Roughing It

by Mark Twain

It was the first time we had ever seen a man's front yard on top of his house.

Our breakfast was before us, but our teeth were idle.

The cayote is a living, breathing allegory of Want.

"And the next instant," added my informant, impressively, "he was one of the deadest men that ever lived."

tradition says the reason there are so many bald people there, is, that the wind blows the hair off their heads while they are looking skyward after their hats.

Three months of camp life on Lake Tahoe would restore an Egyptian mummy to his pristine vigor,

The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic villainy, and I think I might have developed into a very capable pickpocket if I had remained in the public service a year or two.

nothing that glitters is gold.

However, like the rest of the world, I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica.

to this day when I find a reporter commencing his article with "We understand," I gather a suspicion that he has not taken as much pains to inform himself as he ought to have done.

some of the printers were good singers and others good performers on the guitar and on that atrocity the accordion—the

The first twenty-six graves in the Virginia cemetery were occupied by murdered men.

The best known names in the Territory of Nevada were those belonging to these long-tailed heroes of the revolver.

He opened his Bible, and laid aside his hat. Selecting a chapter at random, he read it through, in a deep bass voice and with sincere solemnity.

No land with an unvarying climate can be very beautiful.

but his heart was finer metal than any gold his shovel ever brought to light—than

"panning out" refers to the washing process by which the grains of gold are separated from the dirt;

sepulchral gloom

None but natives ever master the art of surf-bathing thoroughly.