Gone With the Wind
by Margaret Mitchell
(London: Pan Books, 2014)
Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm.
Page 3.
For all the modesty of her spreading skirts, the demureness of hair netted smoothly into a chignon and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap, her true self was poorly concealed. The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent, wilful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanour. Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother’s gentle admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy; her eyes were her own.
Page 3.
Here in north Georgia, a lack of the niceties of classical education carried no shame, provided a man was smart in the things that mattered, and raising good cotton, riding well, shooting straight, dancing lightly, squiring the ladies with elegance and carrying one’s liquor like a gentleman were the things that mattered.
Page 4.
‘If you say “war” just once more, I’ll go in the house and shut the door. I’ve never gotten so tired of any one word in my life as “war”, unless it’s “secession”.’
Page 5.
She could never long endure any conversation of which she was not the chief subject.
Page 5.
They thought none the less of her for her lack of interest. Indeed, they thought more. War was men’s business, not ladies’, and they took her attitude as evidence of her femininity.
Page 6.
‘You can always tell weather by sunsets.’
Page 7.
It was a savage red land, blood-coloured after rains, brick-dust in droughts, the best cotton land in the world. It was a pleasant land of white houses, peaceful ploughed fields and sluggish yellow river, but a land of contrasts, of brightest sun-glare and densest shade.
Page 8.
Scarlett’s face did not change but her lips went white - like a person who has received a stunning blow without warning and who, in the first moments of shock, does not realize what has happened.
Page 9.
‘When Scarlett gets mad, everybody knows it. She don’t hold herself in like some girls do.’
Page 11.
The Wilkes and Hamiltons always marry their own cousins. Everybody knew he’d probably marry her some day.
Page 12.
They noticed for the first time how her green eyes danced, how deep her dimples were when she laughed, how tiny her hands and feet and what a small waist she had. Their clever remarks sent her into merry peals of laughter.
Page 14.
She was constitutionally unable to endure any man being in love with any woman not herself, and the sight of India Wilkes and Stuart at the speaking had been too much for her predatory nature.
Page 14.
You always knew where you stood with India and you never had the slightest notion with Scarlett. That was enough to drive a man to distraction, but it had its charm.
Page 15.
‘I’d heap rather go to a war than go to Europe.’
Page 16.
There was frank contempt in Jeems’ voice. His own social status was assured because the Tarletons owned a hundred negroes and, like all slaves of large planters, he looked down on small farmers whose slaves were few.
Page 17.
There was no need to teach any of the men to shoot. Most Southerners were born with guns in their hands, and lives spent in hunting had made marksmen of them all.
Page 19.
Mammy felt that she owned the O’Haras, body and soul, that their secrets were her secrets; and even a hint of a mystery was enough to set her upon the trail as relentlessly as a bloodhound.
Page 22.
Mammy emerged from the hall, a huge old woman with the small, shrewd eyes of an elephant. She was shining black, pure African, devoted to her last drop of blood to the O’Haras, Ellen’s mainstay, the despair of her three daughters, the terror of the other house servants. Mammy was black, but her code of conduct and her sense of pride were as high as or higher than those of her owners. She had been raised in the bedroom of Solange Robillard, Ellen O’Hara’s mother.
Page 22.
In a neighbourhood where everyone said exactly what he thought as soon as he thought it, Ashley’s quality of reserve was exasperating. He was as proficient as any of the other young men in the usual County diversions, hunting, gambling, dancing and politics, and was the best rider of them all; but he differed from all the rest in that these pleasant activities were not the end and aim of life to him and he stood alone in his interest in books and music and his fondness for writing poetry.
Page 25.
Ashley was born of a line of men who used their leisure for thinking not doing.
Page 26.
Sunset and spring and new-fledged greenery were no miracle to Scarlett. Their beauty she accepted as casually as the air she breathed and the water she drank, for she had never consciously seen beauty in anything but women’s faces, horses, silk dresses and like tangible things.
Page 27.
His breath on her fade was strong with Bourbon whisky mingled with a faint fragrance of mint. Accompanying him also were the smells of chewing tobacco, well-oiled leather and horses - a combination of odours that she always associated with her father and instinctively liked in other men.
Page 28.
It had never occurred to him that only one voice was obeyed on the plantation - the soft voice of his wife Ellen. It was a secret he would never learn, for everyone form Ellen down to the stupidest field hand was in a tacit and kindly conspiracy to keep him believing that his word was law.
Page 29.
She was his oldest child and, now that Gerald knew there would be no more sons to follow the three who lay in the family burying-ground, he had drifted into a habit of treating her in a man-to-man manner which she found most pleasant. She was more like her father than her younger sisters.
Page 29.
‘The Wilkes are different from any of our neighbours - different from any family I ever knew. They are queer folk, and it’s best that they marry their cousins and keep their queerness to themselves.’
Page 33.
Ashley’s heart was in none of the pleasant things he did so well. He was never more than politely interested in any of the things that vitally interested everyone else.
Page 34.
‘Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything,’ he shouted, his thick, short arms making wide gestures of indignation, ‘for ‘tis the only thing in this world that lasts, and don’t you be forgetting it! ‘Tis the only ting worth working for, worth fighting for - worth dying for.’
Page 35.
‘It doesn’t matter who you marry as long as he thinks like you and is a gentleman and a Southerner and prideful. For a woman, love comes after marriage.’
Page 36.
He knew what he wanted, and when Gerald wanted something he gained it by taking the most direct route.
Page 45.
The O’Haras were a clannish tribe, clinging to one another in prosperity as well as in adversity, not for any overweening family affection but because they had learned through grim years that to survive a family must present an unbroken front to the world.
Page 46.
The County people were neighbourly and sociable and none too tolerant of anyone lacking in those same qualities.
Page 47.
When a principle comes up against Scotch tightness, the principle fares ill.
Page 47.
The house negroes of the County considered themselves superior to white trash.
Page 48.
Gerald was likeable, and the neighbours learned in time what the children, negroes and dogs discovered at first sight, that a kind heart, a ready and sympathetic ear and an open pocketbook lurked just behind his bawling voice and his truculent manner.
Page 48.
