Quotes from Bret Harte

And so in mountain solitudes — o'ertaken As by some spell divine — Their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken From out the gusty pine.

As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings found vent in a few hysterical tears from the Duchess, some bad language from Mother Shipton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to Mother Shipton's desire to cut somebody's heart out, to the repeated statements of the Duchess that she would die in the road, and to the alarming oaths that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle Billy as he rode forward.

Mr. Oakhurst did not drink. It interfered with a profession which required coolness, impassiveness, and presence of mind, and, in his own language, he "couldn't afford it." As he gazed at his recumbent fellow exiles, the loneliness begotten of his pariah trade, his habits of life, his very vices, for the first time seriously oppressed him.

There was commotion in Roaring Camp. It could not have been a fight, for in 1850 that was not novel enough to have called together the entire settlement.

Whether Mr. Oakhurst had cached his cards with the whiskey as something debarred the free access of the community, I cannot say. It was certain that, in Mother Shipton's words, he "didn't say 'cards' once" during that evening.

The luck gives in first. Luck," continued the gambler reflectively, "is a mighty queer thing. All you know about it for certain is that it's bound to change. And it's finding out when it's going to change that makes you. We've had a streak of bad luck since we left Poker Flat,-you come along, and slap you get into it, too. If you can hold your cards right along you're all right.

Never a lip is curved with pain that can't be kissed into smiles again.

Which I wish to remark - And my language is plain, - That for ways that are dark And for tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinese is peculiar.

One big vice in a man is apt to keep out a great many smaller ones.

Love differs from all the other contagious diseases: the last time a man is exposed to it, he takes it most readily, and has it the worst!

But still when the mists of doubt prevail, And we lie becalmed by the shores of age, We hear from the misty troubled shore The voce of children gone before. Drawing the soul to its anchorage.

But, when the goddess' work is done,The woman's still remains.

Man has the possibility of existence after death. But possibility is one thing and the realization of the possibility is quite a different thing.