Oh, Jo, can’t you?” “Teddy, dear, I wish I could!
But, you see, Jo wasn’t a heroine, she was only a struggling human girl like hundreds of others, and she just acted out her nature, being sad, cross, listless, or energetic, as the mood suggested. It’s highly virtuous to say we’ll be good, but we can’t do it all at once, and it takes a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together before some of us even get our feet set in the right way.
You laugh at me when I say I want to be a lady, but I mean a true gentlewoman in mind and manners, and I try to do it as far as I know how. I can’t explain exactly, but I want to be above the little meannesses and follies and faults that spoil so many women.
Please could I say one word?” was the question three times repeated before a rough head boobed out from the grotto of books in which Mac usually sat. “Did anyone speak?” he asked, blinking in teh flood of sunshine that entered with Rose. “Only three times, thank you. Don’t disturb yourself, I beg; for I merely want to say a word,” answered Rose.
You men tell us we are angels, and say we can make you what we will; but the instant we honestly try to do you good, you laugh at us, and won’t listen. which proves how much your flattery is worth.
Seldom except in books do the dying utter memorable words, see visions, or depart with beatified countenances, and those who have sped many parting souls know that to most the end comes as naturally and simply as sleep.
Occasionally a matrimonial epidemic appears, especially toward spring, devastating society, thinning the ranks of bachelordom, and leaving mothers lamenting for their fairest daughters.
I hope you will be a great deal better, dear, but you must keep watch over your ‘bosom enemy,’ as Father calls it, or it may sadden, if not spoil your life. You have had a warning; remember it, and try with heart and soul to master this quick temper, before it brings you greater sorrow and regret than you have known today.
I agree not to expect anything.
How little it takes to make a young girl happy! A pretty dress, sunshine, and somebody opposite, and they are blest.
We all have our temptations, some far greater than yours, and it often takes us all our lives to conquer them.
Love scenes, if genuine, are indescribable; for to those who have enacted them, the most elaborate description seems tame, and to those who have not, the simplest picture seems overdone. So romancers had better let imagination paint for them that which is above all art, and leave their lovers to themselves during the happiest minutes of their lives.
There should always be one old maid in a family.
It dawned upon her gradually that the world was being picked to pieces, and put together on new and, according to the talkers, on infinitely better principles than before, that religion was in a fair way to be reasoned into nothingness, and intellect was to be the only God.
This is just the time, Meg, when young married people are apt to grow apart, and the very time when they ought to be most together, for the first tenderness soon wears off, unless care is taken to preserve it. And no time is so beautiful and precious to parents as the first years of the little lives given to them to train.
I beg leave to assure my honored readers that most of the incidents are taken from real life, and that the oddest are the truest; for no person, no matter how vivid an imagination he may have, can invent anything half so droll as the freaks and fancies that originate in the lively brains of little people.
Yours, Mother? Why, you are never angry!” And for the moment Jo forgot remorse in surprise. “I’ve been trying to cure it for forty years, and have only succeeded in controlling it. I am angry nearly every day of my life, Jo, but I have learned not to show it, and I still hope to learn not to feel it, though it may take me another forty years to do so.
It is apt to be so, and it is hard to bear; for, though we do not want trumpets blown, we do like to have out little virtues appreciated, and cannot help feeling disappointed if they are not.
I’ll behave like a Turveydrop see.
For the parents who had taught one child to meet death without fear, were trying now to teach another to accept life without despondency or distrust, and to use its beautiful opportunities with gratitude and power.