With unerring African instinct, the negroes had all discovered that Gerald had a loud bark and no bite at all, and they took shameless advantage of him.
Page 49.
While the society of up-country Georgia was not so impregnable as that of the Coast aristocrats, no family wanted a daughter to wed a man about whose grandfather nothing was known.
Page 50.
Nothing could ever make Gerald feel that he was inferior in any way to anyone.
Page 50.
Before, marriage, young girls must be, above all other things, sweet, gentle, beautiful and ornamental, but, after marriage, they were expected to manage households that numbered a hundred people or more, white and black, and they were trained with that in view.
Page 55.
The man owned the property, and the woman managed it. The man took the credit for the management, and the woman praised his cleverness. The man roared like a bull when a splinter was in his finger, and the woman muffled the moans of childbirth, lest she disturb him. Men were rough of speech and often drunk. Women ignored the lapses of speech and put the drunkards to bed without bitter words. Men were rude and outspoken; women were always kind, gracious and forgiving.
Page 56.
From childhood playmates grew beaux in later years, and the first duty of a girl was to get married.
Page 57.
At sixteen, thanks to Mammy and Ellen, she looked sweet, charming and giddy, but she was, in reality, self willed, vain and obstinate. She had the easily stirred passions of her Irish father and nothing except the thinnest veneer of her mother’s unselfish and forbearing nature.
Page 57.
She knew nothing of the inner workings of any human being’s mind, not even her own.
Page 58.
If she knew little about men’s minds, she knew even less about the minds of women, for they interested her less. She had never had a girl friend, and she never felt any lack on that account. To her, all women, including her two sisters, were natural enemies in pursuit of the same prey - man.
Page 58.
When Scarlett was a child, she had confused her mother with the Virgin Mary, and now that she was older she saw no reason for changing her opinion.
Page 58.
Ellen was unfailingly thoughtful of her husband’s pleasure.
Page 65.
She lay in the silvery shadows with courage rising and made the plans that a sixteen-year-old makes when life has been so pleasant that defeat is an impossibility and a pretty dress and a clear complexion are weapons to vanquish fate.
Page 71.
‘What gempmums says an’ whut tdey thinks is two diffunt things. An’ Ah ain’ noticed Mist’ Ashley axing fer ter mahy you.’
Page 74.
Between the two evils, it was better to have Scarlett wear an afternoon dress at a morning barbecue than to have her gobble like a hog.
Page 75.
I’ll catch a husband. See if I don’t, even if I don’t scream and faint.
Page 75.
‘I wish to heaven I were married,’ she said resentfully as she attacked the yams with loathing. ‘I’m tired of everlastingly being unnatural and never doing anything I want to do. I’m tired of acting like I don’t eat more than a bird, and walking when I want to run and saying I feel faint after a waltz, when I could dance for two days and never get tired. I’m tired of saying, “How wonderful you are!” to fool men who haven’t got one-half the sense I’ve got, and I’m tired of pretending I don’t know anything, so men can tell me things and feel important while they’re doing it.’
Page 76.
The mothers of all her girl friends impressed on their daughters the necessity of being helpless, clinging, doe-eyed creatures. Really, it took a lot of sense to cultivate and hold such a pose.
Page 77.
Any man who was fool enough to fall for a simper, a faint and an ‘Oh, how wonderful you are!’ wasn’t worth having. But they all seemed to like it.
Page 77.
If she had used the wrong tactics with Ashley in the past - well, that was the past and done with. To-day she would use different ones, the right ones. She wanted him and she had only a few hours in which to get him. If flirting, or pretending to faint, would do the trick, then she would faint. If simpering, coquetry or empty-headedness would attract him, she would gladly play the flirt and be more empty-headed than even Cathleen Calvert. And if bolder measures were necessary, she would take them. To-day was the day!
Page 77.
At no time, before or since, had so low a premium been placed on feminine naturalness.
Page 77.
No girl in the County, with the possible exception of the empty-headed Cathleen Calvert, really liked Scarlett.
Page 83.
When she felt herself different from her neighbours, an irritated confusion fell upon her.
Page 83.
If a man’s not a gentleman, he’s no business on a horse.
Page 88.
Over behind the barns there was always another barbecue pit, where the house servants and the coachmen and maids of the guests had their own feast of hoecakes and yams and chitterlings, that dish of hog entrails so dear to negro hearts, and in season, watermelon enough to satiate.
Page 89.
Like most girls, her imagination carried her just as a aw the altar and no further.
Page 97.
‘Let’s don’t be too hot-headed and let’s don’t have any war. Most of the misery of the world has been caused by wars. And when the wars were over, no one ever knew what they were all about.’
Page 104.
‘The trouble with most of us Southerners,’ continued Rhett Butler, ‘is that we either don’t travel enough or we don’t profit enough by our travels.’
Page 106.
‘All we have is cotton and slaves and arrogance.’
Page 107.
Large numbers or books always depressed her, as did people who liked to read large numbers of books.
Page 109.
‘Love isn’t enough to make a successful marriage when two people are as different as we are.’
Page 112.
Then her rage broke, the same rage that drove Gerald to murder and other Irish ancestors to misdeeds that cost them their necks.
Page 113.
He put out his hand toward her and, as he did, she slapped him across the face with all the strength she had. The noise cracked like a whip in the still room and suddenly her rage was gone, and there was desolation in her heart.
Page 114.
Scarlett had never trusted any woman and had never credited any woman except her mother with motives other than selfish ones.
Page 117.
She’d show them. She didn’t quite see how she’s show them, but she’d do it all the same. She’d hurt them worse than they hurt her.
Page 119.
Vanity was stronger than love at sixteen and there was no room in her hot heart now for anything but hate.
Page 119.
Didn’t men ever think about anything that really mattered?
Page 120.
Within two weeks Scarlett had become a wife, and within two months ore she was a widow. She was soon released from the bonds she had assumed with so much haste and so little thought, but she was never again to know the careless freedom of her unmarried days. Widowhood had crowded closely on the heels of marriage but, to her dismay, motherhood soon followed.
Page 123.
The South was intoxicated with enthusiasm and excitement. Everyone knew that one battle would end the war and every young man hastened to enlist before the war should end.
Page 123.
‘I can’t think now. I’ll think later.’
Page 124.
There were no parties now and no wedding trips. A week after the wedding Charles left to join Colonel Wade Hampton, and two weeks later Ashely and the Troop departed, leaving the whole County bereft.
Page 126.
In the seventh week, there came a telegram from Colonel Hampton himself, and then a letter, a kind, dignified letter of condolence. Charles was dead. The colonel would have wired earlier, but Charles, thinking his illness a trifling one, did not wish to have his family worried. The unfortunate boy had not only been cheated of the love he thought he had won but also of his high hopes of honour and glory on the field of battle. He had died ignominiously and swiftly of pneumonia, following measles, without ever having gotten any closer to the Yankees than the camp in South Carolina.
Page 127.
A widow had to wear hideous black dresses without even a touch of braid to enliven them, no flower or ribbon or lace or even jewellery, except onyx mourning brooches or necklaces made from the deceased’s hair. and the black crêpe veil on her bonnet had to reach to her knees, and only after three years of widowhood could it be shortened to shoulder length. Widows could never chatter vivaciously or laugh aloud. Even when they smiled, it must be a sad, tragic smile. And should a gentleman be so ill-bred as to indicate an interest in her, she must freeze him with a dignified but well-chosen reference to her dead husband.
Page 128.
Born of a railroad, Atlanta grew as its railroads grew. … It had become the crossroads of travel north and south and east ad west, and the little village leaped to life.
Page 134.
The same railroads which had made the town the crossroads of commerce in time of peace were now of vital strategic importance in time of war. Far from the battle-lines, the town and its railroads provided the connecting link between the two armies of the Confederacy, the army in Virginia and the army in Tennessee and the West. And Atlanta likewise linked both of the armies with the deeper South from which they drew their supplies. Now, in response to the needs of war, Atlanta had become a manufacturing centre, a hospital base and one of the South’s chief depots for the collecting of food and supplies for the armies in the field.
Page 137.
The South produced statesmen and soldiers, planters and doctors, lawyers and poets, but certainly not engineers or mechanics. Let the Yankees adopt such low callings.
Pages 137-138.
When a Southerner took the trouble to pack a trunk and travel twenty miles for a visit, the visit was seldom of shorter duration than a month, usually much longer. Southerners were as enthusiastic visitors as they were hosts, and there was nothing unusual in relatives coming to spend the Christmas holidays and remaining until July.
Pages 144-145.
No one ever told her anything really shocking or scandalous, for her spinster state must be protected even if she was sixty years old, and her friends were in a kindly conspiracy to keep her a sheltered and petted old child.
Page 148.
Like Aunt Pitty, Melanie had the face of a sheltered child who had never known anything but simplicity and kindness, truth and love, a chid who had never looked upon harshness or evil and would not recognize them if she saw them.
Page 148.
The difference between the two girls lay int eh fact that Melanie spoke kind and flattering words from a desire to make people happy, if only temporarily, and Scarlett never did it except to further her own aims.
Pages 148-149.
Scarlett, who had hoped for a freer rein when she escaped Mammy’s supervision, discovered to her sorrow that Uncle Peter’s standards of ladylike conduct, especially for Mist’ Charles’ widow, were even stricter than Mammy’s.
Page 149.
They took it for granted that she was imbued with their own patriotic fervour and would have been shocked to know how slight an interest in the war she had. Except for the ever-present torment that Ashley might be killed, the war interested her not at all, and nursing was something she did simply because she didn’t know how to get out of it.
Page 150.
With the exception of desperately ill and severely wounded men, Scarlett’s was a completely feminized world and this irked her, for she neither liked nor trusted her own sex and, worse still, was always bored by it.
Page 151.
Scarlett kicked the coverlet in impotent rage, trying to think of something bad enough to say.
‘God’s nightgown!’ she cried at last, and felt somewhat relieved.
Page 155.
She knew the Cause meant nothing at all to her and that she was bored with hearing other people talk about it with that fanatic look in their eyes. The Cause didn’t seem sacred to her. The war didn’t seem to be a holy affair, but a nuisance that killed men senselessly and cost money and made luxuries hard to get.
Page 163.
How short was the time for fun, for pretty clothes, for dancing, for conquetting! Only a few years! Then you married and wore dull-coloured dresses and had babies that ruined your waist-line and sat in corners at dances with other sober matrons and only emerged to dance with your husband or with old gentlemen who stepped on your feet.
Page 166.
With old ladies you were sweet and guileless and appeared as simple-minded as possible, for old ladies were sharp and they watched girls as jealously as cats, ready to pounce on any indiscretion of tongue or eye.
Page 166.
There were so many things to do to bachelors and she knew them all, the nuance of the sidelong glance, the half-smile behind the fan, the swaying of the hips so that skirts swung like a bell, the tears, the laughter, the flattery, the sweet sympathy. Oh, all the tricks that never failed to work - except with Ashely.
Page 167.
How wonderful it would be never to marry but to go on being, lovely in pale-green dresses and forever courted by handsome men!
Page 167.
Scarlett felt the fox of wrath and impotent hate gnaw at her vitals.
Page 172.
She was here, not for the Cause, but because she was tired of sitting at home.
Page 173.
She hated people who used words unknown to her.
Page 173.
‘How closely women clutch the very chains that bind them.’
Page 174.
A gentleman always appeared to believe a lady even when he knew she was lying.
Page 174.
It was annoying the way Melly always misconstrued her motives - but perhaps that was far preferable to having her suspect the truth.
Page 177.
‘Oh, you have the nastiest way of making virtues sound so stupid.’
‘But virtues are stupid. Do you care if people talk?’
Page 183.
‘Until you’ve lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.’
Page 183.
‘What most people don’t seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made out of the wreckage of a civilization as form the upbuilding of one.’
Page 184.
Of all the people in the world, she didn’t want Melly for a defender. She could defend herself.
Page 187.
She had become adept at putting unpleasant thoughts out of her mind these days. She had learned to say, ‘I won’t think of this or that bothersome thought now. I’ll think about it to-morrow.’
Page 199.
Her love was still a young girl’s adoration for a man she could not understand, a man who possessed all the qualities she did not own but which she admired. He was still a young girl’s dream of the Perfect Knight and her dream asked no more than acknowledgment of his love, went no further than hopes of a kiss.
Page 203.
All that passion meant to her was servitude to inexplicable male madness, unshared by females, a painful and embarrassing process that led inevitably to the still more painful process of childbirth.
Page 203.
Confederate money had dropped alarmingly and the price of food and clothing had risen accordingly.
Page 205.
The Yankee blockade about the Confederate ports had tightened, and luxuries such as tea, coffee, silks, whalebone stays, colognes, fashion magazines and books were scarce and dear.
Page 205.
She could and did love Ashley with the last breath of her body, but that did not prevent her from inveigling other men into asking to marry her.
Pages 205-206.
War and marriage and childbirth had passed over her without touching any deep chord within her and she was unchanged.
Page 206.
There were many things she kept from her mother these days. But, most of all, she kept secret the fact that Rhett Butler called frequently at Aunt Pittypat’s house.
Page 208.
He was in his mid-thirties, older than any beau she had ever had, and she was as helpless as a child to control and handle him as she had handled beaux nearer her own age.
Page 208.
She had Gerald’s Irish temper along with the deceptive sweetness of face she had inherited form Ellen.
Page 208.
‘Certainly I’m a rascal, and why not? It’s a free country and a man may be a rascal if he chooses. It’s only hypocrites like you, my dear lady, just as black at heart but trying to hide it, who become enraged when called by their right names.’
Page 211.
It had been her experience that the liar was the hottest to defend his veracity, the coward his courage, the ill-bred his gentlemanliness, and the cad his honour. But not Rhett. He admitted everything and laughed and dared her to say more.
Page 211.
Everyone knew now that the fate of the Confederacy rested as much upon the skill of the blockade boats in eluding the Yankee fleet as it did upon the solders at the front.
Page 213.
He always referred to the soldiers as ‘our brave boys’ or ‘our heroes in grey’ and did it in such a way as to convey the utmost in insult.
Page 215.
He took pleasure in tricking the dignified citizenry into embarrassing situations. He could no more resist pricking the conceits, the hypocrisies and the flamboyant patriotism of those about him than a small boy can resist putting a pin into a balloon. He neatly deflated the pompous and exposed the ignorant and the bigoted, and he did it in such subtle ways, drawing his victims out by his seemingly courteous interest, that they never were quite certain what had happened until they stood exposed as windy, high-flown and slightly ridiculous.
Page 216.
‘No matter what noble purposes they assign to wars, there is never but one reason for a war. And that is money. All wars are in reality money squabbles. But so few people ever realize it. Their ears are too full of bugles and drums and fine words from stay-at-home orators. Sometimes the rallying cry is “save the tomb of Christ form the Heathen!” sometimes it’s “Down With Property!” and sometimes “Liberty!” and sometimes “Cotton, Slavery and States’ Rights!”’
Page 218.
‘England will never help the Confederacy. England never bets on the underdog. That’s why she’s England.’
Page 226.
‘The idea of assistance form abroad is just a newspaper invention to keep up the morale of the South.’
Page 226.
‘Why should I fight to uphold the system that cast me out? I shall take pleasure in seeing it smashed.’
Pages 226-227.
‘Our Southern way of living is as antiquated as the feudal system of the Middle Ages. The wonder is that it’s lasted as long as it has.’
Page 227.
For a moment she thought of the horror of Pitty and Melanie. She thought of Ellen and what she would say, and she shivered. But vanity was stronger.
Page 230.
‘Remember I never do anything without reason and I never give anything without expecting something in return. I always get paid.’
Page 231.
Like most innocent and well-bred young women, she had a devouring curiosity about prostitutes.
Page 235.
They expected death. They did not expect defeat.
Page 241.
‘It isn’t the darkies, Scarlett. They’re just the excuse. There’ll always be wars because men love wars. Women don’t, but men do - yea, passing the love of women.’
Pages 246-247.
‘It’s terrible when women can’t cry.’
Page 247.
Where he had once been lounging and indolent, he was now as alert s a prowling cat, with the tense alertness of one whose nerves are perpetually drawn as tight as the strings of a violin. In his eyes, there was a fagged, haunted look, and the sunburned skin was tight across the fine bones of his face - her same handsome Ashley, yet so very different.
Page 249.
‘There’s so much to memories.’
Page 257.
Though Melanie was absent, her pale shadow lay between then.
Page 258.
The truth was that the North was holding the South in a virtual state of siege, though many yet did not realize it.
Pages 263-264.
Throughout the South, most of the cotton planters were in the same fix. With the blockade closing tighter and tighter, there was no way to get the South’s money crop to its market in England, no way to bring in the necessaries which cotton money had brought in years gone by. And the agricultural South, waging war with the industrial North, was needing so many things now, things it had never thought of buying in times of peace.
Page 264.
Atlanta’s ten thousand population had grown to double that number during the war.
Page 264.
Atlanta, the city had gained rather than lost as a result of the war. Atlanta, the heart of the Confederacy, was still beating full and strong, the railroads that were its arteries throbbing with the never-ending flow of men, munitions and supplies.
Page 265.
Scarlett thought it over and decided that, in a choice between the Church and Ashley, she would choose Ashley.
Page 265.
She hardly cared whether the Yankees won or not. The thing that mattered was for the war to finish quickly and for Ashley to come home.
Page 265.‘The
Yankees are recruiting men for frontier service to fight the Indians, recruiting them from among Confederate prisoners. Any prisoner who will take the oath of allegiance and enlist for Indian service for two years will be released and sent West. Mr. Wilkes refused.’
Page 270.
Atlanta was the junction of the four railroads on which the very life of the Confederacy depended.
Page 273.
Talk always turned to war now, all conversations on any topic led form war or back to war - sometimes sad, often gay, but always war. War romances, war weddings, deaths in hospitals and on the field, incidents of camp and battle and march, gallantry, cowardice, humour, sadness, deprivation and hope.
Page 276.
Believing was a sacred duty. And those who were so traitorous as not to believe should at least, have the decency to keep their mouths shut.
Page 279.
Chloroform was so scarce not it was used only for the worst amputations and opium was a precious thing, used only to ease the dying out of life, not the living out of pain.
Page 284.
Why did he always notice women’s clothing, and why was he so rude as to remark upon her present untidiness?
Page 286.
Never pass up new experiences, Scarlett. They enrich the mind.’
Page 291.
There was no insult worse than being likened to a Yankee girl.
Page 291.
That’s what’s wrong with you. All your beaux have respected you too much, though God knows why, or they have been too afraid of you to really do right by you. The result is that you are unendurably uppity. You should be kissed and by someone who knows how.’
Page 292.
No one should ever speak of death! It was tempting Providence to mention death.
Page 298.
With her own dislike of this woman so strong she could barely conceal it, how could Melly love her so? How could Melly be so stupid as not to guess the secret of her love of Ashley?
Pages 306-307.
‘What better way can an old man die than doing a young man’s work?’
Page 315.
Staying away from church did not seem so sinful now as it formerly had.
Page 316.
It was awful for a man to know what women really thought about and talked about. It made a girl feel positively undressed.
Page 319.
She liked to believe herself a thing of mystery to men, but she knew Rhett thought her as transparent as glass.
Page 319.
Nowadays the only news was that which passed from mouth to mouth. Short of paper, short of ink, short of men, the newspapers had suspended publication after the siege began.
Page 323.
Negroes were always so proud of being the bearers of evil tidings.
Page 333.
Lying in the pitiless sun, shoulder to shoulder, head to feet, were hundreds of wounded men, lining the tracks, the sidewalks, stretched out in endless rows under the car-shed. Some lay stiff and still but many writhed under the hot sun, moaning. Everywhere, swarms of flies hovered over the men, crawling and buzzing in their faces, everywhere was blood, dirty bandages, groans screamed curses of pain as stretcher-bearers lifted men. The smell of sweat, of blood, of unwashed bodies, of excrement rose up in waves of blistering heat until the fetid stench almost nauseated her. The ambulance men hurrying here and there among the prostrate forms frequently stepped on wounded men, so thickly packed were the rows, and those trodden upon stared stolidly up, waiting their turn.
Page 340.
It looked and sounded like the end of the world.
Page 356.
“I mustn’t think about that now,” she told herself hurriedly.
Page 372.
Was Tara still standing? Or was Tara also gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia?
Page 375.
How stupid negroes were! They never thought of anything unless they were gold. And the Yankees wanted to free them.
Page 386.
Then Mammy was in the room, Mammy with shoulders dragged down by two heavy wooden buckets, her kind black face sad with the uncomprehending sadness of a monkey’s face.
Page 392.
She was seeing things with new eyes for, somewhere along the long road to Tara, she had left her girlhood behind her. … She was a woman now and youth was gone.
Page 397.
She was born to be pampered and waited upon, and here she was, sick and ragged, driven by hunger to hunt for food int eh gardens of her neighbours.
Page 402.
“I won’t think of I now. I can’t stand it now. I’ll think of it later,” she said aloud, turning her eyes away.
Page 403.
What was past was past. Those who were dead were dead. The lazy luxury of the old days was gone, never to return. And, as Scarlett settled the heavy basket across her arm, she had settled her own mind and her own life.
Page 404.
Scarlett was never to look back.
Page 404.
“As God is my witness, as God is my witness, the Yankees aren’t going to lick me. I’m going to live through this, and when it’s over, I’m never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I have to steal or kill - as God is my witness, I’m never going to be hungry again.”
Page 405.
The world outside receded before the demands of empty and half-empty stomachs and life resolved itself into two related thoughts, food and how to get it.
Page 406.
Why did the stomach have a longer memory than the mind?
Page 406.
Gerald, the negroes and Wade clung to Melanie now, because even in her weakness she was kind and sympathetic, and these days Scarlett was neither.
Page 407.
No one talked back to Scarlett these days. They were all afraid of her sharp tongue, all afraid of the new person who walked in her body.
Page 408.
Her love for this land with its softly rolling hills of bright-red soil, this beautiful red earth that was blood-coloured, garnet, brick-dust, vermilion, which so miraculously grew green bushes starred with white puffs, was one part of Scarlett which did not change when all else was changing. Nowhere else in the world was there land like this.
Page 411.
No one was going to get Tara away from her. … She would hold Tara, if she had to break the back of every person on it.
Page 411.
Crying was so useless now. The only time crying ever did any good was when there was a man around from whom you wished favours.
Page 414.
Murder! she thought dully, I’ve done murder. oh, this can’t be happening to me! Her eyes went to the stubby hairy hand on the floor so close to the sewing-box and suddenly she was vitally alive again, vitally glad with a cool tigerish joy.
Page 416.
“I won’t think about it any more,” she decided. “It’s over and done with and I’d have been a ninny not to kill him. I reckon - I reckon I must have changed a little since coming home or else I couldn’t have done it.”
Page 421.
“I’ve done murder and so I can surely do this.”
Page 421.
“God intended women to be timid frightened creatures and there’s something unnatural about a woman who isn’t afraid.”
Page 428.
There was something about cotton that was reassuring, steadying.
Page 432.
At Tara and throughout the County, the problem was food. Most of the families had nothing at all but the remains of their yam crops and their peanuts and such game as they could catch in the woods.
Page 445.
Negroes were provoking sometimes and stupid and lazy, but there was loyalty in them that money couldn’t buy a feeling of oneness with their white folks which made them risk their lives to keep food on the table.
Page 446.
“Always remember, dear,” Ellen had said, “you are responsible for the moral as well as the physical welfare of the darkies God has entrusted to your care. You must realize that they are like children and must be guarded from themselves like children, and you must always set them a good example.”
Pages 446-447.
The strictest rule at Tara, one which she herself had made and which she rigidly enforced, was that no one should ever talk of the fine meals they had eaten in the past or what they would eat now, if they had the opportunity.
Page 447.
Now life was so amazingly simple. Now all that mattered was food enough to keep off starvation, clothing enough to prevent freezing and a roof overhead which did not leak too much.
Page 447.
