the romantic period, 1820-1860: fiction€¦ · web viewi believe you may trust his word, ......

A Time of Progress?

The United States of America

1816 - 1840

American Literature

Unit 3

Student Packet

Created by the Westinghouse English Dept. G (Kavanagh, 2010) 1

Analysis Essay

Unit 3

SWBAT: Correctly align antecedents with pronouns Correctly align subjects and verbs in number Locate simple details Explain the significance of specific information in written or non-print sources Distinguish between what is most and least important in a text Determine when to use an adverb or an adjective When to use comparative and superlative adjectives Take a position on the prompt Maintain the position throughout the essay Identify relationships between main characters Recognize clear cause and effect relationships Limit the use of second person in the essay Select appropriate words and phrases for the audience and topic Use some sentence variety

Your goal is to answer the following question using elements of the fiction from American Literature and the nonfiction from American History.

Prompting Question:

Was 1816 – 1840 a time of progress?

Essay Requirements: You must make a persuasive argument in response to the prompting question. Your essay must be five (5) paragraphs in length (approximately 4 to 5 pages) Must show evidence of revision (running your work through Criterion will be recognized and

rewarded) Outline Final Paper Works Cited Page in MLA format Rubric You may use the three culture MEL-Con writing assignments as the body paragraphs for your essay. Your essay must follow the basic five-paragraph structure shown below. All quotations must be correctly formatted according to MLA publication style. Your essay must include a minimum of 3 sources. You must refer to something you have learned in American History class somewhere in your paper.

Grading: Per attached rubric

Outline Structure

Use these templates to help you write your essay. The outline template will help you to


organize your essay, while the templates will aide in ensuring that your essay is logically constructed.

I IntroductionA. Attention Getter – relevant, appropriate and of course attention- getting.B. Connector Statement – Conflict, Context, Complexity, “Some may say___”C. Thesis Statement - “But I Say_____”D. Summary Statement – Summarize three examples

II. Body

A. Transition + Counterexample (A.W.E) + Example #1 (A.W.E)1. [L] Explain your point considering the counterpoint as well.2. [L] Direct link to main idea.

B. Transition + Counterexample (A.W.E) + Example # 2 (A.W.E)

1. [L] Explain your point considering the counterpoint as well.2. [L] Direct link to main idea.

C. Transition + Counterexample (A.W.E) + Example # 3 (A.W.E)

1. [L] Explain your point considering the counterpoint as well.2. [L] Direct link to main idea.

D. Concluding Sentence

III. Conclusion A. Summary B. Thesis C. Attention-Getter Loop

D. Clincher

The Romantic Period, 1820-1860: FictionProtagonists of the American Romance are haunted, alienated individuals


Edgar Allan Poe (© AP Images)

The Romantic Period, 1820-1860: FictionBy Kathryn VanSpanckeren

Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, and the Transcendentalists represent the first great literary generation produced in the United States. In the case of the novelists, the Romantic vision tended to express itself in the form Hawthorne called the "Romance," a heightened, emotional, and symbolic form of the novel. Romances were not love stories, but serious novels that used special techniques to communicate complex and subtle meanings.

Instead of carefully defining realistic characters through a wealth of detail, as most English or continental novelists did, Hawthorne, Melville, and Poe shaped heroic figures larger than life, burning with mythic significance. The typical protagonists of the American Romance are haunted, alienated individuals. Hawthorne's Arthur Dimmesdale or Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, Melville's Ahab in Moby-Dick, and the many isolated and obsessed characters of Poe's tales are lonely protagonists pitted against unknowable, dark fates that, in some mysterious way, grow out of their deepest unconscious selves. The symbolic plots reveal hidden actions of the anguished spirit.

One reason for this fictional exploration into the hidden recesses of the soul is the absence of settled, traditional community life in America. English novelists – Jane Austen, Charles Dickens (the great favorite), Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, William Thackeray – lived in a complex, well-articulated, traditional society and shared with their readers attitudes that informed their realistic fiction. American novelists were faced with a history of strife and revolution, a geography of vast wilderness, and a fluid and relatively classless democratic society. American novels frequently reveal a revolutionary absence of tradition. Many English novels show a poor main character rising on the economic and social ladder, perhaps because of a good marriage or the discovery of a hidden aristocratic past. But this buried plot does not challenge the aristocratic social structure of England. On the contrary, it confirms it. The rise of the main character satisfies the wish fulfillment of the mainly middle-class readers.

In contrast, the American novelist had to depend on his or her own devices. America was, in part, an undefined, constantly moving frontier populated by immigrants speaking foreign languages and following strange and crude ways of life. Thus the main character in


American literature might find himself alone among cannibal tribes, as in Melville's Typee, or exploring a wilderness like James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking, or witnessing lonely visions from the grave, like Poe's solitary individuals, or meeting the devil walking in the forest, like Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown. Virtually all the great American protagonists have been "loners." The democratic American individual had, as it were, to invent himself.

The serious American novelist had to invent new forms as well hence the sprawling, idiosyncratic shape of Melville's novel Moby-Dick and Poe's dreamlike, wandering Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Few American novels achieve formal perfection, even today. Instead of borrowing tested literary methods, Americans tend to invent new creative techniques. In America, it is not enough to be a traditional and definable social unit, for the old and traditional gets left behind; the new, innovative force is the center of attention.

THE ROMANCE

The Romance form is dark and forbidding, indicating how difficult it is to create an identity without a stable society. Most of the Romantic heroes die in the end: All the sailors except Ishmael are drowned in Moby-Dick, and the sensitive but sinful minister Arthur Dimmesdale dies at the end of The Scarlet Letter. The self-divided, tragic note in American literature becomes dominant in the novels, even before the Civil War of the 1860s manifested the greater social tragedy of a society at war with itself.

Source:U.S. Department of State publication, Outline of American Literature.)

Writing Application #1:

Colonists instituted the practice of tarring and feathering bill collectors from England in order to send a message of hostility. Can an act such as this be a sign of American progress? Explain your response in a MEL-Con paragraph.


Source for Image: http://www.historywiz.com/galleries/exciseman-tarring.htm

Tarring and Feathering


Tarring and Feathering was a punishment that went back to the Middle Ages with Richard the Lionhearted and the Crusades. The first record is in 1189. Richard ordered that any robber voyaging with the crusaders “shall be first shaved, then boiling pitch shall be poured upon his head, and a cushion of feathers shook over it.” It was not used extensively until the American colonists revived the punishment in the 1760s. Patriots used it against British officials and loyalists in the American colonies.

Tar could easily be found in the shipyards and everyone had feathers in their pillows. With the materials at hand, tarring and feathering was a common threat and punishment. Though the tarring was not usually fatal, it was extremely unpleasant. Applying the burning hot tar to bare skin usually caused painful blistering and efforts to remove it often made the condition worse. The adding of feathers which stuck to the tar added to the humiliation and made the victim a comical figure. Sometimes tar was applied to the clothing, and was only a minor warning.

In the spring of 1766 Captain William Smith came under suspicion as an informer of American smuggling activities. He experienced first hand the tar and feather. In retribution, John Gilchrist, a Norfolk merchant and shipbuilder and several accomplices captured Smith and, as he reported, "dawbed my body and face all over with tar and afterwards threw feathers on me." Smith's assailants, which included the mayor of Norfolk, then carted him "through every street in town," and threw him into the sea. Fortunately, Smith was rescued by a passing boat just as he was "sinking, being able to swim no longer." This may have been the first tarring and feathering in America.

After the enactment of the Stamp Act, it was common to threaten or attack British government employees in the colonies. No stamp commissioner or tax collector was actually tarred and feathered but by November 1, 1765, the day the Stamp Act tax went into effect, there were no stamp commissioners left in the colonies to collect it.

Tarring and feathering was successfully used as a weapon against the Townshend Duties (including the tea tax which led to the Boston Tea Party). In Parliament they hotly debated how best to punish the Bostonians. one member argued that "Americans were a strange set of people, and that it was in vain to expect any degree of reasoning from them; that instead of making their claim by argument, they always chose to decide the matter by tarring and feathering." Fearing that the practice was getting out of control and was harming their image, Boston leaders called a halt to the practice. Elsewhere in the colonies, it persisted as a way to intimidate and punish loyalists.

Supporting Details:

What might a Patriot have said was his or her reason for targeting Loyalists? _____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

I think this because: ________________________________________________________

Source: http://www.historywiz.com/galleries/exciseman-tarring.htm


From this reading, SWBAT:

Recognize a clear function of a passage

Identify relationships between main characters

Recognize clear cause-effect relationships

Distinguish between what is most important and least important in a text

Focus Question:

As you read “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,” consider why Hawthorne might have written “My Kinsman, Major Molineux? What message might he have been trying to send to his audience?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

My Kinsman, Major MolineuxNathanial Hawthorne

Summary:

A naive young man from the country comes to the city – a common route in urbanizing 19th-century America – to seek help from his powerful relative, whom he has never met. Robin has great difficulty finding the major, and finally joins in a strange night riot in which a man who seems to be a disgraced criminal is comically and cruelly driven out of town. Robin laughs loudest of all until he realizes that this "criminal" is none other than the man he sought – a representative of the British who has just been overthrown by a revolutionary American mob. The story confirms the bond of sin and suffering shared by all humanity. It also stresses the theme of the self-made man: Robin must learn, like every democratic American, to prosper from his own hard work, not from special favors from wealthy relatives.

"My Kinsman, Major Molineux" casts light on one of the most striking elements in Hawthorne's fiction: the lack of functioning families in his works. Hawthorne's stories and novels repeatedly show broken, cursed, or artificial families and the sufferings of the isolated individual.

The ideology of revolution, too, may have played a part in glorifying a sense of proud yet alienated freedom. The American Revolution, from a psychohistorical viewpoint, parallels an adolescent rebellion away from the parent-figure of England and the larger family of the British Empire. Americans won their independence and were then faced with the bewildering dilemma of discovering their identity apart from old authorities. This scenario was played out countless times on the frontier, to the extent that, in fiction, isolation often seems the basic American condition of life. Puritanism and its Protestant offshoots may have further weakened the family by preaching that the individual's first responsibility was to save his or her own soul.

Source: U.S. Department of State publication, Outline of American Literature.


My Kinsman, Major MolineuxAFTER THE KINGS of Great Britain had assumed the right of appointing the colonial governors, the measures of the latter seldom met with the ready and general approbation which had been paid to those of their predecessors, under the original charters. The people looked with most jealous scrutiny to the exercise of power, which did not emanate from themselves, and they usually rewarded the rulers with slender gratitude for the compliances, by which, in softening their instructions from beyond the sea, they had incurred the reprehension of those who gave them. The annals of Massachusetts Bay will inform us, that of six governors, in the space of about forty years from the surrender of the old charter, under James II, two were imprisoned by a popular insurrection; a third, as Hutchinson inclines to believe, was driven from the province by the whizzing of a musketball; a fourth, in the opinion of the same historian, was hastened to his grave by continual bickerings with the House of Representatives; and the remaining two, as well as their successors, till the Revolution, were favored with few and brief intervals of peaceful sway. The inferior members of the court party, in times of high political excitement, led scarcely a more desirable life. These remarks may serve as a preface to the following adventures, which chanced upon a summer night, not far from a hundred years ago. The reader, in order to avoid a long and dry detail of colonial affairs, is requested to dispense with an account of the train of circumstances, that had caused much temporary inflammation of the popular mind.

It was near nine o'clock of a moonlight evening, when a boat crossed the ferry with a single passenger, who had obtained his conveyance, at that unusual hour, by the promise of an extra fare. While he stood on the landing-place, searching in either pocket for the means of fulfilling his agreement, the ferryman lifted a lantern, by the aid of which, and the newly risen moon, he took a very accurate survey of the stranger's figure. He was a youth of barely eighteen years, evidently country-bred, and now, as it should seem, upon his first visit to town. He was clad in a coarse gray coat, well worn, but in excellent repair; his under garments were durably constructed of leather, and sat tight to a pair of serviceable and well-shaped limbs; his stockings of blue yarn, were the incontrovertible handiwork of a mother or a sister; and on his head was a three-cornered hat, which in its better days had perhaps sheltered the graver brow of the lad's father. Under his left arm was a heavy cudgel, formed of an oak sapling, and retaining a part of the hardened root; and his equipment was completed by a wallet, not so abundantly stocked as to incommode the vigorous shoulders on which it hung. Brown, curly hair, well-shaped features, and bright, cheerful eyes, were nature's gifts, and worth all that art could have done for his adornment.

The youth, one of whose names was Robin, finally drew from his pocket the half of a little


province-bill of five shillings, which, in the depreciation of that sort of currency, did but satisfy the ferryman's demand, with the surplus of a sexangular piece of parchment, valued at three pence. He then walked forward into the town, with as light a step, as if his day's journey had not already exceeded thirty miles, and with as eager an eye as if he were entering London city, instead of the little metropolis of a New England colony. Before Robin had proceeded far, however, it occurred to him, that he knew not whither to direct his steps; so he paused, and looked up and down the narrow street, scrutinizing the small and mean wooden buildings, that were scattered on either side.

"This low hovel cannot be my kinsman's dwelling," thought he, "nor yonder old house, where the moonlight enters at the broken casement; and truly I see none hereabouts that might be worthy of him. It would have been wise to inquire my way of the ferryman, and doubtless he would have gone with me, and earned a shilling from the major for his pains. But the next man I meet will do as well."

Drawing Conclusions:

Robin is most likely in New England for the following reason: _____________________________________________________________________________

I think this is because: _____________________________________________________________________________

He resumed his walk, and was glad to perceive that the street now became wider, and the houses more respectable in their appearance. He soon discerned a figure moving on moderately in advance, and hastened his steps to overtake it. As Robin drew nigh, he saw that the passenger was a man in years, with a full periwig of gray hair, a wide-skirted coat of dark cloth, and silk stockings rolled above his knees. He carried a long and polished cane, which he struck down perpendicularly before him, at every step; and at regular intervals he uttered two successive hems, of a peculiarly solemn and sepulchral intonation. Having made these observations, Robin laid hold of the skirt of the old man's coat, just when the light from the open door and windows of a barber's shop fell upon both their figures. "Good evening to you, honored sir," said he, making a low bow, and still retaining his hold of the skirt. "I pray you tell me whereabouts is the dwelling of my kinsman, Major Molineux?"

The youth's question was uttered very loudly; and one of the barbers, whose razor was descending on a well-soaped chin, and another who was dressing a Ramillies wig, left their occupations, and came to the door. The citizen, in the meantime, turned a long-favored countenance upon Robin, and answered him in a tone of excessive anger and


annoyance. His two sepulchral hems, however, broke into the very centre of his rebuke, with most singular effect, like a thought of the cold grave obtruding among wrathful passions.

"Let go my garment, fellow! I tell you, I know not the man you speak of. What! I have authority, I have--hem, hem--authority; and if this be the respect you show for your betters, your feet shall be brought acquainted with

the stocks by daylight, tomorrow morning!"Robin released the old man's skirt, and hastened away, pursued by an ill-mannered roar of laughter from the barber's shop. He was at first considerably surprised by the result of his question, but, being a shrewd youth, soon thought himself able to account for the mystery.

"This is some country representative," was his conclusion, "who has never seen the inside of my kinsman's door, and lacks the breeding to answer a stranger civilly. The man is old, or verily--I might be tempted to turn back and smite him on the nose. Ah, Robin, Robin! even the barber's boys laugh at you choosing such a guide! You will be wiser in time, friend Robin."


Robin's relationship with Major Molineaux is most likely (Well established / not well established) _____________________________________________________________________________

I think this is because: ______________________________________________________________________________

He now became entangled in a succession of crooked and narrow streets, which crossed each other, and meandered at no great distance from the water-side. The smell of tar was obvious to his nostrils, the masts of vessels pierced the moonlight above the tops of the buildings, and the numerous signs, which Robin paused to read, informed him that he was near the centre of business. But the streets were empty, the shops were closed, and lights were visible only in the second stories of a few dwelling-houses. At length, on the corner of a narrow lane, through which he was passing, he beheld the broad countenance of a British hero swinging before the door of an inn, whence proceeded the voices of many guests. The casement of one of the lower windows was thrown back, and a very thin curtain permitted Robin to distinguish a party at supper, round a well-furnished table. The fragrance of the good cheer steamed forth into the outer air, and the youth could not fail to recollect, that the last remnant of his travelling stock of provision had yielded to his morning appetite, and that noon had found, and left him, dinnerless.


"Oh, that a parchment three-penny might give me a right to sit down at yonder table!" said Robin, with a sigh. "But the major will make me welcome to the best of his victuals; so I will even step boldly in, and inquire my way to his dwelling."

He entered the tavern, and was guided by the murmur of voices, and the fumes of tobacco, to the public room. It was a long and low apartment, with oaken walls, grown dark in the continual smoke, and a floor, which was thickly sanded, but of no immaculate purity. A number of persons, the larger part of whom appeared to be mariners, or in some way connected with the sea, occupied the wooden benches, or leather-bottomed chairs, conversing on various matters, and occasionally lending their attention to some topic of general interest. Three or four little groups were draining as many bowls of punch, which the West India trade had long since made a familiar drink in the colony. Others, who had the appearance of men who lived by regular and laborious handicraft, preferred the insulated bliss of an unshared potation, and became more taciturn under its influence. Nearly all, in short, evinced a predilection for the Good Creature in some of its various shapes, for this is a vice to which, as Fast-day sermons of a hundred years ago will testify, we have a long hereditary claim. The only guests to whom Robin's sympathies inclined him, were two or three sheepish countrymen, who were using the inn somewhat after the fashion of a Turkish caravansary; they had gotten themselves into the darkest corner of the room, and, heedless of the Nicotian atmosphere, were supping on the bread of their own ovens, and the bacon cured in their own chimney-smoke. But though Robin felt a sort of brotherhood with these strangers, his eyes were attracted from them to a person who stood near the door, holding whispered conversation with a group of ill-dressed associates. His features were separately striking almost to grotesqueness, and the whole face left a deep impression on the memory. The forehead bulged out into a double prominence, with a vale between; the nose came boldly forth in an irregular curve, and its bridge was of more than a finger's breadth; the eyebrows were deep and shaggy, and the eyes glowed beneath them like fire in a cave.

While Robin deliberated of whom to inquire respecting his kinsman's dwelling, he was accosted by the innkeeper, a little man in a stained white apron, who had come to pay his professional welcome to the stranger. Being in the second generation from a French Protestant, he seemed to have inherited the courtesy of his parent nation; but no variety of circumstances was ever known to change his voice from the one shrill note in which he now addressed Robin.

"From the country, I presume, Sir?" said he, with a profound bow. "Beg to congratulate you on your arrival, and trust you intend a long stay with us. Fine town here, Sir, beautiful buildings, and much that may interest a stranger. May I hope for the honor of your commands in respect to supper?"


The innkeeper probably knew Robin was a visitor and not a resident for the following


reason(s): _____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

"The man sees a family likeness! the rogue has guessed that I am related to the Major!" thought Robin, who had hitherto experienced little superfluous civility.

All eyes were now turned on the country lad, standing at the door, in his worn three-cornered hat, gray coat, leather breeches, and blue yarn stockings, leaning on an oaken cudgel, and bearing a wallet on his back.

Robin replied to the courteous innkeeper, with such an assumption of confidence as befitted the major's relative.

"My honest friend," he said, "I shall make it a point to patronize your house on some occasion when--" here he could not help lowering his voice--"I may have more than a parchment three-pence in my pocket. My present business," continued he, speaking with lofty confidence, "is merely to inquire my way to the dwelling of my kinsman, Major Molineux."

There was a sudden and general movement in the room, which Robin interpreted as expressing the eagerness of each individual to become his guide. But the innkeeper turned his eyes to a written paper on the wall, which he read, or seemed to read, with occasional recurrences to the young man's figure.

"What have we here?" said he, breaking his speech into little dry fragments. "'Left the house of the subscriber, bounden servant, Hezekiah Mudge--had on, when he went away, gray coat, leather breeches, master's third best hat. One pound currency reward to whosoever shall lodge him in any jail of the province.' Better trudge, boy, better trudge!"


The innkeeper tells Robin that he “better trudge.” What does this probably mean? _____________________________________________________________________________

I know this because: _____________________________________________________________________________

The innkeeper most likely says this to Robin because


__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Robin had begun to draw his hand towards the lighter end of the oak cudgel, but a strange hostility in every countenance, induced him to relinquish his purpose of breaking the courteous innkeeper's head. As he turned to leave the room, he encountered a sneering glance from the bold-featured personage whom he had before noticed; and no sooner was he beyond the door, than he heard a general laugh, in which the innkeeper's voice might be distinguished, like the dropping of small stones into a kettle.

"Now, is it not strange," thought Robin, with his usual shrewdness, "is it not strange, that the confession of an empty pocket should outweigh the name of my kinsman, Major Molineux? Oh, if I had one of those grinning rascals in the woods, where I and my oak sapling grew up together, I would teach him that my arm is heavy, though my purse be light!"


As a result of his encounters with New Englanders to this point, Robin is most likely feeling: _____________________________________________________________________________

I think this because: ________________________________________________________

On turning the corner of the narrow lane, Robin found himself in a spacious street, with an unbroken line of lofty houses on each side, and a steepled building at the upper end, whence the ringing of a bell announced the hour of nine. The light of the moon, and the lamps from the numerous shop windows, discovered people promenading on the pavement, and amongst them Robin hoped to recognize his hitherto inscrutable relative. The result of his former inquiries made him unwilling to hazard another, in a scene of such publicity, and he determined to walk slowly and silently up the street, thrusting his face close to that of every elderly gentleman, in search of the Major's lineaments. In his progress, Robin encountered many gay and gallant figures. Embroidered garments, of showy colors, enormous periwigs, gold-laced hats, and silver-hilted swords, glided past him, and dazzled his optics. Travelled youths, imitators of the European fine gentlemen of the period, trod jauntily along, half-dancing to the fashionable tunes which they hummed, and making poor Robin ashamed of his quiet and natural gait. At length, after many pauses to examine the gorgeous display of goods in the shop windows, and after suffering some rebukes for the impertinence of his scrutiny into people's faces, the major's


kinsman found himself near the steepled building, still unsuccessful in his search. As yet, however, he had seen only one side of the thronged street, so Robin crossed, and continued the same sort of inquisition down the opposite pavement, with stronger hopes than the philosopher seeking an honest man, but with no better fortune. He had arrived about midway towards the lower end, from which his course began, when he overheard the approach of someone, who struck down a cane on the flag-stones at every step, uttering, at regular intervals, two sepulchral hems. "Mercy on us!" quoth Robin, recognizing the sound.

Turning a corner, which chanced to be close at his right hand, he hastened to pursue his researches, in some other part of the town. His patience was now wearing low, and he seemed to feel more fatigue from his rambles since he crossed the ferry, than from his journey of several days on the other side. Hunger also pleaded loudly within him, and Robin began to balance the propriety of demanding, violently, and with lifted cudgel, the necessary guidance from the first solitary passenger, whom he should meet. While a resolution to this effect was gaining strength, he entered a street of mean appearance, on either side of which a row of ill-built houses was straggling towards the harbor. The moonlight fell upon no passenger along the whole extent, but in the third domicile which Robin passed there was a half-opened door, and his keen glance detected a woman's garment within.

"My luck may be better here," said he to himself.

Accordingly, he approached the door, and beheld it shut closer as he did so; yet an open space remained, sufficing for the fair occupant to observe the stranger, without a corresponding display on her part. All that Robin could discern was a strip of scarlet petticoat, and the occasional sparkle of an eye, as if the moonbeams were trembling on some bright thing.

"Pretty mistress,"for I may call her so with a good conscience, thought the shrewd youth, since I know nothing to the contrary--"my sweet pretty mistress, will you be kind enough to tell me whereabouts I must seek the dwelling of my kinsman, Major Molineux?"

Robin's voice was plaintive and winning, and the female, seeing nothing to be shunned in the handsome country youth, thrust open the door, and came forth into the moonlight. She was a dainty little figure, with a white neck, round arms, and a slender waist, at the extremity of which her scarlet petticoat jutted out over a hoop, as if she were standing in a balloon. Moreover, her face was oval and pretty, her hair dark beneath the little cap, and her bright eyes possessed a sly freedom, which triumphed over those of Robin.

"Major Molineux dwells here," said this fair woman.

Now her voice was the sweetest Robin had heard that night, the airy counterpart of a stream of melted silver; yet he could not help doubting whether that sweet voice spoke


Gospel truth. He looked up and down the mean street, and then surveyed the house before which they stood. It was a small, dark edifice of two stories, the second of which projected over the lower floor; and the front apartment had the aspect of a shop for petty commodities.

"Now truly I am in luck," replied Robin, cunningly, "and so indeed is my kinsman, the major, in having so pretty a housekeeper. But I prithee trouble him to step to the door; I will deliver him a message from his friends in the country, and then go back to my lodgings at the inn."

"Nay, the Major has been a-bed this hour or more," said the lady of the scarlet petticoat; "and it would be to little purpose to disturb him tonight, seeing his evening draught was of the strongest. But he is a kind-hearted man, and it would be as much as my life's worth, to let a kinsman of his turn away from the door. You are the good old gentleman's very picture, and I could swear that was his rainy-weather hat. Also he has garments very much resembling those leather small-clothes. But come in, I pray, for I bid you hearty welcome in his name."

So saying, the fair and hospitable dame took our hero by the hand; and though the touch was light, and the force was gentleness, and though Robin read in her eyes what he did not hear in her words, yet the slender-waisted woman, in the scarlet petticoat, proved stronger than the athletic country youth. She had drawn his half-willing footsteps nearly to the threshold, when the opening of a door in the neighborhood, startled the Major's housekeeper, and, leaving the Major's kinsman, she vanished speedily into her own domicile. A heavy yawn preceded the appearance of a man, who, like the Moonshine of Pyramus and Thisbe, carried a lantern, needlessly aiding his sister luminary in the heavens. As he walked sleepily up the street, he turned his broad, dull face on Robin, and displayed a long staff, spiked at the end.


What is the most likely the role of the “fair and hospitable dame” mentioned in this section? _____________________________________________________________________________

I think this because: _____________________________________________________________________________

Why might Robin NOT know this already?

_____________________________________________________________________________


"Home, vagabond, home!" said the watchman, in accents that seemed to fall asleep as soon as they were uttered. "Home, or we'll set you in the stocks by peep of day!"

"This is the second hint of the kind," thought Robin. "I wish they would end my difficulties, by setting me there tonight."

Nevertheless, the youth felt an instinctive antipathy towards the guardian of midnight order, which at first prevented him from asking his usual question. But just when the man was about to vanish behind the corner, Robin resolved not to lose the opportunity, and shouted lustily after him--

"I say, friend! will you guide me to the house of my kinsman, Major Molineux?"

The watchman made no reply, but turned the corner and was gone; yet Robin seemed to hear the sound of drowsy laughter stealing along the solitary street. At that moment, also, a pleasant titter saluted him from the open window above his head; he looked up, and caught the sparkle of a saucy eye; a round arm beckoned to him, and next he heard light footsteps descending the staircase within. But Robin, being of the household of a New England clergyman, was a good youth, as well as a shrewd one; so he resisted temptation, and fled away.

He now roamed desperately, and at random, through the town, almost ready to believe that a spell was on him, like that by which a wizard of his country had once kept three pursuers wandering, a whole winter night, within twenty paces of the cottage which they sought. The streets lay before him, strange and desolate, and the lights were extinguished in almost every house. Twice, however, little parties of men, among whom Robin distinguished individuals in outlandish attire, came hurrying along; but though on both occasions they paused to address him, such intercourse did not at all enlighten his perplexity. They did but utter a few words in some language of which Robin knew nothing, and perceiving his inability to answer, bestowed a curse upon him in plain English, and hastened away. Finally, the lad determined to knock at the door of every mansion that might appear worthy to be occupied by his kinsman, trusting that perseverance would overcome the fatality that had hitherto thwarted him. Firm in this resolve, he was passing beneath the walls of a church, which formed the corner of two streets, when, as he turned into the shade of its steeple, he encountered a bulky stranger, muffled in a cloak. The man was proceeding with the speed of earnest business, but Robin planted himself full before him, holding the oak cudgel with both hands across his body, as a bar to further passage.

"Halt, honest man, and answer me a question," said he, very resolutely. "Tell me, this instant, whereabouts is the dwelling of my kinsman, Major Molineux?"



If the stranger does not stop for Robin, Robin will most likely do what to him? _____________________________________________________________________________

I think this is because: _____________________________________________________________________________

"Keep your tongue between your teeth, fool, and let me pass!" said a deep, gruff voice, which Robin partly remembered. "Let me pass, I say, or I'll strike you to the earth!"

"No, no, neighbor!" cried Robin, flourishing his cudgel, and then thrusting its larger end close to the man's muffled face. "No, no, I'm not the fool you take me for, nor do you pass, till I have an answer to my question. Whereabouts is the dwelling of my kinsman, Major Molineux?"

The stranger, instead of attempting to force his passage, stepped back into the moonlight, unmuffled his face, and stared full into that of Robin.

"Watch here an hour, and Major Molineux will pass by," said he.

Robin gazed with dismay, and astonishment, on the unprecedented physiognomy of the speaker. The forehead with its double prominence, the broad-hooked nose, the shaggy eyebrows, and fiery eyes, were those which he had noticed at the inn, but the man's complexion had undergone a singular, or, more properly, a two-fold change. One side of the face blazed an intense red, while the other was black as midnight, the division line being in the broad bridge of the nose; and a mouth which seemed to extend from ear to ear was black or red, in contrast to the color of the cheek. The effect was as if two individual devils, a fiend of fire and a fiend of darkness, had united themselves to form this infernal visage. The stranger grinned in Robin's face, muffled his parti-colored features, and was out of sight in a moment.

"Strange things we travellers see!" ejaculated Robin.

He seated himself, however, upon the steps of the church-door, resolving to wait the appointed time for his kinsman. A few moments were consumed in philosophical speculations upon the species of the genus homo, who had just left him; but having settled this point shrewdly, rationally, and satisfactorily, he was compelled to look elsewhere for his amusement. And first he threw his eyes along the street; it was of more respectable appearance than most of those into which he had wandered, and the moon, "creating, like the imaginative power, a beautiful strangeness in familiar objects," gave something of romance to a scene, that might not have possessed it in the light of day. The


irregular and often quaint architecture of the houses, some of whose roofs were broken into numerous little peaks, while others ascended, steep and narrow, into a single point, and others again were square; the pure milk-white of some of their complexions, the aged darkness of others, and the thousand sparklings, reflected from bright substances in the walls of many; these matters engaged Robin's attention for a while, and then began to grow wearisome. Next he endeavored to define the forms of distant objects, starting away, with almost ghostly indistinctness, just as his eye appeared to grasp them; and finally he took a minute survey of an edifice which stood on the opposite side of the street, directly in front of the church-door, where he was stationed. It was a large, square mansion, distinguished from its neighbors by a balcony, which rested on tall pillars, and by an elaborate Gothic window, communicating therewith.

"Perhaps this is the very house I have been seeking," thought Robin.

Then he strove to speed away the time, by listening to a murmur which swept continually along the street, yet was scarcely audible, except to an unaccustomed ear like his; it was a low, dull, dreamy sound, compounded of many noises, each of which was at too great a distance to be separately heard. Robin marvelled at this snore of a sleeping town, and marvelled more whenever its continuity was broken by now and then a distant shout, apparently loud where it originated. But altogether it was a sleep-inspiring sound, and, to shake off its drowsy influence, Robin arose, and climbed a window-frame, that he might view the interior of the church. There the moonbeams came trembling in, and fell down upon the deserted pews, and extended along the quiet aisles. A fainter, yet more awful radiance, was hovering around the pulpit, and one solitary ray had dared to rest upon the opened page of the great Bible. Had nature, in that deep hour, become a worshipper in the house, which man had builded? Or was that heavenly light the visible sanctity of the place, visible because no earthly and impure feet were within the walls? The scene made Robin's heart shiver with a sensation of loneliness, stronger than he had ever felt in the remotest depths of his native woods; so he turned away, and sat down again before the door. There were graves around the church, and now an uneasy thought obtruded into Robin's breast. What if the object of his search, which had been so often and so strangely thwarted, were all the time mouldering in his shroud? What if his kinsman should glide through yonder gate, and nod and smile to him in dimly passing by?

"Oh, that any breathing thing were here with me!" said Robin.

Recalling his thoughts from this uncomfortable track, he sent them over forest, hill, and stream, and attempted to imagine how that evening of ambiguity and weariness, had been spent by his father's household. He

pictured them assembled at the door, beneath the tree, the great old tree, which had been spared for its huge twisted trunk, and venerable shade, when a thousand leafy brethren fell. There, at the going down of the summer sun, it was his father's custom to perform domestic worship, that the neighbors might come and join with him like brothers


of the family, and that the wayfaring man might pause to drink at that fountain, and keep his heart pure by freshening the memory of home. Robin distinguished the seat of every individual of the little audience; he saw the good man in the midst, holding the Scriptures in the golden light that shone from the western clouds; he beheld him close the book, and all rise up to pray. He heard the old thanksgivings for daily mercies, the old supplications for their continuance, to which he had so often listened in weariness, but which were now among his dear remembrances. He perceived the slight inequality of his father's voice when he came to speak of the Absent One; he noted how his mother turned her face to the broad and knotted trunk; how his elder brother scorned, because the beard was rough upon his upper lip, to permit his features to be moved; how the younger sister drew down a low hanging branch before her eyes; and how the little one of all, whose sports had hitherto broken the decorum of the scene, understood the prayer for her playmate, and burst into clamorous grief. Then he saw them go in at the door; and when Robin would have entered also, the latch tinkled into its place, and he was excluded from his home."Am I here, or there?" cried Robin, starting; for all at once, when his thoughts had become visible and audible in a dream, the long, wide, solitary street shone out before him.

He aroused himself, and endeavored to fix his attention steadily upon the large edifice which he had surveyed before. But still his mind kept vibrating between fancy and reality; by turns, the pillars of the balcony lengthened into the tall, bare stems of pines, dwindled down to human figures, settled again into their true shape and size, and then commenced a new succession of changes. For a single moment, when he deemed himself awake, he could have sworn that a visage, one which he seemed to remember, yet could not absolutely name as his kinsman's, was looking towards him from the Gothic window. A deeper sleep wrestled with and nearly overcame him, but fled at the sound of footsteps along the opposite pavement. Robin rubbed his eyes, discerned a man passing at the foot of the balcony, and addressed him in a loud, peevish, and lamentable cry.

"Hallo, friend! must I wait here all night for my kinsman, Major Molineux?"

The sleeping echoes awoke, and answered the voice; and the passenger, barely able to discern a figure sitting in the oblique shade of the steeple, traversed the street to obtain a nearer view. He was himself a gentleman in his prime, of open, intelligent, cheerful, and altogether prepossessing countenance. Perceiving a country youth, apparently homeless and without friends, he accosted him in a tone of real kindness, which had become strange to Robin's ears.

"Well, my good lad, why are you sitting here?" inquired he. "Can I be of service to you in any way?"

"I am afraid not, Sir," replied Robin, despondingly; "yet I shall take it kindly, if you'll answer me a single question. I've been searching, half the night, for one Major Molineux;


now, Sir, is there really such a person in these parts, or am I dreaming?"

"Major Molineux! The name is not altogether strange to me," said the gentleman, smiling. "Have you any objection to telling me the nature of your business with him?"

Then Robin briefly related that his father was a clergyman, settled on a small salary, at a long distance back in the country, and that he and Major Molineux were brothers' children. The Major, having inherited riches, and acquired civil and military rank, had visited his cousin, in great pomp, a year or two before; had manifested much interest in Robin and an elder brother, and, being childless himself, had thrown out hints respecting the future establishment of one of them in life. The elder brother was destined to succeed to the farm, which his father cultivated, in the interval of sacred duties; it was therefore determined that Robin should profit by his kinsman's generous intentions, especially as he seemed to be rather the favorite, and was thought to possess other necessary endowments.

"For I have the name of being a shrewd youth," observed Robin, in this part of his story.

"I doubt not you deserve it," replied his new friend, good-naturedly; "but pray proceed."

"Well, sir, being nearly eighteen years old, and well-grown, as you see," continued Robin, drawing himself up to his full height, "I thought it high time to begin the world. So my mother and sister put me in handsome trim, and my father gave me half the remnant of his last year's salary, and five days ago I started for this place, to pay the Major a visit. But, would you believe it, Sir? I crossed the ferry a little after dusk, and have yet found nobody that would show me the way to his dwelling; only an hour or two since, I was told to wait here, and Major Molineux would pass by."

"Can you describe the man who told you this?" inquired the gentleman.

"Oh, he was a very ill-favored fellow, Sir," replied Robin, "with two great bumps on his forehead, a hook nose, fiery eyes, and, what struck me as the strangest, his face was of two different colors. Do you happen to know such a man, Sir?"

"Not intimately," answered the stranger, "but I chanced to meet him a little time previous to your stopping me. I believe you may trust his word, and that the Major will very shortly pass through this street. In the meantime, as I have a singular curiosity to witness your meeting, I will sit down here upon the steps, and bear you company."

He seated himself accordingly, and soon engaged his companion in animated discourse. It was but of brief continuance, however, for a noise of shouting, which had long been remotely audible, drew so much nearer, that Robin inquired its cause.

"What may be the meaning of this uproar?" asked he. "Truly, if your town be always as


noisy, I shall find little sleep, while I am an inhabitant."

"Why, indeed, friend Robin, there do appear to be three or four riotous fellows abroad to-night," replied the gentleman. "You must not expect all the stillness of your native woods, here in our streets. But the watch will shortly be at the heels of these lads, and--"

"Ay, and set them in the stocks by peep of day," interrupted Robin, recollecting his own encounter with the drowsy lantern-bearer. "But, dear Sir, if I may trust my ears, an army of watchmen would never make head against such a multitude of rioters. There were at least a thousand voices went to make up that one shout."

"May not a man have several voices, Robin, as well as two complexions?" said his friend.

"Perhaps a man may; but Heaven forbid that a woman should!" responded the shrewd youth, thinking of the seductive tones of the Major's housekeeper.

The sounds of a trumpet in some neighboring street now became so evident and continual, that Robin's curiosity was strongly excited. In addition to the shouts, he heard frequent bursts from many instruments of discord, and a wild and confused laughter filled up the intervals. Robin rose from the steps, and looked wistfully towards a point, whither several people seemed to be hastening.

"Surely some prodigious merrymaking is going on," exclaimed he. "I have laughed very little since I left home, Sir, and should be sorry to lose an opportunity. Shall we just step round the corner by that darkish house, and take our share of the fun?"

"Sit down again, sit down, good Robin," replied the gentleman, laying his hand on the skirt of the gray coat. "You forget that we must wait here for your kinsman; and there is reason to believe that he will pass by, in the course of a very few moments."

The near approach of the uproar had now disturbed the neighborhood; windows flew open on all sides; and many heads, in the attire of the pillow, and confused by sleep suddenly broken, were protruded to the gaze of whoever had leisure to observe them. Eager voices hailed each other from house to house, all demanding the explanation, which not a soul could give. Half-dressed men hurried towards the unknown commotion, stumbling as they went over the stone steps, that thrust themselves into the narrow foot-walk. The shouts, the laughter, and the tuneless bray, the antipodes of music, came onward with increasing din, till scattered individuals, and then denser bodies, began to appear round a corner, at the distance of a hundred yards.

"Will you recognize your kinsman, Robin, if he passes in this crowd?" inquired the gentleman.

"Indeed, I can't warrant it, Sir; but I'll take my stand here, and keep a bright look out,"


answered Robin, descending to the outer edge of the pavement.

A mighty stream of people now emptied into the street, and came rolling slowly towards the church. A single horseman wheeled the corner in the midst of them, and close behind him came a band of fearful wind-instruments, sending forth a fresher discord, now that no intervening buildings kept it from the ear. Then a redder light disturbed the moonbeams, and a dense multitude of torches shone along the street, concealing, by their glare, whatever object they illuminated. The single horseman, clad in a military dress, and bearing a drawn sword, rode onward as the leader, and, by his fierce and variegated countenance, appeared like war personified: the red of one cheek was an emblem of fire and sword; the blackness of the other betokened the mourning that attends them. In his train were wild figures in the Indian dress, and many fantastic shapes without a model, giving the whole march a visionary air, as if a dream had broken forth from some feverish brain, and were sweeping visibly through the midnight streets. A mass of people, inactive, except as applauding spectators, hemmed the procession in, and several women ran along the side-walk, piercing the confusion of heavier sounds, with their shrill voices of mirth or terror.

"The double-faced fellow has his eye upon me," muttered Robin, with an indefinite but an uncomfortable idea that he was himself to bear a part in the pageantry.

The leader turned himself in the saddle, and fixed his glance full upon the country youth, as the steed went slowly by. When Robin had freed his eyes from those fiery ones, the musicians were passing before him, and the torches were close at hand; but the unsteady brightness of the latter formed a veil which he could not penetrate. The rattling of wheels over the stones sometimes found its way to his ear, and confused traces of a human form appeared at intervals, and then melted into the vivid light. A moment more, and the leader thundered a command to halt: the trumpets vomited a horrid breath, and held their peace; the shouts and laughter of the people died away, and there remained only a universal hum, allied to silence. Right before Robin's eyes was an uncovered cart. There the torches blazed the brightest, there the moon shone out like day, and there, in tar-and-feathery dignity, sat his kinsman Major Molineux!


Why does the narrator describe Major Molineux as being in “tar-and-feathery dignity?” _____________________________________________________________________________

I think this because: ____________________________________________________________________________

How might Molineux have gotten that way?


Are the New Englanders sympathetic or hostile to Molineux? Why do you think they feel this way?

_____________________________________________________________________________

He was an elderly man, of large and majestic person, and strong, square features, betokening a steady soul; but steady as it was, his enemies had found means to shake it. His face was pale as death, and far more ghastly; the broad forehead was contracted in his agony, so that his eyebrows formed one grizzled line; his eyes were red and wild, and the foam hung white upon his quivering lip. His whole frame was agitated by a quick and continual tremor, which his pride strove to quell, even in those circumstances of overwhelming humiliation. But perhaps the bitterest pang of all was when his eyes met those of Robin; for he evidently knew him on the instant, as the youth stood witnessing the foul disgrace of a head grown gray in honor. They stared at each other in silence, and Robin's knees shook, and his hair bristled, with a mixture of pity and terror. Soon, however, a bewildering excitement began to seize upon his mind; the preceding adventures of the night, the unexpected appearance of the crowd, the torches, the confused din and the hush that followed, the spectre of his kinsman reviled by that great multitude, all this, and, more than all, a perception of tremendous ridicule in the whole scene, affected him with a sort of mental inebriety. At that moment a voice of sluggish merriment saluted Robin's ears; he turned instinctively, and just behind the corner of the church stood the lantern-bearer, rubbing his eyes, and drowsily enjoying the lad's amazement. Then he heard a peal of laughter like the ringing of silvery bells; a woman twitched his arm, a saucy eye met his, and he saw the lady of the scarlet petticoat. A sharp, dry cachinnation appealed to his memory, and, standing on tiptoe in the crowd, with his white apron over his head, he beheld the courteous little innkeeper. And lastly, there sailed over the heads of the multitude a great, broad laugh, broken in the midst by two sepulchral hems; thus--

"Haw, haw, haw--hem, hem--haw, haw, haw, haw!"

The sound proceeded from the balcony of the opposite edifice, and thither Robin turned his eyes. In front of the Gothic window stood the old citizen, wrapped in a wide gown, his gray periwig exchanged for a night-cap, which was thrust back from his forehead, and his silk stockings hanging down about his legs. He supported himself on his polished cane in a fit of convulsive merriment, which manifested itself on his solemn old features like a funny inscription on a tomb-stone. Then Robin seemed to hear the voices of the barbers, of the guests of the inn, and of all who had made sport of him that night. The contagion was spreading among the multitude, when, all at once, it seized upon Robin, and he sent forth a shout of laughter that echoed through the street; every man shook his sides, every man emptied his lungs, but Robin's shout was the loudest there. The cloud-spirits peeped


from their silvery islands, as the congregated mirth went roaring up the sky! The Man in the Moon heard the far bellow; "Oho," quoth he, "the old earth is frolicsome tonight!"

When there was a momentary calm in that tempestuous sea of sound, the leader gave the sign, the procession resumed its march. On they went, like fiends that throng in mockery around some dead potentate, mighty no more, but majestic still in his agony. On they went, in counterfeited pomp, in senseless uproar, in frenzied merriment, trampling all on an old man's heart. On swept the tumult, and left a silent street behind.

"Well, Robin, are you dreaming?" inquired the gentleman, laying his hand on the youth's shoulder.

Robin started, and withdrew his arm from the stone post to which he had instinctively clung, while the living stream rolled by him. His cheek was somewhat pale, and his eye not quite as lively as in the earlier part of the evening.

"Will you be kind enough to show me the way to the ferry?" said he, after a moment's pause.

"You have, then, adopted a new subject of inquiry?" observed his companion, with a smile.

"Why, yes, Sir," replied Robin, rather dryly. "Thanks to you, and to my other friends, I have at last met my kinsman, and he will scarce desire to see my face again. I begin to grow weary of a town life, Sir. Will you show me the way to the ferry?"

"No, my good friend Robin, not to-night, at least," said the gentleman. "Some few days hence, if you continue to wish it, I will speed you on your journey. Or, if you prefer to remain with us, perhaps, as you are a shrewd youth, you may rise in the world, without the help of your kinsman, Major Molineux."


What has Robin learned from his evening in New England? _____________________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________

I think this because: _____________________________________________________________________________


Could Robin have learned this lesson in a classroom? Why or why not?

Would England have viewed this lesson as a sign of progress for themselves? Explain why or why not in no fewer than three sentences.

From this reading, SWBAT:

Identify relationships between main characters

Recognize clear cause-effect relationships within a single paragraph

Locate simple details at the sentence and paragraph level

Recognize a clear function of a passage

Edgar Allen Poe: A Biography Edgar Allan Poe, a southerner, shares with Melville a darkly metaphysical vision mixed with elements of realism, parody, and burlesque. He refined the short story genre and invented detective fiction. Many of his stories prefigure the genres of science fiction, horror, and fantasy so popular today.

Poe's short and tragic life was plagued with insecurity. Like so many other major 19th-century American writers, Poe was orphaned at an early age. Poe's strange marriage in 1835 to his first cousin Virginia Clemm, who was not yet 14, has been interpreted as an attempt to find the stable family life he lacked.

Poe believed that strangeness was an essential ingredient of beauty, and his writing is often exotic. His stories and poems are populated with doomed, introspective aristocrats (Poe, like many other southerners, cherished an aristocratic ideal). These gloomy characters never seem to work or socialize; instead they bury themselves in dark, moldering castles symbolically decorated with bizarre rugs and draperies that hide the


real world of sun, windows, walls, and floors. The hidden rooms reveal ancient libraries, strange art works, and eclectic oriental objects. The aristocrats play musical instruments or read ancient books while they brood on tragedies, often the deaths of loved ones. Themes of death-in-life, especially being buried alive or returning like a vampire from the grave, appear in many of his works, including "The Premature Burial," "Ligeia," "The Cask of Amontillado," and "The Fall of the House of Usher." Poe's twilight realm between life and death and his gaudy, Gothic settings are not merely decorative. They reflect the overcivilized yet deathly interior of his characters disturbed psyches. They are symbolic expressions of the unconscious, and thus are central to his art.

The Black CatEdgar Allen Poe

1845

FOR the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not -- and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified -- have tortured -- have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror -- to many they will seem less terrible than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place -- some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.

Stop and Think:

How does the narrator interpret the events that he's about to share? How do you know?


How does he anticipate his audience will interpret them? How do you know?

From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and, in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.

This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point -- and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.

Pluto -- this was the cat's name -- was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets.

Stop and Think:

How does the narrator feel about animals? How do you know?


Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character -- through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance -- had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me -- for what disease is like Alcohol ! -- and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish -- even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.

Stop and Think:

What do you think the narrator means by “the Fiend Intemperence”? What context clues did you use to figure that out?

List three effects that this malady, or problem, has on our narrator.

One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket ! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.

When reason returned with the morning -- when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch -- I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.

In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final


and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart -- one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself -- to offer violence to its own nature -- to do wrong for the wrong's sake only -- that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; -- hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; -- hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; -- hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin -- a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it -- if such a thing were possible -- even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.

Stop and Think:

Identify and correctly sequence three major events from the last three paragraphs.

1.

2.

3.

The narrator says that the “spirit of perverseness” overtook him. What do you think this means? What context clues are you using to make that determination?

Is it a reasonable explanation? Support your answer in any way you see fit.

For the remainder of this story, complete the “Sequence Chart” graphic organizer. (See attachment).

On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the


cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts -- and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire -- a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words "strange!" "singular!" and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about the animal's neck.

When I first beheld this apparition -- for I could scarcely regard it as less -- my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd -- by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.

Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place.

One night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat -- a very large one -- fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast.

Upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and


appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made no claim to it -- knew nothing of it -- had never seen it before.

I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favorite with my wife.

For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but -- I know not how or why it was -- its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually -- very gradually -- I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence.

What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed, in a high degree, that humanity of feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures.

With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast. At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly -- let me confess it at once -- by absolute dread of the beast.

This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil -- and yet I should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to own -- yes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to own -- that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had been heightened by one of the merest chimæras it would be possible to conceive. My wife had called my attention, more than once, to the character of the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and which constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had destroyed. The reader will remember that this mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by slow degrees -- degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time my Reason struggled to reject as fanciful -- it had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name -- and for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared -- it was now, I say, the image of a hideous -- of a ghastly thing -- of the GALLOWS ! -- oh,


mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime -- of Agony and of Death !

And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast -- whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed -- a brute beast to work out for me -- for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God -- so much of insufferable wo! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest any more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight -- an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off -- incumbent eternally upon my heart !

Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates -- the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.

One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.

This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard -- about packing it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellar -- as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their victims.

For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney, or fireplace, that had been filled up, and made to resemble the rest of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect any thing suspicious.

And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped it in that position, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which


could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went over the new brick-work. When I had finished, I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly, and said to myself -- "Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain."

My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness; for I had, at length, firmly resolved to put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the moment, there could have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and forebore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night -- and thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul!

The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed as a freeman. The monster, in terror, had fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered. Even a search had been instituted -- but of course nothing was to be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured.

Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.

"Gentlemen," I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, "I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this -- this is a very well constructed house." (In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.) -- "I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls -- are you going, gentlemen? -- these walls are solidly put together;" and here, through the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.

But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend ! No sooner had the reverberationFor the remainder of the story, complete the “Sequence Chart” graphic organizer.

of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! -- by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman -- a howl -- a wailing shriek, half


of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.

Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!

Writing Application:

What was Poe's purpose for writing this story? What do you think he is saying about humanity in America? Write a MEL-Con paragraph in which you determine whether the actions of the narrator OR the actions of the “dozen stout arms...toiling at the wall” showed signs of American progress.

Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions

Presented at the Women's Rights Convention, Seneca Falls July 1848

Elizabeth Cody Stanton

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.


We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.

He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.

He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men—both natives and foreigners.

Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.

He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.

He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.

He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master—the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.

He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce; in case

of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given; as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women—the law, in all cases, going upon the false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.

After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.

He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration.

He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.

He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education—all colleges being closed against her.

He allows her in Church as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church.


He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.

He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.

He has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.

Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation,—in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.

In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf.We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country.

Firmly relying upon the final triumph of the Right and the True, we do this day affix our signatures to this declaration.

At the appointed hour the meeting convened. The minutes having been read, the resolutions of the day before were read and taken up separately. Some, from their self-evident truth, elicited but little remark; others, after some criticism, much debate, and some slight alterations, were finally passed by a large majority.

[At an evening session] Lucretia Mott offered and spoke to the following resolution:

Resolved, That the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women, for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman an equal participation with men in the various trades, professions and commerce.

The Resolution was adopted.

Report of the Woman's Rights Convention, Held at Seneca Falls, N.Y., July 19th and 20th, 1848 (Rochester, 1848).

Source:

Prepared for the Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, vol. 1, In the School of Anti-Slavery, 1840 to 1866, ed. Ann D. Gordon (New Brunswick, N.J., 1997). ©Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

Questions for Comparative RelationshipsWhat is most likely the relationship between the speaker, Elizabeth Cody Stanton, and the women attending the Seneca Falls Convention? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


______________________________________________________________________________________

What is most likely the relationship between women and men in this point in history? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What makes you think so? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Writing to Learn:Compare the Declaration of Independence to the Declaration of Resolutions and Sentiments. What similarities do you see? What differences do you see? Complete a Venn Diagram graphic organizer to lay out your observations. Include at least three main ideas and two details in A.W.E. for each main idea.

Then write a MEL-Con paragraph in which you synthesize the findings in your chart.

Writing to Learn: This can be used for your final paper.

Does the Declaration of Resolutions and Sentiments indicate progress for the Americans? Explain your reasoning in a MEL-Con paragraph complete with two pieces of evidence in A.W.E. And one paraphrased support.

From this reading, SWBAT: Order simple sequences of events Identify clear relationships between people and ideas Locate important details


Make simple inferences about how details are used

Directions: Create a “Sequence Chart” and a “What If?” graphic organizer for this reading.

BARTLEBY, THE SCRIVENER.A STORY OF WALL-STREET.

By Herman Melville, 1853

I am a rather elderly man. The nature of my avocations for the last thirty years has brought me into more than ordinary contact with what would seem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men, of whom asyet nothing that I know of has ever been written:--I mean thelaw-copyists or scriveners. I have known very many of them,professionally and privately, and if I pleased, could relate divershistories, at which good-natured gentlemen might smile, and sentimentalsouls might weep. But I waive the biographies of all other scrivenersfor a few passages in the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener of thestrangest I ever saw or heard of. While of other law-copyists I mightwrite the complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done.I believe that no materials exist for a full and satisfactory biographyof this man. It is an irreparable loss to literature. Bartleby was oneof those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from theoriginal sources, and in his case those are very small. What my ownastonished eyes saw of Bartleby, that is all I know of him, except,indeed, one vague report which will appear in the sequel.

Ere introducing the scrivener, as he first appeared to me, it is fit Imake some mention of myself, my _employees_, my business, my chambers,and general surroundings; because some such description is indispensableto an adequate understanding of the chief character about to bepresented.

Imprimis: I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled witha profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best. Hence,though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and nervous, evento turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have I ever sufferedto invade my peace. I am one of those unambitious lawyers who neveraddresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but in thecool tranquility of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men'sbonds and mortgages and title-deeds. All who know me, consider me an


eminently safe man. The late John Jacob Astor, a personage littlegiven to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncing my firstgrand point to be prudence; my next, method. I do not speak it invanity, but simply record the fact, that I was not unemployed in myprofession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which, I admit, I loveto repeat, for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it, and ringslike unto bullion. I will freely add, that I was not insensible to thelate John Jacob Astor's good opinion.

Some time prior to the period at which this little history begins, myavocations had been largely increased. The good old office, now extinctin the State of New York, of a Master in Chancery, had been conferredupon me. It was not a very arduous office, but very pleasantlyremunerative. I seldom lose my temper; much more seldom indulge indangerous indignation at wrongs and outrages; but I must be permitted tobe rash here and declare, that I consider the sudden and violentabrogation of the office of Master in Chancery, by the new Constitution,as a--premature act; inasmuch as I had counted upon a life-lease of theprofits, whereas I only received those of a few short years. But thisis by the way.

My chambers were up stairs at No.--Wall-street. At one end they lookedupon the white wall of the interior of a spacious sky-light shaft,penetrating the building from top to bottom. This view might have beenconsidered rather tame than otherwise, deficient in what landscapepainters call "life." But if so, the view from the other end of mychambers offered, at least, a contrast, if nothing more. In thatdirection my windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brickwall, black by age and everlasting shade; which wall required nospy-glass to bring out its lurking beauties, but for the benefit of allnear-sighted spectators, was pushed up to within ten feet of my windowpanes. Owing to the great height of the surrounding buildings, and mychambers being on the second floor, the interval between this wall andmine not a little resembled a huge square cistern.

At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two personsas copyists in my employment, and a promising lad as an office-boy.First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut. These may seemnames, the like of which are not usually found in the Directory. Intruth they were nicknames, mutually conferred upon each other by mythree clerks, and were deemed expressive of their respective persons orcharacters. Turkey was a short, pursy Englishman of about my own age,that is, somewhere not far from sixty. In the morning, one might say,his face was of a fine florid hue, but after twelve o'clock,


meridian--his dinner hour--it blazed like a grate full of Christmascoals; and continued blazing--but, as it were, with a gradual wane--till6 o'clock, P.M. or thereabouts, after which I saw no more of theproprietor of the face, which gaining its meridian with the sun, seemedto set with it, to rise, culminate, and decline the following day, withthe like regularity and undiminished glory. There are many singularcoincidences I have known in the course of my life, not the least amongwhich was the fact, that exactly when Turkey displayed his fullest beamsfrom his red and radiant countenance, just then, too, at that criticalmoment, began the daily period when I considered his business capacitiesas seriously disturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four hours. Notthat he was absolutely idle, or averse to business then; far from it.The difficulty was, he was apt to be altogether too energetic. Therewas a strange, inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness of activityabout him. He would be incautious in dipping his pen into his inkstand.All his blots upon my documents, were dropped there after twelveo'clock, meridian. Indeed, not only would he be reckless and sadlygiven to making blots in the afternoon, but some days he went further,and was rather noisy. At such times, too, his face flamed withaugmented blazonry, as if cannel coal had been heaped on anthracite. Hemade an unpleasant racket with his chair; spilled his sand-box; inmending his pens, impatiently split them all to pieces, and threw themon the floor in a sudden passion; stood up and leaned over his table,boxing his papers about in a most indecorous manner, very sad to beholdin an elderly man like him. Nevertheless, as he was in many ways a mostvaluable person to me, and all the time before twelve o'clock, meridian,was the quickest, steadiest creature too, accomplishing a great deal ofwork in a style not easy to be matched--for these reasons, I was willingto overlook his eccentricities, though indeed, occasionally, Iremonstrated with him. I did this very gently, however, because, thoughthe civilest, nay, the blandest and most reverential of men in themorning, yet in the afternoon he was disposed, upon provocation, to beslightly rash with his tongue, in fact, insolent. Now, valuing hismorning services as I did, and resolved not to lose them; yet, at thesame time made uncomfortable by his inflamed ways after twelve o'clock;and being a man of peace, unwilling by my admonitions to call forthunseemly retorts from him; I took upon me, one Saturday noon (he wasalways worse on Saturdays), to hint to him, very kindly, that perhapsnow that he was growing old, it might be well to abridge his labors; inshort, he need not come to my chambers after twelve o'clock, but, dinnerover, had best go home to his lodgings and rest himself till teatime.But no; he insisted upon his afternoon devotions. His countenancebecame intolerably fervid, as he oratorically assured me--gesticulatingwith a long ruler at the other end of the room--that if his services in


the morning were useful, how indispensable, then, in the afternoon?

"With submission, sir," said Turkey on this occasion, "I consider myselfyour right-hand man. In the morning I but marshal and deploy mycolumns; but in the afternoon I put myself at their head, and gallantlycharge the foe, thus!"--and he made a violent thrust with the ruler.

"But the blots, Turkey," intimated I.

"True,--but, with submission, sir, behold these hairs! I am gettingold. Surely, sir, a blot or two of a warm afternoon is not to beseverely urged against gray hairs. Old age--even if it blot thepage--is honorable. With submission, sir, we both are getting old."

This appeal to my fellow-feeling was hardly to be resisted. At allevents, I saw that go he would not. So I made up my mind to let himstay, resolving, nevertheless, to see to it, that during the afternoonhe had to do with my less important papers.

Nippers, the second on my list, was a whiskered, sallow, and, upon thewhole, rather piratical-looking young man of about five and twenty. Ialways deemed him the victim of two evil powers--ambition andindigestion. The ambition was evinced by a certain impatience of theduties of a mere copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of strictlyprofessional affairs, such as the original drawing up of legaldocuments. The indigestion seemed betokened in an occasional nervoustestiness and grinning irritability, causing the teeth to audibly grindtogether over mistakes committed in copying; unnecessary maledictions,hissed, rather than spoken, in the heat of business; and especially by acontinual discontent with the height of the table where he worked.Though of a very ingenious mechanical turn, Nippers could never get thistable to suit him. He put chips under it, blocks of various sorts, bitsof pasteboard, and at last went so far as to attempt an exquisiteadjustment by final pieces of folded blotting paper. But no inventionwould answer. If, for the sake of easing his back, he brought the tablelid at a sharp angle well up towards his chin, and wrote there like aman using the steep roof of a Dutch house for his desk:--then hedeclared that it stopped the circulation in his arms. If now he loweredthe table to his waistbands, and stooped over it in writing, then therewas a sore aching in his back. In short, the truth of the matter was,Nippers knew not what he wanted. Or, if he wanted any thing, it was tobe rid of a scrivener's table altogether. Among the manifestations ofhis diseased ambition was a fondness he had for receiving visits fromcertain ambiguous-looking fellows in seedy coats, whom he called hisclients. Indeed I was aware that not only was he, at times,


considerable of a ward-politician, but he occasionally did a littlebusiness at the Justices' courts, and was not unknown on the steps ofthe Tombs. I have good reason to believe, however, that one individualwho called upon him at my chambers, and who, with a grand air, heinsisted was his client, was no other than a dun, and the allegedtitle-deed, a bill. But with all his failings, and the annoyances hecaused me, Nippers, like his compatriot Turkey, was a very useful man tome; wrote a neat, swift hand; and, when he chose, was not deficient in agentlemanly sort of deportment. Added to this, he always dressed in agentlemanly sort of way; and so, incidentally, reflected credit upon mychambers. Whereas with respect to Turkey, I had much ado to keep himfrom being a reproach to me. His clothes were apt to look oily andsmell of eating-houses. He wore his pantaloons very loose and baggy insummer. His coats were execrable; his hat not to be handled. But whilethe hat was a thing of indifference to me, inasmuch as his naturalcivility and deference, as a dependent Englishman, always led him todoff it the moment he entered the room, yet his coat was another matter.Concerning his coats, I reasoned with him; but with no effect. Thetruth was, I suppose, that a man of so small an income, could not affordto sport such a lustrous face and a lustrous coat at one and the sametime. As Nippers once observed, Turkey's money went chiefly for redink. One winter day I presented Turkey with a highly-respectablelooking coat of my own, a padded gray coat, of a most comfortablewarmth, and which buttoned straight up from the knee to the neck. Ithought Turkey would appreciate the favor, and abate his rashness andobstreperousness of afternoons. But no. I verily believe thatbuttoning himself up in so downy and blanket-like a coat had apernicious effect upon him; upon the same principle that too much oatsare bad for horses. In fact, precisely as a rash, restive horse is saidto feel his oats, so Turkey felt his coat. It made him insolent. Hewas a man whom prosperity harmed.

Though concerning the self-indulgent habits of Turkey I had my ownprivate surmises, yet touching Nippers I was well persuaded thatwhatever might by his faults in other respects, he was, at least, atemperate young man. But indeed, nature herself seemed to have been hisvintner, and at his birth charged him so thoroughly with an irritable,brandy-like disposition, that all subsequent potations were needless.When I consider how, amid the stillness of my chambers, Nippers wouldsometimes impatiently rise from his seat, and stooping over his table,spread his arms wide apart, seize the whole desk, and move it, and jerkit, with a grim, grinding motion on the floor, as if the table were aperverse voluntary agent, intent on thwarting and vexing him; I plainlyperceive that for Nippers, brandy and water were altogether superfluous.


It was fortunate for me that, owing to its peculiarcause--indigestion--the irritability and consequent nervousness ofNippers, were mainly observable in the morning, while in the afternoonhe was comparatively mild. So that Turkey's paroxysms only coming onabout twelve o'clock, I never had to do with their eccentricities at onetime. Their fits relieved each other like guards. When Nippers' wason, Turkey's was off; and _vice versa_. This was a good naturalarrangement under the circumstances.

Ginger Nut, the third on my list, was a lad some twelve years old. Hisfather was a cartman, ambitious of seeing his son on the bench instead ofa cart, before he died. So he sent him to my office as student at law,errand boy, and cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one dollar a week.He had a little desk to himself, but he did not use it much. Uponinspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells of varioussorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth the whole noblescience of the law was contained in a nut-shell. Not the least amongthe employments of Ginger Nut, as well as one which he discharged withthe most alacrity, was his duty as cake and apple purveyor for Turkeyand Nippers. Copying law papers being proverbially dry, husky sort ofbusiness, my two scriveners were fain to moisten their mouths very oftenwith Spitzenbergs to be had at the numerous stalls nigh the CustomHouse and Post Office. Also, they sent Ginger Nut very frequently forthat peculiar cake--small, flat, round, and very spicy--after which hehad been named by them. Of a cold morning when business was but dull,Turkey would gobble up scores of these cakes, as if they were merewafers--indeed they sell them at the rate of six or eight for apenny--the scrape of his pen blending with the crunching of the crispparticles in his mouth. Of all the fiery afternoon blunders andflurried rashWomnesses of Turkey, was his once moistening a ginger-cakebetween his lips, and clapping it on to a mortgage for a seal. I camewithin an ace of dismissing him then. But he mollified me by making anoriental bow, and saying--"With submission, sir, it was generous of meto find you in stationery on my own account."

Now my original business--that of a conveyancer and title hunter, anddrawer-up of recondite documents of all sorts--was considerablyincreased by receiving the master's office. There was now great workfor scriveners. Not only must I push the clerks already with me, but Imust have additional help. In answer to my advertisement, a motionlessyoung man one morning, stood upon my office threshold, the door beingopen, for it was summer. I can see that figure now--pallidly neat,


pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby.

After a few words touching his qualifications, I engaged him, glad tohave among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an aspect,which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty temper ofTurkey, and the fiery one of Nippers.

I should have stated before that ground glass folding-doors divided mypremises into two parts, one of which was occupied by my scriveners, theother by myself. According to my humor I threw open these doors, orclosed them. I resolved to assign Bartleby a corner by thefolding-doors, but on my side of them, so as to have this quiet manwithin easy call, in case any trifling thing was to be done. I placedhis desk close up to a small side-window in that part of the room, awindow which originally had afforded a lateral view of certain grimyback-yards and bricks, but which, owing to subsequent erections,commanded at present no view at all, though it gave some light. Withinthree feet of the panes was a wall, and the light came down from farabove, between two lofty buildings, as from a very small opening in adome. Still further to a satisfactory arrangement, I procured a highgreen folding screen, which might entirely isolate Bartleby from mysight, though not remove him from my voice. And thus, in a manner,privacy and society were conjoined.

At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if longfamishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on mydocuments. There was no pause for digestion. He ran a day and nightline, copying by sun-light and by candle-light. I should have beenquite delighted with his application, had he been cheerfullyindustrious. But he wrote on silently, palely, mechanically.

It is, of course, an indispensable part of a scrivener's business toverify the accuracy of his copy, word by word. Where there are two ormore scriveners in an office, they assist each other in thisexamination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original.It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readilyimagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogetherintolerable. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poetByron would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a lawdocument of, say five hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy hand.

Now and then, in the haste of business, it had been my habit to assistin comparing some brief document myself, calling Turkey or Nippers forthis purpose. One object I had in placing Bartleby so handy to mebehind the screen, was to avail myself of his services on such trivial


occasions. It was on the third day, I think, of his being with me, andbefore any necessity had arisen for having his own writing examined,that, being much hurried to complete a small affair I had in hand, Iabruptly called to Bartleby. In my haste and natural expectancy ofinstant compliance, I sat with my head bent over the original on mydesk, and my right hand sideways, and somewhat nervously extended withthe copy, so that immediately upon emerging from his retreat, Bartlebymight snatch it and proceed to businWomess without the least delay.

In this very attitude did I sit when I called to him, rapidly statingwhat it was I wanted him to do--namely, to examine a small paper withme. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when without movingfrom his privacy, Bartleby in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, "Iwould prefer not to."

I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties.Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived me, or Bartlebyhad entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my request in theclearest tone I could assume. But in quite as clear a one came theprevious reply, "I would prefer not to."

"Prefer not to," echoed I, rising in high excitement, and crossing theroom with a stride. "What do you mean? Are you moon-struck? I wantyou to help me compare this sheet here--take it," and I thrust ittowards him.

"I would prefer not to," said he.

I looked at him steadfastly. His face was leanly composed; his gray eyedimly calm. Not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him. Had there been theleast uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; inother words, had there been any thing ordinarily human about him,doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises. Butas it was, I should have as soon thought of turning my paleplaster-of-paris bust of Cicero out of doors. I stood gazing at himawhile, as he went on with his own writing, and then reseated myself atmy desk. This is very strange, thought I. What had one best do? Butmy business hurried me. I concluded to forget the matter for thepresent, reserving it for my future leisure. So calling Nippers fromthe other room, the paper was speedily examined.

A few days after this, Bartleby concluded four lengthy documents, beingquadruplicates of a week's testimony taken before me in my High Court ofChancery. It became necessary to examine them. It was an important


suit, and great accuracy was imperative. Having all things arranged Icalled Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut from the next room, meaning toplace the four copies in the hands of my four clerks, while I shouldread from the original. Accordingly Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut hadtaken their seats in a row, each with his document in hand, when Icalled to Bartleby to join this interestWoming group.

"Bartleby! quick, I am waiting."

I heard a slow scrape of his chair legs on the uncarpeted floor, andsoon he appeared standing at the entrance of his hermitage.

"What is wanted?" said he mildly.

"The copies, the copies," said I hurriedly. "We are going to examinethem. There"--and I held towards him the fourth quadruplicate.

"I would prefer not to," he said, and gently disappeared behind thescreen.

For a few moments I was turned into a pillar of salt, standing at thehead of my seated column of clerks. Recovering myself, I advancedtowards the screen, and demanded the reason for such extraordinaryconduct.

"Why do you refuse?"

"I would prefer not to."

With any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful passion,scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from mypresence. But there was something about Bartleby that not onlystrangely disarmed me, but in a wonderful manner touched anddisconcerted me. I began to reasonwith him.

"These are your own copies we are about to examine. It is labor savingto you, because one examination will answer for your four papers. It iscommon usage. Every copyist is bound to help examine his copy. Is itnot so? Will you not speak? Answer!"

"I prefer not to," he replied in a flute-like tone. It seemed to methat while I had been addressing him, he carefully revolved everystatement that I made; fully comprehended the meaning; could not gainsaythe irresistible conclusions; but, at the same time, some paramount


consideration prevailed with him to reply as he did.

"You are decided, then, not to comply with my request--a request madeaccording to common usage and common sense?"

He briefly gave me to understand that on that point my judgment wassound. Yes: his decision was irreversible.

It is not seldom the case that when a man is browbeaten in someunprecedented and violently unreasonable way, he begins to stagger inhis own plainest faith. He begins, as it were, vaguely to surmise that,wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on theother side. Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, heturns to them for some reinforcement for his own faltering mind.

"Turkey," said I, "what do you think of this? Am I not right?"

"With submission, sir," said Turkey, with his blandest tone, "I thinkthat you are."

"Nippers," said I, "what do you think of it?"

"I think I should kick him out of the office."

(The reader of nice perceptions will here perceive that, it beingmorning, Turkey's answer is couched in polite and tranquil terms, butNippers replies in ill-tempered ones. Or, to repeat a previoussentence, Nippers' ugly mood was on duty and Turkey's off.)

"Ginger Nut," said I, willing to enlist the smallest suffrage in mybehalf, "what do you think of it?"

"I think, sir, he's a little luny," replied Ginger Nut with a grin.

"You hear what they say," said I, turning towards the screen, "comeforth and do your duty."

But he vouchsafed no reply. I pondered a moment in sore perplexity.But once more business hurried me. I determined again to postpone theconsideration of this dilemma to my future leisure. With a littletrouble we made out to examine the papers without Bartleby, though atevery page or two, Turkey deferentially dropped his opinion that thisproceeding was quite out of the common; while Nippers, twitching in hischair with a dyspeptic nervousness, ground out between his set teethoccasional hissing maledictions against the stubborn oaf behind thescreen. And for his (Nippers') part, this was the first and the last


time he would do another man's business without pay.

Meanwhile Bartleby sat in his hermitage, oblivious to every thing buthis own peculiar business there.

Some days passed, the scrivener being employed upon another lengthywork. His late remarkable conduct led me to regard his ways narrowly.I observed that he never went to dinner; indeed that he never went anywhere. As yet I had never of my personal knowledge known him to beoutside of my office. He was a perpetual sentry in the corner. Atabout eleven o'clock though, in the morning, I noticed that Ginger Nutwould advance toward the opening in Bartleby's screen, as if silentlybeckoned thither by a gesture invisible to me where I sat. The boywould then leave the office jingling a few pence, and reappear with ahandful of ginger-nuts which he delivered in the hermitage, receivingtwo of the cakes for his trouble.

He lives, then, on ginger-nuts, thought I; never eats a dinner, properlyspeaking; he must be a vegetarian then; but no; he never eats evenvegetables, he eats nothing but ginger-nuts. My mind then ran on inreveries concerning the probable effects upon the human constitution ofliving entirely on ginger-nuts. Ginger-nuts are so called because theycontain ginger as one of their peculiar constituents, and the finalflavoring one. Now what was ginger? A hot, spicy thing. Was Bartlebyhot and spicy? Not at all. Ginger, then, had no effect upon Bartleby.Probably he preferred it should have none.

Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. If theindividual so resisted be of a not inhumane temper, and the resistingone perfectly harmless in his passivity; then, in the better moods ofthe former, he will endeavor charitably to construe to his imaginationwhat proves impossible to be solved by his judgment. Even so, for themost part, I regarded Bartleby and his ways. Poor fellow! thought I, hemeans no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; his aspectsufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. He isuseful to me. I can get along with him. If I turn him away, thechances are he will fall in with some less indulgent employer, and thenhe will be rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve.Yes. Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. Tobefriend Bartleby; to humor him in his strange willfulness, will cost melittle or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually provea sweet morsel for my conscience. But this mood was not invariable withme. The passiveness of Bartleby sometimes irritated me. I feltstrangely goaded on to encounter him in new opposition, to elicit someangry spark from him answerable to my own. But indeed I might as well


have essayed to strike fire with my knuckles against a bit of Windsorsoap. But one afternoon the evil impulse in me mastered me, and thefollowing little scene ensued:

"Bartleby," said I, "when those papers are all copied, I will comparethem with you."


"How? Surely you do not mean to persist in that mulish vagary?"

No answer.

I threw open the folding-doors near by, and turning upon Turkey andNippers, exclaimed in an excited manner--

"He says, a second time, he won't examine his papers. What do you thinkof it, Turkey?"

It was afternoon, be it remembered. Turkey sat glowing like a brassboiler, his bald head steaming, his hands reeling among his blottedpapers.

"Think of it?" roared Turkey; "I think I'll just step behind his screen,and black his eyes for him!"

So saying, Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilisticposition. He was hurrying away to make good his promise, when Idetained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkey'scombativeness after dinner.

"Sit down, Turkey," said I, "and hear what Nippers has to say. What doyou think of it, Nippers? Would I not be justified in immediatelydismissing Bartleby?"

"Excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I think his conduct quiteunusual, and indeed unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it may only be a passing

whim."

"Ah," exclaimed I, "you have strangely changed your mind then--you speakvery gently of him now."

"All beer," cried Turkey; "gentleness is effects of beer--Nippers and Idined together to-day. You see how gentle I am, sir. Shall I go andblack his eyes?"


"You refer to Bartleby, I suppose. No, not to-day, Turkey," I replied;"pray, put up your fists."

I closed the doors, and again advanced towards Bartleby. I feltadditional incentives tempting me to my fate. I burned to be rebelledagainst again. I remembered that Bartleby never left the office.

"Bartleby," said I, "Ginger Nut is away; just step round to the PostOffice, won't you? (it was but a three minute walk,) and see if there isany thing for me."


"You will not?"

"I prefer not."

I staggered to my desk, and sat there in a deep study. My blindinveteracy returned. Was there any other thing in which I could procuremyself to be ignominiously repulsed by this lean, penniless wight?--myhired clerk? What added thing is there, perfectly reasonable, that hewill be sure to refuse to do?

"Bartleby!"

No answer.

"Bartleby," in a louder tone.

No answer.

"Bartleby," I roared.

Like a very ghost, agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at thethird summons, he appeared at the entrance of his hermitage.

"Go to the next room, and tell Nippers to come to me."

"I prefer not to," he respectfully and slowly said, and mildlydisappeared.

"Very good, Bartleby," said I, in a quiet sort of serenely severeself-possessed tone, intimating the unalterable purpose of some terribleretribution very close at hand. At the moment I half intended somethingof the kind. But upon the whole, as it was drawing towards mydinner-hour, I thought it best to put on my hat and walk home for theday, suffering much from perplexity and distress of mind.


Shall I acknowledge it? The conclusion of this whole business was, thatit soon became a fixed fact of my chambers, that a pale young scrivener,by the name of Bartleby, and a desk there; that he copied for me at theusual rate of four cents a folio (one hundred words); but he waspermanently exempt from examining the work done by him, that duty beingtransferred to Turkey and Nippers, one of compliment doubtless to theirsuperior acuteness; moreover, said Bartleby was never on any account tobe dispatched on the most trivial errand of any sort; and that even ifentreated to take upon him such a matter, it was generally understoodthat he would prefer not to--in other words, that he would refusepointblank.

As days passed on, I became considerably reconciled to Bartleby. Hissteadiness, his freedom from all dissipation, his incessant industry(except when he chose to throw himself into a standing revery behind hisscreen), his great, stillness, his unalterableness of demeanor under allcircumstances, made him a valuable acquisition. One prime thing wasthis,-- he was always there; --first in the morning, continuallythrough the day, and the last at night. I had a singular confidence inhis honesty. I felt my most precious papers perfectly safe in hishands. Sometimes to be sure I could not, for the very soul of me, avoidfalling into sudden spasmodic passions with him. For it was exceedingdifficult to bear in mind all the time those strange peculiarities,privileges, and unheard of exemptions, forming the tacit stipulations onBartleby's part under which he remained in my office. Now and then, inthe eagerness of dispatching pressing business, I would inadvertentlysummon Bartleby, in a short, rapid tone, to put his finger, say, on theincipient tie of a bit of red tape with which I was about compressingsome papers. Of course, from behind the screen the usual answer, "Iprefer not to," was sure to come; and then, how could a human creaturewith the common infirmities of our nature, refrain from bitterlyexclaiming upon such perverseness--such unreasonableness. However,every added repulse of this sort which I received only tended to lessenthe probability of my repeating the inadvertence.

Here it must be said, that according to the custom of most legalgentlemen occupying chambers in densely-populated law buildings, therewere several keys to my door. One was kept by a woman residing in theattic, which person weekly scrubbed and daily swept and dusted myapartments. Another was kept by Turkey for convenience sake. The thirdI sometimes carried in my own pocket. The fourth I knew not who had.

Now, one Sunday morning I happened to go to Trinity Church, to hear acelebrated preacher, and finding myself rather early on the ground, I


thought I would walk around to my chambers for a while. Luckily I hadmy key with me; but upon applying it to the lock, I found it resisted bysomething inserted from the inside. Quite surprised, I called out; whento my consternation a key was turned from within; and thrusting his leanvisage at me, and holding the door ajar, the apparition of Bartlebyappeared, in his shirt sleeves, and otherwise in a strangely tattereddishabille, saying quietly that he was sorry, but he was deeply engagedjust then, and--preferred not admitting me at present. In a brief wordor two, he moreover added, that perhaps I had better walk round theblock two or three times, and by that time he would probably haveconcluded his affairs.

Now, the utterly unsurmised appearance of Bartleby, tenanting mylaw-chambers of a Sunday morning, with his cadaverously gentlemanlynonchalance, yet withal firm and self-possessed, had such a strangeeffect upon me, that incontinently I slunk away from my own door, anddid as desired. But not without sundry twinges of impotent rebellionagainst the mild effrontery of this unaccountable scrivener. Indeed, itwas his wonderful mildness chiefly, which not only disarmed me, butunmanned me, as it were. For I consider that one, for the time, is asort of unmanned time when he tranquilly permits his hired clerk to dictateto him, and order him away from his own premises. Furthermore, I wasfull of uneasiness as to what Bartleby could possibly be doing in myoffice in his shirt sleeves, and in an otherwise dismantled condition ofa Sunday morning. Was any thing amiss going on? Nay, that was out ofthe question. It was not to be thought of for a moment that Bartlebywas an immoral person. But what could he be doing there?--copying? Nayagain, whatever might be his eccentricities, Bartleby was an eminentlydecorous person. He would be the last man to sit down to his desk inany state approaching to nudity. Besides, it was Sunday; and there wassomething about Bartleby that forbade the supposition that he would byany secular occupation violate the proprieties of the day.Nevertheless, my mind was not pacified; and full of a restlesscuriosity, at last I returned to the door. Without hindrance I insertedmy key, opened it, and entered. Bartleby was not to be seen. I lookedround anxiously, peeped behind his screen; but it was very plain that hewas gone. Upon more closely examining the place, I surmised that for anindefinite period Bartleby must have ate, dressed, and slept in myoffice, and that too without plate, mirror, or bed. The cushioned seatof a rickety old sofa in one corner bore the faint impress of a lean,reclining form. Rolled away under his desk, I found a blanket; underthe empty grate, a blacking box and brush; on a chair, a tin basin, withsoap and a ragged towel; in a newspaper a few crumbs of ginger-nuts anda morsel of cheese. Yes, thought I, it is evident enough that Bartleby


has been making his home here, keeping bachelor's hall all by himself.Immediately then the thought came sweeping across me, What miserablefriendlessness and loneliness are here revealed! His poverty is great;but his solitude, how horrible! Think of it. Of a Sunday, Wall-streetis deserted as Petra; and every night of every day it is an emptiness.This building too, which of week-days hums with industry and life, atnightfall echoes with sheer vacancy, and all through Sunday is forlorn.And here Bartleby makes his home; sole spectator of a solitude which hehas seen all populous--a sort of innocent and transformed Mariusbrooding among the ruins of Carthage!

For the first time in my life a feeling of overpowering stingingmelancholy seized me. Before, I had never experienced aught but anot-unpleasing sadness. The bond of a common humanity now drew meirresistibly to gloom. A fraternal melancholy! For both I and Bartlebywere sons of Adam. I remembered the bright silks and sparkling faces Ihad seen that day, in gala trim, swan-like sailing down the Mississippiof Broadway; and I contrasted them with the pallid copyist, and thoughtto myself, Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay;but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none. These sadfancyings--chimeras, doubtless, of a sick and silly brain--led on toother and more special thoughts, concerning the eccentricities ofBartleby. Presentiments of strange discoveries hovered round me. Thescrivener's pale form appeared to me laid out, among uncaring strangers,in its shivering winding sheet.

Suddenly I was attracted by Bartleby's closed desk, the key in opensight left in the lock.

I mean no mischief, seek the gratification of no heartless curiosity,thought I; besides, the desk is mine, and its contents too, so I willmake bold to look within. Every thing was methodically arranged, thepapers smoothly placed. The pigeon holes were deep, and removing thefiles of documents, I groped into their recesses. Presently I feltsomething there, and dragged it out. It was an old bandannahandkerchief, heavy and knotted. I opened it, and saw it was a savings'bank.

I now recalled all the quiet mysteries which I had noted in the man. Iremembered that he never spoke but to answer; that though at intervalshe had considerable time to himself, yet I had never seen himreading--no, not even a newspaper; that for long periods he would standlooking out, at his pale window behind the screen, upon the dead brickwall; I was quite sure he never visited any refectory or eating house;while his pale face clearly indicated that he never drank beer like


Turkey, or tea and coffee even, like other men; that he never went anywhere in particular that I could learn; never went out for a walk,unless indeed that was the case at present; that he had declined tellingwho he was, or whence he came, or whether he had any relatives in theworld; that though so thin and pale, he never complained of ill health.And more than all, I remembered a certain unconscious air of pallid--howshall I call it?--of pallid haughtiness, say, or rather an austerereserve about him, which had positively awed me into my tame compliancewith his eccentricities, when I had feared to ask him to do theslightest incidental thing for me, even though I might know, from hislong-continued motionlessness, that behind his screen he must bestanding in one of those dead-wall reveries of his.

Revolving all these things, and coupling them with the recentlydiscovered fact that he made my office his constant abiding place andhome, and not forgetful of his morbid moodiness; revolving all thesethings, a prudential feeling began to steal over me. My first emotionshad been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just inproportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to myimagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that pity intorepulsion. So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certainpoint the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but,in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err whowould assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishnessof the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness ofremedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is notseldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannotlead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul rid of it. What Isaw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim ofinnate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body; but hisbody did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul Icould not reach.

I did not accomplish the purpose of going to Trinity Church that morning. Somehow, the things I had seen disqualified me for the time

from church-going. I walked homeward, thinking what I would do withBartleby. Finally, I resolved upon this;--I would put certain calmquestions to him the next morning, touching his history, etc., and if hedeclined to answer them openly and unreservedly (and I supposed he wouldprefer not), then to give him a twenty dollar bill over and abovewhatever I might owe him, and tell him his services were no longerrequired; but that if in any other way I could assist him, I would behappy to do so, especially if he desired to return to his native place,


wherever that might be, I would willingly help to defray the expenses.Moreover, if, after reaching home, he found himself at any time in wantof aid, a letter from him would be sure of a reply.

The next morning came.

"Bartleby," said I, gently calling to him behind his screen.

No reply.

"Bartleby," said I, in a still gentler tone, "come here; I am not goingto ask you to do any thing you would prefer not to do--I simply wish tospeak to you."

Upon this he noiselessly slid into view.

"Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you were born?"


"Will you tell me any thing about yourself?"


"But what reasonable objection can you have to speak to me? I feelfriendly towards you."

He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept his glance fixed upon mybust of Cicero, which as I then sat, was directly behind me, some sixinches above my head.

"What is your answer, Bartleby?" said I, after waiting a considerabletime for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, onlythere was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white attenuated mouth.

"At present I prefer to give no answer," he said, and retired into hishermitage.

It was rather weak in me I confess, but his manner on this occasionnettled me. Not only did there seem to lurk in it a certain calmdisdain, but his perverseness seemed ungrateful, considering theundeniable good usage and indulgence he had received from me.

Again I sat ruminating what I should do. Mortified as I was at hisbehavior, and resolved as I had been to dismiss him when I entered myoffices, nevertheless I strangely felt something superstitious knockingat my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncing


me for a villain if I dared to breathe one bitter word against thisforlornest of mankind. At last, familiarly drawing my chair behind hisscreen, I sat down and said: "Bartleby, never mind then about revealingyour history; but let me entreat you, as a friend, to comply as far asmay be with the usages of this office. Say now you will help to examinepapers to-morrow or next day: in short, say now that in a day or two youwill begin to be a little reasonable:--say so, Bartleby."

"At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable," was hismildly cadaverous reply.

Just then the folding-doors opened, and Nippers approached. He seemedsuffering from an unusually bad night's rest, induced by severerindigestion then common. He overheard those final words of Bartleby.

"Prefer not, eh?" gritted Nippers--"I'd prefer him, if I were you,sir," addressing me--"I'd prefer him; I'd give him preferences, thestubborn mule! What is it, sir, pray, that he prefers not to do now?"

Bartleby moved not a limb.

"Mr. Nippers," said I, "I'd prefer that you would withdraw for thepresent."

Somehow, of late I had got into the way of involuntarily using this word"prefer" upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions. And Itrembled to think that my contact with the scrivener had already andseriously affected me in a mental way. And what further and deeperaberration might it not yet produce? This apprehension had not beenwithout efficacy in determining me to summary means.

As Nippers, looking very sour and sulky, was departing, Turkey blandlyand deferentially approached.

"With submission, sir," said he, "yesterday I was thinking aboutBartleby here, and I think that if he would but prefer to take a quartof good ale every day, it would do much towards mending him, andenabling him to assist in examining his papers."

"So you have got the word too," said I, slightly excited.

"With submission, what word, sir," asked Turkey, respectfully crowdinghimself into the contracted space behind the screen, and by so doing,making me jostle the scrivener. "What word, sir?"

"I would prefer to be left alone here," said Bartleby, as if offended at


being mobbed in his privacy.

"That's the word, Turkey," said I--"that's it."

"Oh, prefer? oh yes--queer word. I never use it myself. But, sir, asI was saying, if he would but prefer--"

"Turkey," interrupted I, "you will please withdraw."

"Oh certainly, sir, if you prefer that I should."

As he opened the folding-door to retire, Nippers at his desk caught aglimpse of me, and asked whether I would prefer to have a certain papercopied on blue paper or white. He did not in the least roguishly accentthe word prefer. It was plain that it involuntarily rolled form histongue. I thought to myself, surely I must get rid of a demented man,who already has in some degree turned the tongues, if not the heads ofmyself and clerks. But I thought it prudent not to break the dismissionat once.

The next day I noticed that Bartleby did nothing but stand at his windowin his dead-wall revery. Upon asking him why he did not write, he saidthat he had decided upon doing no more writing.

"Why, how now? what next?" exclaimed I, "do no more writing?"

"No more."

"And what is the reason?"

"Do you not see the reason for yourself," he indifferently replied.

I looked steadfastly at him, and perceived that his eyes looked dull andglazed. Instantly it occurred to me, that his unexampled diligence incopying by his dim window for the first few weeks of his stay with memight have temporarily impaired his vision.

I was touched. I said something in condolence with him. I hinted thatof course he did wisely in abstaining from writing for a while; andurged him to embrace that opportunity of taking wholesome exercise inthe open air. This, however, he did not do. A few days after this, myother clerks being absent, and being in a great hurry to dispatchcertain letters by the mail, I thought that, having nothing else earthlyto do, Bartleby would surely be less inflexible than usual, and carrythese letters to the post-office. But he blankly declined. So, much tomy inconvenience, I went myself.


Still added days went by. Whether Bartleby's eyes improved or not, Icould not say. To all appearance, I thought they did. But when I askedhim if they did, he vouchsafed no answer. At all events, he would do nocopying. At last, in reply to my urgings, he informed me that he hadpermanently given up copying.

"What!" exclaimed I; "suppose your eyes should get entirely well--betterthan ever before--would you not copy then?"

"I have given up copying," he answered, and slid aside.

He remained as ever, a fixture in my chamber. Nay--if that werepossible--he became still more of a fixture than before. What was to bedone? He would do nothing in the office: why should he stay there? Inplain fact, he had now become a millstone to me, not only useless as anecklace, but afflictive to bear. Yet I was sorry for him. I speakless than truth when I say that, on his own account, he occasioned meuneasiness. If he would but have named a single relative or friend, Iwould instantly have written, and urged their taking the poor fellowaway to some convenient retreat. But he seemed alone, absolutely alonein the universe. A bit of wreck in the mid Atlantic. At length,necessities connected with my business tyrannized over all otherconsiderations. Decently as I could, I told Bartleby that in six days'time he must unconditionally leave the office. I warned him to takemeasures, in the interval, for procuring some other abode. I offered toassist him in this endeavor, if he himself would but take the first steptowards a removal. "And when you finally quit me, Bartleby," added I,"I shall see that you go not away entirely unprovided. Six days fromthis hour, remember."

At the expiration of that period, I peeped behind the screen, and lo!Bartleby was there.

I buttoned up my coat, balanced myself; advanced slowly towards him,touched his shoulder, and said, "The time has come; you must quit thisplace; I am sorry for you; here is money; but you must go."

"I would prefer not," he replied, with his back still towards me.

"You must."

He remained silent.

Now I had an unbounded confidence in this man's common honesty. He hadfrequently restored to me sixpences and shillings carelessly dropped


upon the floor, for I am apt to be very reckless in such shirt-buttonaffairs. The proceeding then which followed will not be deemedextraordinary.

"Bartleby," said I, "I owe you twelve dollars on account; here arethirty-two; the odd twenty are yours.--Will you take it?" and I handedthe bills towards him.

But he made no motion.

"I will leave them here then," putting them under a weight on the table.Then taking my hat and cane and going to the door I tranquilly turnedand added--"After you have removed your things from these offices,Bartleby, you will of course lock the door--since every one is now gonefor the day but you--and if you please, slip your key underneath themat, so that I may have it in the morning. I shall not see you again;so good-bye to you. If hereafter in your new place of abode I can be ofany service to you, do not fail to advise me by letter. Good-bye,Bartleby, and fare you well."

But he answered not a word; like the last column of some ruined temple,he remained standing mute and solitary in the middle of the otherwisedeserted room.

As I walked home in a pensive mood, my vanity got the better of my pity.I could not but highly plume myself on my masterly management in gettingrid of Bartleby. Masterly I call it, and such it must appear to anydispassionate thinker. The beauty of my procedure seemed to consist inits perfect quietness. There was no vulgar bullying, no bravado of anysort, no choleric hectoring, and striding to and fro across theapartment, jerking out vehement commands for Bartleby to bundle himselfoff with his beggarly traps. Nothing of the kind. Without loudlybidding Bartleby depart--as an inferior genius might have done--Iassumed the ground that depart he must; and upon that assumption builtall I had to say. The more I thought over my procedure, the more I wascharmed with it. Nevertheless, next morning, upon awakening, I had mydoubts,--I had somehow slept off the fumes of vanity. One of thecoolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in themorning. My procedure seemed as sagacious as ever.--but only in theory.How it would prove in practice--there was the rub. It was truly abeautiful thought to have assumed Bartleby's departure; but, after all,that assumption was simply my own, and none of Bartleby's. The greatpoint was, not whether I had assumed that he would quit me, but whetherhe would prefer so to do. He was more a man of preferences thanassumptions.


After breakfast, I walked down town, arguing the probabilities pro andcon. One moment I thought it would prove a miserable failure, andBartleby would be found all alive at my office as usual; the next momentit seemed certain that I should see his chair empty. And so I keptveering about. At the corner of Broadway and Canal-street, I saw quitean excited group of people standing in earnest conversation.

"I'll take odds he doesn't," said a voice as I passed.

"Doesn't go?--done!" said I, "put up your money."

I was instinctively putting my hand in my pocket to produce my own, whenI remembered that this was an election day. The words I had overheardbore no reference to Bartleby, but to the success or non-success of somecandidate for the mayoralty. In my intent frame of mind, I had, as itwere, imagined that all Broadway shared in my excitement, and weredebating the same question with me. I passed on, very thankful that theuproar of the street screened my momentary absent-mindedness.

As I had intended, I was earlier than usual at my office door. I stoodlistening for a moment. All was still. He must be gone. I tried theknob. The door was locked. Yes, my procedure had worked to a charm; heindeed must be vanished. Yet a certain melancholy mixed with this: Iwas almost sorry for my brilliant success. I was fumbling under thedoor mat for the key, which Bartleby was to have left there for me, whenaccidentally my knee knocked against a panel, producing a summoningsound, and in response a voice came to me from within--"Not yet; I amoccupied."

It was Bartleby.

I was thunderstruck. For an instant I stood like the man who, pipe inmouth, was killed one cloudless afternoon long ago in Virginia, by asummer lightning; at his own warm open window he was killed, andremained leaning out there upon the dreamy afternoon, till some onetouched him, when he fell.

"Not gone!" I murmured at last. But again obeying that wondrousascendancy which the inscrutable scrivener had over me, and from whichascendancy, for all my chafing, I could not completely escape, I slowlywent down stairs and out into the street, and while walking round theblock, considered what I should next do in this unheard-of perplexity.Turn the man out by an actual thrusting I could not; to drive him awayby calling him hard names would not do; calling in the police was an


unpleasant idea; and yet, permit him to enjoy his cadaverous triumphover me,--this too I could not think of. What was to be done? or, ifnothing could be done, was there any thing further that I could _assume_in the matter? Yes, as before I had prospectively assumed that Bartlebywould depart, so now I might retrospectively assume that departed hewas. In the legitimate carrying out of this assumption, I might entermy office in a great hurry, and pretending not to see Bartleby at all,walk straight against him as if he were air. Such a proceeding would ina singular degree have the appearance of a home-thrust. It was hardlypossible that Bartleby could withstand such an application of thedoctrine of assumptions. But upon second thoughts the success of theplan seemed rather dubious. I resolved to argue the matter over withhim again.

"Bartleby," said I, entering the office, with a quietly severeexpression, "I am seriously displeased. I am pained, Bartleby. I hadthought better of you. I had imagined you of such a gentlemanlyorganization, that in any delicate dilemma a slight hint would havesuffice--in short, an assumption. But it appears I am deceived. Why,"I added, unaffectedly starting, "you have not even touched that moneyyet," pointing to it, just where I had left it the evening previous.

He answered nothing.

"Will you, or will you not, quit me?" I now demanded in a suddenpassion, advancing close to him.

"I would prefer not to quit you," he replied, gently emphasizing thenot.

"What earthly right have you to stay here? Do you pay any rent? Do youpay my taxes? Or is this property yours?"

He answered nothing.

"Are you ready to go on and write now? Are your eyes recovered? Couldyou copy a small paper for me this morning? or help examine a few lines?or step round to the post-office? In a word, will you do any thing atall, to give a coloring to your refusal to depart the premises?"

He silently retired into his hermitage.

I was now in such a state of nervous resentment that I thought it butprudent to check myself at present from further demonstrations.Bartleby and I were alone. I remembered the tragedy of the unfortunateAdams and the still more unfortunate Colt in the solitary office of the


latter; and how poor Colt, being dreadfully incensed by Adams, andimprudently permitting himself to get wildly excited, was at unawareshurried into his fatal act--an act which certainly no man could possiblydeplore more than the actor himself. Often it had occurred to me in myponderings upon the subject, that had that altercation taken place inthe public street, or at a private residence, it would not haveterminated as it did. It was the circumstance of being alone in asolitary office, up stairs, of a building entirely unhallowed byhumanizing domestic associations--an uncarpeted office, doubtless, of adusty, haggard sort of appearance;--this it must have been, whichgreatly helped to enhance the irritable desperation of the hapless Colt.

But when this old Adam of resentment rose in me and tempted meconcerning Bartleby, I grappled him and threw him. How? Why, simply byrecalling the divine injunction: "A new commandment give I unto you,that ye love one another." Yes, this it was that saved me. Aside fromhigher considerations, charity often operates as a vastly wise andprudent principle--a great safeguard to its possessor. Men havecommitted murder for jealousy's sake, and anger's sake, and hatred'ssake, and selfishness' sake, and spiritual pride's sake; but no man thatever I heard of, ever committed a diabolical murder for sweet charity'ssake. Mere self-interest, then, if no better motive can be enlisted,should, especially with high-tempered men, prompt all beings to charityand philanthropy. At any rate, upon the occasion in question, I stroveto drown my exasperated feelings towards the scrivener by benevolentlyconstruing his conduct. Poor fellow, poor fellow! thought I, he don'tmean any thing; and besides, he has seen hard times, and ought to beindulged.

I endeavored also immediately to occupy myself, and at the same time to comfort my despondency. I tried to fancy that in the course of the

morning, at such time as might prove agreeable to him. Bartleby, of hisown free accord, would emerge from his hermitage, and take up somedecided line of march in the direction of the door. But no. Half-pasttwelve o'clock came; Turkey began to glow in the face, overturn hisinkstand, and become generally obstreperous; Nippers abated down intoquietude and courtesy; Ginger Nut munched his noon apple; and Bartlebyremained standing at his window in one of his profoundest dead-wallreveries. Will it be credited? Ought I to acknowledge it? Thatafternoon I left the office without saying one further word to him.

Some days now passed, during which, at leisure intervals I looked alittle into "Edwards on the Will," and "Priestly on Necessity." Under


the circumstances, those books induced a salutary feeling. Gradually Islid into the persuasion that these troubles of mine touching thescrivener, had been all predestinated from eternity, and Bartleby wasbilleted upon me for some mysterious purpose of an all-wise Providence,which it was not for a mere mortal like me to fathom. Yes, Bartleby,stay there behind your screen, thought I; I shall persecute you no more;you are harmless and noiseless as any of these old chairs; in short, Inever feel so private as when I know you are here. At last I see it, Ifeel it; I penetrate to the predestinated purpose of my life. I amcontent. Others may have loftier parts to enact; but my mission in thisworld, Bartleby, is to furnish you with office-room for such period asyou may see fit to remain.

I believe that this wise and blessed frame of mind would have continuedwith me, had it not been for the unsolicited and uncharitable remarksobtruded upon me by my professional friends who visited the rooms. Butthus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wearsout at last the best resolves of the more generous. Though to be sure,when I reflected upon it, it was not strange that people entering myoffice should be struck by the peculiar aspect of the unaccountableBartleby, and so be tempted to throw out some sinister observationsconcerning him. Sometimes an attorney having business with me, andcalling at my office and finding no one but the scrivener there, wouldundertake to obtain some sort of precise information from him touchingmy whereabouts; but without heeding his idle talk, Bartleby would remainstanding immovable in the middle of the room. So after contemplatinghim in that position for a time, the attorney would depart, no wiserthan he came.

Also, when a Reference was going on, and the room full of lawyers andwitnesses and business was driving fast; some deeply occupied legalgentleman present, seeing Bartleby wholly unemployed, would request himto run round to his (the legal gentleman's) office and fetch some papersfor him. Thereupon, Bartleby would tranquilly decline, and yet remainidle as before. Then the lawyer would give a great stare, and turn tome. And what could I say? At last I was made aware that all throughthe circle of my professional acquaintance, a whisper of wonder wasrunning round, having reference to the strange creature I kept at myoffice. This worried me very much. And as the idea came upon me of hispossibly turning out a long-lived man, and keep occupying my chambers,and denying my authority; and perplexing my visitors; and scandalizingmy professional reputation; and casting a general gloom over thepremises; keeping soul and body together to the last upon his savings(for doubtless he spent but half a dime a day), and in the end perhaps


outlive me, and claim possession of my office by right of his perpetualoccupancy: as all these dark anticipations crowded upon me more andmore, and my friends continually intruded their relentless remarks uponthe apparition in my room; a great change was wrought in me. I resolvedto gather all my faculties together, and for ever rid me of thisintolerable incubus.

Ere revolving any complicated project, however, adapted to this end, Ifirst simply suggested to Bartleby the propriety of his permanentdeparture. In a calm and serious tone, I commended the idea to hiscareful and mature consideration. But having taken three days tomeditate upon it, he apprised me that his original determinationremained the same in short, that he still preferred to abide with me.

What shall I do? I now said to myself, buttoning up my coat to the lastbutton. What shall I do? what ought I to do? what does conscience say Ishould do with this man, or rather ghost. Rid myself of him, I must;go, he shall. But how? You will not thrust him, the poor, pale,passive mortal,--you will not thrust such a helpless creature out ofyour door? you will not dishonor yourself by such cruelty? No, I willnot, I cannot do that. Rather would I let him live and die here, andthen mason up his remains in the wall. What then will you do? For allyour coaxing, he will not budge. Bribes he leaves under your ownpaperweight on your table; in short, it is quite plain that he prefersto cling to you.

Then something severe, something unusual must be done. What! surely youwill not have him collared by a constable, and commit his innocentpallor to the common jail? And upon what ground could you procure sucha thing to be done?--a vagrant, is he? What! he a vagrant, a wanderer,who refuses to budge? It is because he will not be a vagrant, then,that you seek to count him as a vagrant. That is too absurd. Novisible means of support: there I have him. Wrong again: forindubitably he does support himself, and that is the only unanswerableproof that any man can show of his possessing the means so to do. Nomore then. Since he will not quit me, I must quit him. I will changemy offices; I will move elsewhere; and give him fair notice, that if Ifind him on my new premises I will then proceed against him as a commontrespasser.

Acting accordingly, next day I thus addressed him: "I find thesechambers too far from the City Hall; the air is unwholesome. In a word,I propose to remove my offices next week, and shall no longer requireyour services. I tell you this now, in order that you may seek anotherplace."


He made no reply, and nothing more was said.

On the appointed day I engaged carts and men, proceeded to my chambers,and having but little furniture, every thing was removed in a few hours.Throughout, the scrivener remained standing behind the screen, which Idirected to be removed the last thing. It was withdrawn; and beingfolded up like a huge folio, left him the motionless occupant of a nakedroom. I stood in the entry watching him a moment, while something fromwithin me upbraided me.

I re-entered, with my hand in my pocket--and--and my heart in my mouth.

"Good-bye, Bartleby; I am going--good-bye, and God some way bless you;and take that," slipping something in his hand. But it dropped upon thefloor, and then,--strange to say--I tore myself from him whom I had solonged to be rid of.

Established in my new quarters, for a day or two I kept the door locked,and started at every footfall in the passages. When I returned to myrooms after any little absence, I would pause at the threshold for aninstant, and attentively listen, ere applying my key. But these fearswere needless. Bartleby never came nigh me.

I thought all was going well, when a perturbed looking stranger visitedme, inquiring whether I was the person who had recently occupied roomsat No.--Wall-street.

Full of forebodings, I replied that I was."Then sir," said the stranger, who proved a lawyer, "you are responsiblefor the man you left there. He refuses to do any copying; he refuses todo any thing; he says he prefers not to; and he refuses to quit thepremises."

"I am very sorry, sir," said I, with assumed tranquility, but an inwardtremor, "but, really, the man you allude to is nothing to me--he is norelation or apprentice of mine, that you should hold me responsible forhim."

"In mercy's name, who is he?"

"I certainly cannot inform you. I know nothing about him. Formerly Iemployed him as a copyist; but he has done nothing for me now for sometime past."

"I shall settle him then,--good morning, sir."


Several days passed, and I heard nothing more; and though I often felt acharitable prompting to call at the place and see poor Bartleby, yet acertain squeamishness of I know not what withheld me.

All is over with him, by this time, thought I at last, when throughanother week no further intelligence reached me. But coming to my roomthe day after, I found several persons waiting at my door in a highstate of nervous excitement.

"That's the man--here he comes," cried the foremost one, whom Irecognized as the lawyer who had previously called upon me alone.

"You must take him away, sir, at once," cried a portly person amongthem, advancing upon me, and whom I knew to be the landlord ofNo.--Wall-street. "These gentlemen, my tenants, cannot stand it anylonger; Mr. B--" pointing to the lawyer, "has turned him out of hisroom, and he now persists in haunting the building generally, sittingupon the banisters of the stairs by day, and sleeping in the entry bynight. Every body is concerned; clients are leaving the offices; somefears are entertained of a mob; something you must do, and that withoutdelay."

Aghast at this torrent, I fell back before it, and would fain havelocked myself in my new quarters. In vain I persisted that Bartleby wasnothing to me--no more than to any one else. In vain:--I was the lastperson known to have any thing to do with him, and they held me to theterrible account. Fearful then of being exposed in the papers (as oneperson present obscurely threatened) I considered the matter, and atlength said, that if the lawyer would give me a confidential interviewwith the scrivener, in his (the lawyer's) own room, I would thatafternoon strive my best to rid them of the nuisance they complained of.

Going up stairs to my old haunt, there was Bartleby silently sittingupon the banister at the landing.

"What are you doing here, Bartleby?" said I.

"Sitting upon the banister," he mildly replied.

I motioned him into the lawyer's room, who then left us.

"Bartleby," said I, "are you aware that you are the cause of greattribulation to me, by persisting in occupying the entry after beingdismissed from the office?"


No answer.

"Now one of two things must take place. Either you must do something,or something must be done to you. Now what sort of business would youlike to engage in? Would you like to re-engage in copying for someone?"

"No; I would prefer not to make any change."

"Would you like a clerkship in a dry-goods store?"

"There is too much confinement about that. No, I would not like aclerkship; but I am not particular."

"Too much confinement," I cried, "why you keep yourself confined all thetime!"

"I would prefer not to take a clerkship," he rejoined, as if to settlethat little item at once.

"How would a bar-tender's business suit you? There is no trying of theeyesight in that."

"I would not like it at all; though, as I said before, I am notparticular."

His unwonted wordiness inspirited me. I returned to the charge.

"Well then, would you like to travel through the country collectingbills for the merchants? That would improve your health."

"No, I would prefer to be doing something else."

"How then would going as a companion to Europe, to entertain some younggentleman with your conversation,--how would that suit you?"

"Not at all. It does not strike me that there is any thing definiteabout that. I like to be stationary. But I am not particular."

"Stationary you shall be then," I cried, now losing all patience, andfor the first time in all my exasperating connection with him fairlyflying into a passion. "If you do not go away from these premisesbefore night, I shall feel bound--indeed I _am_ bound--to--to--to quitthe premises myself!" I rather absurdly concluded, knowing not withwhat possible threat to try to frighten his immobility into compliance.Despairing of all further efforts, I was precipitately leaving him, whena final thought occurred to me--one which had not been wholly unindulged


before.

"Bartleby," said I, in the kindest tone I could assume under suchexciting circumstances, "will you go home with me now--not to my office,but my dwelling--and remain there till we can conclude upon someconvenient arrangement for you at our leisure? Come, let us start now,right away."

"No: at present I would prefer not to make any change at all."

I answered nothing; but effectually dodging every one by the suddennessand rapidity of my flight, rushed from the building, ran up Wall-streettowards Broadway, and jumping into the first omnibus was soon removedfrom pursuit. As soon as tranquility returned I distinctly perceivedthat I had now done all that I possibly could, both in respect to thedemands of the landlord and his tenants, and with regard to my owndesire and sense of duty, to benefit Bartleby, and shield him from rudepersecution. I now strove to be entirely care-free and quiescent; andmy conscience justified me in the attempt; though indeed it was not sosuccessful as I could have wished. So fearful was I of being againhunted out by the incensed landlord and his exasperated tenants, that,surrendering my business to Nippers, for a few days I drove about theupper part of the town and through the suburbs, in my rockaway; crossedover to Jersey City and Hoboken, and paid fugitive visits toManhattanville and Astoria. In fact I almost lived in my rockaway forthe time.

When again I entered my office, lo, a note from the landlord lay uponthe desk. I opened it with trembling hands. It informed me that thewriter had sent to the police, and had Bartleby removed to the Tombs asa vagrant. Moreover, since I knew more about him than any one else, hewished me to appear at that place, and make a suitable statement of thefacts. These tidings had a conflicting effect upon me. At first I wasindignant; but at last almost approved. The landlord's energetic,summary disposition had led him to adopt a procedure which I do notthink I would have decided upon myself; and yet as a last resort, undersuch peculiar circumstances, it seemed the only plan.

As I afterwards learned, the poor scrivener, when told that he must beconducted to the Tombs, offered not the slightest obstacle, but in hispale unmoving way, silently acquiesced.

Some of the compassionate and curious bystanders joined the party; andheaded by one of the constables arm in arm with Bartleby, the silentprocession filed its way through all the noise, and heat, and joy of the


roaring thoroughfares at noon.

The same day I received the note I went to the Tombs, or to speak moreproperly, the Halls of Justice. Seeking the right officer, I stated thepurpose of my call, and was informed that the individual I described wasindeed within. I then assured the functionary that Bartleby was aperfectly honest man, and greatly to be compassionated, howeverunaccountably eccentric. I narrated all I knew, and closed bysuggesting the idea of letting him remain in as indulgent confinement aspossible till something less harsh might be done--though indeed I hardlyknew what. At all events, if nothing else could be decided upon, thealms-house must receive him. I then begged to have an interview.

Being under no disgraceful charge, and quite serene and harmless in allhis ways, they had permitted him freely to wander about the prison, andespecially in the inclosed grass-platted yard thereof. And so I foundhim there, standing all alone in the quietest of the yards, his facetowards a high wall, while all around, from the narrow slits of the jailwindows, I thought I saw peering out upon him the eyes of murderers andthieves.

"Bartleby!"

"I know you," he said, without looking round,--"and I want nothing tosay to you."

"It was not I that brought you here, Bartleby," said I, keenly pained athis implied suspicion. "And to you, this should not be so vile a place.Nothing reproachful attaches to you by being here. And see, it is notso sad a place as one might think. Look, there is the sky, and here isthe grass."

"I know where I am," he replied, but would say nothing more, and so Ileft him.

As I entered the corridor again, a broad meat-like man, in an apron,accosted me, and jerking his thumb over his shoulder said--"Is that yourfriend?"

"Yes."

"Does he want to starve? If he does, let him live on the prison fare,that's all."

"Who are you?" asked I, not knowing what to make of such an unofficiallyspeaking person in such a place.


"I am the grub-man. Such gentlemen as have friends here, hire me toprovide them with something good to eat."

"Is this so?" said I, turning to the turnkey.

He said it was.

"Well then," said I, slipping some silver into the grub-man's hands (forso they called him). "I want you to give particular attention to myfriend there; let him have the best dinner you can get. And you must beas polite to him as possible."

"Introduce me, will you?" said the grub-man, looking at me with anexpression which seem to say he was all impatience for an opportunity togive a specimen of his breeding.

Thinking it would prove of benefit to the scrivener, I acquiesced; andasking the grub-man his name, went up with him to Bartleby.

"Bartleby, this is Mr. Cutlets; you will find him very useful to you."

"Your sarvant, sir, your sarvant," said the grub-man, making a lowsalutation behind his apron. "Hope you find it pleasant here,sir;--spacious grounds--cool apartments, sir--hope you'll stay with ussome time--try to make it agreeable. May Mrs. Cutlets and I have thepleasure of your company to dinner, sir, in Mrs. Cutlets' private room?"

"I prefer not to dine to-day," said Bartleby, turning away. "It woulddisagree with me; I am unused to dinners." So saying he slowly moved tothe other side of the inclosure, and took up a position fronting thedead-wall.

"How's this?" said the grub-man, addressing me with a stare ofastonishment. "He's odd, aint he?"

"I think he is a little deranged," said I, sadly.

"Deranged? deranged is it? Well now, upon my word, I thought thatfriend of yourn was a gentleman forger; they are always pale andgenteel-like, them forgers. I can't pity'em--can't help it, sir. Didyou know Monroe Edwards?" he added touchingly, and paused. Then, layinghis hand pityingly on my shoulder, sighed, "he died of consumption atSing-Sing. So you weren't acquainted with Monroe?"

"No, I was never socially acquainted with any forgers. But I cannot


stop longer. Look to my friend yonder. You will not lose by it. Iwill see you again."

Some few days after this, I again obtained admission to the Tombs, andwent through the corridors in quest of Bartleby; but without findinghim.

"I saw him coming from his cell not long ago," said a turnkey, "may behe's gone to loiter in the yards."

So I went in that direction.

"Are you looking for the silent man?" said another turnkey passing me."Yonder he lies--sleeping in the yard there. 'Tis not twenty minutessince I saw him lie down."

The yard was entirely quiet. It was not accessible to the commonprisoners. The surrounding walls, of amazing thickness, kept off allsounds behind them. The Egyptian character of the masonry weighed uponme with its gloom. But a soft imprisoned turf grew under foot. Theheart of the eternal pyramids, it seemed, wherein, by some strangemagic, through the clefts, grass-seed, dropped by birds, had sprung.

Strangely huddled at the base of the wall, his knees drawn up, and lyingon his side, his head touching the cold stones, I saw the wastedBartleby. But nothing stirred. I paused; then went close up to him;stooped over, and saw that his dim eyes were open; otherwise he seemedprofoundly sleeping. Something prompted me to touch him. I felt hishand, when a tingling shiver ran up my arm and down my spine to my feet.

The round face of the grub-man peered upon me now. "His dinner isready. Won't he dine to-day, either? Or does he live without dining?"

"Lives without dining," said I, and closed his eyes.

"Eh!--He's asleep, aint he?"

"With kings and counselors," murmured I.

* * * * * * * *

There would seem little need for proceeding further in this history.Imagination will readily supply the meager recital of poor Bartleby'sinterment. But ere parting with the reader, let me say, that if thislittle narrative has sufficiently interested him, to awaken curiosity asto who Bartleby was, and what manner of life he led prior to the present


narrator's making his acquaintance, I can only reply, that in suchcuriosity I fully share, but am wholly unable to gratify it. Yet here Ihardly know whether I should divulge one little item of rumor, whichcame to my ear a few months after the scrivener's decease. Upon whatbasis it rested, I could never ascertain; and hence, how true it is Icannot now tell. But inasmuch as this vague report has not been withoutcertain strange suggestive interest to me, however sad, it may prove thesame with some others; and so I will briefly mention it. The report wasthis: that Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead LetterOffice at Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by achange in the administration. When I think over this rumor, I cannotadequately express the emotions which seize me. Dead letters! does itnot sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune proneto a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitted to heightenit than that of continually handling these dead letters, and assortingthem for the flames? For by the cart-load they are annually burned.Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring:--thefinger it was meant for, perhaps, moulders in the grave; a bank-notesent in swiftest charity:--he whom it would relieve, nor eats norhungers any more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope for thosewho died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelievedcalamities. On errands of life, these letters speed to death.

Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!

Writing for Understanding (You can use this for your final paper): Would Melville say that the narrator's treatment of Bartelby was a sign of progress? Or was Bartleby's behavior a sign of progress? Write a MEL-Con paragraph in which you respond to this prompt.

From this reading, SWBAT: Identify clear relationships between people and ideas Locate important details in uncomplicated passages Make simple inferences about how details are used in passages


Sojourner Truth: A Biography

Sojourner Truth epitomized the endurance and charisma of this extraordinary group of women. Born a slave in New York, she grew up speaking Dutch. She escaped from slavery in 1827, settling with a son and daughter in the supportive Dutch-American Van Wagener family, for whom she worked as a servant. They helped her win a legal battle for her son's freedom, and she took their name. Striking out on her own, she worked with a preacher to convert prostitutes to Christianity and lived in a progressive communal home. She was christened "Sojourner Truth" for the mystical voices and visions she began to experience. To spread the truth of these visionary teachings, she sojourned alone, lecturing, singing gospel songs, and preaching abolitionism through many states over three decades. Encouraged by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she advocated women's suffrage. Her life is told in the Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850), an autobiographical account transcribed and edited by Olive Gilbert. Illiterate her whole life, she spoke Dutch-accented English. Sojourner Truth is said to have bared her breast at a women's rights convention when she was accused of really being a man. Her answer to a man who said that women were the weaker sex has become legendary:

I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into bars, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen them most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

This humorous and irreverent orator has been compared to the great blues singers. Harriet Beecher Stowe and many others found wisdom in this visionary black woman, who could declare, "Lord, Lord, I can love even de white folk!"

And Ain't I a Woman?Delivered 1851 at the Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me in

to carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?


Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

Questions on Comparative RelationshipsWhat is most likely the relationship between speaker, Sojourner Truth, and the other women at the Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Why do you think so ? ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What is most likely the relationship between Sojourner Truth and other African-American women who are not attending the Women's Convention?______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Why do you think so?______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


What is most likely the relationship between Sojourner Truth and the men in the audience? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

__________Why do you think so?____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

__________

Writing Application (You can use this paragraph for your final paper)Sojourner Truth's speech was delivered over twenty years after Elizabeth Cody Stanton's declaration at the Seneca Falls Convention. Was this a time of progress for women in general? Was this a time of progress for African-American women in particular? Write a MEL-Con paragraph to support your response. You must include at least two pieces of evidence in A.W.E. One piece of evidence can be general.

From this reading, SWBAT: Locate important details in uncomplicated passages Make simple inferences about how details are used in passages Check inferences against information provided in a text, identifying what is and is not sufficiently

supported by the text Identify clear relationships between people and ideas

Frederick DouglassWhat is a Slave to the Fourth of July?

1852

Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will


not be so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country schoolhouses, avails me nothing on the present occasion.

The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th [of] July oration. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it is true that I have often hthe chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men, shout - "We have Washington to our father." Alas! that it should be so; yet so it is.

"The evil that men do, lives after them,

The good is oft-interred with their bones."

"What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?"

ad the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment.

The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable—and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are by no means slight. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. You will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say. I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you.

This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot’s heart might be sadder, and the reformer’s brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as


ever. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers so with nations.

Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. The style and title of your "sovereign people" (in which you now glory) was not then born. You were under the British Crown . Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children,the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men, shout - "We have Washington to our father." Alas! that it should be so; yet so it is.

"The evil that men do, lives after them,

The good is oft-interred with their bones."


ad the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment.

The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable—and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are by no means slight. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. You will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say. I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you.

This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot’s heart might be sadder, and the reformer’s brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty,


and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers so with nations.

Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. The style and title of your "sovereign people" (in which you now glory) was not then born. You were under the British Crown . Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children,the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men, shout - "We have Washington to our father." Alas! that it should be so; yet so it is.

But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. They went so far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of government unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried men’s souls. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. But, to proceed.

Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. This, however, did not answer the purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they persevered. They were not the men to look back.

As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since


Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British Government persisted in the exactions complained of.

The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present ruler.

Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it.


Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people!

Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name


of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;" I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.

For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian’s God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men!

Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven, that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.

What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to bum their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.

Stop and Think:

What attitude does Frederick Douglass take towards the fourth of July?

How do you know?

What does Frederick Douglass think of the invitation to speak at this convention today?


How do you know?

Writing to Learn: (You can use this for your final paper)

Do you think this invitation is a sign of progress? Write a MEL-Con paragraph in which you take a position on the prompt and use support to defend your response.


the romantic period, 1820-1860: fiction€¦ · web viewi believe you may trust his word, ......

Documents