Gone with the Wind

by Margaret Mitchell

The dress set off to perfection the seventeen-inch waist, the smallest in three counties,

She meant what she said, for she could never long endure any conversation of which she was not the chief subject.

“I don’t like Mammy Jincy’s fortunes. You know she said I was going to marry a gentleman with jet-black hair and a long black mustache, and I don’t like black-haired gentlemen.”

“Do you stand there, Scarlett O’Hara, and tell me that Tara — that land — doesn’t amount to anything?”

“But there, you’re young. ’Twill come to you, this love of land. There’s no getting away from it, if you’re Irish.

It was a man’s world, and she accepted it as such. 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.

Most of all she learned how to conceal from men a sharp intelligence beneath a face as sweet and bland as a baby’s.

“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….

“Some day I’m going to do and say everything I want to do and say, and if people don’t like it I don’t care.” “No, you ain’,” said Mammy grimly. “Not while Ah got breaf.

He was dark of face, swarthy as a pirate, and his eyes were as bold and black as any pirate’s appraising a galleon to be scuttled or a maiden to be ravished.

The OG love interest

“Rhett! Rhett Butler! Come here! I want you to meet the most hardhearted girl in Georgia.”

Married women never had any fun.

Like most girls, her imagination carried her just as far as the altar and no further.

You all don’t know what war is. You think it’s riding a pretty horse and having the girls throw flowers at you and coming home a hero. Well, it ain’t. No, sir! It’s going hungry, and getting the measles and pneumonia from sleeping in the wet. And if it ain’t measles and pneumonia, it’s your bowels.

Why, all we have is cotton and slaves and arrogance.

“Love isn’t enough to make a successful marriage when two people are as different as we are.

“Sir,” she said, “you are no gentleman!” “An apt observation,” he answered airily. “And, you, Miss, are no lady.”

Within two weeks Scarlett had become a wife, and within two months more she was a widow.

“I’ll scream out loud if you come near me. I will! I will — at the top of my voice! Get away from me! Don’t you dare touch me!”

It was the first time she had ever seen any woman who she knew for certain had “done something to her hair” and she watched her, fascinated.

there was nothing unusual in relatives coming to spend the Christmas holidays and remaining until July.

For the first time, she realized dimly what Gerald had meant when he said that the love of the land was in her blood.

They were all beautiful with the blinding beauty that transfigures even the plainest woman when she is utterly protected and utterly loved and is giving back that love a thousandfold.

And, above all, you never said what you really thought about anything, any more than they said what they really thought.

“How closely women crutch the very chains that bind them!

A gentleman always appeared to believe a lady even when he knew she was lying. That was Southern chivalry.

Has what other women said ever mattered to you?” “Oh, if you’re going to pin me down — no! But a girl is supposed to mind. Tonight, though, I don’t care.” “Bravo! Now you are beginning to think for yourself instead of letting others think for you. That’s the beginning of wisdom.”

She had learned to say, “I won’t think of this or that bothersome thought now. I’ll think about it tomorrow.”

In fact, she could endure the hospital with equanimity now because it was a perfect happy hunting ground. The helpless wounded succumbed to her charms without a struggle.

Always remember I never do anything without reason and I never give anything without expecting something in return. I always get paid.”

But, Scarlett, you need kissing badly. That’s what’s wrong with you.

You should be kissed and by someone who knows how.”

What better way can an old man die than doing a young man’s work?” “Oh, he shouldn’t have died! He shouldn’t have ever gone to the war. He should have lived and seen his grandchild grow up and died peacefully in bed. Oh, why did he go?

“When will you stop looking for compliments in men’s lightest utterances?” “When I’m on my deathbed,”

And as she reached the upper floor, she heard him obligingly slam the door for her.

Cookie say effen de pain get too bad, jes’ you put a knife unner Miss Melly’s bed an’ it cut de pain in two.”

He was so tender, so infinitely soothing, she longed to stay in his arms forever. With such strong arms about her, surely nothing could harm her.

“Can this be the heroic young woman who assured me she feared neither God nor man?”

“Dear Scarlett! You aren’t helpless. Anyone as selfish and determined as you are is never helpless. God help the Yankees if they should get you.”

“They were right! Everybody was right! You aren’t a gentleman!” “My dear girl,” he said, “how inadequate.”

Was Tara still standing? Or was Tara also gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia?

Scarlett felt a small pain in her heart as of nerves numbed by a deep wound, struggling to make themselves felt again. She must not let them come to life now; there was all the rest of her life ahead of her in which they could ache. But, not now! Please, God, not now!

She was seeing things with new eyes for, somewhere along the long road to Tara, she had left her girlhood behind her.

“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.”

that until he died Gerald would always be waiting for Ellen, always listening for her.

Even in her frenzy, Scarlett wished she had Melanie with her, Melly with her quiet voice, Melly who was so brave the day she shot the Yankee. Melly was worth three of the others.

“I’m like Atlanta,” she thought. “It takes more than Yankees or a burning to keep me down.”

Well, thought Scarlett, men always had to have something foolish to worry about.

“Oh, Will, and I thought our troubles were all over when the war ended!” “No’m.” Will raised his lantern-jawed, country-looking face and gave her a long steady look. “Our troubles are just gettin’ started.”