had a nominal capital of five hundred dollars, and a big idea.
He was the only newspaper man in New York who thought that a newspaper didn't have to be dull to be good. ”

“ America believes in liberty as she believes in God; and, as she believes in the God of others, she also believes in the liberty of others. To individuality there is left an unlimited field. From childhood, strength of character is encouraged. Each one is expected to show himself in the fulness of his originality; all he is asked in return is to respect the right of his neighbor.
Though Pastor Wagner recognizes our country's originality in questionable financial schemes, he thinks that on the whole our relations are marked by sincerity and conscientiousness. ”

“ The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. ”

“ We consider Oscar of Sweden to be a man of scholarly tastes, who would rather write books than rule, and too modern in his ideas to make a regal figure on the throne. We think of the aged Emperor of Austria as a pathetic figure, a man of naturally kindly disposition, after a long life into which has entered almost every element of tragedy and unhappiness, ending his career an object of obloquy to many of his subjects. ”

“ Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. ”

“ The common ownership of all the means of production and distribution would give everybody an equal chance at music, art, sport, study, recreation, travel, self-respect, and the respect of others. I, for one, cannot see why those things should be concentrated more and more in the hands of a few. ”

“ You will find, and other advanced liberals and radicals who believe as I do will also find, that you are merely paltering with skin-deep measures when you stop short of socialism.
Interviewed regarding his conversion to socialism, Mr. Patterson adds:
When we say that things should be divided equally we mean that every man should have a chance. Men like Schwab and Carnegie have risen from poor young men to wealth; but they are the extraordinary young men. The ordinary young man is not able to rise above his birth, and the extraordinary young man is one in a million. ”

“ Old newspapers make good reading—if they are old enough. Like the deciphering of moss-covered epitaphs, the reading of journals of other days gives rise to reflections that mingle the sweet with the sad. It shows plainly that time does not alter human nature, much as customs may change.
The American Weekly Mercury was formerly published in Philadelphia. An examination of the issue for November 29, 1722, brings to light this interesting advertisement:
Run away from Ezekiel Balding of Hempstead on Long-Island, one Indian Man Slave, named Dick, of Middle Stature and of a smiling Countenance. ”

“ The trouble is not, of course, that the great secondary interest of student life is sport, but that the American idea of college sport has come to be the training of a few champion athletes for the purpose of winning, not the training of all young men and women for the purpose of recreation. G. Upton Harvey dwells on this point in an article published in the Review of Reviews:
It really is not fair or profitable to judge athletics in general, or any particular sport or game, by the benefits secured by the few. ”

“ Can it be possible that the activity of millions of men should be directed against their will and interest merely because this is desired by a man in every respect standing lower than the intellectual and moral level of all those who are perishing as it seems by his will? ”

“ It may be mixed with cotton, but when it comes to be a rag again, the cotton is burned out either with acid or with heat, the dust is taken out, and once more behold absolutely pure wool, much safer to wear than the new wool of the tropics and semi-tropics. When there is not enough wool to hold together it goes into our clothing. With wood ashes and scrap iron it ceases to be a fabric and becomes a dye, Prussian blue.
The cotton rag has no such long life. All it is good for is paper stock. The paper business is essentially a wealth from waste industry. ”