Henry Watterson

Discouraged as I was by the condition of things in New York and Indiana prior to the Chicago Convention, depressed and almost hopeless by your nomination, I can see daylight, if you will relax your grip somewhat upon the East and throw…

In the East, particularly in New York, enemies lurk in your very cupboard, and strike at you from behind your chair at table.

Notwithstanding this splendid indorsement, I went to the National Convention feeling very like the traditional “poor boy at a frolic.” All seemed to me lost save honor and conviction.

Well,” I continued, “I am not, and if you send me to the National Convention I will not vote for his nomination, if his be the only name presented, because I firmly believe that his nomination will mean the marching through a…

One other peril confronts it—the demoralization of wealth and luxury; too great prosperity; the concentration and the abuse of power.

This told the Mississippi’s guests, wherever and whenever they might meet round her hospitable board, of national unification and peace, giving the lie to sectional malignancy.

But McKinley’s doing was the crowning stroke of union and peace.

Sometimes,” he said, “I wake at night and rub my eyes and wonder if it is not all a dream.

What did the President know or care about foreign appointments?

I have put up my last dollar south of the Potomac.” Then I went to the King of the transcontinental railways.

The Democrats made him out a tricky and typical “New York politician.” In point of fact he was a many-sided, accomplished man who had a taking way of adjusting all conditions and adapting himself to all companies.

The Blaine-Conkling feud, inflamed by the murder of Garfield, had rent the party of Lincoln and Grant asunder.

They are, for the first time in France, stimulated partly by the alarming adulteration of French wines, rigorously applying and enforcing the pure-food laws.

Indeed, it is not uncommon with the French caravansaries to keep a little extra good wine in stock for those who can distinguish between an ordinaire and a supérieur, and are willing to pay the price.

There is no such thing as “breaking the bank at Monte Carlo.” This particular player won so fast upon two or three “spins” that the table at which he played had to suspend until it could be replenished by another “bank,” perhaps ten…

The reader may take his choice of the two statements, but among frequenters of the rooms at Monte Carlo it is generally considered impossible to amass large winnings without risking large stakes.

They sometimes “yearned for freedom.” Too well fed and cared for, too rid of dirt and debt, too flourishing, they “riz.” Prosperity grew monotonous.

Alone they did it—the French people—the hard-working, frugal, loyal commonalty of France—without asking the loan of a sou from the world outside.

If it be true, as the witty Frenchman observes, that “gambling is the recreation of gentlemen and the passion of fools,” it is equally true that love is a game where every player wins if he sticks to it and is loyal to it.

I mind me of a time that’s gone, When here I’d sit, as now I’m sitting In this same place—but not alone— A fair young form was nestled near me, A dear, dear face looked fondly up, And sweetly spoke and smiled to hear me, There’s no one now…

Hugo’s imps and Balzac’s bullies dance down the stage and shut from the view the tax-collectors and the court favorites.

Jove’s thunder no longer terrifies, and we look elsewhere than the Medici Venus for the lights o’ love.

To be brought to date the title would have now to read “three,” or even “four,” cities, New York and Chicago putting in their claims for mundane recognition.

In Dickens’ day “a tale of two cities” could only mean London and Paris then, and ever so unalike.

Always the survival of the strong, nicknamed by Spencer and his ilk the “fittest.” Ten thousand heads were chopped off during the Terror in France to make room for whom?