A friend talks about her:
Zahra is the sweet girl that you always wish to be friends with. She is beautiful and happy. She likes to go out and have fun all the time. A completely trust worthy girl and truthful even if telling the truth leaves her waist deep in trouble. I’ve never seen her cry. It seems that she is not the crying type of girl! She is very outgoing, you can talk about almost everything with her and never see the “I don’t like it” face. When it comes to the kitchen, she is the master. She cooks everything so delicious that you never forget the great taste of it. She likes English literature very much and likes to study it all the time. One thing! Do not expect her to act cool when she is stressed out!
Monday, June 9, 2008
Indians
“The Indian Character” by F. Parkman and “Among the Osage Indians in 1832” by Washington Irving, represent two contrasting views of the American Indians.
Irving has high opinion of Indians. He appreciated their appearance and their frank demeanor. As he says: “As the Osage drew near, I was struck by his appearance. He was about nineteen or twenty years of age, with the fine Roman countenance common to his tribe.” or “I compared the open, noble countenance and frank demeanor of the young Osage with the frontiersman.” But Parkman describes the Indians in his way “Nature has given the Indians a hard and stern countenance.”
As Irving mentions, Indians were eager to take part in the universal fondness for coffee and they relish it. In Parkman’s point of view the Indians will not learn the art of civilization and he disapproves their stern and unchanging mid.
As Irving had an opportunity of seeing Indians in their real life, he says that they are by no means the stoics that they are represented. He believes that their taciturnity and unbending is because of the fact that they do not trust white men and do not understand their language, but Parkman gives description such as “The Indians character are overcast by much that is dark, cold, and sinister, by sleepless distrust and burning jealousy.” or “ He hides all emotion with an iron self-control.”
Irving represents Indians as great mimics and buffoons when they are among themselves. He says that half their time is taken up in talking over their adventures in war and hunting and he witness their emotions both in mirth and at the death of a relative or friend, but Parkman claims that Indians hide all their emotion.
In my opinion Irving’s point of view is more positive and acceptable. He describes Indians like other human beings. He does not have that much prejudice towards Indians. I like the way he pictures Indians and Osage’s life.
“The Indian Character” by F. Parkman and “Among the Osage Indians in 1832” by Washington Irving, represent two contrasting views of the American Indians.
Irving has high opinion of Indians. He appreciated their appearance and their frank demeanor. As he says: “As the Osage drew near, I was struck by his appearance. He was about nineteen or twenty years of age, with the fine Roman countenance common to his tribe.” or “I compared the open, noble countenance and frank demeanor of the young Osage with the frontiersman.” But Parkman describes the Indians in his way “Nature has given the Indians a hard and stern countenance.”
As Irving mentions, Indians were eager to take part in the universal fondness for coffee and they relish it. In Parkman’s point of view the Indians will not learn the art of civilization and he disapproves their stern and unchanging mid.
As Irving had an opportunity of seeing Indians in their real life, he says that they are by no means the stoics that they are represented. He believes that their taciturnity and unbending is because of the fact that they do not trust white men and do not understand their language, but Parkman gives description such as “The Indians character are overcast by much that is dark, cold, and sinister, by sleepless distrust and burning jealousy.” or “ He hides all emotion with an iron self-control.”
Irving represents Indians as great mimics and buffoons when they are among themselves. He says that half their time is taken up in talking over their adventures in war and hunting and he witness their emotions both in mirth and at the death of a relative or friend, but Parkman claims that Indians hide all their emotion.
In my opinion Irving’s point of view is more positive and acceptable. He describes Indians like other human beings. He does not have that much prejudice towards Indians. I like the way he pictures Indians and Osage’s life.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Washington Irving (1783-1859)
Washington Irving (1783-1859)
American author, short story writer, essayist, poet, travel book writer, biographer, and columnist. Irving has been called the father of the American short story. He is best known for 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,' in which the schoolmaster Ichabold Crane meets with a headless horseman, and 'Rip Van Winkle,' about a man who falls asleep for 20 years.
"I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories." (from Tales of a Traveler, 1824)
Washington Irving was born in New York City as the youngest of 11 children. His father was a wealthy merchant, and his mother, an English woman, was the granddaughter of a clergyman. According to a story, George Washington met Irving, named after him, and gave his blessing. In the years to come Irving would write one of his greatest works, THE LIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON (1855-59).
Early in his life Irving developed a passion for books. He read Robinson Crusoe, Sinbad the Sailor, and The World Displyed (stories about voyages and travels). He studied law privately in the offices of Henry Masterton (1798), Brockholst Livingston (1801), and John Ogde Hoffman (1802), but practiced only briefly. From 1804 to 1806 he travelled widely Europe. He visited Marseilles, Genoa, Sicily, where he saw the famous English naval officer, Nelson, and met Washington Allston, the painter, in Rome. After return to the United States, Irving was admitted to New York bar in 1806. He was a partner with his brothers in the family hardware business, New York and Liverpool, England, and representative of the business in England until it collapsed in 1818. During the war of 1812 Irving was a military aide to New York Governor Tompkins in the U.S. Army.
Irving's career as a writer started in journals and newspapers. He contributed to Morning Chronicle (1802-03), which was edited by his brother Peter, and published Salmagundi (1807-08), writing in collaboration with his brother William and James Kirke Paulding. From 1812 to 1814 he was an editor of Analetic magazine in Philadelphia and New York.
Irving's success in social life and literature was shadowed by a personal tragedy. He was engaged to be married to Matilda Hoffmanm who died at the age of seventeen, in 1809. Later he wrote in a private letter, addressed to Mrs. Forster, as an answer to her inquiry why he had not been married: "For years I could not talk on the subject of this hopeless regret; I could not even mention her name; but her image was continually before me, and I dreamt of her incessantly."
In 1809 appeared Irving's comic history of the Dutch regime in New York, A HISTORY OF NEW YORK, by the imaginary 'Dietrich Knickerbocker', who was supposed to be an eccentric Dutch-American scholar. It was one of the earliest fantasies of history. The name Knickerbocker was later used to identify the first American school of writers, the Knickerbocker Group, of which Irving was a leading figure. The book became part of New York folklore, and eventually the word Knickerbocker was also used to describe any New Yorker who could trace one's family to the original Dutch settlers. Irving's success continued with THE SKETCH BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. (1819-20), a collection of stories, which allowed him to become a full-time writer. The stories were heavily influenced by the German folktales. In 1822 appeared a sequel of The Sketch Book, BRACEBRIDGE HALL. Irving invites the reader to ramble gently with him at the Hall, stating that "I am not writing a novel, and have nothing of intricate plot, or marvelous adventure, to promise the reader."
After the death of his mother, Irving decided to stay in Europe, where he remained for seventeen years from 1815 to 1832. He lived in Dresden (1822-23), London (1824) and Paris (1825). In England Irving had a romantic liaison with Mary Shelley. Eventually he settled in Spain, where he worked for financial reasons for the U.S. Embassy in Madrid (1826-29). In 1829-32 Irving was a secretary to the American Legation under Martin Van Buren. During his stay in Spain, he wrote COLUMBUS (1828), CONQUEST OF GRANADA (1829), and THE COMPANIONS OF COLUMBUS (1831), all based on careful historical research. In 1829 he moved to London and published ALHAMBRA (1832), concerning the history and the legends of Moorish Spain. Among his literary friends were Mary Shelley and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
In 1832 Irving returned to New York to an enthusiastic welcome as the first American author to have achieved international fame. He toured the southern and western United States and wrote THE CAYON MISCELLANY (1835) and A TOUR OF THE PRAIRIES (1835), an account of a journey, which extended from Fort Gibson, at that time a frontier post of the Far West, to the Cross Timbers in what is now Oklahoma. His fellow-travelers included Henry Leavitt Ellsworth (1791-1858), who also wrote an interesting narrative of the tour, and Charles Joseph Latrobe (1801-1875), whom Irving described as a "man of a thousand occupations; a botanist, a geologist, a hunter of beetles and butterflies, a musical amateur, a sketcher of no mean pretensions, in short, a complete virtuoso".
From 1836 to 1842 Irving lived at Sunnyside manor house, Tarrytown-on-Hudson. When his old friend, Charles Dickens, visited America, he saw also Irving and celebrated their reunion with a speech: "There is in this city a gentleman who, at the reception of one of my books—I well remember it was the Old Curiosity Shop—wrote to me in England a letter so generous, so affectionate, and so manly, that if I had written the book under every circumstance of disappointment, of discouragement, and difficulty, instead of the reverse, I should have found in the receipt of that letter my best and most happy reward. I answered him, and he answered me, and so we kept shaking hands autographically, as if no ocean rolled between us. I came here to this city eager to see him, and [laying his hand upon Irving’s shoulder] here he sits! I need not tell you how happy and delighted I am to see him here to-night in this capacity." After working for three months on the History of the Conquest of Mexico, Irving found out that the famous historian William Prescott had decided to write a book on the same subject and abandoned his theme, "to be treated by one who will built up from it an enduring monument in the literature of our country." Between the years 1842-45 Irving was U.S. Ambassador in Spain. The appointment was sponsored by Daniel Webster, who was the Secretary of State. At the age of sixty-two Irving wrote to his friends in America: "My hear yearns for home; and I have now probably turned the last corner in life, and my remaining years are growing scanty in number, I begrude every one that I am obliged to pass separated from my cottage and my kindred...."
Irving spent the last years of his life in Tarrytown. From 1848 to 1859 he was President of Astor Library, later New York Public Library. Irving's later publications include MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS (1850), a carefull presentation of the life, beliefs, and character of Mohammed, WOLFERT'S ROOST (1855), and his five-volume The Life of George Washington. Irving died in Tarrytown on November 28, 1859. Just before retiring for the night, the author had said: "Well, I must arrange my pillows for another weary night! If this could only end!" Irving's major works were published in 1860-61 in 21 volumes.
As an essayist Irving was not interested in the meaning of nature like Emerson or self-inspection like Montaigne. He observered the vanishing pasts of old Europe, the riverside Creole villages of Louisiana, the old Pawnee hunting grounds of Oklahoma, and how ladies fashion moves from one extreme to the other. 'Geoffrey Crayon' was his most prolific fictional mask. Irving once wrote: "There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature." He was the earliest literary figure of the American abroad, who appeared in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., in which also Irving's best-known story 'Rip Van Winkle' was included. It was based on a German folktale, set in the Dutch culture of Pre-Revolutionary War in New York State.
Rip Van Winkle is a farmer who wanders into the Catskill Mountains. He meets there a group of dwarfs playing ninepipes. Rip helps a dwarf and is rewarded with a draught of liquor. He falls into an enchanted sleep. When he awakens, 20 years later, the world has changed. He is an old man with a long, white beard. Rip goes into town and finds everything changed. His wife is dead, his children are grown. The old man entertains the people with tales of the old days and his encounter with the dwarfs. - The theme of Irving's story derives from Diogenes Laertius, Epimenides (c. 200), in which Epimenides is sent by his father into the field to look for a sheep; he lays down in a cave and sleeps fifty-seven years. When awake, he goes on looking for the sheep, thinking that he had been taking a short snap.
Irving also used other German folktales in his short stories, among them The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. "The headless horseman was often seen here. An old man who did not believe in ghosts told of meeting the headless horseman coming from his trip into the Hollow. The horseman made him climb up behind. They rode over bushes, hills, and swamps. When they reached the bridge, the horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton. He threw the old man into the brook and sprang away over the treetops with a clap of thunder." The story was probably based on a story by Karl Musäus (1735-1787), a German academic writer, who was among the first to collect local folktales. This story popularized the image of the headless horseman, and formed the basis for an operetta by Douglas Moore, The Headless Horseman, with libretto by Stephen Vincent Benét. The tale was filmed as the second half of Disney's animated movie The Adventures of Ichabold and Mr Toad (1949). Tim Burton's film version from 1999 has darkened and partly changed the story. The protagonist, Ichabold Crane, is a constable from New York, not a schoolteacher. He believes in rational methods of detection, and is sent in the farming community of Sleepy Hollow in the of upstate New York to investigate three recent murders. The townspeople know who the culprit is: a long-dead Hessian mercenary nicknamed the Headless Horseman who was killed during the Revolutionary War and buried in the Western Woods.
For further reading: Washington Irving: The Critical Reaction, ed. by James W. Tuttleton (1993); Critical Essays on Washington Irving by Ralph M. Aderman (1990); Adrift in the Old World: The Psychological Pilgrimage of Washington Irving by Jeffrey Rubin-Dosky (1988); Washington Irving by William L. Hedges (1965); The Life and Letters of Washington Irving by B.M. Irving (1967, 4 vols.; original edition 1862-64), The Life of Washington Irving by Stanley T. Williams (1935, 2 vols.) - Note 1: Among Irving's s friends in England was Sir Walter Scott. - Note 2: In Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 the central character, Captain Yossarian, signs the censored letters of the soldiers with the name Washington Irving (or Irving Washington) - SEE ALSO: Mark Twain whose early short stories arouse from the various folk and humorous traditions. - In Finnish: Irvingin novelli 'Rip Van Winkle' on suomennettu antologiassa Amerikkalaisia kertojia.
Selected works:
LETTERS OF JONATHAN OLDSTYLE, 1802
SALMAGUNDI, 1807 (with William I. and J.K. Paulding)
A HISTORY OF NEW YORK, BY DIETRICH KNICKERBOCKER, 1809
THE SKETCH BOOK, 1819-20 (as Geoffrey Crayon) - contains 'Rip Van Winkle' and 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' - film adaptations: The Adventures of Ichabold and Mr Toad (1949) ; Sleepy Hollow, dir. by Tim Burton (1999), starring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Michael Gambon, Miranda Richardson, Christopher Walken, Casper Van Dien, Jeffrey Jones, Martin Landau
BRACEBRIDGE HALL, 1822
LETTERS OF JONATHAN OLDSTYLE, GENT., 1824
TALES OF A TRAVELLER, 1824
A HISTORY AND VOYAGES OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, 1828
THE CHRONICLE OF THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA, 1829
THE COMPANIONS OF COLUMBUS, 1831
THE ALHAMBRA, 1832 - Alhambra
A TOUR ON THE PRAIRIES, 1835
ABBOTSFORD AND NEWSTEAD ABBEY, 1835
THE CRAYON MISCELLANY, 1835 (3 vols.)
ASTORIA, 1836
ESSAYS AND SKETCHES, 1837
THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE, 1837
THE LIFE OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 1840
WORKS, 1848-51 (15 vols.)
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS, 1849
THE LIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1855-59
WOLFERT'S ROOST, 1855
SPANISH PAPERS AND OTHER MISCELLANIES, 1866
ABU HASSAN, 1924
THE WILD HUNTSMAN, 1924
COMPLETE WORKS, 1969-89 (30 vols.)
American author, short story writer, essayist, poet, travel book writer, biographer, and columnist. Irving has been called the father of the American short story. He is best known for 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,' in which the schoolmaster Ichabold Crane meets with a headless horseman, and 'Rip Van Winkle,' about a man who falls asleep for 20 years.
"I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories." (from Tales of a Traveler, 1824)
Washington Irving was born in New York City as the youngest of 11 children. His father was a wealthy merchant, and his mother, an English woman, was the granddaughter of a clergyman. According to a story, George Washington met Irving, named after him, and gave his blessing. In the years to come Irving would write one of his greatest works, THE LIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON (1855-59).
Early in his life Irving developed a passion for books. He read Robinson Crusoe, Sinbad the Sailor, and The World Displyed (stories about voyages and travels). He studied law privately in the offices of Henry Masterton (1798), Brockholst Livingston (1801), and John Ogde Hoffman (1802), but practiced only briefly. From 1804 to 1806 he travelled widely Europe. He visited Marseilles, Genoa, Sicily, where he saw the famous English naval officer, Nelson, and met Washington Allston, the painter, in Rome. After return to the United States, Irving was admitted to New York bar in 1806. He was a partner with his brothers in the family hardware business, New York and Liverpool, England, and representative of the business in England until it collapsed in 1818. During the war of 1812 Irving was a military aide to New York Governor Tompkins in the U.S. Army.
Irving's career as a writer started in journals and newspapers. He contributed to Morning Chronicle (1802-03), which was edited by his brother Peter, and published Salmagundi (1807-08), writing in collaboration with his brother William and James Kirke Paulding. From 1812 to 1814 he was an editor of Analetic magazine in Philadelphia and New York.
Irving's success in social life and literature was shadowed by a personal tragedy. He was engaged to be married to Matilda Hoffmanm who died at the age of seventeen, in 1809. Later he wrote in a private letter, addressed to Mrs. Forster, as an answer to her inquiry why he had not been married: "For years I could not talk on the subject of this hopeless regret; I could not even mention her name; but her image was continually before me, and I dreamt of her incessantly."
In 1809 appeared Irving's comic history of the Dutch regime in New York, A HISTORY OF NEW YORK, by the imaginary 'Dietrich Knickerbocker', who was supposed to be an eccentric Dutch-American scholar. It was one of the earliest fantasies of history. The name Knickerbocker was later used to identify the first American school of writers, the Knickerbocker Group, of which Irving was a leading figure. The book became part of New York folklore, and eventually the word Knickerbocker was also used to describe any New Yorker who could trace one's family to the original Dutch settlers. Irving's success continued with THE SKETCH BOOK OF GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT. (1819-20), a collection of stories, which allowed him to become a full-time writer. The stories were heavily influenced by the German folktales. In 1822 appeared a sequel of The Sketch Book, BRACEBRIDGE HALL. Irving invites the reader to ramble gently with him at the Hall, stating that "I am not writing a novel, and have nothing of intricate plot, or marvelous adventure, to promise the reader."
After the death of his mother, Irving decided to stay in Europe, where he remained for seventeen years from 1815 to 1832. He lived in Dresden (1822-23), London (1824) and Paris (1825). In England Irving had a romantic liaison with Mary Shelley. Eventually he settled in Spain, where he worked for financial reasons for the U.S. Embassy in Madrid (1826-29). In 1829-32 Irving was a secretary to the American Legation under Martin Van Buren. During his stay in Spain, he wrote COLUMBUS (1828), CONQUEST OF GRANADA (1829), and THE COMPANIONS OF COLUMBUS (1831), all based on careful historical research. In 1829 he moved to London and published ALHAMBRA (1832), concerning the history and the legends of Moorish Spain. Among his literary friends were Mary Shelley and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
In 1832 Irving returned to New York to an enthusiastic welcome as the first American author to have achieved international fame. He toured the southern and western United States and wrote THE CAYON MISCELLANY (1835) and A TOUR OF THE PRAIRIES (1835), an account of a journey, which extended from Fort Gibson, at that time a frontier post of the Far West, to the Cross Timbers in what is now Oklahoma. His fellow-travelers included Henry Leavitt Ellsworth (1791-1858), who also wrote an interesting narrative of the tour, and Charles Joseph Latrobe (1801-1875), whom Irving described as a "man of a thousand occupations; a botanist, a geologist, a hunter of beetles and butterflies, a musical amateur, a sketcher of no mean pretensions, in short, a complete virtuoso".
From 1836 to 1842 Irving lived at Sunnyside manor house, Tarrytown-on-Hudson. When his old friend, Charles Dickens, visited America, he saw also Irving and celebrated their reunion with a speech: "There is in this city a gentleman who, at the reception of one of my books—I well remember it was the Old Curiosity Shop—wrote to me in England a letter so generous, so affectionate, and so manly, that if I had written the book under every circumstance of disappointment, of discouragement, and difficulty, instead of the reverse, I should have found in the receipt of that letter my best and most happy reward. I answered him, and he answered me, and so we kept shaking hands autographically, as if no ocean rolled between us. I came here to this city eager to see him, and [laying his hand upon Irving’s shoulder] here he sits! I need not tell you how happy and delighted I am to see him here to-night in this capacity." After working for three months on the History of the Conquest of Mexico, Irving found out that the famous historian William Prescott had decided to write a book on the same subject and abandoned his theme, "to be treated by one who will built up from it an enduring monument in the literature of our country." Between the years 1842-45 Irving was U.S. Ambassador in Spain. The appointment was sponsored by Daniel Webster, who was the Secretary of State. At the age of sixty-two Irving wrote to his friends in America: "My hear yearns for home; and I have now probably turned the last corner in life, and my remaining years are growing scanty in number, I begrude every one that I am obliged to pass separated from my cottage and my kindred...."
Irving spent the last years of his life in Tarrytown. From 1848 to 1859 he was President of Astor Library, later New York Public Library. Irving's later publications include MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS (1850), a carefull presentation of the life, beliefs, and character of Mohammed, WOLFERT'S ROOST (1855), and his five-volume The Life of George Washington. Irving died in Tarrytown on November 28, 1859. Just before retiring for the night, the author had said: "Well, I must arrange my pillows for another weary night! If this could only end!" Irving's major works were published in 1860-61 in 21 volumes.
As an essayist Irving was not interested in the meaning of nature like Emerson or self-inspection like Montaigne. He observered the vanishing pasts of old Europe, the riverside Creole villages of Louisiana, the old Pawnee hunting grounds of Oklahoma, and how ladies fashion moves from one extreme to the other. 'Geoffrey Crayon' was his most prolific fictional mask. Irving once wrote: "There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles of human nature." He was the earliest literary figure of the American abroad, who appeared in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., in which also Irving's best-known story 'Rip Van Winkle' was included. It was based on a German folktale, set in the Dutch culture of Pre-Revolutionary War in New York State.
Rip Van Winkle is a farmer who wanders into the Catskill Mountains. He meets there a group of dwarfs playing ninepipes. Rip helps a dwarf and is rewarded with a draught of liquor. He falls into an enchanted sleep. When he awakens, 20 years later, the world has changed. He is an old man with a long, white beard. Rip goes into town and finds everything changed. His wife is dead, his children are grown. The old man entertains the people with tales of the old days and his encounter with the dwarfs. - The theme of Irving's story derives from Diogenes Laertius, Epimenides (c. 200), in which Epimenides is sent by his father into the field to look for a sheep; he lays down in a cave and sleeps fifty-seven years. When awake, he goes on looking for the sheep, thinking that he had been taking a short snap.
Irving also used other German folktales in his short stories, among them The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. "The headless horseman was often seen here. An old man who did not believe in ghosts told of meeting the headless horseman coming from his trip into the Hollow. The horseman made him climb up behind. They rode over bushes, hills, and swamps. When they reached the bridge, the horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton. He threw the old man into the brook and sprang away over the treetops with a clap of thunder." The story was probably based on a story by Karl Musäus (1735-1787), a German academic writer, who was among the first to collect local folktales. This story popularized the image of the headless horseman, and formed the basis for an operetta by Douglas Moore, The Headless Horseman, with libretto by Stephen Vincent Benét. The tale was filmed as the second half of Disney's animated movie The Adventures of Ichabold and Mr Toad (1949). Tim Burton's film version from 1999 has darkened and partly changed the story. The protagonist, Ichabold Crane, is a constable from New York, not a schoolteacher. He believes in rational methods of detection, and is sent in the farming community of Sleepy Hollow in the of upstate New York to investigate three recent murders. The townspeople know who the culprit is: a long-dead Hessian mercenary nicknamed the Headless Horseman who was killed during the Revolutionary War and buried in the Western Woods.
For further reading: Washington Irving: The Critical Reaction, ed. by James W. Tuttleton (1993); Critical Essays on Washington Irving by Ralph M. Aderman (1990); Adrift in the Old World: The Psychological Pilgrimage of Washington Irving by Jeffrey Rubin-Dosky (1988); Washington Irving by William L. Hedges (1965); The Life and Letters of Washington Irving by B.M. Irving (1967, 4 vols.; original edition 1862-64), The Life of Washington Irving by Stanley T. Williams (1935, 2 vols.) - Note 1: Among Irving's s friends in England was Sir Walter Scott. - Note 2: In Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 the central character, Captain Yossarian, signs the censored letters of the soldiers with the name Washington Irving (or Irving Washington) - SEE ALSO: Mark Twain whose early short stories arouse from the various folk and humorous traditions. - In Finnish: Irvingin novelli 'Rip Van Winkle' on suomennettu antologiassa Amerikkalaisia kertojia.
Selected works:
LETTERS OF JONATHAN OLDSTYLE, 1802
SALMAGUNDI, 1807 (with William I. and J.K. Paulding)
A HISTORY OF NEW YORK, BY DIETRICH KNICKERBOCKER, 1809
THE SKETCH BOOK, 1819-20 (as Geoffrey Crayon) - contains 'Rip Van Winkle' and 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' - film adaptations: The Adventures of Ichabold and Mr Toad (1949) ; Sleepy Hollow, dir. by Tim Burton (1999), starring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Michael Gambon, Miranda Richardson, Christopher Walken, Casper Van Dien, Jeffrey Jones, Martin Landau
BRACEBRIDGE HALL, 1822
LETTERS OF JONATHAN OLDSTYLE, GENT., 1824
TALES OF A TRAVELLER, 1824
A HISTORY AND VOYAGES OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, 1828
THE CHRONICLE OF THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA, 1829
THE COMPANIONS OF COLUMBUS, 1831
THE ALHAMBRA, 1832 - Alhambra
A TOUR ON THE PRAIRIES, 1835
ABBOTSFORD AND NEWSTEAD ABBEY, 1835
THE CRAYON MISCELLANY, 1835 (3 vols.)
ASTORIA, 1836
ESSAYS AND SKETCHES, 1837
THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE, 1837
THE LIFE OF OLIVER GOLDSMITH, 1840
WORKS, 1848-51 (15 vols.)
MAHOMET AND HIS SUCCESSORS, 1849
THE LIFE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1855-59
WOLFERT'S ROOST, 1855
SPANISH PAPERS AND OTHER MISCELLANIES, 1866
ABU HASSAN, 1924
THE WILD HUNTSMAN, 1924
COMPLETE WORKS, 1969-89 (30 vols.)
Francis Parkman
Francis Parkman
Francis Parkman (September 16, 1823 – November 8, 1893) was an American historian, best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and his monumental seven volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as history and especially as literature, although the biases of his work have met with criticism. He was also a leading horticulturist, briefly a Professor of Horticulture at Harvard University and the first leader of the Arnold Arboretum, originator of several flowers, and author of several books on the topic.
Biography
Parkman was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Reverend Francis Parkman Sr. (1788-1852) and Caroline (Hall) Parkman. As a young boy, 'Frank' Parkman was found to be of poor health, and was sent to live with his maternal grandfather, who owned a 3000 acre (12 km²) tract of wilderness in nearby Medford, Massachusetts, in the hopes that a more rustic lifestyle would make him more sturdy. In the four years he stayed there, Parkman developed his love of the forests, which would animate his historical research. Indeed, he would later summarize his books as "the history of the American forest." He learned how to sleep and hunt, and could survive in the wilderness like a true pioneer. He later even learned to ride bareback, a skill that would come in handy when he found himself living with the Sioux.
Francis Parkman House, a Registered National Historic Monument on Beacon Hill
Parkman enrolled at Harvard College at age 16. In his second year he conceived the plan that would become his life's work. In 1843, at the age of 20, he traveled to Europe for eight months in the fashion of the Grand Tour. Parkman made expeditions through the Alps and the Apennine mountains, climbed Vesuvius, and even lived for a time in Rome, where he befriended Passionist monks who tried, unsuccessfully, to convert him to Catholicism.
Upon graduation in 1846, he was persuaded to get a law degree, his father hoping such study would rid Parkman of his desire to write his history of the forests. It did no such thing, and after finishing law school Parkman proceeded to fulfill his great plan. His family was somewhat appalled at Parkman's choice of life work, since at the time writing histories of the American wilderness was considered ungentlemanly. Serious historians would study ancient history, or after the fashion of the time, the Spanish Empire. Parkman's works became so well-received that by the end of his lifetime histories of early America had become the fashion. Theodore Roosevelt dedicated his four-volume history of the frontier, The Winning of the West (1889-1896), to Parkman.
In 1846, Parkman travelled west on a hunting expedition, where he spent a number of weeks living with the Sioux tribe, at a time when they were struggling with some of the effects of contact with Europeans, such as epidemic disease and alcoholism. This experience led Parkman to write about American Indians with a much different tone from earlier, more sympathetic portrayals represented by the "noble savage" stereotype. Writing in the era of Manifest Destiny, Parkman believed that the conquest and displacement of American Indians represented progress, a triumph of "civilization" over "savagery", a common view at the time.[1]
A scion of a wealthy Boston family, Parkman had enough money to pursue his research without having to worry too much about finances. His financial stability was enhanced by his modest lifestyle, and later, by the royalties from his book sales. He was thus able to commit much of his time to research, as well as to travel. He travelled across North America, visiting most of the historical locations he wrote about, and made frequent trips to Europe seeking original documents with which to further his research.
Parkman Memorial, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
Parkman's accomplishments are all the more impressive in light of the fact that he suffered from a debilitating neurological illness, which plagued him his entire life, and which was never properly diagnosed. He was often unable to walk, and for long periods he was effectively blind, being unable to stand but the slightest amount of light. Much of his research involved having people read documents to him, and much of his writing was written in the dark, or dictated to others.
Parkman married Catherine Scollay Bigelow on May 13, 1850; they had three children. A son died in childhood, and shortly afterwards, his wife died. He successfully raised two daughters, introducing them in to Boston society and seeing them both wed, with families of their own. He died at age 70 in Jamaica Plain. The Parkman School in Forest Hills bears his name.
Selected works
The Oregon Trail (1847)
The Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851)
Vassall Morton (1856), a novel
The Pioneers of France in the New World (1865) Gutenberg
The Book of Roses (1866)
The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century (1867) Gutenberg
La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West (1869)
The Old Régime in Canada (1874)
Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV (1877)Gutenberg
Montcalm and Wolfe (1884) Gutenberg
A Half Century of Conflict (1892) vol 2 Gutenberg
The Journals of Francis Parkman. Two Volumes. Edited by Mason Wade. New York: Harper, 1947.
The Letters of Francis Parkman. Two Volumes. Edited by Wilbur R. Jacobs. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1960.
The Battle for North America. A single-volume abridgement of France and England in North America, edited by John Tebbel. Doubleday 1948.
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson wished to be remembered for three achievements in his public life. He had served as governor of Virginia, as U.S. minister to France, as secretary of state under George Washington, as vice-president in the administration of John Adams, and as president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. On his tombstone, however, which he designed and for which he wrote the inscription, there is no mention of these offices. Rather, it reads that Thomas Jefferson was "author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia" and, as he requested, "not a word more." Historians might want to add other accomplishments--for example, his distinction as an architect, naturalist, and linguist--but in the main they would concur with his own assessment.
Early Life
Jefferson was born at Shadwell in what is now Albemarle County, Va., on Apr. 13, 1743. He treated his pedigree lightly, but his mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson, came from one of the first families of Virginia; his father, Peter Jefferson, was a well-to-do landowner, although not in the class of the wealthiest planters. Jefferson attended (1760-62) the College of William and Mary and then studied law with George WYTHE. In 1769 he began six years of service as a representative in the Virginia House of Burgesses. The following year he began building Monticello on land inherited from his father. The mansion, which he designed in every detail, took years to complete, but part of it was ready for occupancy when he married Martha Wayles Skelton on Jan. 1, 1772. They had six children, two of whom survived into adulthood:Martha Washington Jefferson (1772-1836); Jane Randolph Jefferson (1774-75); infant son (1777); Mary Jefferson (1778-1804); Lucy Elizabeth Jefferson (1780-81); Lucy Elizabeth Jefferson (1782-84)
Jefferson's reputation began to reach beyond Virginia in 1774, when he wrote a political pamphlet, A Summary View of the Rights of British America. Arguing on the basis of natural rights theory, Jefferson claimed that colonial allegiance to the king was voluntary. "The God who gave us life," he wrote, "gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them."
Declaration of Independence
Elected to the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, Jefferson was appointed on June 11, 1776, to head a committee of five in preparing the Declaration of Independence. He was its primary author, although his initial draft was amended after consultation with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams and altered both stylistically and substantively by Congress. Jefferson's reference to the voluntary allegiance of colonists to the crown was struck; also deleted was a clause that censured the monarchy for imposing slavery upon America.
Based upon the same natural rights theory contained in A Summary View, to which it bears a strong resemblance, the Declaration of Independence made Jefferson internationally famous. Years later that fame evoked the jealousy of John Adams, who complained that the declaration's ideas were "hackneyed." Jefferson agreed; he wrote of the declaration, "Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind."
Revolutionary Leader
Returning to Virginia late in 1776, Jefferson served until 1779 in the House of Delegates, one of the two houses of the General Assembly of Virginia--established in 1776 by the state's new constitution. While the American Revolution continued, Jefferson sought to liberalize Virginia's laws. Joined by his old law teacher, George Wythe, and by James Madison and George Mason, Jefferson introduced a number of bills that were resisted fiercely by those representing the conservative planter class. In 1776 he succeeded in obtaining the abolition of entail; his proposal to abolish primogeniture became law in 1785. Jefferson proudly noted that "these laws, drawn by myself, laid the ax to the foot of pseudoaristocracy."
Jefferson was also instrumental in devising a major revision of the criminal code, although it was not enacted until 1796. His bill to create a free system of tax-supported elementary education for all except slaves was defeated as were his bills to create a public library and to modernize the curriculum of the College of William and Mary.
In June 1779 the introduction of Jefferson's bill on religious liberty touched off a quarrel that caused turmoil in Virginia for 8 years. The bill was significant as no other state--indeed, no other nation--provided for complete religious liberty at that time. Jefferson's bill stated "that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions on matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." Many Virginians regarded the bill as an attack upon Christianity. It did not pass until 1786, and then mainly through the perseverance of James Madison. Jefferson, by then in France, congratulated Madison, adding that "it is honorable for us to have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions."
Wartime Governor of Virginia
In June 1779, Jefferson was elected governor of Virginia. His political enemies criticized his performance as war governor mercilessly. He was charged with failure to provide for the adequate defense of Richmond in 1780-81, although he knew a British invasion was imminent, and of cowardice and "pusillanimous conduct" when he fled the capital during the moment of crisis. In June 1781 he retired from the governorship. The Virginia assembly subsequently voted that "an inquiry be made into the conduct of the executive of this state." Jefferson was exonerated: in fact, the assembly unanimously voted a resolution of appreciation of his conduct. The episode left Jefferson bitter, however, about the rewards of public service.
Money and the Ordinance of 1784
The death of his wife, on Sept. 6, 1782, added to Jefferson's troubles, but by the following year he was again seated in Congress. There he made two contributions of enduring importance to the nation. In April 1784 he submitted Notes on the Establishment of a Money Unit and of a Coinage for the United States in which he advised the use of a decimal system. This report led to the adoption (1792) of the dollar, rather than the pound, as the basic monetary unit in the United States.
As chairman of the committee dealing with the government of western lands, Jefferson submitted proposals so liberal and farsighted as to constitute, when enacted, the most progressive colonial policy of any nation in modern history. The proposed ordinance of 1784 reflected Jefferson's belief that the western territories should be self-governing and, when they reached a certain stage of growth, should be admitted to the Union as full partners with the original 13 states. Jefferson also proposed that slavery should be excluded from all of the American western territories after 1800. Although he himself was a slaveowner, he believed that slavery was an evil that should not be permitted to spread. In 1784 the provision banning slavery was narrowly defeated. Had one representative (John Beatty of New Jersey), sick and confined to his lodging, been present, the vote would have been different. "Thus," Jefferson later reflected, "we see the fate of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man, and heaven was silent in that awful moment." Although Congress approved the proposed ordinance of 1784, it was never put into effect; its main features were incorporated, however, in the Ordinance of 1787, which established the Northwest Territory. Moreover, slavery was prohibited in the Northwest Territory.
Minister to France
From 1784 to 1789, Jefferson lived outside the United States. He was sent to Paris initially as a commissioner to help negotiate commercial treaties; then in 1785 he succeeded Benjamin Franklin as minister to France. Most European countries, however, were indifferent to American economic overtures. "They seemed, in fact," Jefferson wrote, "to know little about us. . . . They were ignorant of our commerce, and of the exchange of articles it might offer advantageously to both parties." Only one country, Prussia, signed a pact based on a model treaty drafted by Jefferson.
During these years Jefferson followed events in the United States with understandable interest. He advised against any harsh punishment of those responsible for Shay's Rebellion (1786-87) in Massachusetts. He worried particularly that the new Constitution of the United States lacked a bill of rights and failed to limit the number of terms for the presidency. In France he witnessed the beginning of the French Revolution, but he doubted whether the French people could duplicate the American example of republican government. His advice, more conservative than might be anticipated, was that France emulate the British system of constitutional monarchy.
Secretary of State
When Jefferson left Paris on Sept. 26, 1789, he expected to return to his post. On that date and unknown to him, however, Congress confirmed his appointment as secretary of state in the first administration of George Washington. Jefferson accepted the position with some reluctance and largely because of Washington's insistence. He immediately expressed his alarm at the regal forms and ceremonies that marked the executive office, but his fears were tempered somewhat by his confidence in the character of Washington.
Jefferson, however, distrusted both the proposals and the motives of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. He thought Hamilton's financial programs both unwise and unconstitutional, flowing "from principles adverse to liberty." On the issue of federal assumption of state debts, Jefferson struck a bargain with Hamilton permitting assumption to pass--a concession that he later regretted. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to persuade Washington to veto the bill incorporating a Bank of the United States--recommended by Hamilton.
Jefferson suspected Hamilton and others in the emerging Federalist Party of a secret design to implant monarchist ideals and institutions in the government. The disagreements spilled over into foreign affairs. Hamilton was pro-British, and Jefferson was by inclination pro-French, although he directed the office of secretary of state with notable objectivity. The more Washington sided with Hamilton, the more Jefferson became dissatisfied with his minority position within the cabinet. Finally, after being twice dissuaded from resigning, Jefferson did so on Dec. 31, 1793.
Brief Retirement
At home for the next three years, Jefferson devoted himself to farm and family. He experimented with a new plow and other ingenious inventions, built a nail factory, commenced the rebuilding of Monticello, set out a thousand peach trees, received distinguished guests from abroad, and welcomed the visits of his grandchildren. But he also followed national and international developments with a mounting sense of foreboding. "From the moment of my retiring from the administration," he later wrote, "the Federalists got unchecked hold on General Washington." Jefferson thought Washington's expedition to suppress the Whiskey rebellion (1794) an unnecessary use of military force. He deplored Washington's denunciation of the Democratic societies and considered Jay's Treaty (1794) with Britain a "monument of folly and venality."
Vice-President
Thus Jefferson welcomed Washington's decision not to run for a third term in 1796. Jefferson became the reluctant presidential candidate of the Democratic-Republican party, and he seemed genuinely relieved when the Federalist candidate, John Adams, gained a narrow electoral college victory (71 to 68). As the runner-up, however, Jefferson became vice-president under the system then in effect.
Jefferson hoped that he could work with Adams, as of old, especially since both men shared an anti-Hamilton bias. But those hopes were soon dashed. Relations with France deteriorated. In 1798, in the wake of the XYZ AFFAIR, the so-called Quasi-War began. New taxes were imposed and the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) threatened the freedom of Americans. Jefferson, laboring to check the authoritarian drift of the national government, secretly authored the Kentucky Resolution. More important, he provided his party with principles and strategy, aiming to win the election of 1800.
President
Jefferson's triumph was delayed temporarily as a result of a tie in electoral ballots with his running mate, Aaron BURR, which shifted the election to the House of Representatives. There Hamilton's influence helped Jefferson to prevail, although most Federalists supported Burr as the lesser evil. In his inaugural speech Jefferson held out an olive branch to his political enemies, inviting them to bury the partisanship of the past decade, to unite now as Americans.
Federalist leaders remained adamantly opposed to Jefferson, but the people approved his policies. Internal taxes were reduced; the military budget was cut; the Alien and Sedition Acts were permitted to lapse; and plans were made to extinguish the public debt. Simplicity and frugality became the hallmarks of Jefferson's administration. The Louisiana Purchase (1803) capped his achievements. Ironically, Jefferson had to overcome constitutional scruples in order to take over the vast new territory without authorization by constitutional amendment. In this instance it was his Federalist critics who became the constitutional purists. Nonetheless, the purchase was received with popular enthusiasm. In the election of 1804, Jefferson swept every state except two--Connecticut and Delaware. Jefferson's second administration began with a minor success--the favorable settlement concluding the TRIPOLITAN WAR (1801-05), in which the newly created U.S. Navy fought its first engagements. The following year the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which the president had dispatched to explore the Louisiana Territory, returned triumphantly after crossing the continent. The West was also a source of trouble, however. The disaffected Aaron Burr engaged in a conspiracy, the details of which are still obscure, either to establish an independent republic in the Louisiana Territory or to launch an invasion of Spanish-held Mexico. Jefferson acted swiftly to arrest Burr early in 1807 and bring him to trial for treason. Burr was acquitted, however.
Jefferson's main concern in his second administration was foreign affairs, in which he experienced a notable failure. In the course of the Napoleonic Wars Britain and France repeatedly violated American sovereignty in incidents such as the Chesapeake affair (1807). Jefferson attempted to avoid a policy of either appeasement or war by the use of economic pressure.
