I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,--who ...had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under the pretense of going à la Sainte Terre," to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer," a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Colonel [John Charles] Fremont. Not a good picture, but will do to indicate my politics this year. For free States and against new... slave States.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Charles Eastman: There's always a place at the plant for a boy like that. Mrs. Eastman: But what are we going to do about him... socially? Earl Eastman: That's easy. We can all leave town.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[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 »
I'm down here all alone, but as happy as a king--at least, as happy as some kings--at any rate, I should think I'm about as happy ...as King Charles the First when he was in prison.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I often think about the opening words of Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of ti...mes." I know Dickens wasn't talking about one- to three- year-olds, but his words do capture the extremes of emotion that toddlers and their parents experience every day. Can there be a creature on earth as adorable--and as trying--as a toddler?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Simone Clouseau: Jacques would make a wonderful father. He has many redeeming qualities, you know. Sir Charles: Name one. .../>Simone Clouseau: Oh, he's kind, loyal, faithful, obedient. Sir Charles: You're either married to a boy scout or a dachshund.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sir Charles: Aren't you drinking? Princess Dala: I don't drink.... Sir Charles: Never? Princess Dala: I'm quite content with reality, I have no need for escape. Sir Charles: Well, I enjoy reality as much as the next man, it's just in my case, fortunately, reality includes a good stiff belt every now and then.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sir Charles: Are you? Princess Dala: What?... Sir Charles: What they call you--the Virgin Queen? Princess Dala: I'm not a queen.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It would never occur to anyone at Gourmet to take the kind of sleek, witty food photographs I associate with the Life "Great Dinne...rs" series, or the crammed, decadent pictures the women's magazines specialize in. Gourmet gives you a full-page color picture of an incredibly serious rack of lamb persille sitting on a somber Blue Canton platter by Mottahedeh Historic Charleston Reproductions sitting on a stiff eighteenth-century English mahogany table from Charles Deacon & son--and it's no wonder I never cook anything from this magazine: the pictures are so reverent I almost feel I ought to pray to them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »