DR. HALBERT'S AMERICAN LITERATURE I (Summer 2009)
Final Exam Preparation
Your final exam will take place on Wednesday, July 1 during our normal class session. You will have to
identify seven out of 13 quotes for the exam (selected from the quotations submitted by you and
redistributed in class by me). You will need to give the title of the piece, the author of the piece, and
give two or three thoughtful sentences on the quote explaining its importance in the context of the
course. In addition, you will need to prepare an essay exam prep card using the following specifications:
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The card may be no bigger than 5" x 8".
Your name must appear in the upper right corner of the card (with a horizontal orientation so
that the longest side is at top).
A clear space at the top left corner should be left blank for stapling.
You may record quotes on the card, but each quote on the card needs to appear in the essay.
Listing other quotes in an attempt to have the answers to the ID section is unacceptable. Quotes
are expected in the essay since you can prepare ahead of time.
You may not write out the essay on the card, but you may outline the key points.
Failure to follow these directions will result in the card not being allowed during the exam.
I will inspect the card before the exam starts. You may wish to show up early to get my approval.
Essay Options for Final Exam
1. The early nineteenth-century period of American literature saw the rise of political and social
discussion, satire, and disdain of government. Find at least three examples from different authors to
illustrate the authors' disenchantment with sociopolitical issues and use your knowledge of each author
to explain their gripes.
2. As the first European to encounter the Americas, Christopher Columbus embodies the introduction of
European peoples and cultures into the Western Hemisphere. This pivotal historical moment has since
served as moral mirror for citizens of the United States, reflecting their feelings and concerns about the
origins of their national identity. Using Columbus, Washington Irving, and Whitman as your primary
sources, identify at least two attitudes about Columbus that reflect upon the character of the United
States and offer an explanation of what cultural forces helped shape those attitudes.
3. Along with issues about race, freedom, and egalitarianism, gender issues offer a rich subtext for
readings in the course. From overt calls for gender equality to spirited discussions of traditional and
transgressive gender norms, the question of what it means to be male and female in America to
different groups remained a constant struggle. Using at least three texts, analyze different attitudes
about the genders and argue what these attitudes suggest about the cultural values they represent. You
may choose to talk about both genders or focus on either male or female roles.
4. While the American Revolution literally declared the United States an independent entity, the writers
of the nineteenth century helped to articulate an American attitude about meritocracy, personal
independence, self-reliance, and non-conformity in political, social, and even literary pursuits. Using at
least three authors, argue what it means to be an individual in America and how that attitude evolved.
5. As the United States grew through Manifest Destiny policies, the scope and grandeur of the American
landscape ignited the American imagination on the subject of nature. Using Emerson and at least one
other writer, describe how images of nature have helped define the American character.
6. The early nineteenth century saw the rise of transcendentalism, particularly in the works of Emerson
and Thoreau. What precisely does transcendentalism transcend? Give examples that illustrate how
their writings are able to make universal judgments while remaining isolated from social, cultural, and
political struggles.
Potential Quotes:
QUOTE: “All nations of men have the same natural dignity, and we all know that very bright talents may
be lodged under a very dark skin. The principle difference between one people and another proceeds only
from the different opportunities of improvement.”
SOURCE: William Byrd II. The History of the Dividing Line. Vol A p. 625.
Quote: So would I if I might, besides corr [ectin]g the Faults, change some sinister Accidents and Events
of it for others more favourable, but tho’ this were deny’d, I should still accept the Offer. However, since
such a Repetition is not to be expected, the next Thing most like living one’s Life over again, seems to be
a Recollection of that Life; and to make that Recollection as durable as possible, the putting it down in
Writing.
Source: Benjamin Franklin. The Autobiography. Vol. A. pg.829
QUOTE - By my rambling digressions I percieve my self to be grown old. I us’d to write more
methodically. But one does not dress for private as for publick Ball, ‘Tis only perhaps Negligence.
