Gone with the Wind

by Margaret Mitchell

Before marriage, young girls must be, above all other things, sweet, gentle, beautiful and ornamental, but, after marriage, they were expected to manage households that numbered a hundred people

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. Men were rough of speech and often drunk. Women ignored the lapses of speech and put the drunkards to bed without bitter words. Men were rude and outspoken, women were always kind, gracious and forgiving.

“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…. I can’t eat another bite.”

Had she been told, she would have been pleased but unbelieving. And the civilization of which she was a part would have been unbelieving too, for at no time, before or since, had so low a premium been placed on feminine naturalness.

Most of the misery of the world has been caused by wars. And when the wars were over, no one ever knew what they were all about.”

“I have seen many things that you all have not seen. The thousands of immigrants who’d be glad to fight for the Yankees for food and a few dollars, the factories, the foundries, the shipyards, the iron and coal mines—all the things we haven’t got. Why, all we have is cotton and slaves and arrogance. They’d lick us in a month.”

Can’t I make you see that a marriage can’t go on in any sort of peace unless the two people are alike?”

adoration. In fact, men willingly gave the ladies everything in the world except credit for having intelligence.

Scarlett did not care for the caresses, but she basked in the compliments.

Every woman present was blazing with an emotion she did not feel. It bewildered and depressed her. Somehow, the hall did not seem so pretty nor the girls so dashing, and the white heat of devotion to the Cause that was still shining on every face seemed—why, it just seemed silly!

In a sudden flash of self-knowledge that made her mouth pop open with astonishment, she realized that she did not share with these women their fierce pride, their desire to sacrifice themselves and everything they had for the Cause.

Cause didn’t seem sacred to her. The war didn’t seem to be a holy affair, but a nuisance that killed men senselessly and cost money and made luxuries hard to get. She saw that she was tired of the endless knitting and the endless bandage rolling and lint picking that roughened the cuticle of her nails. And oh, she was so tired of the hospital! Tired and bored and nauseated with the sickening gangrene smells and the endless moaning, frightened by the look that coming death gave to sunken faces.

Oh, why was she different, apart from these loving women?

When I first met you, I thought: There is a girl in a million.

don’t begin talking to me about the Cause. I’m tired of hearing about it and I’ll bet you are, too—”

Until you’ve lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.”

What most people don’t seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made out of the wreckage of a civilization as from the upbuilding of one.”

There’s good money in empire building. But, there’s more in empire wrecking.”

“They both see the same unpleasant truth, but Rhett likes to look it in the face and enrage people by talking about it—and Ashley can hardly bear to face it.”

I told you once before that there were two times for making big money, one in the upbuilding of a country and the other in its destruction. Slow money on the upbuilding, fast money in the crack-up. Remember my words. Perhaps they may be of use to you some day.”

It would have been so much better for the Yankees to pay for the darkies—or even for us to give them the darkies free of charge than to have this happen.”

tremendously—for the elasticity of your conscience, for the selfishness which you seldom trouble to hide, and for the shrewd practicality in you which, I fear, you get from some not too remote Irish-peasant ancestor.”

“Mistress! What would I get out of that except a passel of brats?”