Vocabulary for Walden Pond and Associated Readings
1. I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very
particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my
mode of life, which some call impertinent though they do not appear to me
at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and
pertinent. ("Economy")
2. It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight
has been whetted (the definition is for to whet) by experience; always on the
limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient
slough, called by the Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their
coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's
brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying
today, insolvent . . . . ("Economy")
3. It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight
has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to get into
business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the
Latins aes alienum, another's brass, for some of their coins were made of
brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other's brass; always promising
to pay, promising to pay, tomorrow, and dying today, insolvent. . . .
("Economy")
4. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give to the young, their
own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such
miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be
that they have some faith left which belies (the definition is for to bely) that
experience, and they are only less young than they were. ("Economy")
5. Undoubtedly the very tedium and ennui which presume to have exhausted
the variety and joys of life are as old as Adam. ("Economy")
6. Notwithstanding much cant and hypocrisy -- chaff which I find it difficult to
separate from my wheat in this respect, it is such a relief to both the moral
and physical system; and I am resolved that I will not through humility
become the devil's attorney. ("Economy")
7. I cannot but think that if we had more true wisdom in these respects, not only
less education would be needed, because, forsooth, more would already be
acquired, but the pecuniary expense of getting an education would in a
great measure vanish. ("Economy")
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
of, relating to, or consisting of money
unable to pay debts owed
to sharpen a blade or tool; to excite or stimulate
not showing proper respect, rude
hypocritical and sanctimonious talk, typically of a moral, religious, or political
nature
f) (of an appearance) fail to give a true notion or impression of (something);
disguise or contradict
g) boredom; a feeling of listlessness or dissatisfaction arising from lack of
occupation or excitement
1. Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance
and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously
coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.
("Economy")
2. The mode of founding a college is, commonly, to get up a subscription of
dollars and cents, and then, following blindly the principles of labor to its
extremes -- a principle which should never be followed but with
circumspection -- to call in a contractor who makes this subject of
speculation, and he employs Irishmen or other operatives to lay the
foundations, while the students that are to be are said to be fitting
themselves for it; and for these oversights successive generations have to
pay. ("Economy")
3. The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically
shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable
leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure
fruitful. ("Economy")
4. We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with
our cordials, before we judge of him. (“Economy”)
5. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and window casings
gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers
were saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum
would exude from them. (“Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”)
6. …if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine
meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to
know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next
excursion. (“Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”)
7. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battlefield I ever
trod while the battle was raging; internecine; the red republicans on the one
hand. (“Brute Neighbors”)
a)
b)
c)
d)
marked by slaughter, especially within a group; mutually destructive war
to discharge slowly through pores or cuts
artificial, sham
not honorable in character or purpose; of humble origin or social status
e) noble, glorious
f) wariness; an unwillingness to take risks
g) done or provided without recompense
1. They fought with more pertinacity than bulldogs. (“Brute Neighbors”)
2. Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was
assiduously gnawing at the near foreleg of his enemy, having severed his
remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn away… (“Brute Neighbors”)
3. Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was
assiduously gnawing at the near foreleg of his enemy, having severed his
remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitas he had
there to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too
thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer’s eyes shone with
ferocity such as war only could excite. (“Brute Neighbors”)
4. It was cloudy but cold. The cars’ tires laid behind them on the snowy street a
complex trail of beige chunks like crenellated castle walls. (excerpt from An
American Childhood)
5. We build rhetorical baffles around our lives to keep the crowding out, only to
find that we have let nobody we love in. (“Bumping into Mr. Ravioli”)
6. Pepys’s network in 1669 London was, despite his official position, relatively small
compared even with that of a minor aesthete like Firbank, two centuries later.
(“Bumping into Mr. Ravioli”)
7. Neither apostle Paul nor Horace Walpole ever ends an epistle with “Give me a
call and let’s discuss.” (“Bumping into Mr. Ravioli”)
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)
g)
a painful inflammation of the skin and underlying tissue
loose material used to prevent the flow of sound or light in a particular direction
done at a consistent pace; steadily
having battlements
holding resolutely to an opinion or purpose
a formal or elegant letter
a person having or affecting a sensitivity to beauty
1. Right away, we climbed a tree, and soon were indulging in the spurious
nostalgia of kids who have only short pasts to look back upon. (“A Lovely Sort
…Purpose”)
2. We went back to the woods eventually – and when I say “we,” I’m speaking
demographically not just of my friends and me. (“A Lovely Sort of Lower
Purpose”)
3. He took me in at a glance, noticed my equipment and my idleness, and gave a
small but unmistakable snort of derision. (“A Lovely Sort of Lower Purpose”
4. That last choice, in all its worthy banality, somehow is the most disheartening of
all. (“A Lovely Sort of Lower Purpose”)
5. She kept a tight grip on the handles, which throbbed violently with every
explosion of the one-cylinder motor, and as she sheered around the bushes and
lurched along at a reluctant trot behind her impetuous servant, she looked like a
puppy who had grabbed something that was too much for him. (“Walden” by
E.B. White)
6. …in the center of the vacant lot some boys were assembling the framework of
the rude shelter, their whole mind and skill were concentrated in the rather
inauspicious helter-skeleton of studs and rafters. (“Walden” by E.B. White)
7. A camp dog, seeing me in the road, barked petulantly.
White)
(“Walden” by E.B.
a) the statistical studies of human populations and especially their size and
distribution
b) done with an air of capricious ill humor
c) marked by impulsiveness, lack of thought
d) scorn
e) false; not true
f) the state of being commonplace
g) promising failure