SOURCE - Benjamin Franklin; The Autobiography. (Volume A, Page 832)
QUOTE: Opening the window and leaping to Bed, I said I had read his Letters to Dr. Cooper in which he
had advanced, that Nobody ever got cold by going into a cold Church, or any other cold Air
SOURCE: John Adams. Autobiography of John Adams. Vol A. Pg.977
QUOTE: …the Air within this chamber will soon be, and indeed is now worse than that without Doors;
come! Open the Window and come to bed, and I will convince you: I believe you are not acquainted with
my theory of colds.
SOURCE: John Adams. Autobiography of John Adams. Vol A. Pg.977
QUOTE: A Resolution was passed without one dissenting Colony “that these united Colonies, are, and of
right ought to be free and independent States, and as such, they have, and of Right ought to have full
Power to make War, conclude Peace, establish Commerce, and to do all the other Acts and Things, which
other States may rightfully do.” You will see in a few days a Declaration setting forth the Causes, which
have impell’d Us to this mighty Revolution, and the Reasons which will justify it, in the Sight of God and
Man. A Plan of Confederation will be taken up in a few days.
SOURCE: John Adams. Letters from John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776. Vol. A
QUOTE: In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments and common
sense: and I have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of
prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine themselves: that he will
put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views
beyond the present day.
SOURCE: Thomas Paine. Common Sense. Vol A. Pg.959
QUOTE: We have boasted the protection of Great Britain, without considering, that her motive was
interest not attachment; and that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account; but from her
enemies on her own account, from those who had no quarrel with us on any other account, and who will
always be our enemies on the same account. Let Britain waive her pretensions to the Continent, or the
Continent throw off the dependence, and we should be at peace with France and Spain, were they at war
with Britain.
SOURCE: Thomas Paine. Common Sense. Vol. A pg. 960
Quote: We have boasted the protection of Great Britain, without considering, that her motive was interest
not attachment; and that she did not protect us from our enemies on our account; but from her enemies on
her own account, from those who had quarrel with us on any other account, and who will always be our
enemies on the same account.
Source: Thomas Paine. Common Sense. Vol. A. pg. 961
QUOTE: When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with
child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband Joseph, said an angel told him
so, I have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their
bare word for it: but we have not even this; for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter
themselves.
SOURCE: Thomas Paine. Age of Reason. Vol A. Pg.971
QUOTE: It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that was given to the story of Jesus Christ
being the Son of God. He was born when the heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in the
world, and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief of such a story. Almost all extraordinary
men that lived under heathen mythology were reputed to be the sons of some of their gods. It was not a
new thing at the time to believe a man to have been celestially begotten
SOURCE: Thomas Paine. The Age of Reason. Vol A. Pg.972
Quote: That many good men have believed this strange fable, and lived very good lives under that belief
(for credulity is not a crime) is what I have no doubt of. In the first place, they were educated to believe it,
and they would have believed anything else in the same manner. There are also many who have been so
enthusiastically enraptured by what they conceived to be the infinite love of God to man: in making a
sacrifice of himself, that the vehemence of the idea has forbidden and deterred them from examining into
the absurdity and profaneness of the story. The more unnatural anything is, the more is it capable of
becoming the object of dismal admiration.
Source: Thomas Paine. The Age of Reason. Vol. A. pg. 973
QUOTE: I long to hear that you have declared an independency-- and by the way in the new Code of
Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and
be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the
hands of the Husbands.
SOURCE: Abigail Adams. Letter from Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776. Vol. A pg 979.
Quote: As to your extraordinary Code of Laws, I cannot but laugh. We have been told that our Struggle
has loosened the bands of Government every where. That Children and Apprentices were disobedientthat schools and Colledges were grown turbulent- that Indians slighted their Guardians and Negroes grew
insolent to their Masters. But your Letter was the first Intimation that another Tribe more numerous and
powerfull than all the rest were grown discontented.This is rather too coarse a Compliment but you are so
saucy, I wont blot it out.
Source: John Adams. Letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams. Vol. A. pg. 979
QUOTE: “I allude to the disproportionate value set on the time and labor of men and of women. A man
who is engaged in teaching, can always, I believe, command a higher price for tuition than a womaneven when he teaches the same branches, and is not in any respect superior to women.”
SOURCE: Sarah Gimke. Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and the Condition of Woman. Vol. B pg
2083.
QUOTE: Let no one think, from these remarks, that I regard a knowledge of housewifery as beneath the
acquisition of women. Far from it; I believe that a complete knowledge of household affairs is an
indispensable requisite in a women’s education,--that by the mistress of a family, whether married or
single, doing her duty thoroughly and understandingly, the happiness of the family is increased to an
incalculable degree, as well as a vast amount of time and money saved. All I complain of is, that our
education consists so almost exclusively in culinary and other manual operations.
SOURCE: Sarah Moore Grimke, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, Vol. B, pg. 2083
QUOTE: This mode of training necessarily exalts, in their view, the animal above the intellectual and
spiritual nature, and teaches women to regard themselves as a kind of machinery, necessary to keep the
domestic engine in order, but of little value to the intelligent companions of men.
SOURCE: Sarah Moore Grimke. Letters on the Equality of the Sexes Vol B. Pg 2083.
QUOTE: Hitherto, instead of being a help meet to man, in the highest, noblest sense of the term, as a
companion, a co-worker, an equal; she has been a mere appendage of his being, an instrument of his
convenience and pleasure, the pretty toy with which he wiled away his leisure moments, or the pet animal
whom he humored into playfulness and submission.
SOURCE: Angelina Grimke, Letters to Catherine Beecher, Vol. B, pg 2091.
QUOTE: I recognize no rights but human rights- I know nothing of men’s rights and women’s rights; for
in Christ Jesus, there is neither male nor female. It is my solemn conviction, that, until this principle of
equality is recognized and embodied in practucem the church can do nothing effectual for the permanent
reformation of the world
SOURCE: Angelina Grimke. Letters to Catherine Beecher. Vol B. Pg2091
QUOTE: The minute she seeds her husband coming up the street, she makes for the door, as if she hadn’t
another minute to live, stands in the entry with her teeth chattering in her head till he gets all his coats and
mufflers, and overshoes, and what-do-you-call’-ems off, then chases round (like a cat in a fit) after the
boot-jack; warms his slippers and puts ‘em on, and dislocates her wrist carving at the table for fear it will
tire him. Poor little innocent fool!
SOURCE: Fanny Fern. Hints to Young Wives. Vol. B. Pg. 2101
QUOTE: Now the truth is just this, and I wish all the women on earth had but one ear in common, so that
I could put this little bit of gospel into it:-Just so long as a man isn’t quite as sure as if he knew for certain,
whether nothing on earth could ever disturb your affection for him, he is your humble servant, but the
very second he finds out (or thinks he does) that he has possession of every inch of your heart, and no
neutral territory-he will turn on his heel and march off whistling “Yankee Doodle!”
SOURCE: Fanny Fern. "Hints to Young Wives." Vol B. Pg. 2101
QUOTE: Washington was very well, if he couldn’t spell, and I’m glad we are all free; but as a woman- I
shouldn’t know it, didn’t some orator tell me. Can I go out of an evening without a hat at my side? Can I
go out with on my head without danger of a station-house? Can I clap my hands at some public speaker
when I am nearly bursting with delight?... Can I be Senator, that I may hurry up that millennial
International Copyright Law? Can I even be President? Bah- you know I can’t. “Free!” Humph!
SOURCE: Fanny Fern, "Independence," Vol. B, Pg 2107.
QUOTE: “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a
design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to
provide new guards for their future security.”
SOURCE: Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Declaration of Sentiments. Vol B p. 2113.
QUOTE: The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man
toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this,
let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the
elective franchise. He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.
SOURCE: Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Declaration of Sentiments. Vol. B. Pg. 2113-14
QUOTE: Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country; their social
and religious degradation – in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel
themselves aggreieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that
they have immediate admission to all rights and privelages which belong to them as citizens of the United
States.
SOURCE: Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Declaration of Sentiments. Vol. B. Pg . 2115
QUOTE: “Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land/ Taught my benighted soul to understand/ That
there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour.”
SOURCE: Phillis Wheatley. On Being Brought from Africa to America. Vol. A pg 1247
QUOTE - Students, to you 'tis giv'n to scan the heights
Above, to traverse the ethereal space,
And mark the systems of revolving worlds.
Still more, ye sons of science ye receive
The blissful news by messengers from heav'n,
How Jesus' blood for your redemption flows.
SOURCE - Phillis Wheatley; To the University of Cambridge, in New-England. (Volume A, Page 1250)
QUOTE: No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its
bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there
he whipped the longest.
SOURCE: Frederick Douglass. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Doulass, Written by Himself. Vol B.
Pg.1891
QUOTE: I was so terrified and horror-stricken at the sight, that I hid myself in a closet, and dared not
venture out till long after the bloody transaction was over. I expected it would be my turn next. It was all
new to me. I had never seen any thing like it before. I had always lived with my grandmother on the
outskirts of the plantation, where she was put to raise the children of the younger women. I had therefore
been, until now, out of the way of the bloody scenes that often occurred on the plantation.
SOURCE: Frederick Douglass. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Vol B.
Pg. 1892
QUOTE: You remember the fable of “The man and the Lion,” where the lion complained that he should
not be misrepresented “when the lions wrote history.” I’m glad the time has come when the “lions write
history.”
SOURCE: Fredrick Douglas. Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglas. Vol B. Pg.1887
QUOTE: Especially would they do this, when leaving home. They would then sing most exultingly the
following words:-- “ I am going away to the Great House Farm! O, yea! O, yea! O!” This they would
sing, as a chorus, to words which to many would seem unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were
full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do
more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of
philosophy on the subject could do.
SOURCE: Frederick Douglass. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Vol. A
pg. 1895
QUOTE: “ ‘if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It
would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his
master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him
discontented and unhappy.’ “
SOURCE: Frederick Douglass. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Vol. B p.
1903.
QUOTE: I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to
be false, and incur my own abhorrence. From my earliest recollection, I date the entertainment of a deep
conviction that slavery would no always be able to hold me within its foul embrace; and in the darkest
hours of my career in slavery, this living word of faith and spirit of hope departed [not] from me, but
remained like ministering angels to cheer me through the gloom. This good spirit was from God, and to
him I offer thanksgiving and praise.
SOURCE: Frederick Douglas, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave, Vol. B,
pg. 1903
QUOTE: “When we finished, one of them came to me and asked me if I were a slave. I told him I was.
He asked, ‘Are ye a slave for life’ I told him that I was. The good white Irish man seemed to be deeply
affected by the statement.”
SOURCE: Frederick Douglass. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Vol
B. pg 1907
QUOTE: We were all ranked together at the valuation. Men and women, old and young, married and
single, were ranked with horses, sheep and swine. There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs
and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow
examination. Silvery-headed age and sprightly youth, maids and matrons, had to undergo the same
indelicate inspection. At this moment, I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon
both slave and slaveholder.
SOURCE: Douglass. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Vol B. Pg. 1909
QUOTE: For until this mighty question is totally put to rest, the worthy people of America can by no
means enjoy the soil and inhabit with clear right and title, and quiet, unsullied consciences.
SOURCE: Washington Irving. A History of New York. Vol B. Pg.2145.
QUOTE: This proposition being admitted, it follows clearly, that the Europeans who first visited
America, were the real discoverers of the same; nothing being necessary to the establishment of this fact,
but simply to prove that it was totally uninhabited by man. This would at first appear to be a point of
some difficulty, for it is well known, that this quarter of the world abounded with certain animals, that
walked erect on two feet, had something of the human countenance, uttered certain unintelligible sounds,
very much like language, in short, had a marvelous resemblance to human beings.
SOURCE: Washington Irving. A History of New York. Vol B. Pg. 2146
QUOTE: The Indians improved daily and wonderfully by their intercourse with the whites. They took to
drinking rum and making bargains. They learned to cheat, to lie, to swear, to gamble, to quarrel, to cut
each other’s throats, in short to excel in all the accomplishments that had originally marked the
superiority of their Christian visitors. And such a surprisingly aptitude that they have shewn for these
acquirements, that there is very little doubt that in a century more, provided they survive so long the
irresistible effects of civilization, they will equal in knowledge, refinement, knavery, and debauchery the
most enlightened, civilized, and orthodox nations of Europe.
SOURCE: Washington Irvin. A History of New York. Vol B. Pg 2149
Quote: Can any one have the presumption to say, that these savage Pagans, have yielded any thing more
than an inconsiderable recompense to their benefactors; in surrendering to them a little pitiful tract of this
dirty sublunary planet, in exchange for a glorious inheritance in the kingdom of Heaven!
Source: Washington Irving. A History of New York. Vol. B. pg. 2149
QUOTE: for the inhabitants of the newly discovered globe are totally destitute of the common attributes
of humanity, inasmuch as they carry their heads upon their shoulders, instead of under their arms—have
two eyes instead of one—are utterly destitute of tails, and of a variety of unseemly complexions,
particularly of a horrible whiteness—whereas all the inhabitants of the moon are pea green!
SOURCE: Washington Irving. A History of New York. Vol. B. Pg. 2152
QUOTE: Well, arter I had walked about twenty miles up the Peak O’Day and Daybreak Hill I soon
discovered what war the matter. The airth had actually friz fast on her axes, and couldn’t turn round; the
sun had got hammed between two cakes o’ ice under the wheels, an’ thar he had been shinin’ an workin’
to get loose till he friz fast in his cold sweat. C-r-e-a-t-i-o-n! thought I, this ar the toughest sort of
suspension an’ it mustn’t be endured. Somethin’ must be done, or creation is done for.
SOURCE: from the Crockett Almanacs. Sunrise in His Pocket. Vol. B. Pg. 2124
QUOTE: The sun walked up beautiful, salutin’ me with sich a wind’o gratitude that it made me sneeze, I
lit up my pipe by the blaze o’ his top-knot, shouldered my bear, an’ walked home, introducin’ people to
the fresh daylight with a piece of sunrise in my pocket.
SOURCE: Davy Crockett. Sunrise in his Pocket. Vol. B. Pg. 2124
QUOTE: “Then she turned as white as an egg-shell, and I seed that her heart was busting, and I run up to
her, like a squirrel to his hole, and gave her a buss that sounded louder than a musket. So her spunk was
all gone, and she took my arm as tame as a pigeon, and we cut out for her father’s house.”
SOURCE: Davy Crockett. "A Pretty Predicament." Vol. B p. 2125.
QUOTE: But the youngest o’ my darters takes arter me, and is of the regular earthquake natur. Her body’s
flink rock, her soul’s lightning, her fist is a thunderbolt, and her teeth can out-cut any steam mill saw in
creation. She is a perfect infant prodigy, being only six years old; she has the biggest foot and widest
mouth in all the west, and when she grins, she is splendiferous; she shows most beautiful internals, and
can scare a flock o’ wolves to total terrifications.
SOURCE: Davy Crockett. Crockett’s Daughters. Vol B. Pg 2126
QUOTE: …when Mrs. Crockett out with a little teeth pick, and with a single swing of it sent the hull
head and neck flyin fifty feet off, the blade jist shavin the top of Mike’s head, and then seeing what it war,
she trowed down her teeth pick, rolled up her sleeves, an battered poor Fink so that he fainted away in his
alligator skin, and he war so all scaren mad, when he come too, that he swore he had been chawed up, and
swallered by an alligator.
SOURCE: Mink Fink. The Crockett Almanacs. Vol. B. Pg. 2127
QUOTE: I can out-run , out-jump, out-shoot, out-brag, out-drink, an’ out-fight, rough-an’-tumble, no
holts barred, ary man on both sides the river from Pittsburgh to New Orleans an’ back ag’in to St. Louiee.
Come on, you flatters, you bargers, you milk-white mechanics, an’ see how tough I am to chaw! I ain’t
had a fight for two days an’ I’m spilein’ for exercise. Cock-a-doddle-do!
SOURCE: Mike Fink. "Mike Fink’s Brag." Vol B. Pg. 2127
QUOTE: Most persons do not see then sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun
illuminates only the eye of the of the man, but shines into the eye and heart of the child. The lover of
nature is he whose inward and outward senses are truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit
of infancy even into the era of manhood.
SOURCE: Ralph Waldo Emerson. Nature. Vol. B. Pg.1583
QUOTE: Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight, does not reside in nature, but in man, or
in a harmony of both. It is necessary to use these pleasures with great temperance. For, nature is not
always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for
the frolic of the nymphs, is overspread with melancholy today. Nature always wears the colors of the
spirit.
SOURCE: Ralph Waldo Emerson. Nature. Vol. B pg 1584
QUOTE: In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, - no
disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, - all mean egotism vanishes. I become a
transparent eye-ball; I see all; the currents of the Universe Being circulate through me; I am part of
particle of God.
SOURCE: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, Vol B. pg 1584.
Quote: I please myself with the graces of the winter scenery, and believe that we are as much touched by
it as by the genial influences of summer. To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has it’s own
beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which has never been seen before, and
which shall never be seen again. The heavens change every moment, and reflect their glory or gloom on
the plains beneath.
Source: Ralph Waldo Emerson. Nature. Vol. B. pg. 1587
QUOTE: So use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, and gain all and lose all, as her
wheel rolls. But do thou leave as unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the
chancellors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance, and shalt sit
thereafter out of fear from her rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovering of your sick, or
the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good
days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can
bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
SOURCE: Emerson. Self-Reliance. Vol B. Pg. 1638
QUOTE: It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our
own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the
independence of solitude.
SOURCE: Ralph Emerson. Self-Relience. Vol B. Pg.1625
QUOTE: “Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation
but the traveling of the mind? Our houses are built with foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with
foreign ornaments; our opinions our tastes, our faculties, lean, and follow the Past and the Distant.”
SOURCE: Ralph Emerson. Self-Reliance. Vol. B pg 1635
QUOTE: Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the
cumulative force of a while life’s cultivation; but if the adopted talent of another, you have only an
extemporaneous, half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No
man yet knows what it is, nor can, til that person has exhibited it.
SOURCE: Ralph Waldo Emerson. Self Reliance. Vol.B. Pg. 1635
QUOTE: They measured their esteem for each other, by what each has, and not by what each is. But a
cultivated man becomes ashamed of his property, out of new respect for his nature. Especially he hates
what he has, if he see that it is accidental, -- came to him by inheritance, or gift, or crime; then he feels
that it is not having; it does not belong to him , has no root in him, and merely lies there, because no
revolution or robber takes it away.
SOURCE: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance, Vol B. pg 1637.
QUOTE: A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend,
or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do no
believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of
principles.
SOURCE: Ralph Waldo Emerson. Self-Reliance. Vol B. Pg. 1638
QUOTE: “The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their
will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.”
SOURCE: Henry David Thoreau. Resistance to Civil Government. Vol. B p. 1738.
QUOTE: The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it
would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way. For government
is an expedient by which men would fain succeed in letting one another alone; and, as has been said,
when it is most expedient, the governed are most let alone by it.
SOURCE: Henry David Thoreau. Resistance to Civil Government. Vol. B pg. 1739
QUOTE: I heartily accept the motto, - “That government is best which governs the least;” and I should
like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I
also believe, - “That government is best which governs not at all;” and when men are prepared for it, that
will be the kind of government which they will have.
SOURCE: Henry David Thoreau. Resistance to Civil Goverment. Vol. B. Pg. 1739
QUOTE: It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only
obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said,
that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a
conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, event the welldisposed are daily made the agents of injustice.
SOURCE: Henry David Thoreau, Resistance to Civil Government, Vol. B, pg 1739.
