christopher columbus: extracts from journal...

Università di Roma “Tor Vergata”Letteratura Angloamericana I

A.A. 2008/09Christopher Columbus: Extracts from Journal (1492)

October 11th

[…] The land was first seen by a sailor called Rodrigo de Triana, although the Admiral at ten o'clock that evening standing on the quarter-deck saw a light, but so small a body that he could not affirm it to be land; calling to Pero Gutierrez, groom of the King's wardrobe, he told him he saw a light, and bid him look that way, which he did and saw it; he did the same to Rodrigo Sanchez of Segovia, whom the King and Queen had sent with the squadron as comptroller, but he was unable to see it from his situation. The Admiral again perceived it once or twice, appearing like the light of a wax candle moving up and down, which some thought an indication of land. But the Admiral held it for certain that land was near; for which reason, after they had said the Salve which the seamen are accustomed to repeat and chant after their fashion, the Admiral directed them to keep a strict watch upon the forecastle and look out diligently for land, and to him who should first discover it he promised a silken jacket, besides the reward which the King and Queen had offered, which was an annuity of ten thousand maravedis. At two o'clock in the morning the land was discovered, at two leagues' distance; they took in sail and remained under the square-sail lying to till day, which was Friday, when they found themselves near a small island, one of the Lucayos, called in the Indian language Guanahani. Presently they described people, naked, and the Admiral landed in the boat, which was armed, along with Martin Alonzo Pinzon, and Vincent Yanez his brother, captain of the Nina. The Admiral bore the royal standard, and the two captains each a banner of the Green Cross, which all the ships had carried; this contained the initials of the names of the King and Queen each side of the cross, and a crown over each letter Arrived on shore, they saw trees very green many streams of water, and diverse sorts of fruits. The Admiral called upon the two Captains, and the rest of the crew who landed, as also to Rodrigo de Escovedo notary of the fleet, and Rodrigo Sanchez, of Segovia, to bear witness that he before all others took possession (as in fact he did) of that island for the King and Queen his sovereigns, making the requisite declarations, which are more at large set down here in writing. Numbers of the people of the island straightway collected together. Here follow the precise words of the Admiral: "As I saw that they were very friendly to us, and perceived that they could be much more easily converted to our holy faith by gentle means than by force, I presented them with some red caps, and strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and many other trifles of small value, wherewith they were much delighted, and became wonderfully attached to us. Afterwards they came swimming to the boats, bringing parrots, balls of cotton thread, javelins, and many other things which they exchanged for articles we gave them, such as glass beads, and hawk's bells; which trade was carried on with the utmost good will. But they seemed on the whole to me, to be a very poor people. They all go completely naked, even the women, though I saw but one girl. All whom I saw were young, not above thirty years of age, well made, with fine shapes and faces; their hair short, and coarse like that of a horse's tail, combed toward the forehead, except a small portion which they suffer to hang down behind, and never cut. Some paint themselves with black, which makes them appear like those of the Canaries, neither black nor white; others with white, others with red, and others with such colors as they can find. Some paint the face, and some the whole body; others only the eyes, and others the nose. Weapons they have none, nor are acquainted with them, for I showed them swords which they grasped by the blades, and cut themselves through ignorance. They have no iron, their javelins being without it, and nothing more than sticks, though some have fish-bones or other things at the ends. They are all of a good size and stature, and handsomely formed. I saw some with scars of wounds upon their bodies, and demanded by signs the meaning of them; they answered me in the same way, that there came people from the other islands in the neighborhood who endeavored to make prisoners of them, and they defended themselves. I thought then, and still believe, that these were from the continent. It appears to me, that the people are ingenious, and would be good servants and I am of opinion Dott. Elisabetta [email protected]

1


A.A. 2008/09that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion . They very quickly learn such words as are spoken to them. If it please our Lord, I intend at my return to carry home six of them to your Highnesses, that they may learn our language. I saw no beasts in the island, nor any sort of animals except parrots." These are the words of the Admiral.

A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia, 'of the commodities and of the nature and manners of the naturall inhabitants’ (1590)Thomas Harriot

'Of the nature and manners of the people'

It resteth I speake a word or two of the naturall inhabitants, their natures and maners, leauing large discourse thereof vntill time more conuenient hereafter: nowe onely so farre foorth, as that you may know, how that they in respect of troubling our inhabiting and planting, are not to be feared; but that they shall haue cause both to feare and loue vs, that shall inhabite with them. […]

They are a people clothed with loose mantles made of Deere skins, & aprons of the same rounde about their middles; all els naked; of such as difference of statures only as wee in England; hauing no edge tooles or weapons of yron or steele to offend vs withall, neither know they how to make any […]

In respect of vs they are a people poore, and for want of skill and iudgement in the knowledge and vse of our things, doe esteeme our trifles before thinges of greater value: Notwithstanding in their proper manner considering the want of such meanes as we haue, they seeme very ingenious; For although they haue no such tooles, nor any such craftes, sciences and artes as wee; yet in those thinges they doe, they shewe excellencie of wit. And by howe much they vpon due consideration shall

finde our manner of knowledges and craftes to exceede theirs in perfection, and speed for doing or execution, by so much the more is it probable that they shoulde desire our friendships & loue, and haue the greater respect for pleasing and obeying vs. Whereby may bee hoped if meanes of good gouernment bee vsed, that they may in short time be brought to ciuilitie, and the imbracing of true religion.Some religion they haue alreadie, which although it be farre from the truth, yet beyng as it is, there is hope it may bee the easier and sooner reformed.

Dott. Elisabetta [email protected]

2

Figura 1 - The American Drawings of John White

Figura 2 - A Butterfly, by John White


A.A. 2008/09

Michael Drayton (1553-1631)To the Virginian Voyage (1606)


3

John White (c. 1540 – c. 1606) the Virginian pioneer and English colonist in America, sailed with Richard Grenville in 1585, and returned with Sir Francis Drake in 1586. White was sent by Sir Walter Raleigh as artist-illustrator on his first voyage to the New World (1585-6). During this journey he made numerous famous sketches of the landscape and native peoples they encountered..

White, "Gentleman of London," later became governor of the newly-established Roanoke Colony.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roanoke_Colony

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Walter_Raleigh

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1586

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Francis_Drake


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Grenville

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_colonization_of_the_Americas




A.A. 2008/09You brave heroic minds,Worthy your country's name,That honor still pursue,Go and subdue,Whilst loitering hindsLurk here at home with shame.

And in regions farre, Such heroes bring ye forthAs those from whom we came;And plant our nameUnder that starNot known unto our north.

[…]And cheerfully at sea,Success you still entice,To get the pearl and gold;And ours to holdVirginia,Earth's only paradise.

William Bradford (1590-1657)

Of Plymouth Plantation

Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element. And no marvel if they were thus joyful, seeing wise Seneca was so affected with sailing a few miles on the coast of his own Italy; as he affirmed, that he had rather remain twenty years on his way by land, then pass by sea to any place in a short time; so tedious and dreadful was the same unto him.

But here I cannot but stay and make a pause, and stand half amazed at this poor people's present condition; and so I think will the reader too , when he well considers the same. Being thus passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before in their preparation (as may be remembered by that which went before), they had now no friends to welcome them, nor inns to entertain or refresh their weather-beaten bodies, no houses or much less towns to repair to, to seek for succor. It is recorded in scripture as a mercy to the apostle and his shipwrecked company, that the barbarians showed no small kindness in refreshing them, but these savage barbarians, when they met with them (as after will appear) were readier to fill their sides full of arrows then otherwise. And for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of that country know them to be sharp and violent and subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search an unknown coast. Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men? and what multitudes there might be of them they knew not. Neither could they, as it were, go up to the top of Pisgah, to view from this wilderness a more goodly country to feed their hopes; for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to the heavens) they could have little solace or content in respect of any outward objects. For summer being done, all things stand upon them with a weather-beaten face; and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew. If they looked behind them, there was the mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar and gulf to separate them from all the civil parts of the world. […] Let it also be considered what weak hopes of supply and succor they left behind them, that might bear up their minds in this sad condition and trials they were under; and they could not but be very small . It is true, indeed, the affections and love of their brethren at Leyden was cordial and entire towards them, but they had little power to help them, or themselves ; and how the case stood between them and the merchants at their coming away, hath already been declared. What could now sustain them but the spirit of God and his grace?

May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: "Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness; but they cried unto the Lord, and he heard their voice, and looked on their adversity, etc”. Let them therefore praise the Lord, because he is good, and his mercies endure forever. Yea, let them which have been redeemed of the Lord, show how he hath delivered them from the hand of the oppressor. When they wandered in the desert wilderness out of the way, and found no city to dwell in, both hungry, and thirsty, their soul was overwhelmed in them. Let them confess before the Lord his loving kindness, and his wonderful works before the sons of men.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH. [From the N. E. Hist and Gen. Reg., vol. zvii.]


4


A.A. 2008/09I WAS born of Godly Parents, that feared yr Lord greatly, even from their youth, but in an ungodly Place, where ye generality of yr people rather derided then imitated their piety, in a place where, to my knowledge, their children had Learnt wickedness betimes, In a place that was consumed wht fire in a great part of it, after God had brought them out of it. These godly parents of mine meeting with opposition & persecution for Religion, because they went from their own Parish Church to hear yr word & Receiv yr Ls supper &c took up resolutions to pluck up their stakes & remove themselves to New England, and accordingly they did so, Leaving dear Relations friends & acquaintace, their native Land, a new built house, a flourishing Trade, to expose themselves to ye hazzard of yr seas, and to yr Distressing difficulties of a howling wilderness, that they might enjoy Liberty of Conscience & Christ in his ordinances. And the Lord brought them hither & Landed them at Charlestown, after many difficulties and hazzards, and me along with them being then a child not full seven yeers old.

After about 7 weeks stay at Charls Town, my parents removed again by sea to New-Haven in ye month of October. In or passage thither we were in great Danger by a storm which drove us upon a Beach of sand where we lay beating til another Tide fetcht us off; but God carried us to or port in safety.

Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) The Prologue

To sing of w ars, of captains, and of kings, Of cities founded, commonwealth begun, For my mean pen are too superior things: Or how they all, or each their dates have run Let poets and historians set these forth, My obscure lines shall not so dim their worth.

2 But when my wond'ring eyes and envious heart Great Bartas sugared lines do but read o'er, Fool I do grudge the Muses did not part Twixt him and me that overfluent store; A Bartas can do what a Bartas will But simple I according to my skill.

3 From schoolboy's tongue no rhetoric we expect, Nor yet a sweet consort from broken strings, Nor perfect beauty where's a main defect; My foolish, broken, blemished Muse so sings, And this to mend, alas, no art is able, "Cause nature made it so irreparable.

4 Nor can I, like that fluent sweet tongued Greek Who lisped at first, in future times speak plain. By art he gladly found what he did seek, A full requital of his striving pain. Art can do much, but this maxim's most sure: A weak or wounded brain admits no cure.


5


A.A. 2008/095 I am obnoxious to each carping tongue Who says my hand a needle better fits, A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong, For such despite they cast on female wits; If what I do prove well, it won't advance, They'll say it's stol'n, or else it was by chance.

6 But sure the antique Greeks were far more mild Else of our sex, why feigned they those nine And poesy made Calliope's own child; So 'mongst the rest they placed the arts divine; But this weak knot they will full soon untie, The Greeks did nought, but play the fools and lie.

7 Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are Men have precedency and still excel, It is but vain unjustly to wage war; Men can do best, and women know it well. Preeminence in all and each is yours; Yet grant some small acknowledgement of ours.

8 And oh ye high flown quills that soar the skies, And ever with your prey still catch your praise, If e'er you deign these lowly lines your eyes, Give thyme or parsley wreath, I ask no bays; This mean and unrefined ore of mine Will make your glist'ring gold but more to shine.

(The Tenth Muse, Lately Sprung up in America, 1650)


6


A.A. 2008/09Cotton Mather (1663-1728)

Magnalia Christi Americana

THE LIFE OF JOHN WINTHROP, GOVERNOR OF THE MASSACHUSETTS COLONY.

Quicunque venti erunt, Ars nostra certe non aberit. -Cicero.2

1. LET Greece boast of her patient Lycurgus, the lawgiver, by whom diligence, temperance, fortitude and wit were made the fashions of a therefore long-lasting and renowned commonwealth: let Rome tell of her devout Numa, the lawgiver, by whom the most famous commonwealth saw peace triumphing over extinguished war and cruel plunders; and murders giving place to the more mollifying exercises of his religion. Our New-England shall tell and boast of her WINTHROP, a lawgiver as patient as Lycurgus, but not admitting any of his criminal disorders; as devout as Numa, but not liable to any of his heathenish madnesses; a governour in whom the excellencies of Christianity made a most improving addition unto the virtues, wherein even without those he would have made a parallel for the great men of Greece, or of Rome, which the pen of a Plutarch has eternized. […]

Wherefore having sold a fair estate of six or seven hundred a year, he transported himself with the effects of it into New-England in the year 1630, where he spent it upon the service of a famous plantation, founded and formed for the seat of the most reformed Christianity: and continued there, conflicting with temptations of all sorts, as many years as the nodes of the moon take to dispatch a revolution. Those persons were never concerned in a new plantation, who know not that the unavoidable difficulties of such a thing will call for all the prudence and patience of a mortal man to encounter therewithal; and they must be very insensible of the influence, which the just wrath of Heaven has permitted the devils to have upon this world, if they do not think that the difficulties of a new plantation, devoted unto the evangelical worship of our Lord Jesus Christ, must be yet more than ordinary. How prudently, how patiently, and with how much resignation to our Lord Jesus Christ, our brave Winthrop waded through these difficulties, let posterity consider with admiration. And know, that as the picture of this their governour was, after his death, hung up with honour in the state-house of his country, so the wisdom, courage, and holy zeal of his life, were an example well-worthy to be copied by all that shall succeed him in government.

The Wonders of the Invisible World. Observations As well Historical as Theological, upon the Nature, the Number, and the Operations of the Devils (1693)The New Englanders are a people of God settled in those, which were once the devil's territories; and it may easily be supposed that the devil was exceedingly disturbed, when he perceived such a people here accomplishing the promise of old made unto our blessed Jesus, that He should have the utmost parts of the earth for His possession. […]

Wherefore the devil is now making one attempt more upon us; an attempt more difficult, more surprising, more snarled with unintelligible circumstances than any that we have hitherto encountered; an attempt so critical, that if we get well through, we shall soon enjoy halcyon days with all the vultures of hell trodden under our feet. He has wanted his incarnate legions to persecute us, as the people of God have in the other hemisphere been persecuted: he has therefore drawn forth his more spiritual ones to make an attack upon us. We have been advised by some credible Christians yet alive, that a malefactor, accused of witchcraft as well as murder, and executed in this place more than forty years ago, did then give notice of an horrible plot against the country by witchcraft, and a foundation of witchcraft then laid, which if it were not seasonably discovered, would probably blow up, and pull down all the churches in the country. And we have now with horror seen the discovery of such a witchcraft! An army of devils is horribly broke in upon the place which is the center, and after a sort, the firstborn of our English settlements: and the houses of the good people there are filled with doleful shrieks of their children and servants, tormented by invisible hands, with tortures altogether preternatural. […]

But I shall no longer detain my reader from his expected entertainment, in a brief account of the trials which have passed upon some of the malefactors lately executed at Salem, for the witchcrafts whereof they stood convicted. For my own part, I was not present at any of them; nor ever had I any personal prejudice at the persons thus brought upon the stage; much less at the surviving relations of those persons, with and for whom I would be as hearty a mourner as any man living in the world: The Lord comfort them! But having received a command so to do, I can do no other than shortly relate the chief matters of fact, which occurred in the trials of some that were executed, in an abridgment collected out of the court papers on this occasion put into my hands. You are to take the truth, just as it was; and the truth will hurt no good man. […]


7

John Winthrop

http://www.nhharbor.net/articles/Great%20Ship%20and%20Phantom%20Ship-1/Phantom%20Ship%20Pictures/Winthrop.jpg


A.A. 2008/09Benjamin Franklin, Information to Those Who Would Remove to America

Sept. 1782

Many Persons in Europe, having directly or by Letters, express'd to the Writer of this, who is well acquainted with North America, their Desire of transporting and establishing themselves in that Country; but who appear to have formed, thro' Ignorance, mistaken Ideas and Expectations of what is to be obtained there ; he thinks it may be useful, and prevent inconvenient, expensive, and fruitless Removals and Voyages of improper Persons, if he gives some clearer and truer Notions of that part of the World, than appear to have hitherto prevailed.

He finds it is imagined by Numbers, that the Inhabitants of North America are rich, capable of rewarding, and dispos'd to reward, all sorts of Ingenuity; that they are at the same time ignorant of all the Sciences, and, consequently, that Strangers, possessing Talents in the Belles-Lettres, fine Arts, &c., must be highly esteemed, and so well paid, as to become easily rich themselves; that there are also abundance of profitable Offices to be disposed of, which the Natives are not qualified to fill ; and that, having few Persons of Family among them, Strangers of Birth must be greatly respected, and of course easily obtain the best of those Offices, which will make all their Fortunes; that the Governments too, to encourage Emigrations from Europe, not only pay the Expence of personal Transportation, but give Lands gratis to Strangers, with Negroes to work for them, Utensils of Husbandry, and Stocks of Cattle. These are all wild Imaginations; and those who go to America with Expectations founded upon them will surely find themselves disappointed.

The Truth is, that though there are in that Country few People so miserable as the Poor of Europe, there are also very few that in Europe would be called rich; it is rather a general happy Mediocrity that prevails. There are few great Proprietors of the Soil, and few Tenants; most People cultivate their own Lands, or follow some Handicraft or Merchandise; very few rich enough to live idly upon their Rents or Incomes, or to pay the high Prices given in Europe for Paintings, Statues, Architecture, and the other Works of Art, that are more curious than useful. Hence the natural Geniuses, that have arisen in America with such Talents, have uniformly quitted that Country for Europe, where they can be more suitably rewarded. It is true, that Letters and Mathematical Knowledge are in Esteem there, but they are at the same time more common than is apprehended; there being already existing nine Colleges or Universities.

Benjamin Franklin "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America" (1784) Savages we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility; they think the same of theirs.

Perhaps, if we could examine the manners of different nations with impartiality, we should find no people so rude, as to be without any rules of politeness; nor any so polite, as not to have some remains of rudeness.

The Indian men, when young, are hunters and warriors, when old, counselors; for all their government is by counsel of the sages; there is no force, there are no prisons, no officers to compel obedience, or inflict punishment. Hence they generally study oratory, the best speaker having the most influence. The Indian women till the ground, dress the food, nurse and bring up the children, and preserve and hand down to posterity the memory of public transactions. These employments of men and women are accounted natural and honorable. Having few artificial wants, they have abundance of leisure for improvement by conversation. Our laborious manner of life, compared with theirs, they esteem slavish and base; and the learning, on which we value ourselves, they regard as frivolous and useless. […]Having frequent occasions to hold public councils, they have acquired great order and decency in conducting them. The old men sit in the foremost ranks that warriors in the next, and the women and children in the hindmost. The business of the women is to take exact notice of what passes, imprint it in their memories (for they have no writing), and communicate it to their children. […]

The politeness of these savages in conversation is indeed carried to excess , since it does not permit them to contradict or deny the truth of what is asserted in their presence. By this means they indeed avoid disputes; but then it becomes difficult to know their minds, or what impression you make upon them. The missionaries who have attempted to convert


8

Benjamin Franklin


A.A. 2008/09them to Christianity all complain of this as one of the great difficulties of their mission. The Indians hear with patience the truths of the Gospel explained to them, and give their usual tokens of assent and approbation; you would think they were convinced. No such matter. It is mere civility.

The Autobiography, part II – Benjamin Franklin I had been religiously educated as a Presbyterian; and tho' some of the dogmas of that persuasion, such as

the eternal decrees of God, election, reprobation, etc., appeared to me unintelligible, others doubtful, and I early absented myself from the public assemblies of the sect, Sunday being my studying day, I never was without some religious principles. I never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity; that he made the world, and govern'd it by his Providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter. These I esteem'd the essentials of every religion; and, being to be found in all the religions we had in our country, I respected them all, tho' with different degrees of respect, as I found them more or less mix'd with other articles, which, without any tendency to inspire, promote, or confirm morality, serv'd principally to divide us, and make us unfriendly to one another. […]

It was about this time I conceiv'd the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wish'd to live without committing any fault at any time […]. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I might not always do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficult than I had imagined. While my care was employ'd in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by another; habit took the advantage of inattention […] For this purpose I therefore contrived the following method.

In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name . Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I propos'd to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annex'd to each , than a few names with more ideas; and I included under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time occurr'd to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed to each a short precept, which fully express'd the extent I gave to its meaning.

These names of virtues, with their precepts, were:

1. TEMPERANCE.Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

2. SILENCE.Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself;

avoid trifling conversation.

3. ORDER.Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

4. RESOLUTION.Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

5. FRUGALITY.Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.

6. INDUSTRY.Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut

off all unnecessary actions.

7. SINCERITY.Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. JUSTICE.Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. MODERATION.Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. CLEANLINESS.Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.

11. TRANQUILLITY.Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.


9


A.A. 2008/0912. CHASTITY.Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness,

weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.

13. HUMILITY.Imitate Jesus and Socrates.


10


A.A. 2009/10

La Guerra per l’Indipendenza Americana

1764 lo “Sugar Act” e il “Currency Act”

1765 lo “Stamp Act” e il “Quartering Act”

1765 nascita del movimento dei “Sons of Liberty” e, nell’ottobre, “Stamp Act Congress”

1766 revoca dello “Stamp Act” ma, nello stesso giorno in cui è revocato, viene emanato il “Declaratory Act”

1767 “Townshend Act”

1770 Boston Massacre. Revoca di quasi tutti i dazi (eccetto “Tea Act”).

1773 Boston tea Party e misure coercitive che ne conseguono.

1774 First Continental Congress a Philadelphia

1775 primi scontri armati a Lexington e Concord. Inizio della Guerra d’Indipendenza.

1775 Second Continental Congress a Philadelphia. George Washington comandante delle truppe.

4 luglio 1776 Dichiarazione di indipendenza.

14 giugno 1777 creazione da parte del Congresso della bandiera degli Stati Uniti.

17 ottobre 1777 battaglia di Saratoga, la prima grande vittoria americana.

1781 battaglia di Yorktown.

1783 trattato di Parigi.

1789 George Washington eletto presidente della confederazione.

Declaration of Independence

[…] We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That, to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute 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 right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Prof. Elisabetta [email protected]

11


A.A. 2009/10

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. […]

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in GENERAL CONGRESS assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, DO , in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly PUBLISH and DECLARE, That these United Colonies are, and of Right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that, as FREE and INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do. AND for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

.

Washington Irving and His Literary Friends at Sunnyside. Christian Schussele, oil on canvas, 1863

James Fenimore Cooper The Last of the Mohicans (1826)

INTRODUCTION It is believed that the scene of this tale, and most of the information necessary to understand its allusions, are rendered sufficiently obvious to the reader in the text itself, or in the accompanying notes. Still there is so much obscurity in the Indian traditions, and so much confusion in the Indian names, as to render some explanation useful.

Few men exhibit greater diversity, or, if we may so express it, greater antithesis of character, than the native warrior of North America. In war, he is daring, boastful, cunning, ruthless, self-denying, and self-devoted; in peace, just, generous, hospitable, revengeful, superstitious, modest, and commonly chaste. These are qualities, it is true, which do not distinguish all alike; but they are so far the predominating traits of these remarkable people as to be characteristic.

It is generally believed that the Aborigines of the American continent have an Asiatic origin. There are many physical as well as moral facts which corroborate this opinion, and some few that would seem to weigh against it.

The color of the Indian, the writer believes, is peculiar to himself, and while his cheek-bones have a very striking indication of a Tartar origin, his eyes have not. Climate may have had great influence on the former, but it is difficult to see how it can have produced the substantial difference which exists in the latter. The imagery of the Indian, both in his poetry and in his oratory, is oriental; chastened, and perhaps improved, by the limited range of his practical knowledge. He draws his metaphors from the clouds, the seasons, the birds, the beasts, and the vegetable world. In this, perhaps, he does no more than any other energetic and imaginative race would do, being compelled to set bounds to fancy by experience; but the North American Indian


12


A.A. 2009/10

clothes his ideas in a dress which is different from that of the African, and is oriental in itself . His language has the richness and sententious fullness of the Chinese. He will express a phrase in a word, and he will qualify the meaning of an entire sentence by a syllable; he will even convey different significations by the simplest inflections of the voice.

[…] Like nations of higher pretensions, the American Indian gives a very different account of his own tribe or race from that which is given by other people. He is much addicted to overestimating his own perfections, and to undervaluing those of his rival or his enemy; a trait which may possibly be thought corroborative of the Mosaic account of the creation.

The whites have assisted greatly in rendering the traditions of the Aborigines more obscure by their own manner of corrupting names. Thus, the term used in the title of this book has undergone the changes of Mahicanni, Mohicans, and Mohegans; the latter being the word commonly used by the whites. When it is remembered that the Dutch (who first settled New York), the English, and the French, all gave appellations to the tribes that dwelt within the country which is the scene of this story, and that the Indians not only gave different names to their enemies, but frequently to themselves, the cause of the confusion will be understood.

Washington Irving, Tales of a Traveller (1824)

Part III – The Italian Banditti

THE INN AT TERRACINA.

Crack! crack! crack! crack! crack!

"Here comes the estafette from Naples," said mine host of the inn at Terracina, "bring out the relay."The estafette came as usual galloping up the road, brandishing over his head a short-handled whip, with a long knotted lash; every smack of which made a report like a pistol. He was a tight square-set young fellow, in the customary uniform--a smart blue coat, ornamented with facings and gold lace […] A cocked hat, edged with gold lace; a pair of stiff riding boots; but instead of the usual leathern breeches he had a fragment of a pair of drawers that scarcely furnished an apology for modesty to hide behind.The estafette galloped up to the door and jumped from his horse."A glass of rosolio, a fresh horse, and a pair of breeches," said he, "and quickly--I am behind my time, and must be off.""San Genaro!" replied the host, "why, where hast thou left thy garment?""Among the robbers between this and Fondi.""What! rob an estafette! I never heard of such folly. What could they hope to get from thee?""My leather breeches!" replied the estafette. "They were bran new, and shone like gold, and hit the fancy of the captain.""Well, these fellows grow worse and worse. To meddle with an estafette! And that merely for the sake of a pair of leather breeches!"[…]"Were there many robbers in the band?" said a handsome, dark young man, stepping forward from the door of the inn."As formidable a band as ever I saw," said the estafette, springing into the saddle."Are they cruel to travellers?" said a beautiful young Venetian lady, who had been hanging on the gentleman's arm."Cruel, signora!" echoed the estafette, giving a glance a t the lady as he put spurs to his horse. "_Corpo del Bacco!_ they stiletto all the men, and as to the women--"Crack! crack! crack! crack! crack!--the last words were drowned in the smacking of the whip, and away galloped the estafette along the road to the Pontine marshes.


