An American Tragedy

He could not get it all straight, but still he could not help respecting his mother, a woman whose force and earnestness, as well as her sweetness, appealed to him.

one of those vain, handsome, animal personalities, all clothes and airs, but no morals (no taste, no courtesy or real tenderness even), but of compelling magnetism,

The principal thing that troubled Clyde up to his fifteenth year, and for long after in retrospect, was that the calling or profession of his parents was the shabby thing that it appeared to be in the eyes of others.

Having reached an intersection this side of the second principal thoroughfare — really just an alley between two tall structures — now quite bare of life of any kind, the man put down the organ

And with this, her suddenly manifested skill in connecting herself in this way with a Denver paper, to praise her for.

But I was sorry about Miss Alden just the same. I couldn’t be happy then — I couldn’t be. I was just trying to make people think that I hadn’t had anything to do with her going up there — that’s all. I couldn’t see that there was any better way to do. I didn’t want to be arrested for what I hadn’t done

Whereupon Belknap arose, and in a courtly and affable manner, stated: “The defendant is ready.”

For once, in his twentieth year, he himself had been trapped between two girls, with one of whom he was merely playing while being seriously in love with the other. And having seduced the first and being confronted with an engagement or flight, he had chosen flight.

“Where to, Frankie?”

“To try those courts Harrison laid out up here this morning.”

“Who with?”

“Violet, Nadine and Stuart.”

“Any room for another court?”

“Sure, there’s two. Why not get Bert, and Clyde, and Sondra, and come up?”

“Well, maybe, after I get this thing set.”

And breakfast at nine, with afterwards the gayety and beauty of the bright flotilla of canoes making eastward along the southern lake shore, banjos, guitars and mandolins strumming and voices raised in song, jest, laughter.