One may question their wisdom, or wit, or beauty, but about their fight there can be no question.

Wherever hard knocks of any kind, visible or invisible, are going; there the Brown who is nearest must shove in his carcass.
And these carcasses, for the most part, answer very well to the characteristic propensity: they are a squareheaded and snake-necked generation, broad in the shoulder, deep in the chest, and thin in the flank, carrying no lumber.

Then for clanship, they are as bad as Highlanders; it is amazing the belief they have in one another.
With them there is nothing like the Browns, to the third and fourth generation.

"Blood is thicker than water," is one of their pet sayings.
They can't be happy unless they are always meeting one another.

Never were such people for family gatherings; which, were you a stranger, or sensitive, you might think had better not have been gathered together.
For during the whole time of their being together they luxuriate in telling one another their minds on whatever subject turns up; and their minds are wonderfully antagonistic, and all their opinions are downright beliefs.