I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains. - James A. Michener

the history of a daughter is a drama in three acts. One: from age three to nineteen you will kill any man who touches her. Two: from age twenty to twenty-five you hope that one at least of the young men nosing around will prove satisfactory. Three: from age twenty-six on you pray that any man at all, even a train robber, will take her off your hands. Marjorie is twenty-three and my husband no longer dreams of a perfect husband. Just an acceptable one.

John Whipple did not allow his anger at such treatment to obscure his judgment. In years of trading around the Pacific he had often met obstinate men and the cruel situations which they produce, and he had learned that in such confrontations his only chance of winning lay in doing exactly what in conscience ought to be done. It was by reliance upon this conviction that he had quietly made his way in such disparate jungles as Valparaiso, Batavia, Singapore and Honolulu.

At the Quarterly Meeting in December 1777 the Quakers of the Choptank became the first important religious group in the south to outlaw slavery among its members.