The Embargo Ace (Dec. 22, 1807), which prohibited virtually all exports and most imports and was supplemented by enforcing legislation, was designed to coerce British and French recognition of American rights. Although it failed, it did rouse many northerners, who suffered economically, to a state of defiance of national authority. The Federalist party experienced a rebirth of popularity. In 1809, shortly before he retired from the presidency, Jefferson signed the act repealing the embargo, which had been in effect for 15 months.
Later Life
In the final 17 years of his life, Jefferson's major accomplishment was the founding (1819) of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. He conceived it, planned it, designed it, and supervised both its construction and the hiring of faculty.
The university was the last of three contributions by which Jefferson wished to be remembered; they constituted a trilogy of interrelated causes: freedom from Britain, freedom of conscience, and freedom maintained through education. On July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson died at Monticello.
Thomas Jefferson wished to be remembered for three achievements in his public life. He had served as governor of Virginia, as U.S. minister to France, as secretary of state under George Washington, as vice-president in the administration of John Adams, and as president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. On his tombstone, however, which he designed and for which he wrote the inscription, there is no mention of these offices. Rather, it reads that Thomas Jefferson was "author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia" and, as he requested, "not a word more." Historians might want to add other accomplishments--for example, his distinction as an architect, naturalist, and linguist--but in the main they would concur with his own assessment.
Early Life
Jefferson was born at Shadwell in what is now Albemarle County, Va., on Apr. 13, 1743. He treated his pedigree lightly, but his mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson, came from one of the first families of Virginia; his father, Peter Jefferson, was a well-to-do landowner, although not in the class of the wealthiest planters. Jefferson attended (1760-62) the College of William and Mary and then studied law with George WYTHE. In 1769 he began six years of service as a representative in the Virginia House of Burgesses. The following year he began building Monticello on land inherited from his father. The mansion, which he designed in every detail, took years to complete, but part of it was ready for occupancy when he married Martha Wayles Skelton on Jan. 1, 1772. They had six children, two of whom survived into adulthood:Martha Washington Jefferson (1772-1836); Jane Randolph Jefferson (1774-75); infant son (1777); Mary Jefferson (1778-1804); Lucy Elizabeth Jefferson (1780-81); Lucy Elizabeth Jefferson (1782-84)
Jefferson's reputation began to reach beyond Virginia in 1774, when he wrote a political pamphlet, A Summary View of the Rights of British America. Arguing on the basis of natural rights theory, Jefferson claimed that colonial allegiance to the king was voluntary. "The God who gave us life," he wrote, "gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them."
Declaration of Independence
Elected to the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, Jefferson was appointed on June 11, 1776, to head a committee of five in preparing the Declaration of Independence. He was its primary author, although his initial draft was amended after consultation with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams and altered both stylistically and substantively by Congress. Jefferson's reference to the voluntary allegiance of colonists to the crown was struck; also deleted was a clause that censured the monarchy for imposing slavery upon America.
Based upon the same natural rights theory contained in A Summary View, to which it bears a strong resemblance, the Declaration of Independence made Jefferson internationally famous. Years later that fame evoked the jealousy of John Adams, who complained that the declaration's ideas were "hackneyed." Jefferson agreed; he wrote of the declaration, "Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind."
Revolutionary Leader
Returning to Virginia late in 1776, Jefferson served until 1779 in the House of Delegates, one of the two houses of the General Assembly of Virginia--established in 1776 by the state's new constitution. While the American Revolution continued, Jefferson sought to liberalize Virginia's laws. Joined by his old law teacher, George Wythe, and by James Madison and George Mason, Jefferson introduced a number of bills that were resisted fiercely by those representing the conservative planter class. In 1776 he succeeded in obtaining the abolition of entail; his proposal to abolish primogeniture became law in 1785. Jefferson proudly noted that "these laws, drawn by myself, laid the ax to the foot of pseudoaristocracy."
Jefferson was also instrumental in devising a major revision of the criminal code, although it was not enacted until 1796. His bill to create a free system of tax-supported elementary education for all except slaves was defeated as were his bills to create a public library and to modernize the curriculum of the College of William and Mary.
In June 1779 the introduction of Jefferson's bill on religious liberty touched off a quarrel that caused turmoil in Virginia for 8 years. The bill was significant as no other state--indeed, no other nation--provided for complete religious liberty at that time. Jefferson's bill stated "that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions on matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities." Many Virginians regarded the bill as an attack upon Christianity. It did not pass until 1786, and then mainly through the perseverance of James Madison. Jefferson, by then in France, congratulated Madison, adding that "it is honorable for us to have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions."
Wartime Governor of Virginia
In June 1779, Jefferson was elected governor of Virginia. His political enemies criticized his performance as war governor mercilessly. He was charged with failure to provide for the adequate defense of Richmond in 1780-81, although he knew a British invasion was imminent, and of cowardice and "pusillanimous conduct" when he fled the capital during the moment of crisis. In June 1781 he retired from the governorship. The Virginia assembly subsequently voted that "an inquiry be made into the conduct of the executive of this state." Jefferson was exonerated: in fact, the assembly unanimously voted a resolution of appreciation of his conduct. The episode left Jefferson bitter, however, about the rewards of public service.
Money and the Ordinance of 1784
The death of his wife, on Sept. 6, 1782, added to Jefferson's troubles, but by the following year he was again seated in Congress. There he made two contributions of enduring importance to the nation. In April 1784 he submitted Notes on the Establishment of a Money Unit and of a Coinage for the United States in which he advised the use of a decimal system. This report led to the adoption (1792) of the dollar, rather than the pound, as the basic monetary unit in the United States.
As chairman of the committee dealing with the government of western lands, Jefferson submitted proposals so liberal and farsighted as to constitute, when enacted, the most progressive colonial policy of any nation in modern history. The proposed ordinance of 1784 reflected Jefferson's belief that the western territories should be self-governing and, when they reached a certain stage of growth, should be admitted to the Union as full partners with the original 13 states. Jefferson also proposed that slavery should be excluded from all of the American western territories after 1800. Although he himself was a slaveowner, he believed that slavery was an evil that should not be permitted to spread. In 1784 the provision banning slavery was narrowly defeated. Had one representative (John Beatty of New Jersey), sick and confined to his lodging, been present, the vote would have been different. "Thus," Jefferson later reflected, "we see the fate of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man, and heaven was silent in that awful moment." Although Congress approved the proposed ordinance of 1784, it was never put into effect; its main features were incorporated, however, in the Ordinance of 1787, which established the Northwest Territory. Moreover, slavery was prohibited in the Northwest Territory.
Minister to France
From 1784 to 1789, Jefferson lived outside the United States. He was sent to Paris initially as a commissioner to help negotiate commercial treaties; then in 1785 he succeeded Benjamin Franklin as minister to France. Most European countries, however, were indifferent to American economic overtures. "They seemed, in fact," Jefferson wrote, "to know little about us. . . . They were ignorant of our commerce, and of the exchange of articles it might offer advantageously to both parties." Only one country, Prussia, signed a pact based on a model treaty drafted by Jefferson.
During these years Jefferson followed events in the United States with understandable interest. He advised against any harsh punishment of those responsible for Shay's Rebellion (1786-87) in Massachusetts. He worried particularly that the new Constitution of the United States lacked a bill of rights and failed to limit the number of terms for the presidency. In France he witnessed the beginning of the French Revolution, but he doubted whether the French people could duplicate the American example of republican government. His advice, more conservative than might be anticipated, was that France emulate the British system of constitutional monarchy.
Secretary of State
When Jefferson left Paris on Sept. 26, 1789, he expected to return to his post. On that date and unknown to him, however, Congress confirmed his appointment as secretary of state in the first administration of George Washington. Jefferson accepted the position with some reluctance and largely because of Washington's insistence. He immediately expressed his alarm at the regal forms and ceremonies that marked the executive office, but his fears were tempered somewhat by his confidence in the character of Washington.
Jefferson, however, distrusted both the proposals and the motives of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. He thought Hamilton's financial programs both unwise and unconstitutional, flowing "from principles adverse to liberty." On the issue of federal assumption of state debts, Jefferson struck a bargain with Hamilton permitting assumption to pass--a concession that he later regretted. He attempted, unsuccessfully, to persuade Washington to veto the bill incorporating a Bank of the United States--recommended by Hamilton.
Jefferson suspected Hamilton and others in the emerging Federalist Party of a secret design to implant monarchist ideals and institutions in the government. The disagreements spilled over into foreign affairs. Hamilton was pro-British, and Jefferson was by inclination pro-French, although he directed the office of secretary of state with notable objectivity. The more Washington sided with Hamilton, the more Jefferson became dissatisfied with his minority position within the cabinet. Finally, after being twice dissuaded from resigning, Jefferson did so on Dec. 31, 1793.
Brief Retirement
At home for the next three years, Jefferson devoted himself to farm and family. He experimented with a new plow and other ingenious inventions, built a nail factory, commenced the rebuilding of Monticello, set out a thousand peach trees, received distinguished guests from abroad, and welcomed the visits of his grandchildren. But he also followed national and international developments with a mounting sense of foreboding. "From the moment of my retiring from the administration," he later wrote, "the Federalists got unchecked hold on General Washington." Jefferson thought Washington's expedition to suppress the Whiskey rebellion (1794) an unnecessary use of military force. He deplored Washington's denunciation of the Democratic societies and considered Jay's Treaty (1794) with Britain a "monument of folly and venality."
Vice-President
Thus Jefferson welcomed Washington's decision not to run for a third term in 1796. Jefferson became the reluctant presidential candidate of the Democratic-Republican party, and he seemed genuinely relieved when the Federalist candidate, John Adams, gained a narrow electoral college victory (71 to 68). As the runner-up, however, Jefferson became vice-president under the system then in effect.
Jefferson hoped that he could work with Adams, as of old, especially since both men shared an anti-Hamilton bias. But those hopes were soon dashed. Relations with France deteriorated. In 1798, in the wake of the XYZ AFFAIR, the so-called Quasi-War began. New taxes were imposed and the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) threatened the freedom of Americans. Jefferson, laboring to check the authoritarian drift of the national government, secretly authored the Kentucky Resolution. More important, he provided his party with principles and strategy, aiming to win the election of 1800.
President
Jefferson's triumph was delayed temporarily as a result of a tie in electoral ballots with his running mate, Aaron BURR, which shifted the election to the House of Representatives. There Hamilton's influence helped Jefferson to prevail, although most Federalists supported Burr as the lesser evil. In his inaugural speech Jefferson held out an olive branch to his political enemies, inviting them to bury the partisanship of the past decade, to unite now as Americans.
Federalist leaders remained adamantly opposed to Jefferson, but the people approved his policies. Internal taxes were reduced; the military budget was cut; the Alien and Sedition Acts were permitted to lapse; and plans were made to extinguish the public debt. Simplicity and frugality became the hallmarks of Jefferson's administration. The Louisiana Purchase (1803) capped his achievements. Ironically, Jefferson had to overcome constitutional scruples in order to take over the vast new territory without authorization by constitutional amendment. In this instance it was his Federalist critics who became the constitutional purists. Nonetheless, the purchase was received with popular enthusiasm. In the election of 1804, Jefferson swept every state except two--Connecticut and Delaware. Jefferson's second administration began with a minor success--the favorable settlement concluding the TRIPOLITAN WAR (1801-05), in which the newly created U.S. Navy fought its first engagements. The following year the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which the president had dispatched to explore the Louisiana Territory, returned triumphantly after crossing the continent. The West was also a source of trouble, however. The disaffected Aaron Burr engaged in a conspiracy, the details of which are still obscure, either to establish an independent republic in the Louisiana Territory or to launch an invasion of Spanish-held Mexico. Jefferson acted swiftly to arrest Burr early in 1807 and bring him to trial for treason. Burr was acquitted, however.
Jefferson's main concern in his second administration was foreign affairs, in which he experienced a notable failure. In the course of the Napoleonic Wars Britain and France repeatedly violated American sovereignty in incidents such as the Chesapeake affair (1807). Jefferson attempted to avoid a policy of either appeasement or war by the use of economic pressure.
The Embargo Ace (Dec. 22, 1807), which prohibited virtually all exports and most imports and was supplemented by enforcing legislation, was designed to coerce British and French recognition of American rights. Although it failed, it did rouse many northerners, who suffered economically, to a state of defiance of national authority. The Federalist party experienced a rebirth of popularity. In 1809, shortly before he retired from the presidency, Jefferson signed the act repealing the embargo, which had been in effect for 15 months.
Later Life
In the final 17 years of his life, Jefferson's major accomplishment was the founding (1819) of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. He conceived it, planned it, designed it, and supervised both its construction and the hiring of faculty.
The university was the last of three contributions by which Jefferson wished to be remembered; they constituted a trilogy of interrelated causes: freedom from Britain, freedom of conscience, and freedom maintained through education. On July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson died at Monticello.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Thoreau's Life by Richard J. Schneider
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was born and lived nearly all his life in Concord, Massachusetts, a small town about twenty miles west of Boston. He received his education at the public school in Concord and at the private Concord Academy. Proving to be a better scholar than his more fun-loving and popular elder brother John, he was sent to Harvard. He did well there and, despite having to drop out for several months for financial and health reasons, was graduated in the top half of his class in 1837.
Thoreau's graduation came at an inauspicious time. In 1837, America was experiencing an economic depression and jobs were not plentiful. Furthermore, Thoreau found himself temperamentally unsuited for three of the four usual professions open to Harvard graduates: the ministry, the law, and medicine. The fourth, teaching, was one he felt comfortable with, since both of his elder siblings, Helen and John, were already teachers. He was hired as the teacher of the Concord public school, but resigned after only two weeks because of a dispute with his superintendent over how to discipline the children. For a while he and John considered seeking their fortunes in California, but at last he fell back onto working in his father's pencil factory.
Thoreau's family participated in the "quiet desperation" of commerce and industry through the pencil factory owned and managed by his father. Thoreau family pencils, produced behind the family house on Main Street, were generally recognized as America's best pencils, largely because of Henry's research into German pencil-making techniques.
In 1838, he decided to start his own school in Concord, eventually asking John to help him. The two brothers worked well together and vacationed together during holidays. In September 1839, they spent a memorable week together on a boating trip up the Concord and Merrimack rivers to Mount Washington in New Hampshire. About the same time both brothers became romantically interested in Ellen Sewall, a frequent visitor to Concord from Cape Cod. In the fall of the next year, both brothers -- first John and then Henry -- proposed marriage to her. But because of her father's objections to the Thoreaus' liberal religious views, Ellen rejected both proposals.
When John endured a lengthy illness in 1841, the school became too much for Henry to handle alone, so he closed it. He returned to work in the pencil factory but was soon invited to work as a live-in handyman in the home of his mentor, neighbor, and friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Emerson was by then already one of the most famous American philosophers and men of letters. Since Thoreau's graduation from Harvard, he had become a protégé of his famous neighbor and an informal student of Emerson's Transcendental ideas. Transcendentalism was an American version of Romantic Idealism, a dualistic Neoplatonic view of the world divided into the material and the spiritual. For Emerson, "Mind is the only reality, of which all other natures are better or worse reflectors. Nature, literature, history, are only subjective phenomena." For the Transcendentalist, the secret of successful living was to hold oneself above material concerns as much as possible and focus on the spiritual. Thoreau must have imbibed Transcendentalism through almost every pore during his two years living with Emerson, though he would modify it to suit his own temperament by granting nature more reality than Emerson did.
During his stay with Emerson, Thoreau developed ambitions of becoming a writer and got help from Emerson in getting some poems and essays published in the Transcendental journal, The Dial. But life in his parents' home held problems for the budding writer. Work in the pencil factory was tedious and tiring, and, since his mother took in boarders, there was little quiet or privacy in the house. Remembering a summer visit to the retreat cabin of college friend Charles Stearns Wheeler, Thoreau developed a plan to build such a house for himself where he could find privacy to write.
In 1845, he received permission from Emerson to use a piece of land that Emerson owned on the shore of Walden Pond. He bought building supplies and a chicken coop (for the boards), and built himself a small house there, moving in on the Fourth of July. He had two main purposes in moving to the pond: to write his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, as a tribute to his late brother John; and to conduct an economic experiment to see if it were possible to live by working one day and devoting the other six to more Transcendental concerns, thus reversing the Yankee habit of working six days and resting one. His nature study and the writing of Walden would develop later during his stay at the pond. He began writing Walden in 1846 as a lecture in response to the questions of townspeople who were curious about what he was doing out at the pond, but his notes soon grew into his second book.
Thoreau stayed in the house at Walden Pond for two years, from July 1845 to September 1847. Walden condenses the experiences of those two years into one year for artistic unity. During these two years he also spent one night in jail, an incident which occurred in the summer of 1846 and which became the subject of his essay "Resistance to Civil Government" (later known as "Civil Disobedience”). That same year he also took a trip to Maine to see and climb Mount Katahdin, a place with a much wilder nature than he could find around Concord.
In the years after leaving Walden Pond, Thoreau published A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) and Walden (1854). A Week sold poorly, leading Thoreau to hold off publication of Walden, so that he could revise it extensively to avoid the problems, such as looseness of structure and a preaching tone unalleviated by humor, that had put readers off in the first book. Walden was a modest success: it brought Thoreau good reviews, satisfactory sales, and a small following of fans.
Thoreau returned to the Emerson home and lived there for two years, while Emerson was on a lecture tour in Europe. For much of his remaining years, he rented a room in his parents' home. He made his living by working in the pencil factory, by doing surveying, by lecturing occasionally, and by publishing essays in newspapers and journals. His income, however, was always very modest, and his main concerns were his daily afternoon walks in the Concord woods, the keeping of a private journal of his nature observations and ideas, and the writing and revision of essays for publication.
Thoreau was an ardent and outspoken abolitionist, serving as a conductor on the underground railroad to help escaped slaves make their way to Canada. He wrote strongly-worded attacks on the Fugitive Slave Law ("Slavery in Massachusetts") and on the execution of John Brown.
His trips to the Maine woods and to Cape Cod provided material for travel essays published first in journals; these were eventually collected into posthumous books. Other excursions took him to Canada and, near the end of his life, to Minnesota.
In May 1862, Thoreau died of the tuberculosis with which he had been periodically plagued since his college years. He left behind large unfinished projects, including a comprehensive record of natural phenomena around Concord, extensive notes on American Indians, and many volumes of his daily journal jottings. At his funeral, his friend Emerson said, “The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost. … His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home.”
Thoreau Chronology
1817
Born July 12 in Concord, Massachusetts.
1837
Graduated from Harvard College. Began journal.
1838
First lecture at Concord Lyceum. First excursion to Maine.
1840
First literary publications, "Aulus Persius Flaccus" and "Sympathy" appear in The Dial.
1845
Moved to his house at Walden Pond on July 4th.
1846
Arrested and spent one night in jail for refusing to pay a poll tax.
1847
Left Walden Pond on September 6th. Moved in with the Emerson family for one year.
1848
"Ktaadn" serialized.
1849
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and "Resistance to Civil Government" published. First excursion to Cape Cod.
1852
First four chapters of Cape Cod serialized.
1854
Walden; or, Life in the Woods published."Slavery in Massachusetts" delivered and published.
1858
"Chesuncook" serialized.
1860
"A Plea for Captain John Brown" and "The Last Days of John Brown" published.
1862
Died May 6th. "Walking," "Autumnal Tints," and "Wild Apples" appear in Atlantic Monthly.
Selected Thoughts of Henry Thoreau:
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand ... Simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was born and lived nearly all his life in Concord, Massachusetts, a small town about twenty miles west of Boston. He received his education at the public school in Concord and at the private Concord Academy. Proving to be a better scholar than his more fun-loving and popular elder brother John, he was sent to Harvard. He did well there and, despite having to drop out for several months for financial and health reasons, was graduated in the top half of his class in 1837.
Thoreau's graduation came at an inauspicious time. In 1837, America was experiencing an economic depression and jobs were not plentiful. Furthermore, Thoreau found himself temperamentally unsuited for three of the four usual professions open to Harvard graduates: the ministry, the law, and medicine. The fourth, teaching, was one he felt comfortable with, since both of his elder siblings, Helen and John, were already teachers. He was hired as the teacher of the Concord public school, but resigned after only two weeks because of a dispute with his superintendent over how to discipline the children. For a while he and John considered seeking their fortunes in California, but at last he fell back onto working in his father's pencil factory.
Thoreau's family participated in the "quiet desperation" of commerce and industry through the pencil factory owned and managed by his father. Thoreau family pencils, produced behind the family house on Main Street, were generally recognized as America's best pencils, largely because of Henry's research into German pencil-making techniques.
In 1838, he decided to start his own school in Concord, eventually asking John to help him. The two brothers worked well together and vacationed together during holidays. In September 1839, they spent a memorable week together on a boating trip up the Concord and Merrimack rivers to Mount Washington in New Hampshire. About the same time both brothers became romantically interested in Ellen Sewall, a frequent visitor to Concord from Cape Cod. In the fall of the next year, both brothers -- first John and then Henry -- proposed marriage to her. But because of her father's objections to the Thoreaus' liberal religious views, Ellen rejected both proposals.
