There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say yes. For all... men who say yes, lie; and all men who say no,--why, they are in the happy condition of judicious, unincumbered travellers in Europe; they cross the frontiers into Eternity with nothing but a carpet-bag,--that is to say, the Ego. Whereas those yes-gentry, they travel with heaps of baggage, and, damn them! they will never get through the Custom House.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo--that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture--great ...in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast--for luncheon--for dinner--for tea--for supper--for between meals. I like a change, occasionally. In Genoa, he designed every thing; in Milan he or his pupils designed every thing; he designed the Lake of Como; in Padua, Verona, Venice, Bologna, who did we ever hear of, from guides, but Michael Angelo? In Florence, he painted every thing, designed every thing, nearly, and what he didn't design he used to sit on a favorite stone and look at, and they showed us the stone. In Pisa he designed everything but the old shot-tower, and they would have attributed that to him if it had not been so awfully out of the perpendicular. He designed the piers of Leghorn and the custom house regulations of Civita Vecchia. But, here--here it is frightful. He designed St. Peter's; he designed the Pope; he designed the Pantheon, the uniform of the Pope's soldiers, the Tiber, the Vatican, the Coliseum, the Capitol, the Tarpeian Rock, the Barberini Palace, St. John Lateran, the Campagna, the Appian Way, the Seven Hills, the Baths of Caracalla, the Claudian Aqueduct, the Cloaca Maxima--the eternal bore designed the Eternal City, and unless all men and books do lie, he painted every thing in it!... I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so tranquil, so filled with a blessed peace, as I did yesterday when I learned that Michael Angelo was dead.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
My fortune somewhat resembled that of a person who should entertain an idea of committing suicide, and, altogether beyond his hope...s, meet with the good hap to be murdered.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals ...unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is a good lesson--though it may often be a hard one--for a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a ra...nk among the world's dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of all significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
[The Settlement House] must be grounded in a philosophy whose foundation is on the solidarity of the human race, a philosophy whic...h will not waver when the race happens to be represented by a drunken woman or an idiot boy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The women who take husbands not out of love but out of greed, to get their bills paid, to get a fine house and clothes and jewels;... the women who marry to get out of a tiresome job, or to get away from disagreeable relatives, or to avoid being called an old maid--these are whores in everything but name. The only difference between them and my girls is that my girls gave a man his money's worth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is an old saying in the town that "most any fellow with a chaw in his jaw can sit on his front porch and spit down the chimney ...of a neighbor's house."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In Tsegihi, In the house made of dawn,... In the house made of the evening twilight, In the house made of the dark cloud, ... Oh, male divinity! With your moccasins of dark cloud, come to us.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
At the Denver House, a hastily erected log structure roofed and partitioned with canvas, described by Horace Greeley in 1859 as "T...he Astor House of the Gold Fields," orchestra leader Jones and his spirited men were interrupted by sporadic but not unforeseen bursts of gunfire that sent them diving for shelter behind a low iron-plated enclosure. Before the smoke had fairly cleared away, they were up again desperately playing and singing: Ha, boys, ho! Ain't you glad you're out of the wilderness, Ain't you glad you're out of the wilderness? Ha, boys, ho!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »