It is told that some divorcees, elated by their freedom, pause on leaving the courthouse to kiss a front pillar, or even walk to t...he Truckee to hurl their wedding rings into the river; but boys who recover the rings declare they are of the dime-store variety, and accuse the throwers of fraudulent practices.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We occasionally rested in the shade of a maple or a willow, and drew forth a melon for our refreshment, while we contemplated at o...ur leisure the lapse of the river and of human life; and as that current, with its floating twigs and leaves, so did all things pass in review before us, while far away in cities and marts on this very stream, the old routine was proceeding still. There is, indeed, a tide in the affairs of men, as the poet says, and yet as things flow they circulate, and the ebb always balances the flow. All streams are but tributary to the ocean, which itself does not stream, and the shores are unchanged, but in longer periods than man can measure. Go where we will, we discover infinite change in particulars only, not in generals.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Most of us don't have the option of quitting work, even if our care situation drove us to consider it in desperation. . . . It's h...aving no choice but to beat the bushes, having no choice but to "settle" on someone or some institution, having no choice but to hand over our child and hope for the best (or, at least, hope to avoid the worst) that gnaws away at even the most unflappable among us.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Clearly the most unfortunate people are those who must do the same thing over and over again, every minute, or perhaps twenty to t...he minute. They deserve the shortest hours and the highest pay.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... fain would I turn back the clock and devote to French or some other language the hours I spent upon algebra, geometry, and tri...gonometry, of which not one principle remains with me. Stay! There is one theorem painfully drummed into my head which seems to have inhabited some corner of my brain since that early time: "The square on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides!" There it sticks, but what of it, ye gods, what of it?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is interesting to observe with what singular unanimity the farthest sundered nations and generations consent to give completene...ss and roundness to an ancient fable, of which they indistinctly appreciate the beauty or the truth. By a faint and dream-like effort, though it be only by the vote of a scientific body, the dullest posterity slowly add some trait to the mythus. As when astronomers call the lately discovered planet Neptune; or the asteroid Astræa,... for the slightest recognition of poetic worth is significant. By such slow aggregation has mythology grown from the first.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For the most part we saw only the back side of the towns, but our story is true as far as it goes. We might have made more of the ...Bay Side, but we were inclined to open our eyes widest at the Atlantic. We did not care to see those features of the Cape in which it is inferior or merely equal to the mainland, but only those in which it is peculiar or superior. We cannot say how its towns look in front to one who goes to meet them; we went to see the ocean behind them. They were merely the raft on which we stood, and we took notice of the barnacles which adhered to it, and some carvings upon it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I had observed that he did not wish to answer the same question more than once, and was often silent when it was put again for the... sake of certainty, as if he were moody. Not that he was incommunicative, for he frequently commenced a long-winded narrative of his own accord,--repeated at length the tradition of some old battle, or some passage in the recent history of his tribe in which he had acted a prominent part, from time to time drawing a long breath, and resuming the thread of his tale, with the true story-teller's leisureliness, perhaps after shooting a rapid,--prefacing with "W-e-e-ll, by-by," etc., as he paddled along. Especially after the day's work was over, and he had put himself in posture for the night, he would be unexpectedly sociable, exhibit even the bonhommie of a Frenchman, and we would fall asleep before he got through his periods.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Every notable advance in technique or organization has to be paid for, and in most cases the debit is more or less equivalent to t...he credit. Except of course when it's more than equivalent, as it has been with universal education, for example, or wireless, or these damned aeroplanes. In which case, of course, your progress is a step backwards and downwards.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Of all human events, perhaps, the publication of a first volume of verses is the most insignificant; but though a matter of no mom...ent to the world, it is still of some concern to the author.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »