There's another proverb, 'One on the side of God is a majority.' How about that ?" "Transcendental humbug." "A truth demonstrated at Wittenberg." "Are you aching for the martyr's palm ?" "I am afraid not.

On the whole, I think I'd rather enjoy life than quarrel with it.

But"-- with a sudden blaze--"I feel to-day like fighting the world." "Hey, presto! what now, young'un ?" "I don't wonder you stare"-- a little laugh.

"I'm talking like a fool, and, for aught I know, feeling like one, aching to fight, and knowing that I might as well quarrel with the winds, or stab that water as it flows by." "As with what ?" "The fellow I've just been getting a good look at." "What manner of fellow ?" "Ignorant, selfish, brutal, devilish." "Tremendous! why don't you bind him over to keep the peace ?" "Because he is like the judge of old time, neither fears God nor respects his image,--when his image is carved in ebony, and not ivory." "What do you call this fellow ?" "Public Opinion." "This big fellow is abusing and devouring a poor little chap, eh?
and the chap's black ?" "True." "And sometimes the giant is a gentleman in purple and fine linen, otherwise broadcloth; and sometimes in hodden gray, otherwise homespun or slop-shop; and sometimes he cuts the poor little chap with a silver knife, which is rhetoric, and sometimes with a wooden spoon, which is raw-hide.

Am I stating it all correctly ?" "All correctly." "And you've been watching this operation when you had better have been minding your own business, and getting excited when you had better have kept cool, and now want to rush into the fight, drums beating and colors flying, to the rescue of the small one.