Dollars! All their cares, hopes, joys, affections, virtues, and associations seemed to be melted down into dollars. Whatever the c...hance contributions that fell into the slow cauldron of their talk, they made the gruel thick and slab with dollars. Men were weighed by their dollars, measures were gauged by their dollars; life was auctioneered, appraised, put up, and knocked down for its dollars. The next respectable thing to dollars was any venture having their attainment for its end. The more of that worthless ballast, honour and fair-dealing, which any man cast overboard from the ship of his Good Nature and Good Intent, the more ample stowage-room he had for dollars. Make commerce one huge lie and mighty theft. Deface the banner of the nation for an idle rag; pollute it star by star; and cut out stripe by stripe as from the arm of a degraded soldier. Do anything for dollars! What is a flag to them!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjur...ation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Change begets change. Nothing propagates so fast. If a man habituated to a narrow circle of cares and pleasures, out of which he s...eldom travels, step beyond it, though for never so brief a space, his departure from the monotonous scene on which he has been an actor of importance would seem to be the signal for instant confusion.... The mine which Time has slowly dug beneath familiar objects is sprung in an instant; and what was rock before, becomes but sand and dust.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If its individual citizens, to a man, are to be believed, it always is depressed, and always is stagnated, and always is at an ala...rming crisis, and never was otherwise; though as a body, they are ready to make oath upon the Evangelists, at any hour of the day or night, that it is the most thriving and prosperous of all countries on the habitable globe.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He is a wonderfully accomplished man--most extraordinarily accomplished--reads--hem--reads every novel that comes out; I mean ever...y novel that--hem--that has any fashion in it, of course. The fact is, that he did find so much in the books he read, applicable to his own misfortunes, and did find himself in every respect so much like the heroes--because of course he is conscious of his own superiority, as we all are, and very naturally--that he took to scorning everything, and became a genius.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"Epic poem,--ten thousand lines--revolution of July--composed it on the spot--Mars by day, Apollo by night,--bang the field-piece,... twang the lyre."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I believe no satirist could breathe this air. If another Juvenal or Swift could rise up among us tomorrow, he would be hunted down.... If you have any knowledge of our literature, and can give me the name of any man, American born and bred, who has anatomised our follies as a people, and not as this or that party; and who has escaped the foulest and most brutal slander, the most inveterate hatred and intolerant pursuit; it will be a strange name in my ears, believe me.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »