W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., also publishes
T H E
S E A G U L L
R E A D E R
THE SEAGULL READER: POEMS • edited by Joseph Kelly
THE SEAGULL READER: STORIES • edited by Joseph Kelly
Essays
edited by Joseph Kelly
College of Charleston
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. • New York • London
Contents
Copyright © 2002 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Alternative Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
First Edition.
Since this page cannot legibly accommodate all the copyright notices,
pages 319-20 constitute an extension of the copyright page.
The text of this book is composed in Adobe Garamond
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Composition by PennSet, Inc.
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Book design by Chris Welch.
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ix
xi
Introduction * xiii
What Are Essays? *
How to Read Essays
Logical Arguments
Ethical Arguments
Pathetic Arguments
Conclusion * xxxii
xiii
* xv
* xvi
* xxvi
* xxix
ili.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Essays
The seagull reader. Essays / edited by Joseph Kelly,
p. cm.
Maya Angelou, Graduation
*
3
ISBN 0-393-97632,-7 (pbk.)
1. American essays. 2. English essays. 3. College readers. I. Kelly, Joseph,
1962PS682.S43 2001
808.4—dc2i
Sir Francis Bacon, Of Youth and Age
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James Baldwin, Stranger in the Village *
16
19
William E Buckley Jr., Why Dont We Complain?
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32
2001030457
Rachel Carson, A Fable for Tomorrow *
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com
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London WiT 3QT
567890
38
G. K. Chesterton, On Running after One's Hat
Joan Didion, On Keeping a Notebook
* 4!>
Frederick Douglass, Learning to Read
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53
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41
1-
C O N T E N T S
C O N T E N T S
Barbara Ehrenreich, In Defense of Talk Shows
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Angelina Grimke, Speech in Pennsylvania Hall
S. I. Hayakawa, How Dictionaries Are Made
Eudora Welty, Listening
60
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71
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
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76
Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail +
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* 133
Michel de Montaigne, Of Cannibals
* 143
George Orwell, Politics and the English Language *
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81
William Zinsser, College Pressures *
Biographical Sketches
Glossary
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275
290
299
* 313
Permissions Acknowledgments
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319
* 123
Malcolm X, A Homemade Education
Plato, Crito
268
100
Jonathan Kozol, The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society
Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address
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Virginia Woolf, In Search of a Room of Ones Own
69
vii
261
E. B. White, Once More to the Lake
63
Zora Neale Hurston, How It Feels to Be Colored Me
Maxine Hong Kingston, No Name Woman
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158
173
186
i
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments and
u
Katha Pollitt, Why Boys Dont Play with Dolls
Ronald Reagan, A Time for Choosing *
190
Chief Seattle, Letter to President Pierce *
Resolutions *
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202
205
Brent Staples, Black Men and Public Space *
Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal *
212
Judy (Syfers) Brady, / Want a Wife
222
Amy Tan, Mother Tongue *
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208
225
Deborah Tannen, Conversational Styles *
231
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
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238
H