“I’m like Atlanta,” she thought. “It takes more than Yankees or a burning to keep me down.”
Page 455.
The Cause was dead but war had always seemed foolish to her and peace was better.
Page 463.
Somewhere, on the long road that wound through those four years, the girl with her sachet and dancing slippers had slipped away and there was left a woman with sharp green eyes, who counted pennies and turned her hands to many menial tasks, a woman to whom nothing was left form the wreckage except the indestructible red earth on which she stood.
Page 463.
“Losing the darkies isn’t the worst part about this. It’s the loss of the men, the young men.”
Page 469.
Old and young, talkative and taciturn, rich planter and sallow Cracker, they all had two things in common, lice and dysentery.
Page 474.
She marched them behind a clump of thick bushes, relieved them of their uniforms, gave them a basin of water and strong lye soap to wash with and provided them with quilts and blankets to cover their nakedness, while she boiled their clothing in her huge wash-pot. It was useless for the girls to argue hotly that such conduct humiliated the soldiers. Mammy replied that the girls would be a sight more humiliated if they found lice upon themselves.
Page 474.
Longing hearts could only stand so much of longing.
Page 480.
Occasionally, Scarlett wondered bitterly why Melanie could not have died in childbirth in Atlanta. That would have made things perfect. Then she could have married Ashley after a decent interval and made little Beau a good stepmother too. When such thoughts came she did not pray hastily to God, telling Him she did not mean it. God did not frighten her any more.
Page 480.
“Every time I give some poor man my share I think that maybe, somewhere on the road up north, some woman is giving my Ashley a share of her dinner and it’s helping him to get home to me!”
Page 481.
Scarlett felt that the time for prayer had passed. If God had seen fit to punish them so, then God could very well do without prayers. Religion had always been a bargaining process with Scarlett. She promised God good behaviour in exchange for favours. God had broken the bargain time and again, to her way of thinking, and she felt that she owed Him nothing at all now.
Pages 482-483.
Georgia was virtually under marital law now. The Yankee soldiers garrisoned throughout the section and the Freedmen’s Bureau were in complete command of everything and they were fixing the rules to suit themselves.
Page 493.
“In the end what will happen will be what has happened whenever a civilization breaks up. The people who have brains and courage come through and the ones who haven’t are winnowed out.”
Pages 498-499.
Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brace on a battlefield when it’s be brave or else be killed.
Page 500.
What was there to fear in this wreck of a world but hunger and cold and the loss of home?
Page 502.
She hated Rhett as she hated no other person in all the world. But she could not feel. She could only think and her thoughts were very practical.
Page 512.
Men are so conceited they’ll believe anything that flatters them.
Page 512.
“I won’t think about it now.”
Page 513.
In the dim greyness of the parlour she fought a quick decisive battle with the three most binding ties of her soul - the memory of Ellen, the teachings of her religion and her love for Ashely.
Page 513.
If the Church thought she was going to leave one stone unturned in saving Tara and saving the family from starving - well, let the Church bother about that. She wouldn’t.
Page 513.
Scarlett was very ignorant of the hidden side of men’s lives and had no way of knowing just what the arrangement might involve.
Page 514.
“I won’t think of that now. I’ll think of it later,” and she pushed the unwelcome idea into the back of her mind lest it shake her resolution.
Page 514.
“I’ve got something that most pretty ladies haven’t got - and that’s a mind that’s made up.”
Page 516.
Mammy shifted from one foot to another like a restive elephant.
Page 518.
Mammy was a country negro but she had not always been a country negro and she knew that no chaste woman ever rode in a hired conveyance - especially a closed carriage - without the escort of some male member of her family. Even the presence of a negro maid would not satisfy the conventions.
Page 523.
She would never again be afraid of anything except poverty.
Page 526.
“I won’t think of it now,” shoe told herself and hurried her steps.
Page 527.
Somehow, some day she was going to have plenty of money if she had to commit murder to get it.
Page 528.
She had very little feeling about Rhett being hanged. Her need of money was too pressing, too desperate, for her to bother about his ultimate fate.
Page 535.
Dancing earrings always attracted a man and gave a girl such a spirited air.
Page 537.
No woman could really feel like a lady without gloves.
Page 537.
“Southerners can never resist a losing cause.”
Page 543.
“You are a heartless creature, Scarlett, but perhaps that’s part of your charm.”
Page 545.
It came to her suddenly that Rhett Butler was a dangerous man to run afoul of.
Page 549.
“The truth at last. Talking love and thinking money. How truly feminine!”
Page 550.
“The Irish,” said he, lowering his chair back to level and removing his hands from his pockets, “are the damnedest race. They put so much emphasis on so many wrong things. Land, fort instance. And every bit of earth is just like every other bit.”
Pages 552-553.
When a man got as old as Frank Kennedy he ought to have learned not to bother about things that didn’t matter.
Page 561.
At the word ‘money’, her mind came back to him, crystal clear.
Page 561.
After the complete moral collapse which had sent her to Atlanta and to Rhett, the appropriation of her sister’s betrothed seemed a minor affair and one not to be bothered with at this time.
Page 564.
There was never any way of knowing just how far Mammy could be bullied.
Page 569.
The days when money could be thrown away carelessly had passed. Why did these people persist in making the gestures of the old days when the old days were gone?
Page 571.
She could not ignore life. She had to live it and it was too brutal, too hostile, for her even to try to gloss over its harshness with a smile.
Page 577.
She married Frank Kennedy two weeks later after a whirlwind courtship which she blushingly told him left her too breathless to oppose his ardour any longer.
Page 580.
She made him feel, for the first time in his old-maidish life, that the was a strong upstanding man fashioned by God in a nobler mould than other men, fashioned to protect silly helpless women.
Page 582.
Even at the moment of marriage, she had not given a thought to the fact that the price she was paying for the safety of home was permanent exile from it.
Page 583.
Now he disliked talking business with her as much as he had enjoyed it before they were married. Then he had thought it all beyond her mental grasp and it had been pleasant to explain things to her. Now he saw the she understood entirely too well and he felt the usual masculine indignation at the duplicity of women. Added to it was the usual masculine disillusionment in discovering that a woman has a brain.
