Three years ago, also, just a week after the authorities of Boston assembled to carry back a perfectly innocent man, and one whom ...they knew to be innocent, into slavery, the inhabitants of Concord caused the bells to be rung and the cannons to be fired, to celebrate their liberty,--and the courage and love of liberty of their ancestors who fought at the bridge. As if those three millions had fought for the right to be free themselves, but to hold in slavery three million others. Nowadays, men wear a fool's cap, and call it a liberty-cap. I do not know but there are some who, if they were tied to a whipping-post, and could but get one hand free, would use it to ring the bells and fire the cannons to celebrate their liberty. So some of my townsmen took the liberty to ring and fire. That was the extent of their freedom; and when the sound of the bells died away, their liberty died away also; when the powder was all expended, their liberty went off with the smoke. The joke could be no broader if the inmates of the prisons were used to subscribe for all the powder to be used in such salutes, and hire the jailers to do the firing and ringing for them, while they enjoyed it through the grating.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When over Catholics the ocean rolls, They must wait several weeks before a mass... Takes off one peck of purgatorial coals, Because, till people know what's come to pass, They won't lay out their money on the dead-- It costs three francs for every mass that's said.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
West Hell, said to be the hottest and toughest part of that notorious resort, was once the home of Big John de Conqueror, who elop...ed with the Devil's daughter.... The Devil pursued them on his famous jumping bull, and when they met, Big John tore off one of the Devil's arms and almost beat him to death with it. Before Big John left Hell, he passed out ice water to everybody, and even turned down the dampers, remarking that he expected to return to visit his wife's folks pretty soon, and he didn't like the house kept so hot.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
a big picture of K. Marx with an axe, "Where I cut off one it will never grow again."... O Karl would it were true I'd put my saw to work for you & the wicked social tree would fall right down.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If you want to know something he won't tell you, cut off one of his fingers--the little one. Then tell him his thumb's next. After... that he'll tell you if he wears ladies' underwear.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In the fall the loon (Colymbus glacialis) came, as usual, to moult and bathe in the pond, making the woods ring with his wild laug...hter before I had risen.... When I went to get a pail of water early in the morning I frequently saw this stately bird sailing out of my cove within a few rods. If I endeavored to overtake him in a boat, in order to see how he would manuvre, he would dive and be completely lost, so that I did not discover him again, sometimes, till the latter part of the day. But I was more than a match for him on the surface. He commonly went off in a rain.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The boys dressed themselves, hid their accoutrements, and went off grieving that there were no outlaws any more, and wondering wha...t modern civilization could claim to have done to compensate for their loss. They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than President of the United States forever.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When I was a boy, I had a clock with a pendulum that could be lifted off. I found that the clock went very much faster without the... pendulum. If the main purpose of a clock is to go, the clock was the better for losing its pendulum. True, it could no longer tell the time, but that did not matter if one could teach oneself to be indifferent to the passage of time. The linguistic philosophy which cares only about language and not about the world, is like the boy who preferred the clock without the pendulum because, although it no longer told the time, it went more easily than before and at a more exhilarating pace.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... women are supposed to be unfit to vote because they are hysterical and emotional and of course men would not like to have emot...ion enter into a political campaign. They want to cut out all emotion and so they would like to cut us out. I had heard so much about our emotionalism that I went to the last Democratic national convention, held at Baltimore, to observe the calm repose of the male politicians. I saw some men take a picture of one gentleman whom they wanted elected and it was so big they had to walk sidewise as they carried it forward; they were followed by hundreds of other men screaming and yelling, shouting and singing the "Houn' Dawg".... I saw men jump up on the seats and throw their hats in the air and shout: "What's the matter with Champ Clark?" Then, when those hats came down, other men would kick them back into the air, shouting at the top of their voices: "He's all right!!"... No hysteria about it--just patriotic loyalty, splendid manly devotion to principle. And so they went on and on until 5 o'clock in the morning--the whole night long. I saw men jump up on their seats and jump down again and run around in a ring. I saw two men run towards another man to hug him both at once and they split his coat up the middle of his back and sent him spinning around like a wheel. All this with the perfect poise of the legal male mind in politics! I have been to many women's conventions in my day but I never saw a woman leap up on a chair and take off her bonnet and toss it up in the air and shout: "What's the matter with" somebody. I never saw a woman knock another woman's bonnet off her head as she screamed, "She's all right!".... But we are willing to admit that we are emotional. I have actually seen women stand up and wave their handkerchiefs. I have even seen them take hold of hands and sing, "Blest be the tie that binds." Nobody doubts that women are excitable.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »