The Writings of Mark Twain: see Old Catalog -. 23. The man that corrupted Hadleyburg and other essays and storiesAmerican Publishing Company, 1901 |
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aboard ain't alligator ashore bank bar'l Baton Rouge began bend Bixby Black River boat Brown Cairo captain CHAPTER chief mate course crossing cut-off dead deck dollars eyes feet fell fifty fire forecastle gone half hand head heard hundred Island Island 37 Kentucky Bend Keokuk killed knew lagniappe land letter lived lodge look Louis MARK TWAIN mate Memphis miles minutes Mississippi Mississippi River months morning mouth Natchez negro never night once Orleans passengers pilot pilot-house pirogue plantation pretty raft reef river sand dollars seemed seen shore sort stand steam steamboat steamer stood streets talk tell thing thought thousand tion told took town trip turned twain Uncle Remus Vicksburg watch wheel wonderful yawl young
Popular passages
Page 57 - ... declining," etc. It seemed to me that I had put my life in the keeping of a peculiarly reckless outcast. Presently he turned on me and said: "What's the name of the first point above New Orleans?
Page 33 - I'm the man with a petrified heart and biler-iron bowels! The massacre of isolated communities is the pastime of my idle moments, the destruction of nationalities the serious business of my life! The boundless vastness of the great American desert is my inclosed property, and I bury my dead on my own premises!
Page 34 - And he done it, too. He snatched them, he jerked them this way and that, he booted them around, he knocked them sprawling faster than they could get up. Why, it warn't two minutes till they begged like dogs— and how the other lot did yell and laugh and clap their hands all the way through, and shout "Sail in, Corpse-Maker!" "Hi! at him again, Child of Calamity!
Page 158 - My profit is various in kind and degree; but the feature of it which I value most is the zest which that early experience has given to my later reading. When I find a well-drawn character in fiction or biography, I generally take a warm personal interest in him, for the reason that I have known him before— met him on the river.
Page 294 - A LIFE on the ocean wave, A home on the rolling deep, Where the scattered waters rave, And the winds their revels keep! Like an eagle caged, I pine On this dull, unchanging shore: Oh!
Page 347 - Uncle Remus, two of the very few Southern authors who do not write in the southern style. Instead of three or four widely-known literary names, the South ought to have a dozen or two — and will have them when Sir Walter's time is out. A curious exemplification of the power of a single book for good or harm is shown in the effects wrought by Don Quixote and those wrought by Ivanhoe.
Page 35 - You look at the graveyards; that tells the tale. Trees won't grow worth shucks in a Cincinnati graveyard, but in a Sent Louis graveyard they grow upwards of eight hundred foot high. It's all on account of the water the people drunk before they laid up. A Cincinnati corpse don't richen a soil any.
Page 59 - ... strokes on the big bell. The stars were all gone now, and the night was as black as ink. I could hear the wheels churn along the bank, but I was not entirely certain that I could see the shore. The voice of the invisible watchman called up from the hurricane-deck: "What's this, sir?
Page 66 - ... familiarity with it; but both remained in the pilothouse constantly. An hour before sunset, Mr. Bixby took the wheel and Mr. W stepped aside. For the next thirty minutes every man held his watch in his hand and was restless, silent, and uneasy. At last somebody said, with a doomful sigh — "Well yonder's Hat Island — and we can't make it.
Page 35 - ... of habits; and next about women and their different ways; and next about the best ways to put out houses that was afire; and next about what ought to be done with the Injuns; and next about what a king had to do, and how much he got; and next about how to make cats fight; and next about what to do when a man has fits; and next about differences betwixt clear-water rivers and muddy-water ones. The man they called Ed said the muddy Mississippi water was wholesomer to drink than the clear water...