When John endured a lengthy illness in 1841, the school became too much for Henry to handle alone, so he closed it. He returned to work in the pencil factory but was soon invited to work as a live-in handyman in the home of his mentor, neighbor, and friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Emerson was by then already one of the most famous American philosophers and men of letters. Since Thoreau's graduation from Harvard, he had become a protégé of his famous neighbor and an informal student of Emerson's Transcendental ideas. Transcendentalism was an American version of Romantic Idealism, a dualistic Neoplatonic view of the world divided into the material and the spiritual. For Emerson, "Mind is the only reality, of which all other natures are better or worse reflectors. Nature, literature, history, are only subjective phenomena." For the Transcendentalist, the secret of successful living was to hold oneself above material concerns as much as possible and focus on the spiritual. Thoreau must have imbibed Transcendentalism through almost every pore during his two years living with Emerson, though he would modify it to suit his own temperament by granting nature more reality than Emerson did.
During his stay with Emerson, Thoreau developed ambitions of becoming a writer and got help from Emerson in getting some poems and essays published in the Transcendental journal, The Dial. But life in his parents' home held problems for the budding writer. Work in the pencil factory was tedious and tiring, and, since his mother took in boarders, there was little quiet or privacy in the house. Remembering a summer visit to the retreat cabin of college friend Charles Stearns Wheeler, Thoreau developed a plan to build such a house for himself where he could find privacy to write.
In 1845, he received permission from Emerson to use a piece of land that Emerson owned on the shore of Walden Pond. He bought building supplies and a chicken coop (for the boards), and built himself a small house there, moving in on the Fourth of July. He had two main purposes in moving to the pond: to write his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, as a tribute to his late brother John; and to conduct an economic experiment to see if it were possible to live by working one day and devoting the other six to more Transcendental concerns, thus reversing the Yankee habit of working six days and resting one. His nature study and the writing of Walden would develop later during his stay at the pond. He began writing Walden in 1846 as a lecture in response to the questions of townspeople who were curious about what he was doing out at the pond, but his notes soon grew into his second book.
Thoreau stayed in the house at Walden Pond for two years, from July 1845 to September 1847. Walden condenses the experiences of those two years into one year for artistic unity. During these two years he also spent one night in jail, an incident which occurred in the summer of 1846 and which became the subject of his essay "Resistance to Civil Government" (later known as "Civil Disobedience”). That same year he also took a trip to Maine to see and climb Mount Katahdin, a place with a much wilder nature than he could find around Concord.
In the years after leaving Walden Pond, Thoreau published A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) and Walden (1854). A Week sold poorly, leading Thoreau to hold off publication of Walden, so that he could revise it extensively to avoid the problems, such as looseness of structure and a preaching tone unalleviated by humor, that had put readers off in the first book. Walden was a modest success: it brought Thoreau good reviews, satisfactory sales, and a small following of fans.
Thoreau returned to the Emerson home and lived there for two years, while Emerson was on a lecture tour in Europe. For much of his remaining years, he rented a room in his parents' home. He made his living by working in the pencil factory, by doing surveying, by lecturing occasionally, and by publishing essays in newspapers and journals. His income, however, was always very modest, and his main concerns were his daily afternoon walks in the Concord woods, the keeping of a private journal of his nature observations and ideas, and the writing and revision of essays for publication.
Thoreau was an ardent and outspoken abolitionist, serving as a conductor on the underground railroad to help escaped slaves make their way to Canada. He wrote strongly-worded attacks on the Fugitive Slave Law ("Slavery in Massachusetts") and on the execution of John Brown.
His trips to the Maine woods and to Cape Cod provided material for travel essays published first in journals; these were eventually collected into posthumous books. Other excursions took him to Canada and, near the end of his life, to Minnesota.
In May 1862, Thoreau died of the tuberculosis with which he had been periodically plagued since his college years. He left behind large unfinished projects, including a comprehensive record of natural phenomena around Concord, extensive notes on American Indians, and many volumes of his daily journal jottings. At his funeral, his friend Emerson said, “The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a son it has lost. … His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home.”
Thoreau Chronology
1817
Born July 12 in Concord, Massachusetts.
1837
Graduated from Harvard College. Began journal.
1838
First lecture at Concord Lyceum. First excursion to Maine.
1840
First literary publications, "Aulus Persius Flaccus" and "Sympathy" appear in The Dial.
1845
Moved to his house at Walden Pond on July 4th.
1846
Arrested and spent one night in jail for refusing to pay a poll tax.
1847
Left Walden Pond on September 6th. Moved in with the Emerson family for one year.
1848
"Ktaadn" serialized.
1849
A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers and "Resistance to Civil Government" published. First excursion to Cape Cod.
1852
First four chapters of Cape Cod serialized.
1854
Walden; or, Life in the Woods published."Slavery in Massachusetts" delivered and published.
1858
"Chesuncook" serialized.
1860
"A Plea for Captain John Brown" and "The Last Days of John Brown" published.
1862
Died May 6th. "Walking," "Autumnal Tints," and "Wild Apples" appear in Atlantic Monthly.
Selected Thoughts of Henry Thoreau:
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand ... Simplify, simplify.
Stephen Crane (1871-1900)
American author, whose second book, THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE (1895), brought him international fame. Crane's first novel, MAGGIE: A GIRL OF THE STREETS, was a milestone in the development of literary naturalism. At its appearance in 1893 Crane was just twenty-one. His manuscript was turned down by the publishers, who considered its realism too "ugly". Crane had to print the book at his own expense, borrowing the money from his brother. In its inscription Crane warned that "it is inevitable that you be greatly shocked by this book but continue, please, with all possible courage to the end." The srory of the descent of a slum girl in turn-of-the-century New York into prostitution was first published under a pseudonym. Maggie was generally ignored by readers but it won the admiration of other realist writers.
"In the street infants played or fought with other infants or sat stupidly in the way of vehicles. Formidable women, with uncombed hair and disordered dress, gossiped while leaning on railings, or screamed in frantic quarrels. Withered persons, in curious postures of submission to something, sat smoking pipes in obscure corners. A thousand odors of cooking food came forth to the street. The building quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity stamping about in its bowels." (from Maggie)
Stephen Crane was born in Newark, New Jersey, as the 14th child of a Methodist minister Jonathan Townley Crane and his wife Mary Helen Peck Crane. Crane started to write stories at the age of eight; at 16 he was writing articles for the New York Tribune. Both of his parents did some writing and two of his brothers became newspapermen. His mother was active in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and published fiction. His first article, on the explorer Henry M. Stanley, appeared in 1890 in Villette. Crane studied at Lafayette College and Syracuse University. After his mother's death in 1890- his father had died earlier-Crane moved to New York. He worked as a free-lance writer and journalist for the Bachellor-Johnson newspaper syndicate. While supporting himself by his writings, he lived among the poor in the Bowery slums to research his first novel, Maggie. Crane's faithfulness to accuracy of details led him once to dress up as a tramp and spend the night in a flophouse. This produced the sketch 'Experiment in Misery' in 1894. Crane's work also inspired other writers, such as Hutchins Hapgood (1869-1944), to examine the Lower East Side.
Crane's unromanticized war novel The Red Badge of Courage depicted the American Civil War from the point of view of an ordinary soldier. It has been called the first modern war novel. In England readers believed that the book was written by a veteran soldier-the text was so believable. Crane dismissed this theory by saying that he got his ideas from the football field. The story is set during the American Civil War. Henry Fleming enrolls as a soldier in the Union army. He has dreamed of battles and glory all his life, but his expectations are shattered in his encounter with the enemy when he witnesses the chaos on the battle field and starts to fear that the regiment was leaving him behind. He flees from the battle. "Since he had turned his back upon the fight his fears had been wondrously magnified. Death about to thrust him between the shoulder blades was far more dreadful than death about to smite him between the eyes. When he thought of it later, he conceived the impression that it is better to view the appalling than to be merely within hearing. The noises of the battle were like stones; he believed himself liable to be crushed."
Henry wanders into a thick wood, and meets a group of wounded men. He tries to help a tall soldier, who dies, and leaves a tattered soldier on a field. He returns to the lines and a deserter hits him with a gun. Henry gets a head wound. Marked by the "red badge" in the evening he falls asleep with his comrades. Next day he feels sore and stiff from his experiences, but in his hatred starts to shoot blindly at the enemy. "Some of the men muttered and looked, awe struck, at the youth. It was plain that as he had gone on loading and firing and cursing without the proper intermission, they had found time to regard him. And they now looked upon him as a war devil." In the heat of the battle, he picks up the regiment's flag with his friend when it falls from the color sergeant's hands. An officer, who has called him and the other soldiers "mule drivers" calls them again "a lot of mud diggers". Henry wants to die in the battle to prove the officer is wrong. He tries to seize the enemy flag, but his friend is faster and wrenches it free from the hands of the dying color bearer. He is filled with guilt when he remembers the tattered soldier whom he had deserted. "Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him, though many discovered it to be made of oaths and walking sticks. He had rid himself of the red sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past. He had been an animal blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war. He turned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks -- an existence of soft and eternal peace." Following the conventions of a bildungsroman, Henry has matured after the final battle and he understands better his strengths and weaknesses.
Crane's collection of poems, THE BLACK RIDER, which appeared also in 1895, has much in common with Emily Dickinson's simple, stripped style. Crane's rising fame brought him better reporting assignments and he sought experiences as a war correspondent in combat areas. Crane travelled to Greece, Cuba, Texas and Mexico, reporting mostly on war events. His short story, 'The Open Boat,' is based on a true experience, when his ship, a coal-burning tug heavy with ammunition and machetes, sank on the journey to Cuba in 1896. With a small party of other passengers, Crane spent several days drifting in a dinghy off the coast of Florida before being rescued. This experience impaired his health permanently. In the story, originally published in Scribner's Magazine in June 1897, Crane focused on four men, who eventually decide to swim for shore.
--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 at 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.' (from 'The Open Boat')
In Greece Crane wrote about the Greco-Turkish War, settling in 1898 in Sussex, England, where he lived with the author Cora Taylor, who was the proprietress of the Hotel de Dream, a well-known Jacksonville sporting house. In England Crane became friends with Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, and Henry James. 'The Blue Hotel' (1898), Crane's much anthologized short story, was first published serially in Collier's Weekly. Swede, a nervous New Yorker, fascinated by tales of the Wild West, enters Pat Scully's hotel in Fort Romper, Nebraska; the hotel is a haven of rest in a blizzard. Swede meets Mr. Blanc from the East, and a reserved cowboy. He drinks heavily and beats Scully's son, Johnnie, after accusing him of cheating at cards. When the Swede attacks another hotel customer, he is stabbed and killed. Several months later Mr. Blanc, feeling responsible for the death, confesses that Johnnie indeed cheated. In a letter from 1898 Conrad wrote to Crane: "You have the terseness, the clear eye the easy imagination. You have all - and I have only the accursed faculty of dreaming. My ideas fade -Yours come out sharp cut as cameos - they come all living out of Your brain and bring images - and bring light." Like Emile Zola (1840-1902) in France, Crane used realism - or naturalism - as a method of exposing social ills, as in GEORGE'S MOTHER (1896), which explored life in the Bowery. Crane himself did not much like Zola. In 1899 ACTIVE SERVICE appeared, which was based on the Greco-Turkish War.
In 1899 Crane returned to Cuba, to cover the Spanish-American War. Due to poor health he was obliged to return to England. There he rented with Cora a cold and wet 14th-century Sussex estate, called Brede Place. Crane died on June 5, 1900 at Badenweiler in Germany of tuberculosis, that was worsened by malarial fever he had caught in Cuba. He was 28-his career has lasted only eight years. Crane's posthumous publications include the sketches and stories from his life as a correspondent in WOUNDS IN THE RAIN (1900) and WHILOMVILLE STORIES (1900), depicting a childhood in a small state. After Crane's death his work was neglected for many years until such writers as Amy Lowell and Willa Cather brought it again to public attention. Although Crane introduced realism into American literature, his use of symbolism also gave his work a romantic quality.
For further reading: Stehpen Crane by Thomas Beer (1923); Stephen Crane: A Critical Biography by John Berryman (1950); Stephen Crane by Robert W. Stallman (1968); Stephen Crane by Edwin Harrison Cady (1980); Realism, Writing, Disfiguration: On Thomas Eakins and Stephen Crane by Michael Fried (1988); Red Badge of Courage: Redefining the Hero by Donald B. Gibson (1988); The Crane Log: A Documentary Life of Stephen Crane 1871-1900 by Stanley Wertheim, Paul Sorrentino (1994); The Pluralistic Philosophy of Stephen Crane by Patrick K. Dooley (1994); Stephen Crane, Journalism, and the Making of Modern American Literature by Michael Robertson (1997); Badge of Courage: The Life of Stephen Crane by Linda H. Davis (1998); Readings on Stephen Crane, ed. by Bonnie Szumski (1998); Understanding The Red Badge of Courage by Claudia D. Johnson (1998) - American Civil War in fiction: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians by Ambroce Bierce (1891); The Red Bandge of Courage by Stephen Crane (1895); Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936); The Unvanisquished by William Faulkner (1938); The History of Rome, Hanks and Kindred Matters by Joseph Stanley Pennell (1944); When the War is Over by Stephen Becker (1970); Roots by Alex Haley (1976); Shiloh by Shelby Foote (1976); Marching Home by Donald Honing (1980); Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganis (1989); The Double Life of Stephen Crane by Christopher Benfey (1992); Badge of Courage: The Life of Stephen Crane by Linda H. Davis (1998)
Selected works:
MAGGIE: A GIRL OF THE STREETS, 1893 - Maggie, katujen tyttö
THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE, 1895 - Punainen kunniamerkki - film 1951, written and directed by John Huston, starring Audie Murphy, Bill Mauldin, Douglas Dick; the story of its production is told by Lillian Ross in Picture. Television film in 1974
THE BLACK RIDERS, 1895
GEORGE'S MOTHER, 1896
THE BLUE HOTEL, 1896
THE LITTLE REGIMENT, 1896
THE BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY, 1896
THE THIRD VIOLET, 1897
THE OPEN BOAT, 1898
ACTIVE SERVICE, 1899
THE MONSTER AND OTHER STORIES, 1899
WAR IS KIND, 1899
WOUNDS IN THE RAIN, 1900
WHILOMVILLE STORIES, 1900
MEN, WOMEN AND BOATS, 1921
COLLECTED WORKS, 1925-26 (12 vols.)
LETTERS, 1960
THE CORRESPONDENCE OF STEPHEN CRANE, 1988
American author, whose second book, THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE (1895), brought him international fame. Crane's first novel, MAGGIE: A GIRL OF THE STREETS, was a milestone in the development of literary naturalism. At its appearance in 1893 Crane was just twenty-one. His manuscript was turned down by the publishers, who considered its realism too "ugly". Crane had to print the book at his own expense, borrowing the money from his brother. In its inscription Crane warned that "it is inevitable that you be greatly shocked by this book but continue, please, with all possible courage to the end." The srory of the descent of a slum girl in turn-of-the-century New York into prostitution was first published under a pseudonym. Maggie was generally ignored by readers but it won the admiration of other realist writers.
"In the street infants played or fought with other infants or sat stupidly in the way of vehicles. Formidable women, with uncombed hair and disordered dress, gossiped while leaning on railings, or screamed in frantic quarrels. Withered persons, in curious postures of submission to something, sat smoking pipes in obscure corners. A thousand odors of cooking food came forth to the street. The building quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity stamping about in its bowels." (from Maggie)
Stephen Crane was born in Newark, New Jersey, as the 14th child of a Methodist minister Jonathan Townley Crane and his wife Mary Helen Peck Crane. Crane started to write stories at the age of eight; at 16 he was writing articles for the New York Tribune. Both of his parents did some writing and two of his brothers became newspapermen. His mother was active in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and published fiction. His first article, on the explorer Henry M. Stanley, appeared in 1890 in Villette. Crane studied at Lafayette College and Syracuse University. After his mother's death in 1890- his father had died earlier-Crane moved to New York. He worked as a free-lance writer and journalist for the Bachellor-Johnson newspaper syndicate. While supporting himself by his writings, he lived among the poor in the Bowery slums to research his first novel, Maggie. Crane's faithfulness to accuracy of details led him once to dress up as a tramp and spend the night in a flophouse. This produced the sketch 'Experiment in Misery' in 1894. Crane's work also inspired other writers, such as Hutchins Hapgood (1869-1944), to examine the Lower East Side.
Crane's unromanticized war novel The Red Badge of Courage depicted the American Civil War from the point of view of an ordinary soldier. It has been called the first modern war novel. In England readers believed that the book was written by a veteran soldier-the text was so believable. Crane dismissed this theory by saying that he got his ideas from the football field. The story is set during the American Civil War. Henry Fleming enrolls as a soldier in the Union army. He has dreamed of battles and glory all his life, but his expectations are shattered in his encounter with the enemy when he witnesses the chaos on the battle field and starts to fear that the regiment was leaving him behind. He flees from the battle. "Since he had turned his back upon the fight his fears had been wondrously magnified. Death about to thrust him between the shoulder blades was far more dreadful than death about to smite him between the eyes. When he thought of it later, he conceived the impression that it is better to view the appalling than to be merely within hearing. The noises of the battle were like stones; he believed himself liable to be crushed."
Henry wanders into a thick wood, and meets a group of wounded men. He tries to help a tall soldier, who dies, and leaves a tattered soldier on a field. He returns to the lines and a deserter hits him with a gun. Henry gets a head wound. Marked by the "red badge" in the evening he falls asleep with his comrades. Next day he feels sore and stiff from his experiences, but in his hatred starts to shoot blindly at the enemy. "Some of the men muttered and looked, awe struck, at the youth. It was plain that as he had gone on loading and firing and cursing without the proper intermission, they had found time to regard him. And they now looked upon him as a war devil." In the heat of the battle, he picks up the regiment's flag with his friend when it falls from the color sergeant's hands. An officer, who has called him and the other soldiers "mule drivers" calls them again "a lot of mud diggers". Henry wants to die in the battle to prove the officer is wrong. He tries to seize the enemy flag, but his friend is faster and wrenches it free from the hands of the dying color bearer. He is filled with guilt when he remembers the tattered soldier whom he had deserted. "Yet the youth smiled, for he saw that the world was a world for him, though many discovered it to be made of oaths and walking sticks. He had rid himself of the red sickness of battle. The sultry nightmare was in the past. He had been an animal blistered and sweating in the heat and pain of war. He turned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks -- an existence of soft and eternal peace." Following the conventions of a bildungsroman, Henry has matured after the final battle and he understands better his strengths and weaknesses.
Crane's collection of poems, THE BLACK RIDER, which appeared also in 1895, has much in common with Emily Dickinson's simple, stripped style. Crane's rising fame brought him better reporting assignments and he sought experiences as a war correspondent in combat areas. Crane travelled to Greece, Cuba, Texas and Mexico, reporting mostly on war events. His short story, 'The Open Boat,' is based on a true experience, when his ship, a coal-burning tug heavy with ammunition and machetes, sank on the journey to Cuba in 1896. With a small party of other passengers, Crane spent several days drifting in a dinghy off the coast of Florida before being rescued. This experience impaired his health permanently. In the story, originally published in Scribner's Magazine in June 1897, Crane focused on four men, who eventually decide to swim for shore.
--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 at 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.' (from 'The Open Boat')
In Greece Crane wrote about the Greco-Turkish War, settling in 1898 in Sussex, England, where he lived with the author Cora Taylor, who was the proprietress of the Hotel de Dream, a well-known Jacksonville sporting house. In England Crane became friends with Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, and Henry James. 'The Blue Hotel' (1898), Crane's much anthologized short story, was first published serially in Collier's Weekly. Swede, a nervous New Yorker, fascinated by tales of the Wild West, enters Pat Scully's hotel in Fort Romper, Nebraska; the hotel is a haven of rest in a blizzard. Swede meets Mr. Blanc from the East, and a reserved cowboy. He drinks heavily and beats Scully's son, Johnnie, after accusing him of cheating at cards. When the Swede attacks another hotel customer, he is stabbed and killed. Several months later Mr. Blanc, feeling responsible for the death, confesses that Johnnie indeed cheated. In a letter from 1898 Conrad wrote to Crane: "You have the terseness, the clear eye the easy imagination. You have all - and I have only the accursed faculty of dreaming. My ideas fade -Yours come out sharp cut as cameos - they come all living out of Your brain and bring images - and bring light." Like Emile Zola (1840-1902) in France, Crane used realism - or naturalism - as a method of exposing social ills, as in GEORGE'S MOTHER (1896), which explored life in the Bowery. Crane himself did not much like Zola. In 1899 ACTIVE SERVICE appeared, which was based on the Greco-Turkish War.
In 1899 Crane returned to Cuba, to cover the Spanish-American War. Due to poor health he was obliged to return to England. There he rented with Cora a cold and wet 14th-century Sussex estate, called Brede Place. Crane died on June 5, 1900 at Badenweiler in Germany of tuberculosis, that was worsened by malarial fever he had caught in Cuba. He was 28-his career has lasted only eight years. Crane's posthumous publications include the sketches and stories from his life as a correspondent in WOUNDS IN THE RAIN (1900) and WHILOMVILLE STORIES (1900), depicting a childhood in a small state. After Crane's death his work was neglected for many years until such writers as Amy Lowell and Willa Cather brought it again to public attention. Although Crane introduced realism into American literature, his use of symbolism also gave his work a romantic quality.
For further reading: Stehpen Crane by Thomas Beer (1923); Stephen Crane: A Critical Biography by John Berryman (1950); Stephen Crane by Robert W. Stallman (1968); Stephen Crane by Edwin Harrison Cady (1980); Realism, Writing, Disfiguration: On Thomas Eakins and Stephen Crane by Michael Fried (1988); Red Badge of Courage: Redefining the Hero by Donald B. Gibson (1988); The Crane Log: A Documentary Life of Stephen Crane 1871-1900 by Stanley Wertheim, Paul Sorrentino (1994); The Pluralistic Philosophy of Stephen Crane by Patrick K. Dooley (1994); Stephen Crane, Journalism, and the Making of Modern American Literature by Michael Robertson (1997); Badge of Courage: The Life of Stephen Crane by Linda H. Davis (1998); Readings on Stephen Crane, ed. by Bonnie Szumski (1998); Understanding The Red Badge of Courage by Claudia D. Johnson (1998) - American Civil War in fiction: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians by Ambroce Bierce (1891); The Red Bandge of Courage by Stephen Crane (1895); Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936); The Unvanisquished by William Faulkner (1938); The History of Rome, Hanks and Kindred Matters by Joseph Stanley Pennell (1944); When the War is Over by Stephen Becker (1970); Roots by Alex Haley (1976); Shiloh by Shelby Foote (1976); Marching Home by Donald Honing (1980); Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganis (1989); The Double Life of Stephen Crane by Christopher Benfey (1992); Badge of Courage: The Life of Stephen Crane by Linda H. Davis (1998)
Selected works:
MAGGIE: A GIRL OF THE STREETS, 1893 - Maggie, katujen tyttö
THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE, 1895 - Punainen kunniamerkki - film 1951, written and directed by John Huston, starring Audie Murphy, Bill Mauldin, Douglas Dick; the story of its production is told by Lillian Ross in Picture. Television film in 1974
THE BLACK RIDERS, 1895
GEORGE'S MOTHER, 1896
THE BLUE HOTEL, 1896
THE LITTLE REGIMENT, 1896
THE BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY, 1896
THE THIRD VIOLET, 1897
THE OPEN BOAT, 1898
ACTIVE SERVICE, 1899
THE MONSTER AND OTHER STORIES, 1899
WAR IS KIND, 1899
WOUNDS IN THE RAIN, 1900
WHILOMVILLE STORIES, 1900
MEN, WOMEN AND BOATS, 1921
COLLECTED WORKS, 1925-26 (12 vols.)
LETTERS, 1960
THE CORRESPONDENCE OF STEPHEN CRANE, 1988
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
My Life
I was born on January 3rd, 1985, in Mashhad. My parents were both born in Kermanshah. My parental grandfather was from a distinguished family. He was a serious and respectful man who died when he lost his properties. My mother’s family was from Azarbayejan in former Soviet Union. My parents emigrated from Kermanshah to Khorramshahr when they married because my father had found a good job there. Khorramshahr was not a suitable place to live in. The summers had muggy weather and the cold of winters was not tolerable; but people were nice and happy and Little by little they accustomed to their new life and began to find happiness in that town. After revolution the situation was changed, Iraqis thought that Khorramshahr belongs to them and wanted to attach this small city to their country. They attacked khorramshahr but my family could not run away on time because my father believed that the war would last only 3 days! Finally when Iraqis started to enter the city my family had no way but to get on the last mini bus and leave everything behind. The hardship had started for them; they did not have any place to go, and wanted their home, their beds, and their own peaceful life. After a while they went Tehran to live near my aunt. They could not stay there too long because of missile attacks on Tehran. When my father was proposed a job in Mashhad, He accepted and they leaved Tehran. They had to make everything again. It was hard to adopt to new place and people with different way of living and special traditions. We were just strangers among them. My parents were concerned of my education so they sent me to special school after I finished primary school. Although the teachers were perfect and we had everything there, but I was not happy. I had to study all the time, we were expected to study extra hours to come up with school’ schedules. I recall my loneliness and sleeplessness clearly. We came back to Tehran when I finished secondary school. Again I had to adopt myself to the new conditions. I was good at high school but not as good as I used to be. Instead of studding my lessons I spent my time reading different books! At that time I thought everything is futile, and I did not know why people trying that hard to gain something that is transitory. My major was mathematic and I liked it but it needed too much effort to be successful in entrance examination of university. I believed that I was wasting my time by staying at home and studding all the time. I did not want to torture myself like this, so I went abroad to live there. First I thought that I found the paradise lost and everything was attractive for me, after a while I came to this idea that it was not what I wanted. The foreigner’s situation was not good. They were given the second rate jobs. The cost of living did not permit them to afford to go to university and some of them had to marry the ones older than them to get credit cards. I did not like to live like them, so I decided to come back to Iran although my mother did not agree. After that I started to study for entrance examination and was admitted in university, since then my life has been calm and I have found my way in life.
I was born on January 3rd, 1985, in Mashhad. My parents were both born in Kermanshah. My parental grandfather was from a distinguished family. He was a serious and respectful man who died when he lost his properties. My mother’s family was from Azarbayejan in former Soviet Union. My parents emigrated from Kermanshah to Khorramshahr when they married because my father had found a good job there. Khorramshahr was not a suitable place to live in. The summers had muggy weather and the cold of winters was not tolerable; but people were nice and happy and Little by little they accustomed to their new life and began to find happiness in that town. After revolution the situation was changed, Iraqis thought that Khorramshahr belongs to them and wanted to attach this small city to their country. They attacked khorramshahr but my family could not run away on time because my father believed that the war would last only 3 days! Finally when Iraqis started to enter the city my family had no way but to get on the last mini bus and leave everything behind. The hardship had started for them; they did not have any place to go, and wanted their home, their beds, and their own peaceful life. After a while they went Tehran to live near my aunt. They could not stay there too long because of missile attacks on Tehran. When my father was proposed a job in Mashhad, He accepted and they leaved Tehran. They had to make everything again. It was hard to adopt to new place and people with different way of living and special traditions. We were just strangers among them. My parents were concerned of my education so they sent me to special school after I finished primary school. Although the teachers were perfect and we had everything there, but I was not happy. I had to study all the time, we were expected to study extra hours to come up with school’ schedules. I recall my loneliness and sleeplessness clearly. We came back to Tehran when I finished secondary school. Again I had to adopt myself to the new conditions. I was good at high school but not as good as I used to be. Instead of studding my lessons I spent my time reading different books! At that time I thought everything is futile, and I did not know why people trying that hard to gain something that is transitory. My major was mathematic and I liked it but it needed too much effort to be successful in entrance examination of university. I believed that I was wasting my time by staying at home and studding all the time. I did not want to torture myself like this, so I went abroad to live there. First I thought that I found the paradise lost and everything was attractive for me, after a while I came to this idea that it was not what I wanted. The foreigner’s situation was not good. They were given the second rate jobs. The cost of living did not permit them to afford to go to university and some of them had to marry the ones older than them to get credit cards. I did not like to live like them, so I decided to come back to Iran although my mother did not agree. After that I started to study for entrance examination and was admitted in university, since then my life has been calm and I have found my way in life.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
The Skylight Room
By
O. Henry
FIRST Mrs. Parker would show you the double parlors. You would not dare to interrupt her description of their advantages and of the merits of the gentleman who had occupied them for eight years. Then you would manage to stammer forth the confession that you were neither a doctor nor a dentist.
Mrs. Parker's manner of receiving the admission was such that you could never afterward entertain the same feeling toward your parents, who had neglected to train you up in one of the professions that fitted Mrs. Parker's parlors.
Next you ascended one flight of stairs and looked at the second-floor-back at $8. Convinced by her second-floor manner that it was worth the $12 that Mr. Toosenberry always paid for it until he left to take charge of his brother's orange plantation in Florida near Palm Beach, where Mrs. McIntyre always spent the winters that had the double front room with private bath, you managed to babble that you wanted something still cheaper.
If you survived Mrs. Parker's scorn, you were taken to look at Mr. Skidder's large hall room on the third floor. Mr. Skidder's room was not vacant. He wrote plays and smoked cigarettes in it all day long. But every room-hunter was made to visit his room to admire the lambrequins. After each visit, Mr. Skidder, from the fright caused by possible eviction, would pay something on his rent.
Then-oh, then-if you still stood on one foot, with your hot hand clutching the three moist dollars in your pocket, and hoarsely proclaimed your hideous arid culpable poverty; never-more would Mrs. Parker be cicerone of yours. She would honk loudly the word "Clara," she would show you her back, and march downstairs. Then Clara, the colored [African-American] maid, would escort you up the carpeted ladder that served for the fourth flight, and show you the Skylight Room. It occupied 7 x 8 feet of floor space in the middle of the hall. On each side of it was a dark lumber closet or storeroom.
In it was an iron cot, a washstand and a chair. A shelf was the dresser. Its four bare walls seemed to close in upon you like the sides of a coin. Your hand crept to your the glass of the little skylight you saw a square of blue infinity.
"Two dollars, suh," Clara would say in her half-contemptuous, half-Tuskegeenial tones.
One day Miss Leeson came hunting for a room. She carried a typewriter made to be lugged around by a much larger lady. She was a very little girl, with eyes and hair that had kept on growing after she had stopped and that always looked as if they were saying: "Goodness me! Why didn't you keep up with us?"
Mrs. Parker showed her the double parlors. "In this closet," she said, "one could keep a skeleton or an anesthetic or coal--"
"But I am neither a doctor nor a dentist," said Miss Leeson, with a shiver.
Mrs. Parker gave her the incredulous, pitying, sneering, icy stare that she kept for those who failed to qualify as doctors or dentists, and led the way to the second-floor-back.
"Eight dollars?" said Miss Leeson. "Dear me! I'm not Hetty if I do look green. I'm just a poor little working girl. Show me something higher and lower."
Mr. Skidder jumped and strewed the floor with cigarette stubs at the rap on his door.
"Excuse me, Mr. Skidder," said Mrs. Parker, with her demon's smile at his pale looks. "I didn't know you were in. I asked the lady to have a look at your lambrequins."
"They're too lovely for anything," said Miss Leeson, smiling in exactly the way the angels do.
After they had gone Mr. Skidder got very busy erasing the tall, black-haired heroine from his latest (unproduced) play and insetted a small, roguish one with heavy, bright hair and vivacious features.
"Anna Held'll jump at it," said Mr. Skidder to himself, putting his feet up against the lambrequins and disappearing in a cloud of smoke like an aerial cuttlefish.
Presently the tocsin call of "Clara!" sounded to the world the state of Miss Leeson's purse. A dark goblin seized her, mounted a Stygian stairway, thrust her into a vault with a glimmer of light in its top and muttered the menacing and cabalistic words:
"Two dollars!"
"I'll take it!" sighed Miss Leeson, sinking down upon the squeaky iron bed.
Every day Miss Leeson went out to work. At night she brought home papers with handwriting on them and made copies with her typewriter.
Sometimes she had no work at night, and then she would sit on the steps of the high stoop with the other roomers.
Miss Leeson was not intended for a skylight room when the plans were drawn for her creation. She was gay-hearted and full of tender, whimsical fancies. Once she let Mr. Skidder read to her three acts of his great (unpublished) comedy, "It's No Kid; or, The Heir of the Subway."
There was rejoicing among the gentlemen roomers whenever Miss Leeson had time to sit on the steps for an hour or two. But Miss Longnecker, the tall blonde who taught in a public school and said, "Well, really!" to everything you said, sat on the top step and sniffed.
And Miss Dorn, who shot at the moving ducks at Coney [Island] every Sunday and worked in a department store, sat on the bottom step and sniffed. Miss Leeson sat on the middle step and the men, would quickly group around her. Especially Mr. Skidder, who had cast her in his mind for the star part in a private, romantic (unspoken) drama in real life.
And especially Mr. Hoover, who was forty-five, fat, flush and foolish.
And especially very young Mr. Evans, who set up a hollow cough to induce her to ask him to leave off cigarettes. The men voted her "the funniest and jolliest ever," but the snifis on the top step and the lower step were implacable.
(I pray you to let the drama halt while Chorus stalks to the footlights and drops an epicedian tear upon the fatness of Mr. Hoover. Tune the pipes to the tragedy of tallow, the bane of bulk, the calamity of corpulence. Tried out, Falstaff might have rendered more romance to the ton than would have Romeo's rickety ribs to the ounce. A lover may sigh, but he must not puff. To the train of Momus are the fat men remanded. In vain beats the faithfullest heart above a 52-inch belt. Avaunt, Hoover!
Hoover, forty-five, flush and foolish, might carry off Helen herself; Hoover, forty-five, flush, foolish and fat is meat for perdition. There was never a chance for you, Hoover.) [parentheses mine, web designer]
As Mrs. Parker's roomers sat thus one summer's evening, Miss Leeson looked up into the firmament and cried with her little gay laugh:"Why, there's Billy Jackson! I can see him from down here, too."
All looked up-some at the windows of skyscrapers, some casting about for an airship, Jackson-guided.
"It's that star," explained Miss Leeson, pointing with a tiny finger. "Not the big one that winkles-the steady blue one near it. I can see it every night through my skylight. I named it Billy Jackson."
"Well, really!" said Miss Longnecker. "I didn't know you were an astronomer, Miss Leeson."
"Oh, yes," said the small star gazer, "I know as much as any of them about the style of sleeves they're going to wear next fall in Mars."
"Well, really!" said Miss Longnecker. "The star you refer to is Gamma, of the constelation Cassiopeia. It is nearly of the second magnitude, arid its meridian passage is--"
"Said the very young Mr. Evans, "I think Hilly Jackson is a much better name for it,"
"Same here," said Mr. Hoover, loudly breathing defiance to Miss Longnecker. "I think Miss Leeson has just as much right to name stars as any of those old astrologers had?'
"Well, really!" said Miss Longnecker.
"I wonder whether it's a shooting star," remarked Miss Dorn.
"I hit nine ducks and a rabbit out of ten in the gallery at Coney Sunday."
"He doesn't show up very well from down here," said Miss Lesson. "You ought to see him from my room. You know you can see stars even in the daytime from the bottom of a well. At night my room is like the shaft of a coal mine, and it makes Billy Jackson look like the big diamond pin that Night fastens her kimono with."
There came a time after that when Miss Leeson brought no formidable papers home to copy. And when she went out in the morning, instead of working, she went from office to office and let her heart melt away in the drip of cold refusals transmitted through insolent office boys. This went on.
There came an evening when she wearily climbed Mrs. Parker's stoop at the hour when she always returned from her dinner at the restaurant. But she had had no dinner.
As she stepped into the hall Mr. Hoover met her and seized his chance. He asked her to marry him, and his fatness hovered above her like an avalanche. She dodged, and caught the balustrade.
He tried for her hand, and she raised it and smote him weakly in the face.
Step by step she went up, dragging herself by the railing. She passed Mr. Skidder's door as he was red-inking a stage direction for Myrtle Delorme (Miss Leeson) in his (unaccepted) comedy, to "pirouette across stage from L to the side of the Count." Up the carpeted ladder she crawled at last and opened the door of the skylight room. She was too weak to light the lamp to undress. She fell upon the iron cot, her fragile body scarcely hollowing the worn springs.
And in that Erehus of a room she slowly raised her heavy eyelids, and smiled. For Billy Jackson was shining down on her, calm and bright and constant through the skylight. There was no world about her. She was sunk in a pit of blackness, with but that small square of pallid light framing the star that she had so whimsically and oh, so ineffectually, named. Miss Longnecker must be right. It was Gamma, of the constellation Cassiopeia, and not Billy Jackson.
And yet she could not let it be Gamma. As she lay on her back, she tried twice to raise her arm. The third time she got two thin fingers to her lips and blew a kiss out of the black pit to Billy Jackson. Her arm fell back limply.
"Good-bye, Billy," she murmured, faintly. "You're millions of miles away and you won't even twinkle once. But you kept where I could see you most of the time up there when there wasn't anything else but darkness to look at, didn't you? . . . Millions of miles. . . . Good.bye, Billy Jackson."
Clara, the colored maid, found the door locked at 10 the next day, and they forced it open. Vinegar, and the slapping of wrists and burnt feathers proving of no avail, some one ran to phone for an ambulance.
In due time it backed up to the door with much gong-clanging, and the capable young medico, in his white linen coat, ready, active, confident, with his smooth face half debonair, half grim, danced up the steps,
"Ambulance call to 49," he said, briefly. "What's the trouble?"
"Oh, yes, doctor," sniffed Mrs. Parker, as though her trouble that there should be trouble in the house was the greater. "I can't think what can be the matter with her. Nothing we could do would bring her to. It's a young woman, a Miss Elsi--yes, a Miss Elsie Lessson. Never before in my house--"
"What room?" cried the doctor in a terrible voice, to which Mrs. Parker was a stranger.
"The sky1ight room. It-"
Evidently the ambulance doctor was familiar with the location of skylight rooms. He was gone up the stairs, four at a time. Mrs. Parker followed slowly, as her dignity demanded.
On the first landing she met him coming back bearing the astronomer in his arms. He stopped and let loose the practised scalpel of his tongue, not loudly.
Gradully Mrs. Parker crumpled as a stiff garment that slips down from a nail. Ever afterwards there remained crumples in her mind and body. Sometimes her curious roomers would ask her what the doctor said to her.
"Let that be," she would answer. "If I can get forgiveness for having heard it I will be satisfied."
The ambulance physician strode with his burden through the pack of hounds that follow the curiosity chase, and even they fell back along the sidewalk abashed, for his face was that of one who bears his own dead.
They noticed that he did not lay down upon the bed prepared for it in the ambulance the form that he carried, and all that he said was: "Drive like h-l, Wilson," to the driver.
That is all. Is it a story? In the next morning's paper I saw a little news item, and the last sentence of it may help you (as it helped me) to weld the incidents togetber. It recounted the reception into Bellevue Hospital of a young woman who had been removed from No. 49 East _____ Street, suffering from debility induced by starvation. It concluded with these words:
"Dr. William Jackson, the ambulance physician who attended the
case, says the patient will recover."
***
The End of the story "The Skylight Room"
By
O. Henry
FIRST Mrs. Parker would show you the double parlors. You would not dare to interrupt her description of their advantages and of the merits of the gentleman who had occupied them for eight years. Then you would manage to stammer forth the confession that you were neither a doctor nor a dentist.
Mrs. Parker's manner of receiving the admission was such that you could never afterward entertain the same feeling toward your parents, who had neglected to train you up in one of the professions that fitted Mrs. Parker's parlors.
Next you ascended one flight of stairs and looked at the second-floor-back at $8. Convinced by her second-floor manner that it was worth the $12 that Mr. Toosenberry always paid for it until he left to take charge of his brother's orange plantation in Florida near Palm Beach, where Mrs. McIntyre always spent the winters that had the double front room with private bath, you managed to babble that you wanted something still cheaper.
If you survived Mrs. Parker's scorn, you were taken to look at Mr. Skidder's large hall room on the third floor. Mr. Skidder's room was not vacant. He wrote plays and smoked cigarettes in it all day long. But every room-hunter was made to visit his room to admire the lambrequins. After each visit, Mr. Skidder, from the fright caused by possible eviction, would pay something on his rent.
Then-oh, then-if you still stood on one foot, with your hot hand clutching the three moist dollars in your pocket, and hoarsely proclaimed your hideous arid culpable poverty; never-more would Mrs. Parker be cicerone of yours. She would honk loudly the word "Clara," she would show you her back, and march downstairs. Then Clara, the colored [African-American] maid, would escort you up the carpeted ladder that served for the fourth flight, and show you the Skylight Room. It occupied 7 x 8 feet of floor space in the middle of the hall. On each side of it was a dark lumber closet or storeroom.
In it was an iron cot, a washstand and a chair. A shelf was the dresser. Its four bare walls seemed to close in upon you like the sides of a coin. Your hand crept to your the glass of the little skylight you saw a square of blue infinity.
"Two dollars, suh," Clara would say in her half-contemptuous, half-Tuskegeenial tones.
One day Miss Leeson came hunting for a room. She carried a typewriter made to be lugged around by a much larger lady. She was a very little girl, with eyes and hair that had kept on growing after she had stopped and that always looked as if they were saying: "Goodness me! Why didn't you keep up with us?"
Mrs. Parker showed her the double parlors. "In this closet," she said, "one could keep a skeleton or an anesthetic or coal--"
"But I am neither a doctor nor a dentist," said Miss Leeson, with a shiver.
Mrs. Parker gave her the incredulous, pitying, sneering, icy stare that she kept for those who failed to qualify as doctors or dentists, and led the way to the second-floor-back.
"Eight dollars?" said Miss Leeson. "Dear me! I'm not Hetty if I do look green. I'm just a poor little working girl. Show me something higher and lower."
Mr. Skidder jumped and strewed the floor with cigarette stubs at the rap on his door.
"Excuse me, Mr. Skidder," said Mrs. Parker, with her demon's smile at his pale looks. "I didn't know you were in. I asked the lady to have a look at your lambrequins."
"They're too lovely for anything," said Miss Leeson, smiling in exactly the way the angels do.
After they had gone Mr. Skidder got very busy erasing the tall, black-haired heroine from his latest (unproduced) play and insetted a small, roguish one with heavy, bright hair and vivacious features.
"Anna Held'll jump at it," said Mr. Skidder to himself, putting his feet up against the lambrequins and disappearing in a cloud of smoke like an aerial cuttlefish.
Presently the tocsin call of "Clara!" sounded to the world the state of Miss Leeson's purse. A dark goblin seized her, mounted a Stygian stairway, thrust her into a vault with a glimmer of light in its top and muttered the menacing and cabalistic words:
"Two dollars!"
"I'll take it!" sighed Miss Leeson, sinking down upon the squeaky iron bed.
Every day Miss Leeson went out to work. At night she brought home papers with handwriting on them and made copies with her typewriter.
Sometimes she had no work at night, and then she would sit on the steps of the high stoop with the other roomers.
Miss Leeson was not intended for a skylight room when the plans were drawn for her creation. She was gay-hearted and full of tender, whimsical fancies. Once she let Mr. Skidder read to her three acts of his great (unpublished) comedy, "It's No Kid; or, The Heir of the Subway."
There was rejoicing among the gentlemen roomers whenever Miss Leeson had time to sit on the steps for an hour or two. But Miss Longnecker, the tall blonde who taught in a public school and said, "Well, really!" to everything you said, sat on the top step and sniffed.
And Miss Dorn, who shot at the moving ducks at Coney [Island] every Sunday and worked in a department store, sat on the bottom step and sniffed. Miss Leeson sat on the middle step and the men, would quickly group around her. Especially Mr. Skidder, who had cast her in his mind for the star part in a private, romantic (unspoken) drama in real life.
And especially Mr. Hoover, who was forty-five, fat, flush and foolish.
And especially very young Mr. Evans, who set up a hollow cough to induce her to ask him to leave off cigarettes. The men voted her "the funniest and jolliest ever," but the snifis on the top step and the lower step were implacable.
(I pray you to let the drama halt while Chorus stalks to the footlights and drops an epicedian tear upon the fatness of Mr. Hoover. Tune the pipes to the tragedy of tallow, the bane of bulk, the calamity of corpulence. Tried out, Falstaff might have rendered more romance to the ton than would have Romeo's rickety ribs to the ounce. A lover may sigh, but he must not puff. To the train of Momus are the fat men remanded. In vain beats the faithfullest heart above a 52-inch belt. Avaunt, Hoover!
Hoover, forty-five, flush and foolish, might carry off Helen herself; Hoover, forty-five, flush, foolish and fat is meat for perdition. There was never a chance for you, Hoover.) [parentheses mine, web designer]
As Mrs. Parker's roomers sat thus one summer's evening, Miss Leeson looked up into the firmament and cried with her little gay laugh:"Why, there's Billy Jackson! I can see him from down here, too."
All looked up-some at the windows of skyscrapers, some casting about for an airship, Jackson-guided.
"It's that star," explained Miss Leeson, pointing with a tiny finger. "Not the big one that winkles-the steady blue one near it. I can see it every night through my skylight. I named it Billy Jackson."
"Well, really!" said Miss Longnecker. "I didn't know you were an astronomer, Miss Leeson."
"Oh, yes," said the small star gazer, "I know as much as any of them about the style of sleeves they're going to wear next fall in Mars."
"Well, really!" said Miss Longnecker. "The star you refer to is Gamma, of the constelation Cassiopeia. It is nearly of the second magnitude, arid its meridian passage is--"
"Said the very young Mr. Evans, "I think Hilly Jackson is a much better name for it,"
"Same here," said Mr. Hoover, loudly breathing defiance to Miss Longnecker. "I think Miss Leeson has just as much right to name stars as any of those old astrologers had?'
"Well, really!" said Miss Longnecker.
"I wonder whether it's a shooting star," remarked Miss Dorn.
"I hit nine ducks and a rabbit out of ten in the gallery at Coney Sunday."
"He doesn't show up very well from down here," said Miss Lesson. "You ought to see him from my room. You know you can see stars even in the daytime from the bottom of a well. At night my room is like the shaft of a coal mine, and it makes Billy Jackson look like the big diamond pin that Night fastens her kimono with."
There came a time after that when Miss Leeson brought no formidable papers home to copy. And when she went out in the morning, instead of working, she went from office to office and let her heart melt away in the drip of cold refusals transmitted through insolent office boys. This went on.
There came an evening when she wearily climbed Mrs. Parker's stoop at the hour when she always returned from her dinner at the restaurant. But she had had no dinner.
As she stepped into the hall Mr. Hoover met her and seized his chance. He asked her to marry him, and his fatness hovered above her like an avalanche. She dodged, and caught the balustrade.
He tried for her hand, and she raised it and smote him weakly in the face.
Step by step she went up, dragging herself by the railing. She passed Mr. Skidder's door as he was red-inking a stage direction for Myrtle Delorme (Miss Leeson) in his (unaccepted) comedy, to "pirouette across stage from L to the side of the Count." Up the carpeted ladder she crawled at last and opened the door of the skylight room. She was too weak to light the lamp to undress. She fell upon the iron cot, her fragile body scarcely hollowing the worn springs.
And in that Erehus of a room she slowly raised her heavy eyelids, and smiled. For Billy Jackson was shining down on her, calm and bright and constant through the skylight. There was no world about her. She was sunk in a pit of blackness, with but that small square of pallid light framing the star that she had so whimsically and oh, so ineffectually, named. Miss Longnecker must be right. It was Gamma, of the constellation Cassiopeia, and not Billy Jackson.
And yet she could not let it be Gamma. As she lay on her back, she tried twice to raise her arm. The third time she got two thin fingers to her lips and blew a kiss out of the black pit to Billy Jackson. Her arm fell back limply.
"Good-bye, Billy," she murmured, faintly. "You're millions of miles away and you won't even twinkle once. But you kept where I could see you most of the time up there when there wasn't anything else but darkness to look at, didn't you? . . . Millions of miles. . . . Good.bye, Billy Jackson."
Clara, the colored maid, found the door locked at 10 the next day, and they forced it open. Vinegar, and the slapping of wrists and burnt feathers proving of no avail, some one ran to phone for an ambulance.
In due time it backed up to the door with much gong-clanging, and the capable young medico, in his white linen coat, ready, active, confident, with his smooth face half debonair, half grim, danced up the steps,
"Ambulance call to 49," he said, briefly. "What's the trouble?"
"Oh, yes, doctor," sniffed Mrs. Parker, as though her trouble that there should be trouble in the house was the greater. "I can't think what can be the matter with her. Nothing we could do would bring her to. It's a young woman, a Miss Elsi--yes, a Miss Elsie Lessson. Never before in my house--"
"What room?" cried the doctor in a terrible voice, to which Mrs. Parker was a stranger.
"The sky1ight room. It-"
Evidently the ambulance doctor was familiar with the location of skylight rooms. He was gone up the stairs, four at a time. Mrs. Parker followed slowly, as her dignity demanded.
On the first landing she met him coming back bearing the astronomer in his arms. He stopped and let loose the practised scalpel of his tongue, not loudly.
Gradully Mrs. Parker crumpled as a stiff garment that slips down from a nail. Ever afterwards there remained crumples in her mind and body. Sometimes her curious roomers would ask her what the doctor said to her.
"Let that be," she would answer. "If I can get forgiveness for having heard it I will be satisfied."
The ambulance physician strode with his burden through the pack of hounds that follow the curiosity chase, and even they fell back along the sidewalk abashed, for his face was that of one who bears his own dead.
They noticed that he did not lay down upon the bed prepared for it in the ambulance the form that he carried, and all that he said was: "Drive like h-l, Wilson," to the driver.
That is all. Is it a story? In the next morning's paper I saw a little news item, and the last sentence of it may help you (as it helped me) to weld the incidents togetber. It recounted the reception into Bellevue Hospital of a young woman who had been removed from No. 49 East _____ Street, suffering from debility induced by starvation. It concluded with these words:
"Dr. William Jackson, the ambulance physician who attended the
case, says the patient will recover."
***
The End of the story "The Skylight Room"
William Sydney Porter1862-1910
Short Story Writer Greensboro, North Carolina
The most popular short story writer of his era, William Sydney Porter was born on Polecat Creek in Guilford County, and raised and educated in Greensboro by an unmarried aunt who ran a private school. Young William Sydney Porter worked in an uncle's drug store until he moved at nineteen to Texas where he held a variety of jobs including paying and receiving teller at the First National Bank of Austin. To supplement his income, he wrote free-lance sketches, and was briefly editor and co-owner of a humorous weekly called The Rolling Stone. While he was working as a columnist for the Houston Daily Post, Porter was indicted for the embezzlement of bank funds during his time as a teller. His trial was delayed for two years first by his escape to New Orleans and Honduras, then by his wife's illness and death.
Although it is not known for certain whether Porter was an embezzler or merely an incompetent bookkeeper, he was sentenced to five years in the Ohio Penitentiary. His jobs as the prison's night druggist and as secretary to the steward allowed him time to write, and he published his first short story from prison under a pen name. He used several pseudonyms, but upon his early release for good behavior, he chose to write as O. Henry.
Porter moved to New York City in 1902, ostensibly to obtain material, although for the next few years his work continued to reflect his experiences in the southwest and Central America. All but 16 of the 115 stories he wrote in 1904 and 1905 dealt with New York, and on the publication of his second book, The Four Million, he was declared the discoverer of romance in that city's streets. Until 1911 (one year after his death), two collections of his stories were published annually, many of them appearing first in the New York Sunday World. In 1907, Porter married his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Lindsay Coleman of Weaverville, North Carolina. He died in 1910, and is buried in Asheville.
William Sydney Porter's stories follow a standard formula, dealing with commonplace events in the lives of ordinary people and arriving at a surprise ending through coincidence. His two favorite themes were the situation of the imposter and fate as the one unavoidable reality of life. Some of his best known tales are "The Gift of the Magi," "A Municipal Report," and "The Ransom of Red Chief." Stories which hark back to his North Carolina background include "Let Me Feel Your Pulse" and "The Fool-Killer." Although his stories have been criticized for sentimentality and for their surprise endings, they remain popular to this day for those very reasons, and because of their author's unmistakable affection for the foibles of human nature.
Short Story Writer Greensboro, North Carolina
The most popular short story writer of his era, William Sydney Porter was born on Polecat Creek in Guilford County, and raised and educated in Greensboro by an unmarried aunt who ran a private school. Young William Sydney Porter worked in an uncle's drug store until he moved at nineteen to Texas where he held a variety of jobs including paying and receiving teller at the First National Bank of Austin. To supplement his income, he wrote free-lance sketches, and was briefly editor and co-owner of a humorous weekly called The Rolling Stone. While he was working as a columnist for the Houston Daily Post, Porter was indicted for the embezzlement of bank funds during his time as a teller. His trial was delayed for two years first by his escape to New Orleans and Honduras, then by his wife's illness and death.
Although it is not known for certain whether Porter was an embezzler or merely an incompetent bookkeeper, he was sentenced to five years in the Ohio Penitentiary. His jobs as the prison's night druggist and as secretary to the steward allowed him time to write, and he published his first short story from prison under a pen name. He used several pseudonyms, but upon his early release for good behavior, he chose to write as O. Henry.
Porter moved to New York City in 1902, ostensibly to obtain material, although for the next few years his work continued to reflect his experiences in the southwest and Central America. All but 16 of the 115 stories he wrote in 1904 and 1905 dealt with New York, and on the publication of his second book, The Four Million, he was declared the discoverer of romance in that city's streets. Until 1911 (one year after his death), two collections of his stories were published annually, many of them appearing first in the New York Sunday World. In 1907, Porter married his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Lindsay Coleman of Weaverville, North Carolina. He died in 1910, and is buried in Asheville.
William Sydney Porter's stories follow a standard formula, dealing with commonplace events in the lives of ordinary people and arriving at a surprise ending through coincidence. His two favorite themes were the situation of the imposter and fate as the one unavoidable reality of life. Some of his best known tales are "The Gift of the Magi," "A Municipal Report," and "The Ransom of Red Chief." Stories which hark back to his North Carolina background include "Let Me Feel Your Pulse" and "The Fool-Killer." Although his stories have been criticized for sentimentality and for their surprise endings, they remain popular to this day for those very reasons, and because of their author's unmistakable affection for the foibles of human nature.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Abraham Lincoln Biography
A Brief Biography of Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln's Early Life
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, on Nolin Creek in Kentucky. His father, Thomas Lincoln, was a poverty-stricken farmer, who could never seem to make ends meet. Consequently, Lincoln spent his childhood learning how to weld an axe, hunt and work a plow. He was tall, athletic and active. During his campaign for the Presidency, Lincoln liked to recount how during his childhood he was kicked in the teeth by a horse and "apparently killed for a time." His mother, Nancy Hanks, died soon after the family moved to Spencer County, Indiana, in 1819. Left with two children to support, Thomas Lincoln remarried Sarah Bush. In 1830, the Lincolns moved to Macon, Illinois, and had three more children. Although both of his parents were illiterate, Lincoln learned to read and some of his favorite books included Arabian Nights and Robinson Crusoe. Lincoln was also popular among his friends, known for his good humor and storytelling abilities. At the age of 22, Lincoln set out on his own for New Orleans. There, he became a partner in a grocery store, although the store eventually folded and left Lincoln deeply in debt. Before going into the law, Lincoln tried many different professions � he worked as a postmaster, a land surveyor and a rail splitter. He also enlisted as a volunteer in the Black Hawk war, but he never saw any action during his time of service. Throughout all his odd jobs and failed professions, Lincoln racked up a significant amount of debt, but he later repaid it, earning the nickname "Honest Abe." In 1834, Lincoln was elected as a representative for the Illinois General Assembly.
Presidency
In 1848, after working hard on Zachary Taylor's presidential campaign, Lincoln was turned down for the office of Commissioner of General Land Office. Coupled with waning support from his constituents over his opposition to the Mexican War, Lincoln retired from politics and returned to law. In 1856, Lincoln became a member of the Republican party and quickly became a political front-runner as a moderate who could woo both conservatives and abolitionists. However, Lincoln did not completely oppose slavery as he believed that it was an evil that should be contained and not allowed to grow. After gaining recognition as a possible vice presidential candidate in 1856, he was picked to oppose Stephen Douglas in the Illinois senatorial race. It was during this race that Lincoln and Douglas began a series of famous debates over the topic of slavery. While Lincoln lost the race, he became a pick for the Republican presidential bid in 1860 and won the presidency with a minority of the popular vote. Lincoln presided over the country during one of its most tumultuous periods. However, despite the ravaging of America's Civil War, Lincoln was able to maintain the continuity of the Union. The main goals during his presidency were restoration and preservation of the Union. These ideas were succinctly communicated during his Gettysburg Address. Although he is often remembered as "The Great Emancipator," Lincoln, not wanting to alienate any American, at first tried to preserve the integrity of the Union by allowing for a gradual elimination to slavery. Yet, later he realized that in order for the Union to prevail slavery must end. Consequently, on September 22, 1862 Lincoln issued an Emancipation Proclamation, which attempted to free Confederate slaves. In addition to being both doubtful legally and feasibly, Lincoln's efforts only freed a minority of slaves and didn't come into full effect until after his death.
Assassination
Lincoln was reelected to the presidency in 1864 with an overwhelming majority and he intended to conduct his second term with forgiveness. The president summed up his sentiments in his second inaugural address, stating, "With malice toward none; with charity for all." Although he lived to see the end of the war, Lincoln did not see his plans for the reconstruction of the United States realized. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a performance at Ford's Theater. After shooting the President, Booth allegedly leaped to the stage shouting, "sic semper tyrannus," which is latin for "thus always to tyrants." Booth fled from the building and led the nation on a manhunt that lasted twelve days until he was cornered in a barn in Virginia. When the barn was set on fire, Booth was shot during the confusion and died several hours later. The whole country mourned for the President, even his most bitter of opponents and many considered him to be a martyr. Long after his death, Lincoln is still considered one of America's greatest Presidents.
Lincoln's Early Life
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, on Nolin Creek in Kentucky. His father, Thomas Lincoln, was a poverty-stricken farmer, who could never seem to make ends meet. Consequently, Lincoln spent his childhood learning how to weld an axe, hunt and work a plow. He was tall, athletic and active. During his campaign for the Presidency, Lincoln liked to recount how during his childhood he was kicked in the teeth by a horse and "apparently killed for a time." His mother, Nancy Hanks, died soon after the family moved to Spencer County, Indiana, in 1819. Left with two children to support, Thomas Lincoln remarried Sarah Bush. In 1830, the Lincolns moved to Macon, Illinois, and had three more children. Although both of his parents were illiterate, Lincoln learned to read and some of his favorite books included Arabian Nights and Robinson Crusoe. Lincoln was also popular among his friends, known for his good humor and storytelling abilities. At the age of 22, Lincoln set out on his own for New Orleans. There, he became a partner in a grocery store, although the store eventually folded and left Lincoln deeply in debt. Before going into the law, Lincoln tried many different professions � he worked as a postmaster, a land surveyor and a rail splitter. He also enlisted as a volunteer in the Black Hawk war, but he never saw any action during his time of service. Throughout all his odd jobs and failed professions, Lincoln racked up a significant amount of debt, but he later repaid it, earning the nickname "Honest Abe." In 1834, Lincoln was elected as a representative for the Illinois General Assembly.
Presidency
In 1848, after working hard on Zachary Taylor's presidential campaign, Lincoln was turned down for the office of Commissioner of General Land Office. Coupled with waning support from his constituents over his opposition to the Mexican War, Lincoln retired from politics and returned to law. In 1856, Lincoln became a member of the Republican party and quickly became a political front-runner as a moderate who could woo both conservatives and abolitionists. However, Lincoln did not completely oppose slavery as he believed that it was an evil that should be contained and not allowed to grow. After gaining recognition as a possible vice presidential candidate in 1856, he was picked to oppose Stephen Douglas in the Illinois senatorial race. It was during this race that Lincoln and Douglas began a series of famous debates over the topic of slavery. While Lincoln lost the race, he became a pick for the Republican presidential bid in 1860 and won the presidency with a minority of the popular vote. Lincoln presided over the country during one of its most tumultuous periods. However, despite the ravaging of America's Civil War, Lincoln was able to maintain the continuity of the Union. The main goals during his presidency were restoration and preservation of the Union. These ideas were succinctly communicated during his Gettysburg Address. Although he is often remembered as "The Great Emancipator," Lincoln, not wanting to alienate any American, at first tried to preserve the integrity of the Union by allowing for a gradual elimination to slavery. Yet, later he realized that in order for the Union to prevail slavery must end. Consequently, on September 22, 1862 Lincoln issued an Emancipation Proclamation, which attempted to free Confederate slaves. In addition to being both doubtful legally and feasibly, Lincoln's efforts only freed a minority of slaves and didn't come into full effect until after his death.
Assassination
Lincoln was reelected to the presidency in 1864 with an overwhelming majority and he intended to conduct his second term with forgiveness. The president summed up his sentiments in his second inaugural address, stating, "With malice toward none; with charity for all." Although he lived to see the end of the war, Lincoln did not see his plans for the reconstruction of the United States realized. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending a performance at Ford's Theater. After shooting the President, Booth allegedly leaped to the stage shouting, "sic semper tyrannus," which is latin for "thus always to tyrants." Booth fled from the building and led the nation on a manhunt that lasted twelve days until he was cornered in a barn in Virginia. When the barn was set on fire, Booth was shot during the confusion and died several hours later. The whole country mourned for the President, even his most bitter of opponents and many considered him to be a martyr. Long after his death, Lincoln is still considered one of America's greatest Presidents.
The Path to an Autobiography: Successfully Putting Your Life Story on Paper
Why Write an Autobiography?
The reasons behind writing an autobiography are as myriad as the thousands upon thousands of people who write them. Perhaps you came across the memoirs of your beloved grandfather and, having so deeply enjoyed reading it, you want to put the story of your own life into words so your grandchildren can find them one day and treasure it as much as you had. Or perhaps you want to put your life experience into words so that others may read it and learn from your mistakes.
The motivations behind the desire to write custom autobiography are endless - what is really important is that if you have to urge to write one, do it!
Remain Focused: See the Trees, then the Forest
Writing a life story is a big project, much bigger than a simple essay or term paper. It can sometimes seem so overwhelming that many who decide to try to write an autobiography give up before even beginning. This is unfortunate.
The stories of these people's lives may have been breathtakingly exciting, or may have even inspired future generations. Once you have made the decision to chronicle your own life story, try to remain focused, take it on step at a time, and realize that writing an autobiography is a long, arduous process. Don't give up!
Think of it this way: every time you work on your autobiography (writing down an important incident, explaining where your love of art came from, etc.) you are creating a tree. Eventually, after crafting countless trees, you have created a singular forest -- that is your life story!
Journaling: An Important Step toward the Development of an Autobiography
Journaling, or simply jotting down one's day-to-day activities, has become more and more
popular over the years. This may be partly due to media-giant Oprah Winfrey advocating this activity on her talk shows, but the real reason for its increase is much deeper than that. People want to make sense of their lives, and there is a growing need to leave a permanent mark in an increasingly transient world.
Our culture grows more and more disposable each day, and sometimes it can seem as if people have actually become disposable as well. Journaling helps us to make sense of the crazy experiences of life and allows us to hold on the fleeting memories and emotions of what occurs to us during our daily lives.
Journaling is extremely helpful toward the creation of an autobiography because all of the daily events, as well as the specific emotions that were felt during those events, are prerecorded. With a detailed journal on hand, writing the autobiography is much, much easier.
Writing the Autobiography without the Help of a Journal
What if you haven't been journaling your day-to-day activities throughout your life? Can you still write an effective autobiography? Will you still be able to put the essence of your life into words? The answer is a resounding yes!
Truth be told, the majority of people who choose to write an autobiography don't have a detailed journal of their lives to reference. That doesn't mean that a good autobiography can't be written. All the important memories of your life, of what made you into the person you are, are all inside your head. You just have to write them down.
Organization
Organization. This may be the most important word of all when it comes to writing an autobiography. It is not enough to simply write a bunch of memories on paper, slap on title on it, and call it an autobiography. There must be organization to your life story, just like in a "regular essay" or research paper.
After you have accessed all your important memories and have written them down, paying a close attention to detail as possible, you must find some way of organizing them into a story.
The most common form of organization is chronological. Simply telling your life story as a timeline, from when you were born to the moment when you decided to write the book, and maybe even including moments while you were writing the book. This is the most common, and perhaps the easiest, but it is in no way to only way to organize your life story.
If you do not want to organize your autobiography chronologically, find what is most important to you, what you would like to think your life was about, and center it on that. It could be love, art, or music. It could be centered around how important butterfly collecting was to meeting your first and only love, and how that led to your current life situation. It can be organized around anything really, as long as the story is about you. As stated before, the possibilities of an autobiography are endless.
Your story should be told. No, it must be told. So tell it!
The reasons behind writing an autobiography are as myriad as the thousands upon thousands of people who write them. Perhaps you came across the memoirs of your beloved grandfather and, having so deeply enjoyed reading it, you want to put the story of your own life into words so your grandchildren can find them one day and treasure it as much as you had. Or perhaps you want to put your life experience into words so that others may read it and learn from your mistakes.
The motivations behind the desire to write custom autobiography are endless - what is really important is that if you have to urge to write one, do it!
Remain Focused: See the Trees, then the Forest
Writing a life story is a big project, much bigger than a simple essay or term paper. It can sometimes seem so overwhelming that many who decide to try to write an autobiography give up before even beginning. This is unfortunate.
The stories of these people's lives may have been breathtakingly exciting, or may have even inspired future generations. Once you have made the decision to chronicle your own life story, try to remain focused, take it on step at a time, and realize that writing an autobiography is a long, arduous process. Don't give up!
Think of it this way: every time you work on your autobiography (writing down an important incident, explaining where your love of art came from, etc.) you are creating a tree. Eventually, after crafting countless trees, you have created a singular forest -- that is your life story!
Journaling: An Important Step toward the Development of an Autobiography
Journaling, or simply jotting down one's day-to-day activities, has become more and more
popular over the years. This may be partly due to media-giant Oprah Winfrey advocating this activity on her talk shows, but the real reason for its increase is much deeper than that. People want to make sense of their lives, and there is a growing need to leave a permanent mark in an increasingly transient world.
Our culture grows more and more disposable each day, and sometimes it can seem as if people have actually become disposable as well. Journaling helps us to make sense of the crazy experiences of life and allows us to hold on the fleeting memories and emotions of what occurs to us during our daily lives.
Journaling is extremely helpful toward the creation of an autobiography because all of the daily events, as well as the specific emotions that were felt during those events, are prerecorded. With a detailed journal on hand, writing the autobiography is much, much easier.
Writing the Autobiography without the Help of a Journal
What if you haven't been journaling your day-to-day activities throughout your life? Can you still write an effective autobiography? Will you still be able to put the essence of your life into words? The answer is a resounding yes!
Truth be told, the majority of people who choose to write an autobiography don't have a detailed journal of their lives to reference. That doesn't mean that a good autobiography can't be written. All the important memories of your life, of what made you into the person you are, are all inside your head. You just have to write them down.
Organization
Organization. This may be the most important word of all when it comes to writing an autobiography. It is not enough to simply write a bunch of memories on paper, slap on title on it, and call it an autobiography. There must be organization to your life story, just like in a "regular essay" or research paper.
After you have accessed all your important memories and have written them down, paying a close attention to detail as possible, you must find some way of organizing them into a story.
The most common form of organization is chronological. Simply telling your life story as a timeline, from when you were born to the moment when you decided to write the book, and maybe even including moments while you were writing the book. This is the most common, and perhaps the easiest, but it is in no way to only way to organize your life story.
If you do not want to organize your autobiography chronologically, find what is most important to you, what you would like to think your life was about, and center it on that. It could be love, art, or music. It could be centered around how important butterfly collecting was to meeting your first and only love, and how that led to your current life situation. It can be organized around anything really, as long as the story is about you. As stated before, the possibilities of an autobiography are endless.
Your story should be told. No, it must be told. So tell it!
The Mark Twain they didn’t teach us about in school
Helen Scott
The Mark Twain we learned about in school is a less than inspiring figure: Twain, the children’s author of riverside idylls; Twain, the bitter misanthrope who lashed out at society because of his personal failures; Twain, the racist who grew up in a slaveholding family. Most famously, there is Mark Twain, Father of American Literature – the figure consciously created by the American literary establishment in the 1940s and 1950s. This Twain is a powerful symbol of the American dream, the spirit of the frontier and Westward expansion – he is a nationalist hero.
Yet Twain was one of the most forthright critics of American ruling-class ideology at the turn of the twentieth century Especially towards the end of his life, Twain’s published and unpublished writings and speeches are overwhelmingly antiracist, anti-imperialist and revolutionary:
I am said to be a revolutionist in my sympathies, by birth, by breeding and by principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute. [1]
In the light of such passion, it is excruciating to think how schools and universities have managed to make Twain such a boring character! In retaliation, this article will focus on the Mark Twain they didn’t teach us in school.
Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in the slaveholding state of Missouri in 1835. He once wrote that slavery dehumanized the slave and made monsters of the slave owner. For much of his early adulthood, however, Clemens did not question the dominant ideas of his childhood.
Following the early death of his father, Sam Clemens had to earn money as soon as he could. His first paid work was as a printer’s apprentice. He spent four years in the mid-1850s working in various East Coast cities in horrible conditions and for practically no wages.
Clemens joined the print union and was an active member wherever he went. He also spent his evenings in the free libraries, where he “found a world that he never would have discovered in (Hannibal’s) public schools.” [2]
Clemens returned to the Midwest in the late 1850s, where his brother Orion, influenced by increased opposition to slavery had become active in Abraham Lincoln’s antislavery Republican Party On the eve of the Civil War, Orion was sent by Lincoln to be Secretary of the Nevada territory
Meanwhile, Clemens underwent a miserable apprenticeship as a riverboat pilot. In Life on the Mississippi, he describes the development of a dosed-shop union and the benefits reaped by all riverboat workers. This chapter was reprinted and read in union halls throughout the 1880s and 1890s. [3]
By his mid-twenties, Clemens had become a prosperous river pilot. His career was interrupted, however, by the Civil War. Although decades later Twain said that “Lincoln’s Proclamation ... not only set the Black slaves free, but set the white man free also,” [4] Clemens remained “neutral” at the outbreak of the Civil War, even while troops were taking positions on both banks of the Mississippi. At the low point of his life, Clemens joined a militia fighting for the South, which was formed by his old friends from Hannibal. He deserted after three weeks and joined his brother in Nevada in 1861.
After a few wild years during which he tried (and failed at) silver prospecting, lived mostly on credit and consorted with the unconventional Bohemians, Clemens became a journalist. Although Clemens still held many of the prejudices of the day, while in Nevada and then California he adopted a distinctive brand of social satire that championed the downtrodden and ridiculed the powerful.
He wrote a series of articles protesting discrimination against Chinese immigrants and exposing police brutality in San Francisco. “I have seen Chinamen abused and maltreated in all the mean, cowardly ways possible to the invention of a degraded nature,” he wrote in 1868, “but I never saw a Chinaman righted in a court of justice for wrongs thus done to him.” [5] After condemning the law’s double standard-he pointed out that the crimes of the wealthy go untouched, while the police brutalize the poor for the crime of being poor – Clemens was himself a victim of police harassment.
In 1865, he told his deeply religious brother Orion that “there is a God for the rich man but none for the poor,” which marked the beginning of his consistent skepticism towards religion. [6]
Clemens became a popular public speaker and adopted the persona of “Mark Twain” for his writing and speaking – a name taken from the cry of the Mississippi riverboat leadsman, “By the mark, twain” to indicate that the boat was safe with twelve feet of water under it.
He returned to the East Coast and married Olivia Langdon, the daughter of a wealthy but liberal family who had been active abolitionists. Through the family, Clemens met socialists, principled atheists and activists for women’s rights and social equality; He befriended figures such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass and the utopian socialist William Dean Howells.
Over the next two decades, Twain achieved fame and fortune through his writing and speaking tours. Some of his best-known works were written in the 1870s and 1880s, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). Both works were established as “literary classics” by the critical establishment in the 1940s and 1950s, but at first the literary elite condemned them. The Library Committee of Concord called Huckleberry Finn “trash, only suitable for the slums.” [7]
The subject matter and style of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer were deemed “coarse” and “common.” Both books tell tales of the adventures of poor boys in the rough frontier towns along the Mississippi River. They reject the moralism of the contemporary Sunday School stories, and they are written largely in dialect, with a liberal sprinkling of swear words and slang. In an era when steps towards racial equality were being dismantled, the elite hated Huckleberry Finn especially because the white hero, Huck, escapes with a runaway slave, Jim, and they develop a close friendship.
Huckleberry Finn has subsequently been condemned for its racism. The book does contain language that has racist connotations today, and this has been “whitewashed” or ignored by the critical establishment. However, even figures such as Frederick Douglass used the same language when attempting a “realistic” representation of life under slavery Furthermore, the story undermines the logic of slavery to such an extent that “the authorities regarded the exposure of the evils of slavery and the heroic portrayals of the Negro characters as ‘hideously subversive’.” [8] Any antiracist would want to acknowledge these facts, and the book should be understood in this context.
Top of the page
Identification with the oppressed
Twain’s response to his critics tells us more about the person he was becoming. By 1889, Twain was identifying with “the mighty mass of the uncultivated” and “not with the thin top crust of humanity.” [9]
Mark Twain was a contradictory figure: He continued to identify with the poor and oppressed and became increasingly critical of the social system, but he also lived the kind of life that was unrecognizable to ordinary Americans. He plowed most of his and his wife’s immense fortune into a series of crazy and disastrous investment schemes, including a new typesetter that he was convinced would make him a multimillionaire. (The project was ultimately abandoned.) He was wiped out by the financial crises of the late 1880s and 1890s, and he spent the last decade of the century traveling in Europe, recovering from his financial losses through his always popular speaking tours. In the 1 890s he also underwent a series of personal tragedies and deaths in the family. He faced bankruptcy at one point, only to be bailed out by an eccentric millionaire industrialist.
Some critics have argued that Twain’s reliance on such wealthy sponsors undermined his independence and compromised his social criticism. Twain presents his own ironic account of the limits of free speech in Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar: “In our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to exercise either of them.” [10] It is true that Twain sometimes chose not to do or say something for fear of offending his sponsors or sections of his readership.
Despite such obvious moments of compromise, however, in the last two decades of his life – he died in 1910 – Twain became an outspoken anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist. This era was one of extremes. The completion of the American Revolution with the end of slavery brought the promise of equality and democracy for all. But the same period saw the rise and consolidation of monopoly capitalism, vicious racism and divisions between rich and poor as great as any in Europe.
The turn of the century witnessed the growth of the labor movement and the American socialist party. Twain publicly championed the union movement, especially the Knights of Labor. For centuries, Twain observed, the ruling few had sneered at the idea of a challenge from below, but the Knights of Labor-and organized labor more generally-showed the hope for a change in the whole order:
When all the bricklayers, and all the machinists, and all the miners, and blacksmiths, and printers, and hod-carriers, and stevedores, and house-painters, and brakemen, and engineers, and conductors, and factory hands, and horse-car drivers, and all the shop-girls, and all the sewing-women, and all the telegraph operators; in a word all the myriads of toilers in whom is slumbering the reality of that thing which you call Power ... when these rise, call the vast spectacle by any deluding name that will please your ear, but the fact remains a Nation has risen. [11]
Twain’s talent for humor, satire and storytelling and his hatred of oppression and inequality enabled him to encapsulate the contradictions of the era and also to offer a vision of a better world.
Top of the page
Mark Twain – anti-imperialist
As U.S. industry expanded at a dizzying pace at the end of the nineteenth century America was using its growing might to challenge its European rivals and conquer markets and territory abroad. In the process, it violated other peoples’ rights to independence and self-determination – the very values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The country’s first efforts to build empire focused on wresting Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines from Spanish control in the Spanish-American War of 1898. The war was portrayed as one to free subject peoples from Spanish tyranny, and this initially confused Twain. But he quickly came around. For Twain, and many others at the time, Americas imperialist expansion violated the expectation that America would be different from the colonial powers of Europe. Twain explained in 1900 how he went from praising to condemning the “American Eagle”:
(I used to be) a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific ...Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? ... I said to myself, Here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American Constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves.
But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris [which ended the Spanish-American War], and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem.
It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land. [12]
In 1897, Twain published Following the Equator, the unifying theme of which is hatred and condemnation of imperialism of all stripes. He also wrote many pamphlets that were published by the Anti-Imperialist League, which Twain supported after his return from Europe in 1900. The League, which had tens of thousands of members, was organized around opposition to the U.S. slaughter in the Philippines. In The Conquest of the Philippines, Twain describes the massacre of 600 Moros (a Philippine tribe), who were armed only with knifes and clubs and fortified in an extinct volcano crater, by American troops standing at the rim and shooting down on them. The president called this a “brilliant feat of arms.” This is what Twain had to say:
The enemy numbered 600 – including women and children – and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother. This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States. [13]
A later report revealed that the death toll was even higher, and Twain continued:
Headline: Death list is now 900. I was never so enthusiastically proud of the flag till now. [14]
Twain also wrote and spoke with passion against European colonial domination, which he often compared to plantation slavery. He said of Cecil Rhodes, the mastermind of British colonialism:
He raids and robs and slays and enslaves ... and gets worlds of charter-Christian applause for it. I admire him, I frankly confess it. And when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake. [15]
Some of Twain’s most sardonic invective was reserved for Belgium’s King Leopold III. As sole ruler of the “Congo Free State” – a giant tract of land he acquired by pretending to pursue a humanitarian mission to abolish slavery in Africa – King Leopold used systematic murder, mutilation and starvation to force the local population to bring in ivory and rubber, which was then sold at a massive profit. It has been estimated that some six to ten million Africans perished at the hands of Leopold’s henchmen in the Congo.
E.D. Morel, the head of the British Congo Reform Association, asked Twain to write a piece against King Leopold’s enterprise in 1904. The result, King Leopold’s Soliloquy, could not find a “legitimate” publisher. Twain gave it to the American Congo Reform Association, who built its organization primarily on the popularity and proceeds of Twain’s brilliant little exposé.
In the Soliloquy Leopold whines that though he has spent millions to suppress any revelation of his atrocities, meddlesome missionaries, reporters and activists continue to expose him:
They have told how for twenty years I have ruled the Congo state ... seizing and holding the State as my personal property; the whole of its vast revenues as my private ‘swag’ – mine, solely mine – claiming and holding its millions of people as my private property; my serfs, my slaves; their labor mine, with or without wage; the food they raise not their property but mine; the rubber, the ivory and all the other riches of the land mine – mine solely – and gathered for me by the men, the women, and the little children under compulsion of lash and bullet, fire, starvation, mutilation and halter.
These pests! – it is as I say, they have kept back nothing! [16]
A frustrated agent employed in the U.S. by the Belgian government complained that as a result of Twain’s pamphlet a strong anti-Leopold movement was developing in the United States.
Imperialism is laid out before our eyes by Twain, not only as the domination of the weak and poor by the strong and rich, but also as a brutal competition between the great powers. In To a Person Sitting in Darkness (1891) Twain refers to imperialism as “the Game” and reflects that the person sitting in darkness (the colonial “savage” in need of “civilization”) may just look at America’s entry into this game, and say
It is yet another Civilized Power, with its banner of peace in one hand and its loot basket and its butcher knife in the other. Is there no salvation for us but to adopt civilization and lift ourselves down to its level? [17]
One of Twain’s most powerful pieces against the brutality of imperialist war is The War Prayer. The setting is a pro-war rally in a church to pray for the success of American troops. A messenger comes down from God and insists on putting into words the unspoken parts of these prayers:
Oh Lord, our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded...help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the waste of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst ... [18]
In the 1960s, The War Prayer was reprinted in pamphlet form by activists against the Vietnam War.
Top of the page
Mark Twain’s revolutionary sympathies
Although Twain denounced imperialist war, he was not a pacifist – he supported violence in the cause of freedom. His revolutionary sympathies in part stem from his appreciation of the fruits of past revolutions, most obviously the American Revolution and Civil War. As he reflected in a letter of 1890:
My privilege to write these sanguinary sentences in soft security was bought for me by rivers of blood poured upon many fields, in many lands, but I possess not one single little paltry right or privilege that came to me as a result of persuasion, agitation for reform, or any kindred method of procedure. [19]
Twain hated monarchy and undemocratic rule of all kinds. The main character in his 1889 novel, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court; after describing the farmers and artisans as constituting the “Nation,” remarks that
[T]o subtract them would ... leave behind some dregs, some refuse in the shape of a King, nobility and gentry; idle, unproductive, acquainted mainly with the art of wasting and destroying, and of no sort of use or value in any rationally constructed world. [20]
Twain celebrated the French Revolution, but in the course of his life he changed his view of it:
When I finished Carlyle’s French Revolution in 1871, I was a Girondin; every time I have read it since, I have read it differently – being influenced and changed, little by little, by life and environment ... and now I lay the book down once more, and recognize that I am a Sansculotte! – And not a pale, characterless Sansculotte, but a Marat. [21]
The catalyst for his radicalization was what he saw as the transformation of America from a Republic to a Monarchy – a monarchy not ruled by a king or queen but by money men, corporations and their lackey politicians, all driven by “money lust.” [22]
Not surprisingly, Twain supported not only revolutions of the past, but also those of his present. He defended the 1905 revolution in Russia and was bitterly disappointed by its defeat:
Russia was on the high road to emancipation from an insane and intolerable slavery; I was hoping there would be no peace until Russian liberty was safe ... One more battle would have abolished the waiting chains of billions upon billions of unborn Russians, and I wish it could have been fought ... [23]
In response to Russian reformists who were afraid of revolution, Twain asked:
What is the Czar of Russia but a house afire in the midst of a city of eighty millions of inhabitants? Yet instead of extinguishing him, together with his nest and system, the liberation parties are all anxious to merely cool him down a little and keep him.
It seems to me that this is illogical – idiotic, in fact. Suppose you had this granite-hearted, bloody-jawed maniac of Russia loose in your house, chasing the helpless women and little children – your own. What would you do with him, supposing you had a shotgun? Well, he is loose in your house – Russia. And with your shotgun in your hand, you stand trying to think up ways to ‘modify’ him.
When we consider that not even the most responsible English monarch ever yielded back a stolen public right until it was wrenched from them by bloody violence, is it rational to suppose that gender methods can win privileges in Russia? [24]
Like Frederick Douglass, Twain saw that “without struggle there is no progress.” In his 1886 speech, Knights of Labor – The New Dynasty, Twain asks:
Who are the oppressors? The few: the King, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat. [25]
This is a voice that should be remembered and celebrated: anti-imperialist and revolutionary – this is the Twain of our tradition. If Twain were alive today, he would denounce the imperialists carving up Kosovo and killing Iraqis and Serbs in the name of freedom. He would say of Bill Clinton, “When his time comes, I’ll buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake!”
The literary establishment – the modern equivalent of those who scorned Twain – has claimed him for their own. It is up to us to keep alive the other Twain and to fight for the world he wanted. As Twain proposed in 1902, “Let us abolish policemen who carry clubs and revolvers, and put in a squad of poets armed to the teeth with poems on Spring and Love.” [26]
Notes
1. Maxwell Geismar, ed., Mark Twain and the Three Rs: Race, Religion, Revolution and Related Matters (Indianapolis: Bobs-Merrill, 1973), p.159.
2. Philip S. Foner, Mark Twain: Social Critic (New York: International Publishers, 1958), p.13.
3. Quoted in Foner, p.98.
4. Foner, p.200.
5. Geismar, p.98.
6. Andrew Jay Hoffman, Inventing Mark Twain: The Lives of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (New York: William Morrow, 1997), p.45.
7. Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966), p.269.
8. Foner, p.209.
9. Quoted in Kaplan, p.169.
10. Frederick Anderson, ed., A Pen Warmed Up in Hell: Mark Twain in Protest (New York: Harper, 1972), p.5.
11. Anderson, p.170.
12. Anderson, p.9.
13. Anderson, p.22.
14. Anderson, p.23.
15. Anderson, p.89.
16. Mark Twain, Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays 1891-1910 (New York: The Library of America, 1992), p.663.
17. Twain, Collected Tales, p.13.
18. Anderson, pp.110-11.
19. Geismar, p.157.
20. Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (New York: Penguin, 1986), p.125.
21. Anderson, p.8. The Girondins, made up of the high bourgeois merchants and traders, were on the right wing of the revolution and unwilling to carry though the revolutionary war to its conclusion. The Sansculottes were of the lower bourgeoisie, hostile to big business and landowners and associated with the “rabble.” Marat was one of the most popular of the Jacobin leaders. Committed to completing and defending the revolution, Marat is famous for his unceasing demands for blood and heads. His assassination by a Girondin sparked the radicalization and mobilization of the Sansculottes against counterrevolutionary forces.
22. See especially The American Plutocracy II, The Coming American Monarchy and Dictatorship, all reprinted in Geismar, Mark Twain and the Three Rs.
23. Anderson, p.11.
24. Geismar, p.169.
25. Foner, p.169.
26. This note is no included in the printed version of the article.
The Mark Twain we learned about in school is a less than inspiring figure: Twain, the children’s author of riverside idylls; Twain, the bitter misanthrope who lashed out at society because of his personal failures; Twain, the racist who grew up in a slaveholding family. Most famously, there is Mark Twain, Father of American Literature – the figure consciously created by the American literary establishment in the 1940s and 1950s. This Twain is a powerful symbol of the American dream, the spirit of the frontier and Westward expansion – he is a nationalist hero.
Yet Twain was one of the most forthright critics of American ruling-class ideology at the turn of the twentieth century Especially towards the end of his life, Twain’s published and unpublished writings and speeches are overwhelmingly antiracist, anti-imperialist and revolutionary:
I am said to be a revolutionist in my sympathies, by birth, by breeding and by principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute. [1]
In the light of such passion, it is excruciating to think how schools and universities have managed to make Twain such a boring character! In retaliation, this article will focus on the Mark Twain they didn’t teach us in school.
Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in the slaveholding state of Missouri in 1835. He once wrote that slavery dehumanized the slave and made monsters of the slave owner. For much of his early adulthood, however, Clemens did not question the dominant ideas of his childhood.
Following the early death of his father, Sam Clemens had to earn money as soon as he could. His first paid work was as a printer’s apprentice. He spent four years in the mid-1850s working in various East Coast cities in horrible conditions and for practically no wages.
Clemens joined the print union and was an active member wherever he went. He also spent his evenings in the free libraries, where he “found a world that he never would have discovered in (Hannibal’s) public schools.” [2]
Clemens returned to the Midwest in the late 1850s, where his brother Orion, influenced by increased opposition to slavery had become active in Abraham Lincoln’s antislavery Republican Party On the eve of the Civil War, Orion was sent by Lincoln to be Secretary of the Nevada territory
Meanwhile, Clemens underwent a miserable apprenticeship as a riverboat pilot. In Life on the Mississippi, he describes the development of a dosed-shop union and the benefits reaped by all riverboat workers. This chapter was reprinted and read in union halls throughout the 1880s and 1890s. [3]
By his mid-twenties, Clemens had become a prosperous river pilot. His career was interrupted, however, by the Civil War. Although decades later Twain said that “Lincoln’s Proclamation ... not only set the Black slaves free, but set the white man free also,” [4] Clemens remained “neutral” at the outbreak of the Civil War, even while troops were taking positions on both banks of the Mississippi. At the low point of his life, Clemens joined a militia fighting for the South, which was formed by his old friends from Hannibal. He deserted after three weeks and joined his brother in Nevada in 1861.
After a few wild years during which he tried (and failed at) silver prospecting, lived mostly on credit and consorted with the unconventional Bohemians, Clemens became a journalist. Although Clemens still held many of the prejudices of the day, while in Nevada and then California he adopted a distinctive brand of social satire that championed the downtrodden and ridiculed the powerful.
He wrote a series of articles protesting discrimination against Chinese immigrants and exposing police brutality in San Francisco. “I have seen Chinamen abused and maltreated in all the mean, cowardly ways possible to the invention of a degraded nature,” he wrote in 1868, “but I never saw a Chinaman righted in a court of justice for wrongs thus done to him.” [5] After condemning the law’s double standard-he pointed out that the crimes of the wealthy go untouched, while the police brutalize the poor for the crime of being poor – Clemens was himself a victim of police harassment.
In 1865, he told his deeply religious brother Orion that “there is a God for the rich man but none for the poor,” which marked the beginning of his consistent skepticism towards religion. [6]
Clemens became a popular public speaker and adopted the persona of “Mark Twain” for his writing and speaking – a name taken from the cry of the Mississippi riverboat leadsman, “By the mark, twain” to indicate that the boat was safe with twelve feet of water under it.
He returned to the East Coast and married Olivia Langdon, the daughter of a wealthy but liberal family who had been active abolitionists. Through the family, Clemens met socialists, principled atheists and activists for women’s rights and social equality; He befriended figures such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass and the utopian socialist William Dean Howells.
Over the next two decades, Twain achieved fame and fortune through his writing and speaking tours. Some of his best-known works were written in the 1870s and 1880s, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). Both works were established as “literary classics” by the critical establishment in the 1940s and 1950s, but at first the literary elite condemned them. The Library Committee of Concord called Huckleberry Finn “trash, only suitable for the slums.” [7]
The subject matter and style of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer were deemed “coarse” and “common.” Both books tell tales of the adventures of poor boys in the rough frontier towns along the Mississippi River. They reject the moralism of the contemporary Sunday School stories, and they are written largely in dialect, with a liberal sprinkling of swear words and slang. In an era when steps towards racial equality were being dismantled, the elite hated Huckleberry Finn especially because the white hero, Huck, escapes with a runaway slave, Jim, and they develop a close friendship.
Huckleberry Finn has subsequently been condemned for its racism. The book does contain language that has racist connotations today, and this has been “whitewashed” or ignored by the critical establishment. However, even figures such as Frederick Douglass used the same language when attempting a “realistic” representation of life under slavery Furthermore, the story undermines the logic of slavery to such an extent that “the authorities regarded the exposure of the evils of slavery and the heroic portrayals of the Negro characters as ‘hideously subversive’.” [8] Any antiracist would want to acknowledge these facts, and the book should be understood in this context.
Top of the page
Identification with the oppressed
Twain’s response to his critics tells us more about the person he was becoming. By 1889, Twain was identifying with “the mighty mass of the uncultivated” and “not with the thin top crust of humanity.” [9]
Mark Twain was a contradictory figure: He continued to identify with the poor and oppressed and became increasingly critical of the social system, but he also lived the kind of life that was unrecognizable to ordinary Americans. He plowed most of his and his wife’s immense fortune into a series of crazy and disastrous investment schemes, including a new typesetter that he was convinced would make him a multimillionaire. (The project was ultimately abandoned.) He was wiped out by the financial crises of the late 1880s and 1890s, and he spent the last decade of the century traveling in Europe, recovering from his financial losses through his always popular speaking tours. In the 1 890s he also underwent a series of personal tragedies and deaths in the family. He faced bankruptcy at one point, only to be bailed out by an eccentric millionaire industrialist.
Some critics have argued that Twain’s reliance on such wealthy sponsors undermined his independence and compromised his social criticism. Twain presents his own ironic account of the limits of free speech in Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar: “In our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to exercise either of them.” [10] It is true that Twain sometimes chose not to do or say something for fear of offending his sponsors or sections of his readership.
Despite such obvious moments of compromise, however, in the last two decades of his life – he died in 1910 – Twain became an outspoken anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist. This era was one of extremes. The completion of the American Revolution with the end of slavery brought the promise of equality and democracy for all. But the same period saw the rise and consolidation of monopoly capitalism, vicious racism and divisions between rich and poor as great as any in Europe.
The turn of the century witnessed the growth of the labor movement and the American socialist party. Twain publicly championed the union movement, especially the Knights of Labor. For centuries, Twain observed, the ruling few had sneered at the idea of a challenge from below, but the Knights of Labor-and organized labor more generally-showed the hope for a change in the whole order:
When all the bricklayers, and all the machinists, and all the miners, and blacksmiths, and printers, and hod-carriers, and stevedores, and house-painters, and brakemen, and engineers, and conductors, and factory hands, and horse-car drivers, and all the shop-girls, and all the sewing-women, and all the telegraph operators; in a word all the myriads of toilers in whom is slumbering the reality of that thing which you call Power ... when these rise, call the vast spectacle by any deluding name that will please your ear, but the fact remains a Nation has risen. [11]
Twain’s talent for humor, satire and storytelling and his hatred of oppression and inequality enabled him to encapsulate the contradictions of the era and also to offer a vision of a better world.
Top of the page
Mark Twain – anti-imperialist
As U.S. industry expanded at a dizzying pace at the end of the nineteenth century America was using its growing might to challenge its European rivals and conquer markets and territory abroad. In the process, it violated other peoples’ rights to independence and self-determination – the very values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The country’s first efforts to build empire focused on wresting Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines from Spanish control in the Spanish-American War of 1898. The war was portrayed as one to free subject peoples from Spanish tyranny, and this initially confused Twain. But he quickly came around. For Twain, and many others at the time, Americas imperialist expansion violated the expectation that America would be different from the colonial powers of Europe. Twain explained in 1900 how he went from praising to condemning the “American Eagle”:
(I used to be) a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific ...Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? ... I said to myself, Here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American Constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves.
But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris [which ended the Spanish-American War], and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem.
It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land. [12]
In 1897, Twain published Following the Equator, the unifying theme of which is hatred and condemnation of imperialism of all stripes. He also wrote many pamphlets that were published by the Anti-Imperialist League, which Twain supported after his return from Europe in 1900. The League, which had tens of thousands of members, was organized around opposition to the U.S. slaughter in the Philippines. In The Conquest of the Philippines, Twain describes the massacre of 600 Moros (a Philippine tribe), who were armed only with knifes and clubs and fortified in an extinct volcano crater, by American troops standing at the rim and shooting down on them. The president called this a “brilliant feat of arms.” This is what Twain had to say:
The enemy numbered 600 – including women and children – and we abolished them utterly, leaving not even a baby alive to cry for its dead mother. This is incomparably the greatest victory that was ever achieved by the Christian soldiers of the United States. [13]
A later report revealed that the death toll was even higher, and Twain continued:
Headline: Death list is now 900. I was never so enthusiastically proud of the flag till now. [14]
Twain also wrote and spoke with passion against European colonial domination, which he often compared to plantation slavery. He said of Cecil Rhodes, the mastermind of British colonialism:
He raids and robs and slays and enslaves ... and gets worlds of charter-Christian applause for it. I admire him, I frankly confess it. And when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake. [15]
Some of Twain’s most sardonic invective was reserved for Belgium’s King Leopold III. As sole ruler of the “Congo Free State” – a giant tract of land he acquired by pretending to pursue a humanitarian mission to abolish slavery in Africa – King Leopold used systematic murder, mutilation and starvation to force the local population to bring in ivory and rubber, which was then sold at a massive profit. It has been estimated that some six to ten million Africans perished at the hands of Leopold’s henchmen in the Congo.
E.D. Morel, the head of the British Congo Reform Association, asked Twain to write a piece against King Leopold’s enterprise in 1904. The result, King Leopold’s Soliloquy, could not find a “legitimate” publisher. Twain gave it to the American Congo Reform Association, who built its organization primarily on the popularity and proceeds of Twain’s brilliant little exposé.
In the Soliloquy Leopold whines that though he has spent millions to suppress any revelation of his atrocities, meddlesome missionaries, reporters and activists continue to expose him:
They have told how for twenty years I have ruled the Congo state ... seizing and holding the State as my personal property; the whole of its vast revenues as my private ‘swag’ – mine, solely mine – claiming and holding its millions of people as my private property; my serfs, my slaves; their labor mine, with or without wage; the food they raise not their property but mine; the rubber, the ivory and all the other riches of the land mine – mine solely – and gathered for me by the men, the women, and the little children under compulsion of lash and bullet, fire, starvation, mutilation and halter.
These pests! – it is as I say, they have kept back nothing! [16]
A frustrated agent employed in the U.S. by the Belgian government complained that as a result of Twain’s pamphlet a strong anti-Leopold movement was developing in the United States.
Imperialism is laid out before our eyes by Twain, not only as the domination of the weak and poor by the strong and rich, but also as a brutal competition between the great powers. In To a Person Sitting in Darkness (1891) Twain refers to imperialism as “the Game” and reflects that the person sitting in darkness (the colonial “savage” in need of “civilization”) may just look at America’s entry into this game, and say
It is yet another Civilized Power, with its banner of peace in one hand and its loot basket and its butcher knife in the other. Is there no salvation for us but to adopt civilization and lift ourselves down to its level? [17]
One of Twain’s most powerful pieces against the brutality of imperialist war is The War Prayer. The setting is a pro-war rally in a church to pray for the success of American troops. A messenger comes down from God and insists on putting into words the unspoken parts of these prayers:
Oh Lord, our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded...help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the waste of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst ... [18]
In the 1960s, The War Prayer was reprinted in pamphlet form by activists against the Vietnam War.
Top of the page
Mark Twain’s revolutionary sympathies
Although Twain denounced imperialist war, he was not a pacifist – he supported violence in the cause of freedom. His revolutionary sympathies in part stem from his appreciation of the fruits of past revolutions, most obviously the American Revolution and Civil War. As he reflected in a letter of 1890:
My privilege to write these sanguinary sentences in soft security was bought for me by rivers of blood poured upon many fields, in many lands, but I possess not one single little paltry right or privilege that came to me as a result of persuasion, agitation for reform, or any kindred method of procedure. [19]
Twain hated monarchy and undemocratic rule of all kinds. The main character in his 1889 novel, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court; after describing the farmers and artisans as constituting the “Nation,” remarks that
[T]o subtract them would ... leave behind some dregs, some refuse in the shape of a King, nobility and gentry; idle, unproductive, acquainted mainly with the art of wasting and destroying, and of no sort of use or value in any rationally constructed world. [20]
Twain celebrated the French Revolution, but in the course of his life he changed his view of it:
When I finished Carlyle’s French Revolution in 1871, I was a Girondin; every time I have read it since, I have read it differently – being influenced and changed, little by little, by life and environment ... and now I lay the book down once more, and recognize that I am a Sansculotte! – And not a pale, characterless Sansculotte, but a Marat. [21]
The catalyst for his radicalization was what he saw as the transformation of America from a Republic to a Monarchy – a monarchy not ruled by a king or queen but by money men, corporations and their lackey politicians, all driven by “money lust.” [22]
Not surprisingly, Twain supported not only revolutions of the past, but also those of his present. He defended the 1905 revolution in Russia and was bitterly disappointed by its defeat:
Russia was on the high road to emancipation from an insane and intolerable slavery; I was hoping there would be no peace until Russian liberty was safe ... One more battle would have abolished the waiting chains of billions upon billions of unborn Russians, and I wish it could have been fought ... [23]
In response to Russian reformists who were afraid of revolution, Twain asked:
What is the Czar of Russia but a house afire in the midst of a city of eighty millions of inhabitants? Yet instead of extinguishing him, together with his nest and system, the liberation parties are all anxious to merely cool him down a little and keep him.
It seems to me that this is illogical – idiotic, in fact. Suppose you had this granite-hearted, bloody-jawed maniac of Russia loose in your house, chasing the helpless women and little children – your own. What would you do with him, supposing you had a shotgun? Well, he is loose in your house – Russia. And with your shotgun in your hand, you stand trying to think up ways to ‘modify’ him.
When we consider that not even the most responsible English monarch ever yielded back a stolen public right until it was wrenched from them by bloody violence, is it rational to suppose that gender methods can win privileges in Russia? [24]
Like Frederick Douglass, Twain saw that “without struggle there is no progress.” In his 1886 speech, Knights of Labor – The New Dynasty, Twain asks:
Who are the oppressors? The few: the King, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat. [25]
This is a voice that should be remembered and celebrated: anti-imperialist and revolutionary – this is the Twain of our tradition. If Twain were alive today, he would denounce the imperialists carving up Kosovo and killing Iraqis and Serbs in the name of freedom. He would say of Bill Clinton, “When his time comes, I’ll buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake!”
The literary establishment – the modern equivalent of those who scorned Twain – has claimed him for their own. It is up to us to keep alive the other Twain and to fight for the world he wanted. As Twain proposed in 1902, “Let us abolish policemen who carry clubs and revolvers, and put in a squad of poets armed to the teeth with poems on Spring and Love.” [26]
Notes
1. Maxwell Geismar, ed., Mark Twain and the Three Rs: Race, Religion, Revolution and Related Matters (Indianapolis: Bobs-Merrill, 1973), p.159.
2. Philip S. Foner, Mark Twain: Social Critic (New York: International Publishers, 1958), p.13.
3. Quoted in Foner, p.98.
4. Foner, p.200.
5. Geismar, p.98.
6. Andrew Jay Hoffman, Inventing Mark Twain: The Lives of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (New York: William Morrow, 1997), p.45.
7. Justin Kaplan, Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966), p.269.
8. Foner, p.209.
9. Quoted in Kaplan, p.169.
10. Frederick Anderson, ed., A Pen Warmed Up in Hell: Mark Twain in Protest (New York: Harper, 1972), p.5.
11. Anderson, p.170.
12. Anderson, p.9.
13. Anderson, p.22.
14. Anderson, p.23.
15. Anderson, p.89.
16. Mark Twain, Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays 1891-1910 (New York: The Library of America, 1992), p.663.
17. Twain, Collected Tales, p.13.
18. Anderson, pp.110-11.
19. Geismar, p.157.
20. Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (New York: Penguin, 1986), p.125.
21. Anderson, p.8. The Girondins, made up of the high bourgeois merchants and traders, were on the right wing of the revolution and unwilling to carry though the revolutionary war to its conclusion. The Sansculottes were of the lower bourgeoisie, hostile to big business and landowners and associated with the “rabble.” Marat was one of the most popular of the Jacobin leaders. Committed to completing and defending the revolution, Marat is famous for his unceasing demands for blood and heads. His assassination by a Girondin sparked the radicalization and mobilization of the Sansculottes against counterrevolutionary forces.
22. See especially The American Plutocracy II, The Coming American Monarchy and Dictatorship, all reprinted in Geismar, Mark Twain and the Three Rs.
23. Anderson, p.11.
24. Geismar, p.169.
25. Foner, p.169.
26. This note is no included in the printed version of the article.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)