[On Harvard President Charles William Eliot's lamentation that the average Harvard graduate had fewer than two children:] That is ...quite enough. Harvard graduates do not always make the best fathers. Why should we be agitated over the too small families of the rich when there are so many children of the poor that are not cared for? The rich should make it their duty to raise up these children to a higher standard.... Men of the world hate to give up their tobacco, liquor, sports, clubs, their luxurious habits, their freedom from responsibility. They prefer to flock together and so women are compelled to do the same. President Eliot talks as though the young women were sitting around anxiously and aimlessly waiting for the graduates to come and get them. He would find, if he should make the proper investigation, that a class of women is being developed who are demanding a higher standard of morals in men than did those of past generations, and if they cannot get husbands who reach this standard they are making very satisfactory careers for themselves outside of marriage.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
At last, on Monday the 16th of May, when I was sitting in Mr. Davies's back-parlour, after having drunk tea with him and Mrs. Davi...es, Johnson unexpectedly came into the shop; and Mr. Davies having perceived him through the glass-door in the room in which we were sitting, advancing towards us,--he announced his aweful approach to me, somewhat in the manner of an actor in the part of Horatio, when he addresses Hamlet on the appearance of his father's ghost, "Look, my Lord, it comes" ... Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully introduced me to him. I was much agitated; and recollecting his prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to Davies, "Don't tell where I come from."M"From Scotland," cried Davies roguishly. "Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it." I am willing to flatter myself that I meant this as light pleasantry to sooth and conciliate him, and not as an humiliating abasement at the expense of my country.... [W]ith that quickness of wit for which he was so remarkable, he seized the expression "come from Scotland," which I used in the sense of being of that country, and, as if I had said that I had come away from it, or left it, retorted, "That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Over there, in Europe, all was shame and anger. Here it was exile or solitude, among these languid and agitated madmen who danced ...in order to die.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We make ourselves a place apart Behind light words that tease and flout,... But oh, the agitated heart Till someone really find us out.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To certain temperaments, especially when previously agitated by any deep feeling, there is perhaps nothing more exasperating, and ...which sooner explodes all self-command, than the coarse, jeering insolence of a porter, cabman, or hack-driver.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Let us waive that agitated national topic, as to whether such multitudes of foreign poor should be landed on our American shores; ...let us waive it, with the one only thought, that if they can get here, they have God's right to come.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The literary female, unsatisfied, agitated, empty in her heart and belly, always listening with pained curiosity to the imperative... which whispers out of the depths of her organism, "aut liberi aut libri"Mthe literary female, sufficiently educated to understand the voice of nature even when it speaks Latin, and yet sufficiently vain and goose enough to speak secretly to herself in French, "je me verrai, je me lirai, je m'extasierai et je dirai: Possible, que j'aie eu tant d'esprit?"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Nature of Familiar Letters, written, as it were, to the Moment, while the Heart is agitated by Hopes and Fears, on Events unde...cided, must plead an Excuse for the Bulk of a Collection of this Kind. Mere Facts and Characters might be comprised in a much smaller Compass: But, would they be equally interesting?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Many waves are there agitated by the wind, keeping nature fresh, the spray blowing in your face, reeds and rushes waving; ducks by... the hundred, all uneasy in the surf, in the raw wind, just ready to rise, and now going off with a clatter and a whistling like riggers straight for Labrador, flying against the stiff gale with reefed wings, or else circling round first, with all their paddles briskly moving, just over the surf, to reconnoitre you before they leave these parts; gulls wheeling overhead, muskrats swimming for dear life, wet and cold, with no fire to warm them by that you know of, their labored homes rising here and there like haystacks; and countless mice and moles and winged titmice along the sunny, windy shore; cranberries tossed on the waves and heaving up on the beach, their little red skiffs beating among the alders;Msuch healthy natural tumult as proves the last day is not yet at hand.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The opening of large tracts by the ice-cutters commonly causes a pond to break up earlier; for the water, agitated by the wind, ev...en in cold weather, wears away the surrounding ice.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »