American Lit (Fall 2012)
"Instinctively the child turned toward the growing splendor and moved down the slope with his horrible companions; in a few moments had passed the foremost of the throng--not much of a feat, considering his advantages. He placed himself in the lead, his wooden sword still in hand, and solemnly directed the march, conforming his pace to theirs and occasionally turning as if to see that his forces did not straggle. Surely such a leader never before had such a following."
"Chickamauga" by Ambrose Bierce
They were men. They crept upon their hands and knees. They used their hands only, dragging their legs. They used their knees only, their arms hanging idle at their sides. They strove to rise to their feet, but fell prone in the attempt. They did nothing naturally, and nothing alike, save only to advance foot by foot in the same direction.
"Chickamauga"--Ambrose Bierce
"He had seen his father's negroes creep upon their hands and knees for his amusement -- had ridden them so, 'making believe' they were his horses."
"Chickamauga," Ambrose Bierce
"He uttered a series of inarticulate and indescribable cries--something between the chattering of an ape and the gobbling of a turkey--a startling, soulless, unholy sound, the language of a devil."
"Chikamauga" by Ambrose Bierce
"Her conversation was chiefly of what metaphysicians term the objective cast; but every now and then it took a subjective turn."
"Daisy Miller", Henry James
"A light broke upon [her] in the darkness which she felt had been without a gleam of brightness for weeks and months. The mystery that had bewildered her was solved by the word; and from that moment she rose from groveling in shame and self-pity, and began to live again in the ideal."
"Editha," William Dean Howells
"It was almost as if the other face, the face of the superseded woman, had obliterated that of the intruder."
"Ethan Frome," Edith Wharton
"The girl went into gloomy districts near the river, where the tall black factories shut in the street and only occasional broad beams of light fell across the pavements from saloons. In front of one of these places, from whence came the sound of a violin vigorously scraped, the patter of feet on boards and the ring of loud laughter, there stood a man with blotched features."
"Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (A Story of New York)," Stephen Crane
"The structures seemed to have eyes that looked over her, beyond her, at other things. Afar off the lights of the avenues glittered as if from an impossible distance. Street car bells jingled with a sound of merriment."
"Maggie: A Girl of the Streets" , Stephen Crane
"After each of these orgies of living he experienced all the physical depression which follows a debauch; the loathing of respectable beds, of common food, of a house penetrated by kitchen odors; a shuddering repulsion for the flavorless, colorless mass of everyday existence; a morbid desire for cool things and soft lights and fresh flowers."
"Paul's Case" by Willa Cather
"The sound of an approaching train awoke him, and he started to his feet, remembering only his resolution, and afraid lest he should be too late. He stood watching the approaching locomotive, his teeth chattering, his lips drawn away from them in a frightened smile; once or twice he glanced nervously sidewise, as though he were being watched. When the right moment came, he jumped."
"Paul's Case" by Willa Cather
His clothes were a trifle outgrown, and the tan velvet on the collar of his open overcoat was frayed and worn; but for all that there was something of the dandy about him, and he wore an opal pin in his neatly knotted black four-in-hand, and a red carnation in his buttonhole. This latter adornment the faculty somehow felt was not properly significant of the contrite spirit befitting a boy under the ban of suspension.
"Paul's Case" by Willa Cather
She happened to be an angular schoolmistress, much older than he, who also wore thick glasses, and who had now borne him four children, all near-sighted, like herself.
"Paul's Case"--Willa Cather
"So, in the midst of that smoke-palled city, enamoured of figures and grimy toil, [he] had his secret temple, his wishing carpet, his bit of blue-and-white Mediterranean shore bathed in perpetual sunshine."
"Paul's Case," Willa Cather
"I—oh, nothing. I was only thinking how your Babs carries everything before her. That Campolieri boy is one of the best matches in Rome. Don't look so innocent, my dear—you know he is. And I was wondering, ever so respectfully, you understand... wondering how two such exemplary characters as you and Horace had managed to produce anything quite so dynamic."
"Roman Fever"--Edith Wharton
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood.
"Song of Myself"--Walt Whitman
"I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth, / I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself."
"Song of Myself," Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman
"I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, -- When he beats his bars and he would be free; It is not a carol of joy or glee."
"Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar
" None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the colors of the sea. The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped and rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with waves that seemed thrust up in points like rocks."
"The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane
"If I am going to be drowned - if I am going to be drowned- if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?"
"The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane
"Perchance they might be formulated thus: 'If I am going to be drowned -- if I am going to be drowned -- if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees? Was I brought here merely to have my nose dragged away as I was about to nibble the sacred cheese of life?'"
"The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane
Gray-faced and bowed forward, they mechanically, turn by turn, plied the leaden oars. The form of the light-house had vanished from the southern horizon, but finally a pale star appeared, just lifting from the sea. The streaked saffron in the west passed before the all-merging darkness, and the sea to the east was black. The land had vanished, and was expressed only by the low and drear thunder of the surf.
"The Open Boat" by Stephen Crane
"When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples. Any visible expression of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers."
"The Open Boat," Stephen Crane (71)
The colonel added to paternal affection a considerable respect for his son as the heir of a large estate. He himself had been "raised" in comparative poverty, and had laid the foundations of his fortune by hard work; and while he despised the ladder by which he had climbed, he could not entirely forget it, and unconsciously manifested, in his intercourse with his son, some of the poor man's deference toward the wealthy and well-born.
"The Passing of Grandison" by Charles Chesnutt
"When it is said that it was done to please a woman, there ought perhaps to be enough said to explain anything; for what a man will not do to please a woman is yet to be discovered."
"The Passing of Grandison" by Charles W. Chesnutt
"I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one place where two breadths didn't match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other."
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
"So here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way."
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing. You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream.
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
"Possibly in its brain there was no sharp consciousness of a condition of very cold such as was in the man's brain. But the brute had its instinct. It experienced a vague but menacing apprehension that subdued it and made it slink along at the man's heels, and that made it question eagerly every unwonted movement of the man as if expecting him to go into camp or to seek shelter somewhere and build a fire."
"To Build a Fire" by Jack London
"The man looked down at his hands in order to locate them, and found them hanging on the ends of his arms. It struck him as curious that one should have to use his eyes in order to find out where his hands were. He began threshing his arms back and forth, beating the mittened hands against his sides."
"To Build a Fire" by Jack London
"The dog did not know anything about thermometers. Possibly in its brain there was no sharp consciousness of a condition of very cold such as was in the man's brain. But the brute had its instinct."
"To Build a Fire," Jack London
"The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all."
"To Build a Fire," Jack London (158)
"But in the deadly hush between the lift of the weapon and its fall there came a gush of faint, childish laughter and then across the range of his vision, far away and dim, he saw the sun-bright head of his baby girl, as, with the pretty, tottering run of a two-year-old, she moved across the grass of the dooryard. His hands relaxed: the fork fell to the ground; his head lowered."
"Under the Lion's Paw" by Hamlin Garland
"And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head. He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had, and that I must take care of myself for his sake, and keep well."
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"
"So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, and journey, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to "work" until I am well again."
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch. I really do eat better, and am more quiet than I was.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"
You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well underway in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"
"I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror our of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store."
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper,"
"John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious. I am glad my case is not serious! But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing. John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him. Of course it is only nervousness. It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way! I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already!"
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper,"
"Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!"
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper,"
"Their evening together had given him a vision of what life at her side might be, and he was glad now that he had done nothing to trouble the sweetness of the picture."
Edith Wharton. "Ethan Frome"
"It's war," he said. and he pulled her up to him and kissed her. She kissed him back intensely, but irrelevantly, as to their passion, and uttered from deep in her throat. "How glorious!"
Editha- William Dean Howells
selected poems
Emily Dickinson
"This is my letter to the World That never wrote to Me The simple News that Nature told -- With tender Majesty"
Emily Dickinson — "This Is My Letter To The World".
"With Blue—uncertain stumbling Buzz— Between the light—and me— And then the Windows failed—and then I could not see to see—"
Emily Dickinson, "I hear a Fly buzz — when I died —"
"I'm nobody! Who are you?/ Are you nobody, too?"
Emily Dickinson, "I'm Nobody, Who are you?"
My life closed twice before its close— It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me So huge, so hopeless to conceive As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell.
Emily Dickinson, "My life closed twice before its close - "
I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you--Nobody--Too? Then there's a pair of us! Don't tell! they'd advertise--you know!
Emily Dickinson, poem 288.
He had always been more sensitive than the people about him to the appeal of natural beauty. His unfinished studies had given form to this sensibility and even in his unhappiest moments field and sky spoke to him with a deep and powerful persuasion. But hitherto the emotion had remained in him as a silent ache, veiling with sadness the beauty that evoked it.
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
"And what good had come of it? She was a hundred times bitterer and more discontented than when he had married her: the one pleasure left her was to inflict pain on him. All the healthy instincts of self-defense rose up in him against such waste . . ."
Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
"Deep silence had fallen with the starlessdusk, and they leaned on each other without speaking; but at every step of their climb Ethan said to himself: 'It's the last time we'l ever walk together."
Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
"She sat opposite the window, and the pale light reflected from the banks of snowmade her face look more than usually drawn and bloodless, sharpened the three parallel creases between ear and cheek, and drew querulous lines from her thin nose to the corners of her mouth."
Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
" 'If I'd 'a' listened to folks, you'd 'a' gone before now, and this wouldn't 'a' happened,' she said; and gathering up the bits of broken glass she went out of the room as if she carried a dead body . . . "
Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton (54)
"The early mist had vanished and the fields lay like a silver shield under the sun. It was one of the days when the glitter of winter shines through a pale haze of spring. Every yard of the road was alive with Mattie's presence, and there was hardly a branch against the sky or a tangle of brambles on the bank in which some bright shred of memory was not caught. Once, in the stillness, the call of a bird in a mountain ash was so like her laughter that his heart tightened and then grew large; and all these things made him see that something must be done at once."
Ethan Frome, Wharton
"And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history."
FJ Turner, from The Significance of the Frontier in American History
The Significance of the Frontier in American History
Frederick Jackson Turner
"What the Mediterranean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bond of custom, offering new experiences, calling out new institutions an activities, that, and more, the ever retreating frontier has been to the United States directly, and to the nations of Europe more remotely."
Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History"
The School Days of an Indian Girl
Gertrude Bonnen (Zitkala Sa)
"I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold blades of the scissors against my neck, and heard them gnaw off one of my thick braids."
Gertrude Bonnen (Zitkala Sa) The School Days of an Indian Girl
Under the Lion's Paw
Hamlin Garland
"But in the deadly hush between the lift of the weapon and its fall there came a gush of faint, childish laughter and then across the range of his vision, far away and dim, he saw the sun-bright head of his baby girl, as, with the pretty, tottering run of a two-year-old, she moved across the grass of the dooryard."
Hamlin Garland, "Under the Lion's Paw,"
Daisy Miller
Henry James
" 'The girl goes about alone with her foreigners. As to what happens further, you must apply elsewhere for information. She has picked up half a dozen of the regular Roman fortune-hunters, and she takes them about to people's houses. When she comes to a party she brings with her a gentleman with a good deal of manner and a wonderful mustache.' "
Henry James, "Daisy Miller,"
"He felt very sorry for her -- not exactly that he believed that she had completely lost her head, but because it was painful to hear so much that was pretty and undefended and natural assigned to a vulgar place among the categories of disorder."
Henry James, Daisy Miller
"He remembered that a cynical compatriot had once told him that American women - the pretty ones, and this gave a largeness to the axiom - were at once the most exacting girls in the world and the least endowed with a sense of indebtedness"
Henry James, Daisy Miller
"They were wonderfully pretty eyes; and, indeed, Winterbourne had not seen for a long time anything prettier than his fair countrywomen's various features-her complexion, her nose, her ears, her teeth. He had a great relish for feminine beauty; he was addicted to observing and analyzing it; and as regards this young lady's face he made several observations"
Henry James, Daisy Miller
To Build a Fire
Jack London
"These old-timers were rather womanish, some of them, he thought. All a man had to do was to keep his head, and he was all right. Any man who was a man could travel alone."
Jack London — "To Build a Fire"
"It was not because he was long used to it. He was a newcomer in the land, a chechaquo, and this was his first winter."
Jack London, "To Build A Fire"
"Later, the dog whined loudly. And still later it crept close to the man and caught the scent of death. This made the animal bristle and back away. A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other food-providers and fire-providers."
Jack London, "To Build A Fire"
"This man did not know cold. Possibly all the generations of his ancestry had been ignorant of cold, of real cold, of cold one hundred and seventy degrees below freezing point. But the dog knew; all its ancestry knew, and it had inherited the knowledge."
Jack London, "To Build A Fire"
"Empty as the man's mind was of thoughts, he was keenly observant, and he noticed the changes in the creek, the curves and bends and timber- jams, and always he sharply noted where he placed his feet. "
Jack London, "To Build a Fire"
"Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man's frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man's place in the universe. Fifty degrees below zero stood for a bite of frost that hurt and that must be guarded against by the use of mittens, ear-flaps, warm moccasins, and thick socks. Fifty degrees below zero was to him just precisely fifty degrees below zero. That there should be anything more to it than that was a thought that never entered his head."
Jack London, "To Build a Fire"
"Fifty degrees below zero was to him just precisely fifty degrees below zero. That there should be anything more to it than that was a thought that never entered his head."
Jack London, "To Build a Fire"
"Something was the matter, and its suspicious nature sensed danger - it knew not what danger, but somewhere, somehow, in its brain arose an apprehension of the man."
Jack London, "To Build a Fire"
He was used to the lack of sun. It had been days since he had seen the sun, and he knew that a few more days must pass before that cheerful orb, due south, would just peep above the sky-line and dip immediately from view.
Jack London, "To Build a Fire"
"But all this--the mysterious, far-reaching hairline trail, the absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all--made no impression on the man. It was not because he was long used to it. He was a new-comer in the land, a chechaquo, and this was his first winter. The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances."
Jack London, "To Build a Fire,"
"A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where ere the other food-providers and fire-providers."
Jack London, "To Build a Fire."
How the Other Half Lives
Jacob Riis
It was a surprise to find so clean and comfortable a little dwelling in this New England wilderness. The young man had known the horrors of its most primitive housekeeping, and the dreary squalor of that level of society which does not rebel at the companionship of hens. This was the best thrift of an old-fashioned farmstead, though on such a small scale that it seemed like a hermitage.
Jewett, A White Heron
A Pair of Silk Stockings
Kate Chopin
"She did not wish to act hastily, to do anything she might afterward regret. But it was during the still hours of the night when she lay awake revolving plans in her mind that she seemed to see her way clearly toward a proper and judicious use of the money."
Kate Chopin "A Pair of Silk Stockings"
"When she entered her appearance created no surprise, no consternation, as she had half feared it might. She seated herself at a small table alone, and an attentive waiter at once approached to take her order."
Kate Chopin , "A Pair of Silk Stockings"
"But she went on feeling the soft, sheeny luxurious things - with both hands now, holding them up to see them glisten, and to feel them glide serpent-like through her fingers."
Kate Chopin — "A Pair of Silk Stockings"
"How good was the touch of the raw silk to her flesh! She felt like lying back in the cushioned chair and reveling for a while in the luxury of it. She did for a little while. Then she replaced her shoes, rolled the cotton stockings together and thrust them into her bag."
Kate Chopin, "A Pair of Silk Stockings"
A man with keen eyes, who sat opposite to her, seemed to like the study of her small, pale face. It puzzled him to decipher what he saw there. In truth, he saw nothing - unless he were wizard enough to detect a poignant wish, a powerful longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.
Kate Chopin, "A Pair of Silk Stockings"
The play was over, the music ceased, the crowd filed out. It was like a dream ended. People scattered in all directions.
Kate Chopin, "A Pair of Silk Stockings"
"She held back her skirts and turned her feet one way and her head another way as she glanced down at the polished, pointed-tipped boots. Her foot and ankle looked very pretty. She could not realize that they belonged to her and were a part of herself."
Kate Chopin, "A Pair of Silk Stockings,"
"She was not going through any acute mental process or reasoning with herself, nor was she striving to explain to her satisfaction the motive of her action. She was not thinking at all. She seemed for the time to be taking a rest from that laborious and fatiguing function and to have abandoned herself to some mechanical impulse that directed her actions and freed her of responsibility."
Kate Chopin, "A Pair of Silk Stockings,"
"If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her; if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase, and the approbation of my dog would forsake me then. My barefoot rank is better."
Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Emily Dickinson
I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture. The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home. But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the glories and the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought upon the river's face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them.
Life on the Mississippi (Chapter Nine)--Mark Twain
The face of the water, in time,became a wonderful book--a book that was a dead language to theuneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day.
Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain
"What does the lovely flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a 'break' that ripples above some deadly disease? Are not all her visible charms sown thick with what are to him the signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see her beauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally, and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself? And doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade?"
Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain
The war was fought to preserve the system of government that had been established at the nation's founding—to prove, in fact, that the system was worth preserving, that the idea of democracy had not failed. This is the meaning of the Gettysburg Address and of the great fighting cry of the North: "Union." And the system was preserved; the union did survive. But in almost every other respect, the United States became a different country. The war alone did not make America modern, but the war marks the birth of modern America.
Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America
"The culprits flung themselves prone, in an ecstasy of gratitude, and kissed his feet, declaring that they would never forget his goodness and never cease to pray for him as long as they lived. They were sincere, for like a god he had stretched forth his mighty hand and closed the gates of hell against them. He knew, himself, that he had done a noble and gracious thing, and was privately well pleased with his magnanimity; and that night he set the incident down in his diary, so that his son might read it in after years, and be thereby moved to deeds of gentleness and humanity himself."
Mark Twain, Puddn'head Wilson
"Suddenly this little woods-girl is horror-stricken to hear a clear whistle not very far away. Not a bird's-whistle, which would have a sort of friendliness, but a boy's whistle, determined, and somewhat aggressive."
Sarah Orne Jewett "A White Heron"
"There ain't a foot o' ground she don't know her way over, and the wild creatur's counts her one o' themselves."
Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron "
"Remember that getting money may make you as poor as it has me, and can leave you at last a beggar for a little friendliness, and sympathy, and occupation. There are other things which a man needs beside wealth to make him happy."
Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron"
"She had never seen anybody so charming and delightful; the woman's heart asleep in the child, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of love."
Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron"
"She was just thinking how long it seemed since she first came to the farm a year ago, and wondering if everything went on in the noisy town just the same as when she was there; the thought of the great red-faced boy who used to chase and frighten her made her hurry along the path to escape from the shadow of the trees."
Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron"
"Who knows how steadily the least twigs held themselves to advantage this light, weak creature on her way! The old pine must have loved his new dependant. More than all the hawks, and bats, and moths, and even the sweet-voiced thrushes, was the brave, beating heart of the solitary gray-eyed child."
Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron"
Dear loyalty, that suffered a sharp pang as the guest went away disappointed later in the day, that could have served and followed him and loved him as a dog loves!
Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron"
The good woman suspected that Sylvia loitered occasionally on her own account; there never was such a child for straying about out-of-doors since the world was made!
Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron"
"What a spirit of adventure, what wild ambition! What fancied triumph and delight and glory for the later morning when she could make known the secret! It was almost too real and too great for the childish heart to bear."
Sarah Orne Jewett, A White Heron
When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples. Any visible expression of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers.
Stephan Crane, "The Open Boat"
"There was surely in it a quality that was personal and heartfelt. And after this devotion to the commander of the boat there was this comradeship that the correspondent, for instance, who had been taught to be cynical of men, knew even at the time was the best experience of his life. But no one said that is was so. No one mentioned it"
Stephan Crane, The Open Boat
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets: A Story of New York
Stephen Crane
The Open Boat
Stephen Crane
"There was no one in at home. The rooms showed that attempts had been made at tidying them. Parts of the wreckage of the day before had been repaired by an unskillful hand....Too, the blue ribbons had been restored to the curtains, and the lambrequin, with its immense sheaves of yellow wheat and red roses of equal size, had been returned in a worn and sorry state, to its position at the mantel. "
Stephen Crane Maggie: A Girl of the Streets: A Story of New York
"In a moment she emerged with a pair of faded baby shoes held in the hollow of her hand. 'I kin remember when she used to wear dem,' cried she. The women burst anew into cries as if they had all been stabbed."
Stephen Crane, "Maggie"
"Again he wondered vaguely if some of the women of his acquaintance had brothers. Nevertheless, his mind did not for an instant confuse himself with those brothers nor his sister with theirs. After the mother had, with great difficulty, supressed the neighbors, she went among them and proclaimed her grief. 'May Gawd forgive dat girl,' was he continual cry. To attentive ears she recited the whole length and breadth of her woes."
Stephen Crane, "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets"
"A girl of the painted cohorts of the city went along the street. She threw chancing glances at men who passed her, giving smiling invitations to men of rural or untaught pattern and usually seeming sedately unconscious of the men with a metropolitan seal upon their faces."
Stephen Crane, "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets,"
"He had on evening dress, a moustache, a chrysanthemum, and a look of ennui, all of which he kept carefully under his eye. Seeing the girl walk on as if such a young man as he was not in existence, he looked back transfixed with interest. He stared glassily for a moment, but gave a slight convulsive start when he discerned that she was neither new, Parisian, nor theatrical."
Stephen Crane, "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets: A Story of New York,"
Jimmie had an idea it wasn't common courtesy for a friend to come to one's home and ruin one's sister. But he was not sure how much Pete knew about the rules of politeness."
Stephen Crane, "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets: A Tale of New York,"
"When it came night, the white waves paced to and fro in the moonlight, and the win brought the sound of the great sea's voice to the men on the shore, and they felt that they could then be interpreters."
Stephen Crane, "The Open Boat"
"When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples."
Stephen Crane, "The Open Boat"
When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples. Any visible expression of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers. Then, if there be no tangible thing to hoot he feels, perhaps, the desire to confront a personification and indulge in pleas, bowed to one knee, and with hands supplicant, saying: "Yes, but I love myself."
Stephen Crane, "The Open Boat."
"From her eyes had been plucked all look of self-reliance. She leaned with a dependent air toward her companion. She was timid, as if fearing his anger or displeasure. She seemed to beseech tenderness of him."
Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
"She went into the blackness of the final block. The shutters of the tall buildings were closed like grim lips. The structures seemed to have eyes that looked over them, beyond them, at other things. Afar off the lights of the avenues glittered as if from an impossible distance. Street-car bells jingled with a sound of merriment."
Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
He was trying to formulate a theory that he had always unconsciously held, that all sisters, excepting his own, could advisedly be ruined.
Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
" None of the dirt of Rum Alley seemed to be in her veins. The philosophers up-stairs, down-stairs and on the same floor, puzzled over it."
Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (A Story of New York)
"Eventually they entered into a dark region where, from a careening building, a dozen gruesome doorways gave up loads of babies to the street and the gutter. A wind of early autumn raised yellow dust from cobbles and swirled it against an hundred windows."
Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets: A Story of New York
"'He has no chance to explain.' said Miller. "The case is prejudged. A crime has been commited.Sandy is charged with it. He is black, and therefore he is guilty."
The Marrow of Tradition, Charles W. Chesnutt
"Sobered by this culminating tragedy, the mob shortly afterwards disperesed. The flames soon completed their work, and this handsome structure, the fruit of old Adam Miller's industry, the monument of his son's philanthropy, a promise of good things for the future of the city, lay smouldering in ruins, a melancholy witness to the fact that our boasted civiilazation is but a thin veneer, which crack and scales off at the first impact of primal passions."
The Marrow of Tradition, Charles W. Chesnutt
"How well the bait took is a matter of history, -- but the promised result is still in the future. The disfranchisement of the negro has merely changed the form of the same old problem."
The Marrow of Tradition, Charles W. Chesnutt (the narrator)
By the very last star of truth, it is easier to steal eggs from under a hen than it was to change seats in the dinghy.
The Open Boat pg. 60, Stephen Crane,
"Whereupon the three were silent, save for a trifle of hemming and hawing. To express any particular optimism at this time they felt to be childish and stupid, but they all doubtless possessed this sense of the situation in their mind. A young man thinks doggedly at such times. On the other hand, the ethics of their condition was decidedly against any open suggestion of hopelessness. So they were silent."
The Open Boat, Crane
"When it came night, the white waves paced to and fro in the moonlight, and the wind brought the sound of the great sea's voice to the men on shore, and they felt that they could then be interpreters."
The Open Boat, Stephen Crane
"Personally, I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good."
The Yellow Wallpaper - Gilman
The paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it. It is stripped off--the paper in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life.
The Yellow Wallpaper- Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Yet somehow he was not afraid of anything, was absolutely calm; perhaps because he had looked into the dark corner at last and knew. It was bad enough, what he saw there, but somehow not so bad as his long fear of it had been. He saw everything clearly now. He had a feeling that he had made the best of it, that he had lived the sort of life he was meant to live, and for half an hour he sat staring at the revolver.
Willa Cather, "Paul's Case"
"After each of these orgies of living, he experienced all the physical depression which follows a debauch; the loathing of respectable beds, of common food, of a house permeated by kitchen odors; a shuddering repulsion for the flavourless, colourless mass of every-day existence; a morbid desire for cool things and soft lights and fresh flowers."
Willa Cather, "Paul's Case,"
His teachers were in despair, and his drawing master voiced the feeling of them all when he declared there was something about the boy which none of them understood. He added: "I don't really believe that smile of his comes altogether from insolence; there's something sort of haunted about it. The boy is not strong, for one thing. I happen to know that he was born in Colorado, only a few months before his mother died out there of a long illness. There is something wrong about the fellow."
Willa Cather, "Paul's Case."
Editha
William Dean Howells
"All the while, in her duplex emotioning, she was aware that now at the very beginning she must put a guard upon herself against urging him, by any word or act, to take the part that her whole soul willed him to take, for the completion of her ideal of him."
William Dean Howells, "Editha"
"My father was in the Civil War; all through it; lost his arm in it." She thrilled with the sense of the arm round her; what if that should be lost?
William Dean Howells, "Editha"
"I'm Nobody! Who are you?/ Are you--Nobody--Too?/Then there;s a pair of us!/ Don't tell! they'd advertise--you know!"
poem by Emily Dickinson
The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
A White Heron
Sarah Orne Jewett
My First School Days
Charles A. Eastman
"instead of getting to heaven- at least-/ I'm going, all along."
"324," Emily Dickinson
"One need not be a Chamber—to be Haunted— One need not be a House— The Brain has Corridors—surpassing Material Place—"
"670" by Emily Dickinson
"In truth, he saw nothing -- unless he were wizard enough to detect a poignant wish, a powerful longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.
"A Pair of Silk Stockings" by Kate Chopin
"She was very hungry. Another time she would have stilled the cravings for food until reaching her own home, where she would have brewed herself a cup of tea and taken a snack of anything that was available. But the impulse that was guiding her would not suffer her to entertain any such thought. There was a restaurant at the corner..."
"A Pair of Silk Stockings" by Kate Chopin
She smiled, just as if she had been asked to inspect a tiara of diamonds with the ultimate view of purchasing it. But she went on feeling the soft, sheeny luxurious things - with both hands now, holding them up to see them glisten, and to feel them glide serpent-like through her fingers.
"A Pair of Silk Stockings" by Kate Chopin
"She seemed for the time to be taking a rest from that laborious and fatiguing function and to have abandoned herself to some mechanical impulse that directed her actions and freed her of responsibility."
"A Pair of Silk Stockings", Kate Chopin
"She sat herself upon a revolving stool before a counter that was comparatively deserted, trying to gather strength and courage to charge through an eager multitude that was besieging breast-works of shirting and figured lawn."
"A Pair of Silk Stockings," Kate Chopin
"Alas, if the great wave of human interest which flooded for the first time this dull little life should sweep away the satisfactions of an existence heart to heart with nature and the dumb life of the forest!"
"A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett
"The tree seemed to lengthen itself out as she went up, and to reach father and farther upward. It was like a great main-mast to the voyaging earth; it must truly have been amazed that morning through all its ponderous frame as it felt this determined spark of human spirit creeping and climbing from higher branch to branch."
"A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett
"What is it that suddenly forbids her and makes her dumb? Has she been nine years growing, and now, when the great world for the first time puts out a hand to her, must she thrust it aside for a bird's sake?"
"A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett
...the woman's heart, asleep in the child, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of love. Some premonition of that great power stirred and swayed these young creatures who traversed the solemn woodlands with soft-footed silent care. They stopped to listen to a bird's song; they pressed forward again eagerly, parting the branches -- speaking to each other rarely and in whispers; the young man going first and [Sylvia] following, fascinated, a few steps behind, with her gray eyes dark with excitement.
"A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett
"Striking through the thought of his dear ones was a sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality."
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Pierce
"I went home and obeyed those directions for some three months, and came so near the borderline of utter mental ruin that I could see over."
Charlotte Perkins Gilman — "Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper"
"Several times the hunters were close upon their heels, but the magnitude of the escaping party begot unusual vigilance on the part of those who sympathized with the fugitives, and strangely enough, the underground railroad seemed to have had its tracks cleared and signals set for this particular train. Once, twice, the colonel thought he had them, but they slipped through his fingers."
Charles Chesnutt, "The Passing of Grandison"
""Mars Dick," he said, "dese yer abolitioners is jes' pesterin' de life out er me tryin' ter git me ter run away. I don' pay no 'tention ter 'em, but dey riles me so sometimes dat I'm feared I'll hit some of 'em some er dese days, an' dat mought git me inter trouble. I ain' said nuffin' ter you 'bout it, Mars Dick, fer I did n' wanter 'sturb yo' min'; but I don' like it, suh; no, suh, I don'! Is we gwine back home 'fo' long, Mars Dick?""
Charles Chessnut, "The Passing of Grandison"
The Marrow of Tradition
Charles Chestnutt
The Passing of Grandison
Charles Chestnutt
"Pain—has an Element of Blank— It cannot recollect When it begun—or if there were A time when it was not—"
650, Emily Dickinson
She seated herself at a small table alone, and an attentive waiter at once approached to take her order. She did not want a profusion; she craved a nice and tasty bite-a half a dozen blue-points, a plump chop with cress, a something sweet-a creme-frapee, for instance; a glass of Rhine whine, and after all a small cup of black coffee.
