You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius.
I know I’ll get my music some time, if I’m good.
Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole.
If he had any sorrow, “it sat with its head under its wing,” and he turned only his sunny side to the world.
Though the experiment has failed, the principle remains the same.
My only comfort,” she said to Meg, with tears in her eyes, “is that Mother doesn’t take tucks in my dresses whenever I’m naughty, as Maria Parks’s mother does. My dear, it’s really dreadful, for sometimes she is so bad her frock is up to her knees, and she can’t come to school. When I think of this deggerredation, I feel that I can bear even my flat nose and purple gown with yellow sky-rockets on it.
She doesn’t want to sell me and only told you to do so because you didn’t want to care for me while she is gone. Dear Miss Belinda, please keep me! I’ll eat as little as I can. I won’t ask for a new blanket, though this old army one is thin and shabby. I’ll trot for you all winter and try not to show it if I am lame. I’ll do anything a horse can, no matter how humble, in order to earn my living. Don’t, I beg you, send me away among strangers who have neither interest nor pity for me!
I’m the oldest,” began Meg, but Jo cut in with a decided, “I’m the man of the family now Papa is away, and I shall provide the slippers, for he told me to take special care of Mother while he was gone.
Many wise and true sermons are preached us every day by unconscious ministers in street, school, office, or home.
Fame is a very good thing to have in the house, but cash is more convenient, so I wish to take the sense of the meeting on this important subject,” said Jo, calling a family council.
Her monstrosities in the way of cattle would have taken prizes at an agricultural fair, and the perilous pitching of her vessels would have produced seasickness in the most nautical observer, if the utter disregard to all known rules of shipbuilding and rigging had not convulsed him with laughter at the first glance.
Rich people have no right to sit down and enjoy themselves, or let their money accumulate for others to waste. It’s not half so sensible to leave legacies when one dies as it is to use the money wisely while alive, and enjoy making one’s fellow creatures happy with it.
That was all, except a little pause. Then Laurie straightened himself up, said, “It’s all right, never mind,” and went away without another word. Ah, but it wasn’t all right, and Jo did mind, for while the curly head lay on her arm a minute after her hard answer, she felt as if she had stabbed her dearest friend, and when he left her without a look behind him, she knew that the boy Laurie never would come again.
Money couldn’t keep shame and sorrow out of rich people’s houses; another that, though she was poor, she was a great deal happier, with her youth, health, and good spirits, than a certain fretful, feeble old lady who couldn’t enjoy her comforts; a third that, disagreeable as it was to help get dinner, it was harder still have to go begging for it; and the fourth, that even carnelian rings were not so valuable as good behavior.
Go on with your work as usual, for work is a blessed solace. Hope and keep busy, and whatever happens, remember that you never can be fatherless.
Yes! a gay life and a short one, then out with the lights and down with the curtain!
The more proposals, the more credit. Fan says Trix always asks when she comes home after the summer excursions, how many birds have you bagged as if men were partridges. What wicked creatures we are! Some of us at least. I wonder why such a love of conquest was put into us? Mother says a great deal of it is owing to bad education nowadays, but some girls seem born for the express purpose of making trouble, and would manage to do it, if they lived in a howling wilderness.
Hagar, the witch, chanted an awful incantation over her kettleful of simmering toads, with weird effect. Roderigo rent his chains asunder manfully, and Hugo died in agonies of remorse and arsenic, with a wild, “Ha! Ha!” “It’s the best we’ve had yet,” said Meg, as the dead villain sat up and rubbed.
Those are people whom it’s a satisfaction to help, for if they’ve got genius, it’s an honor to be allowed to serve them, and not let it be lost or delayed for want of fuel to keep the pot boiling.
The coolness of you two rascals is amazing,” began Mr. Pickwick, trying to get up an awful frown, and only succeeding in producing an amiable smile. But the new member was equal to the occasion; and, rising, with a grateful salutation to the Chair, said, in the most engaging manner, “Mr. President and ladies, – I beg pardon, gentlemen, – allow me to introduce myself as Sam Weller, the very humble servant of the club.