Gone with the Wind

by Margaret Mitchell

SCARLETT O’HARA WAS NOT BEAUTIFUL, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

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

She was constitutionally unable to endure any man being in love with any woman not herself,

You always knew where you stood with India and you never had the slightest notion with Scarlett. That was enough to drive a man to distraction, but it had its charm.

Give me a good horse to ride and some good licker to drink and a good girl to court and a bad girl to have fun with and anybody can have their Europe….

“Then it’s little enough you are knowing of any man living, let alone Ashley. No wife has ever changed a husband one whit, and don’t you be forgetting that.

“Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything,” he shouted, his thick, short arms making wide gestures of indignation, “for ’tis the only thing in this world that lasts, and don’t you be forgetting it! ’Tis the only thing worth working for, worth fighting for—worth dying for.”

And to anyone with a drop of Irish blood in them the land they live on is like their mother.

but only Ellen and her mammy ever knew the whole story of the night when the girl sobbed till the dawn like a broken-hearted child and rose up in the morning a woman with her mind made up.

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. 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.

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

Ellen had never told her that desire and attainment were two different matters; life had not taught her that the race was not to the swift. She lay in the silvery shadows with courage rising and made the plans that a sixteen-year-old makes when life has been so pleasant that defeat is an impossibility and a pretty dress and a clear complexion are weapons to vanquish fate.

brown eyes, eyes that had the still gleam of a forest pool in winter when brown leaves shine up through quiet water.

This strategic retreat in good order was not lost on a woman present or observed by a man.

“Miss O’Hara—I must tell you something. I—I love you!” “Um?” said Scarlett absently, trying to peer through the crowd of arguing men to where Ashley still sat talking at Melanie’s feet.

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

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.

they knew that love snatched in the face of danger and death was doubly sweet for the strange excitement that went with it.

On the occasion of our first eventful meeting I thought to myself that I had at last met a girl who was not only beautiful but who had courage.

“How dare you make me so conspicuous, Captain Butler?” “But, my dear Mrs. Hamilton, you so obviously wanted to be conspicuous!”

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

“And you look gorgeous when you are mad.

“All wars are sacred,” he said. “To those who have to fight them.

He thinks the war is all wrong but he’s willing to fight and die anyway, and that takes lots more courage than fighting for something you think is right.”

Let them have the haloes. They deserve them—for once I am being sincere—and, besides, haloes will be about all they will have in a year or so.”

What kind of a fool do you think I am? Kissing the rod that chastised me is not in my line. The South and I are even now. The South threw me out to starve once. I haven’t starved, and I am making enough money out of the South’s death throes to compensate me for my lost birthright.”

But, Scarlett, you need kissing badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. All your beaux have respected you too much, though God knows why, or they have been too afraid of you to really do right by you. The result is that you are unendurably uppity. You should be kissed and by someone who knows how.”

Well, my dear, take heart. Some day, I will kiss you and you will like it. But not now, so I beg you not to be too impatient.”

“When will you stop looking for compliments in men’s lightest utterances?” “When I’m on my deathbed,” she replied and smiled, thinking that there would always be men to compliment her, even if Rhett never did.

“I think you like me because I am a varmint. You’ve known so few dyed-in-the-wool varmints in your sheltered life that my very difference holds a quaint charm for you.”

I have wanted you since the first time I laid eyes on you, in the hall at Twelve Oaks, when you were bewitching poor Charlie Hamilton. I want you more than I have ever wanted any woman—and I’ve waited longer for you than I’ve ever waited for any woman.”

“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.”

I could not love thee, Dear, so much, loved I not Honour more.’

She was seeing things with new eyes for, somewhere along the long road to Tara, she had left her girlhood behind her. She was no longer plastic clay, yielding imprint to each new experience. The clay had hardened, some time in this indeterminate day which had lasted a thousand years. Tonight was the last time she would ever be ministered to as a child. She was a woman now and youth was gone.

“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.”

The only time crying ever did any good was when there was a man around from whom you wished favors.

When such thoughts came she did not pray hastily to God, telling Him she did not mean it. God did not frighten her any more.

Religion had always been a bargaining process with Scarlett. She promised God good behavior in exchange for favors. God had broken the bargain time and again, to her way of thinking, and she felt that she owed Him nothing at all now.

“Oh!” she said and the disappointment in her voice was that of a child who opens a beautifully wrapped package to find it empty.

You have the heart of a lion and an utter lack of imagination and I envy you both of those qualities.

“I love you, your courage and your stubbornness and your fire and your utter ruthlessness.

“Yes, there is something left,” he said, and the ghost of his old smile came back, the smile which mocked himself as well as her. “Something you love better than me, though you may not know it. You’ve still got Tara.”

Moreover, he’s nervous and timid and well meaning, and I don’t know of any more damning qualities a man can have.

Added to it was the usual masculine disillusionment in discovering that a woman has a brain.

Why, why, her mind stuttered, I believe women could manage everything in the world without men’s help—except having babies, and God knows, no woman in her right mind would have babies if she could help it.

Influence is everything, Scarlett. Remember that when you get arrested. Influence is everything, and guilt or innocence merely an academic question.”

It’s a poor person and a poor nation that sits down and cries because life isn’t precisely what they expected it to be.

“Death and taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them!”

‘The dogs bark but the caravan passes on’?

But I do like the way you meet things. You don’t make a fuss about things that can’t be helped, even if they are disagreeable. You take your fences cleanly like a good hunter.”