Page:Orange Grove.djvu/147

 when you get that tongue you wanted, you'll tell me."

"It don't make any difference whether I tell you or, not, you'll be just as light-headed. I should have to go over so much ground to do justice to both sides you'd have no patience to hear me half through."

"That's a fact. You'd have to begin at Genesis and explain how it happened that Cain killed his brother without being so wicked as to do it."

"When a person becomes so perverted as Cain was, I admit that the sin committed assumes a very different character in his eyes from what it appears to one who is pure and innocent. Stop Kate, hear me through. I am not defending him, I only say that if Cain and Abel were so different naturally, it is unfair to expect one would be just as good as the other with the same effort. So it is in all other cases."

"I'm for havin' good folks better'n bad ones. That's necessary for society to stand on. Knock out that underpinnin' and what comes 'on us all?"

"I never supposed you cared whether it stood up or fell down."

"I guesa you'd find 'twould fall down pretty quick if there wan't no such folks as me to hold it up. There never'll any good come of your writin', and more'n all that you'll burn it all up when you get it done.

"I have a chapter here on that subject, called the 'Philosophy of Writing.' It gives a few of the reasons why some people think so much more than others."