A Pair of Silk Stockings pg. 155, Kate Chopin
"It was all very agreeable. The damask was even more spotless than it had seemed through the window, and the crystal more sparkling. There were quiet ladies and gentlemen, who did not notice her, lunching at the small tables like her own. A soft, pleasing strain of music could be heard, and a gentle breeze, was blowing through the window."
A Pair of Silk Stockings, Chopin
"But she went on feeling the soft, sheeny luxurious things--with both hands now, holding them up to see them glisten, , and to feel them slide serpent-like through her fingers. Two hectic blotches came suddenly into her pale cheeks."
A Pair of Silk Stockings, Kate Chopin
"She held back her skirts and turned her feet one way and her head another way as she glanced down at the polished, pointed-tipped boots. Her foot and ankle looked very pretty. She could not realize that they belonged to her and were a part of herself."
A Pair of Silk Stockings, Kate Chopin
"Now look down again, ____. where the green marsh is set among the shining birches and dark hemlocks; there where you saw the white heron once you will see him again..."
A White Heron - Jewett
"There ain't a foot o' ground she don't know her way over, and the wild creatur's counts her one o' themselves. Squer'ls she'll tame to come an' feed right out o' her hands, and all sorts o' birds. Last winder she got the jay-birds to bangering here, and I believe she'd 'a' scanted herself of her own meals to have plenty to throw out amongst 'em."
A White Heron pg. 87, Sarah Orne Jewett
It must truly have been amazed that morning through all its ponderous frame as it felt this determined spark of human spirit creeping and climbing from higher branch to branch."
A White Heron", Sarah Orne Jewett
"She had never seen anybody so charming and delightful; the woman's heart, asleep in the child, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of love. Some premonition of that great power stirred and swayed these young creatures who traversed the solemn woodlands with soft-footed silent care. They stopped to listen to a bird's song; they pressed forward again eagerly, parting the branches -- speaking to each other rarely and in whispers;"
A White Heron, Jewett
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Ambrose Bierce
Chickamauga
Ambrose Bierce
"Advancing from the bank of the creek he suddenly found himself confronted with a new and more formidable enemy: in the path that he was following, sat, bolt upright, with ears erect and paws suspended before it, a rabbit!"
Ambrose Bierce, "Chickamauga"
"The child moved his little hands, making wild, uncertain gestures. He uttered a series of inarticulate and indescribable cries--something between the chattering of an ape and the gobbling of a turkey--a startling, soulless, unholy sound, the language of a devil. The child was a deaf mute."
Ambrose Bierce, "Chickamauga"
"Then he stood motionless, with quivering lips, looking down upon the wreck."
Ambrose Bierce, "Chickamauga"
"Desolation everywhere! In all the wide glare not a living thing was visible. He cared nothing for that; the spectacle pleased, and he danced with glee in imitation of the wavering flames. He ran about, collecting fuel, but every object that he found was too heavy for him to cast in from the distance to which the heat limited his approach. In despair he flung in his sword--a surrender to the superior forces of nature. His military career was at an end."
Ambrose Bierce, "Chickamauga,"
"The stronger had already drawn themselves to the brink and plunged their faces into the flood. Three or four who lay without motion appeared to have no heads. At this the child's eyes expanded with wonder; even his hospitable understanding could not accept a phenomenon implying such vitality as that. After slaking their thirst these men had not had the strength to back away from the water, nor to keep their heads above it. They were drowned."
Ambrose Bierce, "Chickamauga."
"He placed himself in the lead, his wooden sword still in hand, and solemnly directed the march, conforming his pace to theirs and occasionally turning as if to see that his forces did not straggle. Surely such a leader never before had such a following."
Ambrose Bierce, Chickamauga
"His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command."
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge - Bierce
One last glimpse he caught of his vanishing property, as he stood, accompanied by a United States marshal, on a wharf at a port on the south shore of Lake Erie. On the stern of a small steamboat which was receding rapidly from the wharf, with her nose pointing toward Canada, there stood a group of familiar dark faces, and the look they cast backward was not one of longing for the fleshpots of Egypt.
Charles Chestnutt, "The passing of Grandison"
"It was the last appeal of poor humanity. When the pride of intellect and caste is broken; when we grovel in the dust of humiliation; when sickness and sorrow come, and the shadow of death falls upon us, and there is no hope elsewhere - We turn to God, who sometimes swallows the insult, and answers the appeal" -
Charles W. Chestnut, The Marrow of Tradition
"Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking for now he sees another scene- perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine."
Bierce, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Scattered about upon the ground now slowly narrowing by the encroachment of this awful march to water, were certain articles to which, in the leader's mind, were coupled no significant associations: an occasional blanket tightly rolled lengthwise, doubled and the ends bound together with a string; a heavy knapsack here, and there a broken rifle--such things, in short, as are found in the rear of retreating troops, the "spoor" of men flying from their hunters.
Bierce, Chickamauga
I don't know why I should write this. I don't want to. I don't feel able. And I know John would think it absurd. But I must say what I feel and think in some way--it is such a relief! But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief. Half the time now I am awfully lazy, and lie down ever so much. John says I mustn't lose my strength, and has me take cod liver oil and lots of tonics and things, to say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat. Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia. But he said I wasn't able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished . It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this nervous weakness I suppose. And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head. He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had, and that I must take care of myself for his sake, and keep well. He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper."
"If we had not used it, that blessed child would have! What a fortunate escape! Why, I wouldn't have a child of mine, an impressionable little thing, live in such a room for worlds."
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper
He had seated himself on a broad flat stone, and, turning his eyes away from the grand and awe-inspiring spectacle that lay close at hand, was looking anxiously toward the inn where his master sat cursing his ill-timed fidelity.
Chestnutt, Grandison
"A soft, pleasing strain of music could be heard, a gentle breeze was blowing through the window. She tasted a bite, and read a word or two, and she sipped the amber wine and wiggled her toes in the silk stockings."
Chopin, A Pair of Silk Stockings
"He saw nothing- unless he were wizard enough to detect a poignant wish, a powerful longing that the cable car would never stop but go on with her forever."
Chopin, A Pair of Silk Stockings
Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore Others will watch the run of the flood-tide; Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east;
Crossing the Brooklyn Ferry -Walt Whitman
"'She is a young lady,' said Mrs. Costello, 'who has an intimacy with her mamma's courier.' 'An intimacy with the courier?' the young man demanded. 'Oh, the mother is just as bad! They treat the courier like a familiar friend—like a gentleman. I shouldn't wonder if he dines with them...'"
Daisy Miller by Henry James
"I hardly know whether it was the analogies or the differences that were uppermost in the mind of a young American, who, two or three years ago, sat in the garden of the 'Trois Couronnes,' looking about him, rather idly, at some of the graceful objects I have mentioned."
Daisy Miller by Henry James
It was the most charming garrulity he had ever heard. He had assented to the idea that she was "common"; but was she so, after all, or was he simply getting used to her commonness? Her conversation was chiefly of what metaphysicians term the objective cast, but every now and then it took a subjective turn.
Daisy Miller by Henry James
"The little Italian. I have asked questions about him, and learned something. He is apparently a perfectly respectable little man. I believe he is, in a small way, a cavaliere avvocato. But he doesn't move in what are called the first circles, I think it is really not absolutely impossible that the courier introduced him."
Daisy Miller pg. 48, Henry James,
"Were they all like that, the pretty girls who had a good deal of gentleman's society? Or was she also a designing, an audacious, an unscrupulous young person? [He] had lost his instinct in this matter, and his reason could not help him."
Daisy Miller, Henry James
Ethan From
Edith Wharton
Roman Fever
Edith Wharton
"She put her lips close against his ear to say: 'Right into the big elm. You said you could. So 't we'd never have to leave each other any more.'"
Edith Wharton — Ethan Frome
"Well, girls are ferocious sometimes, you know. Girls in love especially. And I remember laughing to myself all that evening at the idea that you were waiting around there in the dark, dodging out of sight, listening for every sound, trying to get in—of course I was upset when I heard you were so ill afterward."
Edith Wharton, "Roman Fever"
So these two ladies visualized each other, each through the wrong end of her little telescope.
Edith Wharton, "Roman Fever"
"But suddenly his wife's face, with twisted monstrous lineaments, thrust itself between him and his goal, and he made an instinctive movement to brush it aside."
Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome
"People struggled on for years with 'troubles,' but they almost always succumbed to 'complications.'"
Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome
"The night was perfectly still, and the air so dry and pure that it gave little sensation of cold. The effect produced on [him] was rather of a complete absence of atmosphere, as though nothing less tenuous than ether intervened between the white earth under his feet and the metallic dome overhead."
Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome
"To him, who was never gay but in her presence, her gaiety seemed plain proof of indifference. The face she lifted to her dancers was the same which, when she saw him, always looked like a window that has caught the sunset."
Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome,
"'We never got away - how should you?' seemed to be written on every headstone..."
Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome;
"He was leaning against the wall and swearing. Blood stood upon bruises on his knotty fore-arms where they had scraped against the floor or the walls in the scuffle. The mother lay screeching on the floor, the tears running down her furrowed face."
Maggie - Crane
"[She] perceived that here was the beau ideal of a man. Her dim thoughts were often searching for far away lands where, as God says, the little hills sang together in the morning. Under the trees of her dream-gardens there had always walked a lover."
Maggie, Stephen Crane
"Well, look-a-here, dis t'ing queers us! See? We're queered! An' maybe it 'ud be better if I-well, I t'ink I kin look 'er up an'- maybe it 'ud be better if I fetcher her home an-" The mother started from her chair and broke forth into a storm of passionate anger."What! Let 'er come an' sleep under deh same roof wid her mudder agin!"
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets pg. 37, Stephen Crane,
It occurred to him to vaguely wonder, for an instant, if some of the women of his acquaintance had brothers.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets: A Story of New York by Stephen Crane
Life on the Mississippi
Mark Twain
Puddin'head Wilson
Mark Twain
"THERE was no use in arguing with a person like this. I promptly put such a strain on my memory that by and by even the shoal water and the countless crossing-marks began to stay with me. But the result was just the same. I never could more than get one knotty thing learned before another presented itself."
Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi
"Her child was thirty-one parts white, and he, too, was a slave, and by a fiction of law and custom a negro. He had blue eyes and flaxen curls like his white comrade, but even the father of the white child was able to tell the children apart--little as he had commerce with them-- by their clothes; for the white babe wore ruffled soft muslin and a coral necklace, while the other wore merely a coarse tow-linen shirt which barely reached to its knees, and no jewelry."
Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson
"Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world"
Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson
...I reckon he wants to print de chillen's fingers ag'in; en if he don't notice dey's changed, I bound dey ain't nobody gwine to notice it, en den I's safe...
Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson
"APRIL 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four."
Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson.
"'T ain't no sin—white folks has done it! It ain't no sin, glory to goodness it ain't no sin! Dey's done it—yes, en dey was de biggest quality in de whole bilin', too—kings!"
Mark Twain, Puddin'head Wilson
"When she entered her appearance created no surprise, no consternation, as she had half feared it might."
Roman Fever - Wharton
"So these two ladies visualized each other, each through the wrong end of her little telescope."
Roman Fever, Edith Wharton
"More than all the hawks, and bats, and moths, and even the sweet voiced thrushes, was the brave, beating heart of the solitary gray-eyed child."
Sarah Orne Jewett
"The matter having been thus far explained, I was soon on my way to the little mission school, two miles distant over the prairie."
My first School Days- Charles A. Eastman
Lyrics of Lowly Life
Paul Laurence Dunbar
This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile And mouth with myriad subtleties, Why should the world be over-wise, In counting all our tears and sighs?
Paul Laurence Dunbar, "We Wear the Mask"
Why should the world be over-wise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask.
Paul Laurence Dunbar, "We Wear the Mask"
His teachers felt this afternoon that his whole attitude was symbolized by his shrug and his flippantly red carnation flower, and they fell upon him without mercy, his English teacher leading the pack. He stood through it smiling, his pale lips parted over his white teeth.
Paul's Case- Willa Cather
"There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt."
Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
She raised her head slowly, till it was well up, and at the same time her great frame unconsciously assumed an erect and masterful attitude, with all the majesty and grace of her vanished youth in it. She raised her finger and punctuated with it. "You has said de word. You has had yo' chance, en you has trompled it under yo' foot. When you git another one, you'll git down on yo' knees enbeg for it!"
Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain
"'No, dolling, mammy ain't gwine to treat you so. De angels is gwine to 'mire you jist as much as dey does yo' mammy. Ain't gwine to have 'em putt'n' dey han's up 'fo' dey eyes en sayin' to David en Goliah en dem yuther prophets, "Dat chile is dress' too indelicate fo' dis place."'"
Pudd'nhead Wilson, Mark Twain
"Tom always made Chambers go in swimming with him, and stay by him as a protection. When Tom had had enough, he would slip out and tie knots in Chamber's shirt, dip the knot in the water to make them hard to undo, then dress himself and sit by and laugh while the naked shiverer tugged at the stubborn knots with his teeth."
Pudd'nhead Wilson, Mark Twain
"But his enjoyment was brief. He stared a considerable time at the three strips, and seemed stupefied with astonishment. At last he put them down and said, "I can't make it out at all- hang it, the baby's don't tally with the others!"
Pudd'nhead Wilson, Mark Twain (111)
The Strenuous Life
Theodore Roosevelt
"It would be a sad and evil thing for this country if ever the day came when we considered the great deeds of our forefathers as an excuse for our resting slothfully satisfied with what has already been done. On the contrary, they should be an inspiration and appeal, summoning us to show that we too have courage and strength; that we too are ready to dare greatly if the need arises; and, above all, that we are firmly bent upon the steady performance of every-day duty which, in the long-run, is of such incredible worth in the formation of national character"
Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life
"The old iron days have gone, the days when the weakling died as the penalty of inability to hold his own in the rough warfare against his surroundings. We live in softer times."
Theodore Roosevelt, from American Ideals
Emily Dickinson's Letters
Thomas Wentworth Higginson
She was there, then, close to him, only a thin board between. In another moment she would step forth into the night, and his eyes, accustomed to the obscurity, would discern her as clearly as though she stood in the daylight. A wave of shyness pulled him back into the dark angle of the wall, and he stood there in silence instead of making his presence known to her.
Wharton, Ethan Frome
The light, on a level with her chin, drew out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and prominences of her high-boned face under its ring of crimping pins."
Wharton, Ethan Frome
"The trouble with his was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost."
To Build a Fire, Jack London
"I've knelt to a n—— wench!" he muttered. "I thought I had struck the deepest depths of degreadttion before, but oh, dear, it was nothing to this....Well, there is one consolation, such as it is—I've struck bottom this time; there's nothing lower."
Twain, Puddin'head Wilson
"No slave in the Roman galleys could have toiled so frightfully and lived, for this man thought himself a free man, and that he was working for his wife and babes."
Under the Lion's Paw, Garland
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
Walt Whitman
"Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? Have you reckoned the earth much? Have you practiced so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?"
Walt Whitman "The Song of Myself"
"It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall, The dark threw patches down upon me also; The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious; My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they no in reality meagre? would not people laugh at me?"
Walt Whitman, "Crossing Brooklyn Bridge"
"Just as you feel when you look on the river and the sky, so I felt; Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;"
Walt Whitman, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"
"Others will see the islands large and small; Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high, A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them, Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide."
Walt Whitman, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"
What is it, then, between us? What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us? Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not
Walt Whitman, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"
"It avails not, neither time or place -distance avails not; / I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence; / I project myself -also I return—I am with you, and know how it is."
Walt Whitman, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,"
"The squaw wrapt in her yellow-hemmed cloth is offering moccasins and beadbags for sale, The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery with halfshut eyes bent sideways, The deckhands make fast the steamboat, the plank is thrown for the shoregoing passengers..."
Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself."
"It avails not, neither time or place—distance avails not; I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence; I project myself—also I return—I am with you, and know how it is."
Walt Whitman, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
"What is it, then, between us? What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us? Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not."
Walt Whitman, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
"The beards of the young men glisten'd with wet, it ran from their long hair / Little streams pass'd all over their bodies."
Walt Whitman, Song of Myself,
A child said What is the grass? Fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.
Walt Whitman, poem 6 in Song of Myself.
I appreciate her. And perhaps envy you. Oh, my girl's perfect; if I were a chronic invalid I'd—well, I think I'd rather be in Jenny's hands. There must be times... but there! I always wanted a brilliant daughter... and never quite understood why I got an angel instead."
Wharton, Roman Fever
Paul's Case
Willa Cather
"Above, about, within it all, was the rumble and roar, the hurry and toss of thousands of human beings as hot for pleasure as himself, and on every side of him towered the glaring affirmation of the omnipotence of wealth."
Willa Cather, "Paul's Case"
"During the last number he withdrew and, after hastily changing his clothes in the dressing room, slipped out to the side door where the soprano's carriage stood. Here he began pacing rapidly up and down the walk, waiting to see her come out."
Willa Cather, "Paul's Case"
"The carnations in his coat were drooping with the cold, he noticed; their red glory over"
Willa Cather, "Paul's Case"
"When he was told that he could go he bowed gracefully and went out. His bow was but a repetition of the scandalous red carnation."
Willa Cather, "Paul's Case"
All the while, in her duplex emotioning, she was aware that now at the very beginning she must put a guard upon herself against urging him, by any word or act, to take the part that her whole soul willed him to take, for the completion of her ideal of him. He was very nearly perfect as he was, and he must be allowed to perfect himself. But he was peculiar, and he might very well be reasoned out of his peculiarity. Before her reasoning went her emotioning: her nature pulling upon his nature, her womanhood upon his manhood, without her knowing the means she was using to the end she was willing. She had always supposed that the man who won her would have done something to win her; she did not know what, but something. George Gearson had simply asked her for her love, on the way home from a concert, and she gave her love to him, without, as it were, thinking. But now, it flashed upon her, if he could do something worthy to have won her--be a hero, her hero--it would be even better than if he had done it before asking her; it would be grander. Besides, she had believed in the war from the beginning.
William Dean Howells, "Editha."