Page 585.
Frank was a gentleman and he kept his bewilderment to himself. Scarlett was his wife and he could not insult her by asking awkward questions which, after all, would not remedy matters.
Page 586.
Frank learned early in his marriage that so long as she had her own way, life could be very pleasant, but when she was opposed.
Page 586.
A startling thought this, that a woman could handle business matters as well or better than a man, a revolutionary thought to Scarlett who had been reared in the tradition that men were omniscient and women none too bright. Of course, she had discovered that this was not altogether true but the pleasant fiction still stuck in her mind.
Page 588.
“Influence is everything, Scarlett. Remember that when you get arrested. Influence is everything, and guilt or innocence merely an academic question.”
Page 591.
“When will you ever get over losing your tempter when you hear the truth? You never mind speaking the truth about other people, so why should you mind hearing it about yourself? I’m not insulting you. I think acquisitiveness is a very fine quality.”
Page 594.
His words were barbed but they were the bars of truth.
Page 594.
“Always remember this, Scarlett, I can stand anything form you but a lie - your dislike for me, your tempers, all your vixenish ways, but not a lie.”
Page 597.
“Reputation, fiddle-dee-dee! I want that mill before you change your mind or Frank finds out that I’m buying it. Don’t be a slowpoke, Rhett. What’s a little rain? Let’s hurry.”
Page 604.
Frank, in common with all men he knew, felt that a wife should be guided by her husband’s superior knowledge, should accept his opinions in full and have none of her own.
Page 604.
To his lame arguments she said, “Fiddle-dee-dee!”
Page 606.
Despite her pink cheeks and dimples and pretty smiles, she talked and acted like a man. Her voice was brisk and decisive and she made up her mind instantly and with no girlish shilly-shallying. She knew what she wanted and she went after it by the shortest route, just like a man, not by the hidden and circuitous routes peculiar to women.
Page 607.
All women needed babies to make them completely happy and frank knew that Scarlett was not happy.
Page 611.
The Yankees had the South prostrate and they intended to keep it so The South had been tilted as by a giant malicious hand, and those who had once ruled were now more helpless than their former slaves had ever been.
Page 620.
Trial by jury and the law of habeas corpus were practically suspended.
Page 621.
Thousands of house servants, the highest caste in the slave population, remained with their white folks, doing manual labour which had been beneath them in the old days. Many loyal field hands also refused to avail themselves of the new freedom, but the hordes of ‘trashy free issue niggers’, who were causing most of the trouble, were drawn largely from the field-hand class.
Page 621.
County negroes flocked into the cities, leaving the rural districts without labour to make the crops.
Page 622.
Relying upon their masters in the old days to care for their aged and their babies, they now had no sense of responsibility for their helpless.
Page 622.
It was the large number of outrages on women and the ever-present fear for the safety of their wives and daughters that drove Southern men to cold and trembling fury and caused the Ku Klux Klan to spring up overnight.
Page 623.
The war had definitely established the importance of Atlanta in the affairs of the South and the hitherto obscure town was now known far and wide.
Page 625.
“I’ll think of all this later.”
Page 630.
Scarlett had little use these days for honesty in herself, but the less she valued it in herself the more she was beginning to value it is others
Page 634.
Half of what she made every month went to Will at Tara, part of Rhett to repay his loan and the rest she hoarded.
Page 634.
Negroes had to be handled gently as though they were children, directed, praised, petted, scolded.
Page 641.
Not to stand high in the opinion of one’s servants was as humiliating a thing as could happen to a southerner.
Page 642.
She had no real desire to be unselfish or charitable or kind. All she wanted was the reputation for possessing these qualities.
Page 643.
If you are different, you are isolated, not only from people of your own age but from those of your parents’ generation and from your children’s generation too. They’ll never understand you and they’ll be shocked no matter what you do. But your grandparents would probably be proud of you and say: “There’s a chip off the old block,” and your grandchildren will sigh enviously and say: “What an old rip Grandma must have ben!” and they’ll try to be like you.”
Page 647.
“I’ll think of these things to-morrow when I can stand them better.”
Page 653.
The stillness of the country twilight came down about them as calming as a prayer.
Page 658.
When she heard the truth spoken, no matter how unpalatable it was, basic honesty forced her to acknowledge it as truth.
Page 659.
If a girl couldn’t keep a beau, she deserved to lose him.
Page 664.
“You’re smart enough about dollars and cents. That’s a man’s way of being smart. But you aren’t smart at all like a woman. You aren’t a speck smart about folks.”
Page 685.
It had been so long since she had seen him and she had lived on memories until they were worn thin.
Page 690.
“It’s a wife’s duty to go where her husband goes.”
Page 694.
Melanie was not well. Little Beau had cost her her health, and the hard work she had done at Tara since his birth had taken further toll of her strength. She was so thin that her small bones seemed ready to come through her white skin. Seen from a distance, romping about the back yard with her child, she looked like a little girl, for her waist was unbelievably tiny and she had practically no figure.
Page 697.
Melanie refused to change, refused even to admit that there was any reason to change in a changing world. Under her roof the old days seemed to come back a gain.
Page 698.
It never occurred to Melanie that she was becoming the leader of a new society. She only thought the people were nice to come and see her and to want her in their little sewing circles, cotillion clubs and musical societies.
Page 699.
Every person of importance who came to town found his way to the Wilkes home and often they spent the night there.
Page 703.
Opposition had the effect of making Scarlett more determined on her course.
Page 725.
An Irishman with a determination to get somewhere was a valuabe man to have, regardless of what his personal characteristics might be.
Page 725.
“Ah, Scarlett, how the thought of a dollar does make your eyes sparkle! Are you sure you haven’t some Scotch or perhaps Jewish blood as well as Irish?”
Page 731.
“Only the smart deserve to survive.”
Page 737.
There was male authority in his voice and the women stood suddenly silent.
Page 758.
Added to her stunned sense of loss at Frank’s death, were fear and remorse and the torment of a suddenly awakened conscience. For the first time in her life she was regretting things she had done, regretting them with a seeping superstitious fear that made her cast sidelong glances at the bed upon which she had lain with Frank.
Page 782.