13


A.A. 2009/10

"Holy Virgin!" ejaculated the fair Venetian, "what will become of us!"The inn of Terracina stands just outside of the walls of the old town of that name, on the frontiers of the Roman territory. A little, lazy, Italian town, the inhabitants of which, apparently heedless and listless, are said to be little better than the brigands which surround them, and indeed are half of them supposed to be in some way or other connected with the robbers. […]

R.W. Emerson Divinity School Address (1838)

[…] Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of prophets. He saw with open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history, he estimated the greatness of man. One man was true to what is in you and me. He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take possession of his world. He said, in this jubilee of sublime emotion, `I am divine. Through me, God acts; through me, speaks. Would you see God, see me; or, see thee, when thou also thinkest as I now think.' But what a distortion did his doctrine and memory suffer in the same, in the next, and the following ages! There is no doctrine of the Reason which will bear to be taught by the Understanding. The understanding caught this high chant from the poet's lips, and said, in the next age, `This was Jehovah come down out of heaven. I will kill you, if you say he was a man.' The idioms of his language, and the figures of his rhetoric, have usurped the place of his truth; and churches are not built on his principles, but on his tropes. Christianity became a Mythus, as the poetic teaching of Greece and of Egypt, before. He spoke of miracles; for he felt that man's life was a miracle, and all that man doth, and he knew that this daily miracle shines, as the character ascends. But the word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is Monster.

H.D. Thoreau Walden, or Live in the Woods (1854)Chap.II

The present was my next experiment of this kind, which I purpose to describe more at length; for convenience, putting the experience of two years into one. As I have said I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up.

When first I took up my abode in the woods, that is, began to spend my nights as well as days there, which, by accident was on Independence Day, or the fourth of July, I845, my house was not finished for winter, but was merely a defence against the rain, without plastering or chimney, the walls being of rough weather-stained boards, with wide chinks, which made it cool at night. The upright white hewn studs and freshly planed door and window casings gave it a clean and airy look, especially in the morning, when its timbers


14


A.A. 2009/10

were saturated with dew, so that I fancied that by noon some sweet gum would exude from them. To my imagination it retained throughout the day more or less of this auroral character, reminding me of a certain house on a mountain which I had visited the year before. […]

The winds which passed over my dwelling were such as sweep over the ridges of mountains, bearing the broken strains, or celestial parts only, of terrestrial music. The morning wind forever blows, the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the earth, everywhere.[…

Both place and time were changed and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me. Where I lived was as far off as many a region viewed nightly by astronomers. […]

It matters not what the clocks say or the attitudes and labors of men. Morning is when I am awake and there is a dawn in me. Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep. Why is it that men give so poor an account of their day if they have not been slumbering? They are not such poor calculators. If they had not been overcome with drowsiness they would have performed something. The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. […]

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life […]

By closing the eyes and slumbering, and consenting to be deceived by shows, men establish and confirm their daily life of routine and habit every where, which still is built on purely illusory foundations. Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure. I have read in a Hindoo book that "there was a king's son, who, being expelled in infancy fro m his native city, was brought up by a forester, and, growing up to maturity in that state, imagined himself to belong to the barbarous race with which he lived. One of his father's ministers having discovered him, revealed to him what he was, and the misconception of his character was removed, and

he knew himself to be a prince. So soul," continues the Hindoo philosopher, "from the circumstances in which it is placed, mistakes its own character, until the truth is revealed to it by some holy teacher, and then it knows itself to be Brahme. I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface of things. We think that that is which appears to be. […]Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system, behind the farthest star, before Adam and after the last man. In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages, and we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality which surrounds us. The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions;

whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it.


15


A.A. 2009/10

Walt Whitman

Song of Myself

1 I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance, Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original energy. […]

Song of the Open Road

1 AFOOT and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune, Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, Strong and content I travel the open road.

The earth, that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are, I know they suffice for those who belong to them.


16

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Whitman-leavesofgrass.gif


A.A. 2009/10

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens, I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go, I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them, I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.)

Gli affetti di Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne, in un dagherrotipo e in un ritratto


17

I figli Julian e Una (manca la figlia Rose)

Sophia Peabody Margaret Fuller


A.A. 2009/10

The House of the Seven GablesPreface

WHEN a writer calls his work a romance, it need hardly be observed that he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashion and material, which he would not have felt himself entitled to assume, had he professed to be writing a novel. The latter form of composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary course of man's experience. The former -- while, as a work of art, it must rigidly subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart -- has fairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of the writer's own choosing or creation. If he think fit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bring out or mellow the lights, and deepen and enrich the shadows, of the picture. He will be wise, no doubt, to make a very moderate use of the privileges here stated, and, especially, to mingle the marvellous rather as a slight, delicate, and evanescent flavor, than as any portion of the actual substance of the dish offered to the public. He can hardly be said, however, to commit a literary crime, even if he disregard this caution.

In the present work the author has proposed to himself -- but with what success, fortunately, it is not for him to judge -- to keep undeviatingly within his immunities. The point of view in which this tale comes under the romantic definition lies in the attempt to connect a by-gone time with the very present that is flitting away from us. It is a legend, prolonging itself, from an epoch now gray in the distance, down into our own broad day-light, and bringing along with it some of its legendary mist, which the reader, according to his pleasure, may either disregard, or allow it to float almost imperceptibly about the characters and events for the sake of a picturesque effect. The narrative, it may be, is woven of so humble a texture as to require this advantage, and, at the same time, to render it the more difficult of attainment.


18


A.A. 2009/10

Many writers lay very great stress upon some definite moral purpose, at which they profess to aim their works. Not to be deficient in this particular, the author has provided himself with a moral; -- the truth, namely, that the wrong-doing of one generation lives into the successive ones, and, divesting itself of every temporary advantage, becomes a pure and uncontrollable mischief; -- and he would feel it a singular gratification, if this romance might effectually convince mankind -- or, indeed, any one man -- of the folly of tumbling down an avalanche of ill-gotten gold, or real estate, on the heads of an unfortunate posterity, thereby to maim and crush them, until the accumulated mass shall be scattered abroad in its original atoms. In good faith, however, he is not sufficiently imaginative to flatter himself with the slightest hope of this kind. When romances do really teach anything, or produce any effective operation, it is usually through a far more subtile process than the ostensible one. The author has considered it hardly worth his while, therefore, relentlessly to impale the story with its moral, as with an iron rod, -- or, rather, as by sticking a pin through a butterfly, -- thus at once depriving it of life, and causing it to stiffen in an ungainly and unnatural attitude. A high truth, indeed, fairly, finely, and skilfully wrought out, brightening at every step, and crowning the final development of a work of fiction, may add an artistic glory, but is never any truer, and seldom any more evident, at the last page than at the first.

The reader may perhaps choose to assign an actual locality to the imaginary events of this narrative. If permitted by the historical connection, -- which, though slight, was essential to his plan, -- the author would very willingly have avoided anything of this nature. Not to speak of other objections, it exposes the romance to an inflexible and exceedingly dangerous species of criticism, by bringing his fancy-pictures almost into positive contact with the realities of the moment. It has been no part of his object, however, to describe local manners, nor in any way to meddle with the characteristics of a community for whom he cherishes a proper respect and a natural regard. He trusts not to be considered as unpardonably offending, by laying out a street that infringes upon nobody's private rights, and appropriating a lot of land which had no visible owner, and building a house, of materials long in use for constructing castles in the air. The personages of the tale -- though they give themselves out to be of ancient stability and considerable prominence -- are really of the author's own making, or, at all events, of his own mixing; their virtues can shed no lustre, nor their defects redound, in the remotest degree, to the discredit of the venerable town of which they profess to be inhabitants. He would be glad, therefore, if -- especially in the quarter to which he alludes -- the book may be read strictly as a romance, having a great deal more to do with the clouds overhead than with any portion of the actual soil of the County of Essex.

LENOX, January 27, 1851.

Elementi da notare nella “PREFACE”

1) Teorizzazione sul concetto di arte (NOVEL vs. ROMANCE)2) Presenza di parole legate al lessico GIURIDICO (il “diritto” legato al concetto

di “proprietà” è uno dei temi portanti del romanzo)


19


A.A. 2009/10

3) Importanza della “nuova scienza”: il DAGHERROTIPO come esplicitazione del doppio e dell’ambiguità del reale

4) L’idea di PECCATO dalla quale sembra impossibile uscire.

5) Le CLASSI SOCIALI

6) Critica degli autori contemporanei (idea della “morale” insita nei testi, in parte contrastata da Hawthorne)

Parametri interpretativi da percorrere nel testo

1) L’architettura del romanzo:

- Romanzo costruito partendo dalle fondamenta

- 7 abbaini, 7 personaggi principali

- I “passaggi segreti” del romanzo (la storia di Alice)

- L’alternanza interno/esterno

- L’importanza della SOGLIA (threshold; window)

- Le opposizioni giocate sul numero 2 (dualismo): apparenza/realtà (per tutti i personaggi tranne Phoebe; quadro/nascondiglio; rose bush); Colonnello/Maule; Clifford/giudice; Hepzibah/Phoebe; Hepzibah-Clifford/Phoebe-Holgrave; ritratto Colonnello/ritratto Clifford

- Le corrispondenze e i rispecchiamenti (Casa-Personaggi-giardino-fonte-“Chanticleer”)

2) L’importanza/peso del passato, legato all’idea del “sangue”, “razza” e “classe sociale”:

- Centralità della CASA come emblema della tradizione puritana e del tramandare il passato; la casa di Maule viene distrutta per far posto alla casa dei Pyncheon (idea del “nominare”); razza e classi sociali anche nel momento in cui la casa viene inaugurata

- Riflessione sul “nomadismo” di Clifford e l’idea di “rinnovamento” del sangue in Holgrave

- Passaggio da una “casa” all’altra nella scena finale

- La malattia legata al “sangue” (Phoebe “sana” perché suo padre si è unito a ‘sangue nuovo’ anche se sua moglie era senza proprietà); “razza” destinata ad estinguersi


20


A.A. 2009/10

- Alice Pyncheon: muore quando il suo “sangue” è contaminato dal diventare serva di un uomo dalla condizione sociale inferiore

- Il riscorso razziale contemporaneo a Hawthorne (Jim Crow; “Black Scipio”; la “mappa” dei territori indiani)

3) Il discorso economico

- Il motore della storia è il possesso e l’avidità

- Il discorso economico legato al “gender” (la rovina morale di Hepzibah consiste nell’avviare il negozio: non è più una “lady”)

- L’“happy ending” è legato al discorso economico (finale ambiguo come ambigui sono i fiori del romanzo; trasmissione della proprietà con il matrimonio; costruzione di una nuova “casa in pietra e mattoni”)

- Ned Higgins come caricatura del consumismo e del crescente imperialismo americano

4) L’esaltazione della TRUE WOMAN e del TRUE GENTLEMAN (giardino dell’Eden)

5) L’arte rivelatrice

- Il ritratto del Colonnello Pyncheon

- Il dagherrotipo del Giudice

6) La nuova scienza e tecnologia (mesmerismo, galvanismo, ferrovie)

7) La teatralità del romanzo

8) Il collegamento con il genere gotico (streghe, fantasmi, arredi tetri) e con Poe

9) Gli italiani e l’Italia

The House of the Seven Gables

Eroine a confronto: Hepzibah e Phoebe

Hepzibah

Chapt.II “The Little Shop Window”

A lady -- who had fed herself from childhood with the shadowy food of aristocratic reminiscences, and whose religion it was that a lady's hand soils itself irremediably by doing aught for bread -- this born lady, after sixty years of narrowing means, is fain to step down from her pedestal of imaginary rank. Poverty, treading closely at her heels for a life-time, has come up Prof. Elisabetta [email protected]

21


A.A. 2009/10

with her at last. She must earn her own food, or starve! And we have stolen upon Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon, too irreverently, at the instant of time when the patrician lady is to be transformed into the plebeian woman. […]

Our miserable old Hepzibah! […] How can we elevate our history of retribution, for the sin of long ago, when, as one of our most prominent figures, we are compelled to introduce -- not a young and lovely woman, nor even the stately remains of beauty, storm-shattered by affliction -- but a gaunt, sallow, rusty-jointed maiden, in a long-waisted silk gown, and with the strange horror of a turban on her head! Her visage is not even ugly. It is redeemed from insignificance only by the contraction of her eyebrows into a near-sighted scowl.

