Gone with the Wind

by Margaret Mitchell

she could never long endure any conversation of which she was not the chief subject.

while no one was permitted to whip a horse or a slave, she felt that a lick now and then didn’t do the boys any harm.

The rolling foothill country of north Georgia was plowed in a million curves to keep the rich earth from washing down into the river bottoms.

she quiet down lak a bird w’en de hawk fly ober.”

The Wilkes and Hamiltons always marry their own cousins.

She was constitutionally unable to endure any man being in love with any woman not herself, and the sight of India Wilkes and Stuart at the speaking had been too much for her predatory nature.

“Well—you know how the Wilkes are. They are kind of queer about music and books and scenery. Mother says it’s because their grandfather came from Virginia. She says Virginians set quite a store by such things.”

skylark,

lak a duck on a June bug,

Most small people who take themselves seriously are a little ridiculous; but the bantam cock is respected in the barnyard, and so it was with Gerald.

To Scarlett, there was something breath-taking about Ellen O’Hara, a miracle that lived in the house with her and awed her and charmed and soothed her.

he had learned early that little people must be hardy to survive among large ones.

The only Latin he knew was the responses of the Mass

code duello,

to survive a family must present an unbroken front to the world.

Bermuda grass,

he looked like a hunting squire out of a sporting print,

listlessness

a pale pink stucco house built in the French colonial style,

At sixteen, thanks to Mammy and Ellen, she looked sweet, charming and giddy, but she was, in reality, self-willed, vain and obstinate.

Mammy was under no illusions about her

mathematics was the one subject that had come easy to Scarlett

Mammy had acquired her dignity and Dilcey’s was in her blood.

Prissy

She had sharp, knowing eyes that missed nothing and a studiedly stupid look on her face.

There, Ellen sat before her tall secretary each morning, keeping the accounts of the plantation and listening to the reports of Jonas Wilkerson, the overseer.

Ellen had stepped to the mantel to take her rosary beads

praying with their white folks was one of the events of the day. The old and colorful phrases of the litany with its Oriental imagery meant little to them but it satisfied something in their hearts, and they always swayed when they chanted the responses: “Lord, have mercy on us,” “Christ, have mercy on us.”

“Whut gempmums says an’ what dey thinks is two diffunt things. An’ Ah ain’ noticed Mist’ Ashley axing fer ter mahy you.”

gempmums doan know whut dey wants. Dey jes’ knows whut dey thinks dey wants.

An’ dey thinks dey wants mousy lil gals wid bird’s tastes an’ no sense at all.

the affectionate contempt that mothers feel for small swaggering sons,

I’ll be out terrectly.”

But they were a sociable family and liked their neighbors, especially the O’Hara girls. That is, they liked Suellen and Carreen. No girl in the County, with the possible exception of the empty-headed Cathleen Calvert, really liked Scarlett.

broad wife

She felt that she should be insulted by such a look and was annoyed with herself because she did not feel insulted.

The name had a familiar sound, somehow connected with something pleasantly scandalous,

Like most shy men he greatly admired airy, vivacious, always-at-ease girls like Scarlett.

“He looks as if—as if he knew what I looked like without my shimmy,”

she had a feeling of respect for Rhett Butler for refusing to marry a girl who was a fool.”

She looked—and was—as simple as earth, as good as bread, as transparent as spring water.

There was contempt in his manner as in his eyes, contempt overlaid with an air of courtesy that somehow burlesqued their own manners.

“what Napoleon—perhaps you’ve heard of him?—remarked once, ‘God is on the side of the strongest battalion!’”

the twinge passed with the comforting thought that it wasn’t her fault if other girls couldn’t keep their men.

Large numbers of books always depressed her, as did people who liked to read large numbers of books.

she slapped him across the face with all the strength she had.

The noise cracked like a whip

the memory of his stricken face would haunt her till she died.

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

However, ladies have seldom held any charms for me.