QUOTE: There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war. Who yet in effect do
nothing to put an end to them; who, esteeming themselves children of Washington and Franklin, sit down
with their hands in their pockets, and say that they know not what to do, and do nothing; who even
postpone the question of freedom to the question of free-trade, and quietly read the prices-current along
with the latest advices from Mexico, after dinner, and, it may be, fall asleep over them both
SOURCE: Henry David Thoreau. Resistance to Civil Government. Vol B. Pg. 1741
QUOTE: Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire
that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail
through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the
majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery,
or because there is little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only slaves. Only
his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote.
SOURCE: Thoreau. Resistance to Civil Government. Vol B. Pg. 1743
QUOTE - If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and
bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the state to commit violence and shed innocent
blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peacable revoluteion, if any such is possible.
SOURCE - Henry David Thoreau; Resistance to Civil Government. (Volume B, Page 1745)
QUOTE: Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless antique and
tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the
scene. I felt that I breathed and atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung
over and pervaded all.
SOURCE: Poe. The Fall of the House of Usher. Vol B. Pg. 2475
QUOTE - I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion that while, beyond doubt, there are
combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of
this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different
arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or
perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse
to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed
down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than before—upon the remodeled and inverted images of
the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.
SOURCE - Edgar Allen Poe; The Fall of the House of Usher. (Volume B, Page 2473)
Quote: A striking similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my attention; and Usher,
divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned that the deceased
and himself had been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature had always existed
between them. Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead-for we could not regard her unawed.
The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in al maladies of
a strict cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that
suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death.
Source: Edgar Allan Poe. The Fall of the House of Usher. Vol. B. pg. 2481
QUOTE: “I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I
had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was! He had the eye of a vulture---a pale blue eye, with a
film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees—very gradually—I made
up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.”
SOURCE: Edgar Allen Poe. The Tell-Tale Heart. Vol B p. 2492.
QUOTE: If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I
took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I
dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and arms and the legs.
SOURCE: Poe. The Tell-Tale Heart. Vol B. Pg. 2494
QUOTE: Oh God! What could I do? I foamed – I raved – I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had
been sitting and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased.
SOURCE: Edgar Allen Poe. The Tell Tale Heart. Vol. B. Pg. 2495
QUOTE: “Be the word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting- “Get thee back into the
tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath
spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken! – quit the bust above my door!
SOURCE: Edgar Allen Poe. The Raven. Vol B. Pg.2542.
QUOTE: And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting on the pallid bust of a Pallas just
above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, and the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; and my soul from out that shadow that lies
floating on the floor Shall be lifted—nevermore.
SOURCE: Edgar Allen Poe. The Raven. Vol. B. Pg. 2542
QUOTE - Is it the prophet’s thought I speak, or am I raving?
What do I know of life? what of myself?
I know not even my own work, past or present;
Dim, ever-shifting guesses of it spread before me,
60 Of newer, better worlds, their mighty parturition,
Mocking, perplexing me.
And these things I see suddenly—what mean they?
As if some miracle, some hand divine unseal’d my eyes,
Shadowy, vast shapes, smile through the air and sky,
65 And on the distant waves sail countless ships,
And anthems in new tongues I hear saluting me.
SOURCE - Walt Whitman; Prayer of Columbus. (Volume B, Page 3023)
QUOTE Thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating, shuttling at thy sides;
Thy metrical, now swelling pant and roar—now tapering in the distance;
Thy great protruding head-light, fix’d in front;
Thy long, pale, floating vapor-pennants, tinged with delicate purple;
The dense and murky clouds out-belching from thy smoke-stack;
Thy knitted frame—thy springs and valves—the tremulous twinkle of thy wheels;
Thy train of cars behind, obedient, merrily-following,
Through gale or calm, now swift, now slack, yet steadily careering:
Type of the modern! emblem of motion and power! pulse of the continent!
SOURCE - Walt Whitman, To A Locomotive in Winter. (Volume B, Page 3024)