“Don’t drink alone, Scarlett. People always find it out and it ruins the reputation. And besides, it’s a bad business, this drinking alone.”
Page 786.
“You were born to bully anyone who’ll let you do it. The strong were made to bully and the weak to knuckle under.”
Page 791.
“I’ll think about it all to-morrow.”
Page 791.
“Really, Scarlett, I can’t go all my life, waiting to catch you between husbands.”
Page 792.
“You were born to be married. Why not me?”
Page 793.
“Did you ever think of marrying - just for the fun of it?”
“Fun! Don’t talk like a fool. There’s no fun being married.”
“No? Why not?”
Page 793.
Rhett knew too much. She wondered where he had learned all he knew about women. It wasn’t decent.
Page 794.
The ring Rhett brought back from England was large indeed, so large it embarrassed Scarlett to wear it.
Page 799.
“The world can forgive practically anything except people who mind their own business.”
Page 806.
Once her sudden entrance abruptly terminated a conversation about what had happened to the members of Quantrill’s band of guerrillas, and she caught the names of Frank and Jesse James.
Page 807.
“Scarlett, you ra a constant joy to me. You unerringly manage to pick the wrong people and the wrong things.”
Page 808.
The realization that other women were attracted by her husband, and perhaps envied her, made her suddenly proud to be seen by his side.
Page 811.
Rhett did not fear her and, she often thought, did not respect her very much either. What he wanted to do, he did, and if she did not like it, he laughed at her.
Page 811.
He knew how to play and swept her along with him.
Page 812.
Only Ashley and Rhett eluded her understanding and her control for they were both adults, and the elements of boyishness were lacking in them.
Page 812.
“I want to make everybody who’s been mean to me feel bad.”
Page 816.
She had never been one to worry long over the vagaries of human conduct or to be cast down for long if one line of action failed.
Page 831.
Substantial people form the North were moving into Atlanta, attracted by the never-ceasing business activity of the town in this period of rebuilding and expansion.
Page 832.
The women were the implacable and inflexible power behind the social throne. The Lost Cause was stronger, dearer now in their hearts than it had ever been at the height of its glory. It was a fetish now. Everything about it was sacred: the graves of the men who had died for it, the battlefields, the torn flags, the crossed sabres in their halls, the fading letters form the front, the veterans. These women gave no aid, comfort or quarter to the late enemy, and now Scarlett was numbered among the enemy.
Page 833.
From the moment his daughter was born, Rhett’s conduct was puzzling to all observers and he upset many settled notions about himself, notions which both the town and Scarlett were loath to surrender. Whoever would have thought that he of all people would be so shamelessly, so openly proud of fatherhood?
Page 845.
“We’ve come a long way, both of us, since that day, haven’t we, Scarlett? We’ve travelled roads we never expected to travel. You’ve come swiftly, directly, and I, slowly and reluctantly.”
Page 875.
“No one ever gets anywhere seeing both sides.”
Page 876.
“The old days had no glitter but they had a charm, a beauty, a slow-paced glamour.”
Page 877.
“Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it’s no worse than it is.”
Page 879.
As usual they would cast the blame upon the woman and shrug at the man’s guilt.
Page 881.
“I won’t think of it now. I’ll think of it later when I can stand it.”
Page 882.
“I have a strange way of not killing people who tell the truth.|
Page 883.
To-morrow - well, to-morrow was another day.
Page 886.
“It never pays to underestimate your opponent’s stregnth and intelligence.”
Page 892.
She could not make inquiries among the servants for news of him. But she felt they knew something she did not know. Negroes always knew everything.
Page 895.
“People can’t bear for women to be smart.”
Page 901.
The India-Melanie feud made a rupture in practically every social organization.
Page 905.
“I won’t think of it now. I can’t stand it if I do. I’ll think of it to-morrow at Tara. To-morrow’s another day.”
Page 919.
Rhett’s great love for his child had gone far toward reinstating him in public opinion.
Page 924.
“I can’t make money from the enforced labour and misery of others.”
“But you owned slaves!”
“They weren’t miserable. And besides, I’d have freed them all when Father died if the war hadn’t already freed them.”
Page 929.
Scarlett always wanted to be first in the hearts of those around her and it was obvious now that Rhett and Bonnie would always be first with each other.
Page 932.
Something was wrong with the world.
Page 949.
Apologies once postponed, become harder and harder to make, and finally impossible.
Page 950.
Who would have thought of small plain Melanie as a tower of strength? Melanie who was shy to tears before strangers, timid about raising her voice in an opinion of her own, fearful of the disapproval of old ladies, Melanie who lacked the courage to say Boo to a goose? And yet -
Page 961.
Love can’t change to apathy in a minute.
Page 965.
I’ll think of all this to-morrow when I can stand it better.
Page 967.
All that mattered in the world had gone out of it, life was in ruins and panic howled through her heart like a cold wind.
Page 968.
Though she had won material safety since that night, in her dreams she was still a frightened child, searching for the lost security of that lost world.
Page 969.
I’ve never been able to see the world at all, because Ashely stood in the way.
Page 970.
“Take my handkerchief, Scarlett. Never, at any crisis of your life, have I known you to have a handkerchief.”
Page 979.
“I’m forty-five - the age when a man begins to value some of the things he’s thrown away so lightly in youth.”
Page 981.
“Oh, my darling, if you go, what shall I do?”
Page 982.
“I can’t even lie to you now. I wish I could care what you do or where you go, but I can’t.”
He drew a short breath and said lightly but softly:
“My dear, I don’t give a damn.”
Pahe 983.
She had never understood either of the men she had loved and so she had lost them both. Now, she had a fumbling knowledge that, had she ever understood Ashley, she would never have loved him; had she ever understood Rhett, she would never have lost him.
Page 983.
“I’ll go crazy if I think a out losing him now. I’ll think of it to-morrow.”
Page 983.
Suddenly she wanted Mammy desperately, as she had wanted her when she was a little girl, wanted the broad bosom on which to lay her head, the gnarled black hand on her hair. Mammy, the last link with the old day.
Page 984.
“To-morrow, I’ll think of some way to get him back. After all, to-morrow is another day.”
Page 984.