The Gilded Age, Part 1.
1873
The Gilded Age, Part 1, co-written by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner and published in 1873, is a satirical novel that critiques the political and social climate of post-Civil War America. The narrative follows Squire Hawkins, a small businessman in East Tennessee, as he navigates ambition, greed, and the harsh realities of life while contemplating a move to Missouri for better prospects. This work is notable for coining the term 'Gilded Age' and for its vivid portrayal of unscrupulous politicians and speculators, making it a significant commentary on American society during a time of economic transformation.
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“It is a time when one’s spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death. It is a time when one is filled with vague longings; when one dreams of flight to peaceful islands in the remote solitudes of the sea, or folds his hands and says, What is the use of struggling, and toiling and worrying any more? let us give it all up.””
— Mark Twain
“A woman's intuition is better than a man's. Nobody knows anything, really, you know, and a woman can guess a good deal nearer than a man.””
— Mark Twain
“No country can be well governed unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians of the law, and that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution, nothing more.””
— Mark Twain
“Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished speculator in lands and mines this remark: 'I wasn't worth a cent two years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars.””
— Mark Twain
“If you should rear a duck in the heart of the Sahara, no doubt it would swim if you brought it to the Nile.””
— Mark Twain
“He spoke with only the slightest accent, one that had been inherited but not cultivated.””
— Mark Twain
“Congress is vindictive, Congress is savage, sir, when it gets waked up once. It will go to any length to vindicate its honor at such a time.””
— Mark Twain
