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They are the most painful tears in the world … the tears of the aged … for they come from dried beds where the emotions have long burned low.

Bess Streeter Aldrich

not all clever words are true. … And inversely most things that are true are not clever.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Clever Cleverness Inversely
In 1846 the prairie town of Oak River existed only in a settler’s dream.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Book Dream Rivers
Except for our higher order of minds we are like the little moles under the earth carrying out blindly the work of digging, thinking our own dark passage-ways constitute all there is to the world.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Dark Order Thinking
thoughts are acrobats, agile and quite often untrustworthy.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Acrobats Quite Untrustworthy
Things last so much longer than people.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Lasts Longer People
Junior was eleven. The statement is significant. There are a few peevish people in the world who believe that all eleven-year-old boys ought to be hung. Others, less irritable, think that gently chloroforming them would seem more humane.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Believe Boys Couple
It takes a small town to keep you humble.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Humble Keep Small Towns
Our souls may all be equal in the sight of the Lord, but our gumption and ingenuity ain’t. So the results of man’s labor will never be equal.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Equality Labor Men Sight
Katherine it was who took upon herself the complete charge of [Junior’s] speech. Not an insignificant “have went” nor an infinitesimal
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Home Mother Running
I think that love is more like a light that you carry. At first childish happiness keeps it lighted and after that romance. Then motherhood lights it and then duty . . . and maybe after that sorrow.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Love Motherhood Thinking
Mrs. Schneiderman’s theory of life was that earth held no sorrow that food could not heal.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Earth Food Sorrow
Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart…filled it, too, with melody that would last forever.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Christmas Song Xmas
A great many good-natured folks contend that incarceration for a couple of years would prove the best way to dispose of them.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Couple Dispose Great Incarceration
Some girls are apparently born with dates; some through much personal activity, achieve them; but others seem by necessity to have dates thrust upon them.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Achieve Dating Girl
Sometime in their lives, everybody wanted to go home.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Home Sometimes Wanted
They are the most painful tears in the world … the tears of the aged … for they come from dried beds where the emotions have long burned low.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Age Emotion Long Tears