Twice-told Tales

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Houghton, Mifflin, 1882 - Massachusetts - 538 pages

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Page 241 - Man must not disclaim his brotherhood, even with the guiltiest, since, though his hand be clean, his heart has surely been polluted by the flitting phantoms of iniquity.
Page 166 - I am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother officers, by the cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial discharge of my business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain ; for, all day long, I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms to rich and poor alike ; and at night I hold a lantern over my head, both to show where I am, and to keep people out of...
Page 72 - Merry Mount, as they stood in the broad smile of sunset round their venerated Maypole. Had a wanderer, bewildered in the melancholy forest, heard their mirth, and stolen a half-affrighted glance, he might have fancied them the crew of Comus, some already transformed to brutes, some midway between man and beast, and the others rioting in the flow of tipsy jollity that foreran the change. But a band of Puritans, who watched the scene, invisible themselves, compared the masques to those devils and ruined...
Page 165 - NOON, by the North clock! Noon, by the east! High noon, too, by these hot sunbeams which fall, scarcely aslope, upon my head, and almost make the water bubble and smoke in the trough under my nose. Truly, we public characters have a tough time of it ! /And, among all the...
Page 255 - and lo! the Water of Youth is all lavished on the ground. Well— I bemoan it not; for if the fountain gushed at my very doorstep, I would not stoop to bathe my lips in it— no, though its delirium were for years instead of moments. Such is the lesson ye have taught me!
Page 166 - Drink, and make room for that other fellow who seeks my aid to quench the fiery fever of last night's potations — which he drained from no cup of mine.
Page 167 - Go draw the cork, tip the decanter ; but, when your great toe shall set you a-roaring, it will be no affair of mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it is all one to the Town Pump. This thirsty dog, with his red tongue lolling out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs, and laps eagerly out of the trough. See how lightly he capers away again ! Jowler, did your worship ever have the gout ? Are you all satisfied?
Page 131 - Parker's Falls. The fresh breeze, the dewy road, and the pleasant summer dawn revived his spirits, and might have encouraged him to repeat the old story, had there been anybody awake to hear it. But he met neither ox-team...
Page 128 - I do remember one little trifle of news," said he. "Old Mr. Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was murdered in his orchard, at eight o'clock last night, by an Irishman and a nigger. They strung him up to the branch of a St. Michael's pear-tree, where nobody would find him till the morning.
Page 140 - I never saw a man look so yellow and thin as the squire does," continued the tollgatherer. " Says I to myself, to-night, he 's more like a ghost or an old mummy than good flesh and blood." The pedlar strained his eyes through the twilight, and could just discern the horseman now far ahead on the village road. He seemed to recognize the rear of Mr. Higginbotham ; but through the evening shadows, and amid the dust from the horse's feet, the figure appeared dim and unsubstantial, as if the shape of...

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