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A Corner in Women and other follies
A Corner in Women and other follies
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Overview
Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original hardcover edition for enjoyable reading. (Worth every penny spent!) An excerpt from the beginning of the book: THE AMERICAN IDEA - THE American Idea is to be more nervous than the rest of the world and to make more money. The American Idea exists in Boston, New York, Kansas and Oyster Bay. It is composed of push, energy, restlessness and worry. It is fed by quick lunches, heavy dinners and automobiles. With pie for breakfast the American Idea was pious, but with rum omelettes and nesselrode pudding for dinner, it is now dyspeptic. The American Idea is of recent birth, having John D. Rockefeller for its godfather, and being immersed in crude oil and in the Baptist Church. It was graduated on San Juan Hill, and received part of its education in Wall Street, part in the Senate Chamber at Washington, part in the Chicago wheat pit and part in the Philippines. It cried aloud from its birth and can still be heard for whole countries away. It is self-advertising, vulgar in spots, murderous in other spots, counting human lives in the aggregate desirable only as victims of railroad and steamboat accidents. It often wears diamonds for breakfast, and nourishes on noise, wind, hot air and graft. The American Idea preaches every Sunday from the pulpit, every other day in the papers, and practices what it doesn't preach every day in the week. It assumes that the golden calf has a soul and mere man has not, and is true to its belief. The American Idea is humorous half the time, and unhappy the other half. When it is happy it laughs at others, and when it is unhappy it laughs at itself. It is prosperous, powerful, and only hypocritical when necessary—which is most of the time. The American Idea pays as it goes—sometimes in cash, sometimes in ginger, and sometimes in good red blood. It is no respecter of persons. It likes to be fooled, when it can do its own toadying, but too much toadying is the wrong medicine for the American Idea. It is apt to be too tragic, because too young. It glories in its own strength, and knows more than a college graduate. It is excitable and stable, scientific and flashy, lavish and penurious, unjust and over just. In short the American Idea has all the defects of its qualities. Another excerpt: A CARD - TO the man who has asked me for a small loan. My Friend: You have asked me for a loan of a certain amount, stating that you need it for only a short time, and that you would pay me back by a certain date. In reply to your request, I might state that I happen to be short of ready cash just now, and regret exceedingly that I cannot comply with your request. But I shall do none of this. I shall refuse you the money on other grounds—grounds which I shall endeavor to make plain to you, so that the matter may not again come up between us. In the first place, I would have you know at once that I am no moralist. My refusal is not based upon any absurd notion as to the deteriorating effect that a compliance with your request may have upon your character. Whether to let you have the money will do you good, or will do you harm, is no concern of mine. You have arrived at your present dilemma through agencies which are entirely personal to you. You may have inherited certain weaknesses which make it impossible for you to turn yourself to a proper account, or circumstances may have really been against you. But whether it is Bad Luck, Fatalism or Folly is entirely outside of my province to determine. No, my friend, I am refusing you the loan for other reasons, purely selfish. The fact is that I like you. Your faults, so long as they do not obtrude themselves upon me, do not matter. But your virtues have contributed much to my pleasure and satisfaction in the past, and to be candid with you, I am just grasping enough to wish them to continue to do so in the future. The moment that we tamper with money affairs, all will then be over. You may be a scamp or a scalawag. What matters this to me so long as this part of you does not bother me? Or if you are simply unfortunate, the same result follows. And so, my friend, I say to you, if you will, borrow the money of some other. But leave the rest of yourself to me.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940012692436 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | OGB |
| Publication date: | 01/17/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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