Chapt IV “The First Customer”

"May God forgive me!" said she.

Doubtless, God did forgive her. But, taking the inward and outward history of the first half-day into consideration, Hepzibah began to fear that the shop would prove her ruin in a moral and religious point of view, without contributing very essentially towards even her temporal welfare.

Phoebe

Chapt. V “May and November”

"What a nice little housewife you are!" exclaimed [Hepzibah], smiling, and, at the same time, frowning so prodigiously that the smile was sunshine under a thundercloud. "Do you do other things as well? Are you as good at your book as you are at washing tea-cups?"

"Not quite, I am afraid," said Phoebe, laughing at the form of Hepzibah's question. "But I was school-mistress for the little children in our district, last summer, and might have been so still."

[…]

"What a nice little body she is! If she could only be a lady, too! -- but that's impossible! Phoebe is no Pyncheon. She takes everything from her mother."

As to Phoebe's not being a lady, or whether she were a lady or no, it was a point, perhaps, difficult to decide, but which could hardly have come up for judgment at all, in any fair and healthy mind. […] Her figure, to be sure, -- so small as to be almost childlike, and so elastic that motion seemed as easy or easier to it than rest, -- would hardly have suited one's idea of a countess. Neither did her face -- with the brown ringlets on either side, and the slightly piquant nose, and the wholesome bloom, and the clear shade of tan, and the half a dozen freckles, friendly remembrancers of the April sun and breeze -- precisely give us a right to call her beautiful. But there was both lustre and depth in her eyes. She was very pretty; as graceful as a bird, and graceful much in the same way; as pleasant about the house as a gleam of sunshine falling on the floor through a shadow of twinkling leaves, or as a ray of firelight that dances on the wall, while evening is drawing nigh. Instead of discussing her claim to rank among ladies, it would be preferable to regard Phoebe as the example of feminine grace and availability combined, in a state of society, if there were any such, where ladies did not exist. […]


22


A.A. 2009/10

Such was the sphere of Phoebe. To find the born and educated lady, on the other hand, we need look no further than Hepzibah, our forlorn old maid, in her rustling and rusty silks, with her deeply-cherished and ridiculous consciousness of long descent, her shadowy claims to princely territory […]

Eroi a confronto: Judge Pyncheon, Clifford, Holgrave

Il giudice

Chapt. I “The Old Pyncheon Family”

The new heir, up to the period of his accession, was reckoned rather a dissipated youth, but had at once reformed, and made himself an exceedingly respectable member of society. In fact, he showed more of the Pyncheon quality, and had won higher eminence in the world, than any of his race, since the time of the original Puritan. Applying himself in earlier manhood to the study of the law, and having a natural tendency towards office, he had attained, many years ago, to a judicial situation in some inferior court, which gave him for life the very desirable and imposing title of judge. […] Judge Pyncheon was unquestionably an honor to his race. He had built himself a country-seat within a few miles of his native town, and there spent such portions of his time as could be spared from public service in the display of every grace and virtue -- as a newspaper phrased it, on the eve of an election -- befitting the Christian, the good citizen, the horticulturist, and the gentleman.

There were few of the Pyncheons left to sun themselves in the glow of the judge's prosperity. In respect to natural increase, the breed had not thriven; it appeared rather to be dying out.

Chapt. VIII “The Pyncheon of To-day”

The Puritan, again, an autocrat in his own household, had worn out three wives , and, merely by the remorseless weight and hardness of his character in the conjugal relation, had sent them, one after another, broken-hearted, to their graves. Here, the parallel, in some sort, fails. The judge had wedded but a single wife, and lost her in the third or fourth year of their marriage. There was a fable, however, -- for such we choose to consider it, though, not impossibly, typical of Judge Pyncheon's marital deportment, -- that the lady got her death-blow in the honey-moon, and never smiled again, because her husband compelled her to serve him with coffee, every morning, at his bedside, in token of fealty to her liege-lord and master.

Clifford

Chapt. IV “A Day behind the Counter”

Feminine traits, moulded inseparably with those of the other sex! The miniature, likewise, had this last peculiarity; so that you inevitably thought of the original as resembling his mother, and she, a lovely and lovable woman, with perhaps some beautiful infirmity of character, that made it all the pleasanter to know, and easier to love her.

Chapt. VII “The Guest”


23


A.A. 2009/10

And then the unnerved man -- he that had been born for enjoyment, but had met a doom so very wretched -- burst into a woman's passion of tears.

Chapt XI “The Arched Window”

They pulled open the front door, and stepped across the threshold […] "It cannot be, Hepzibah! -- it is too late," said Clifford, with deep sadness. -- "We are ghosts! We have no right among human beings, -- no right anywhere, but in this old house, which has a curse on it, and which therefore we are doomed to haunt! And, besides," he continued, with a fastidious sensibility, inalienably characteristic of the man, "it would not be fit nor beautiful to go! It is an ugly thought, that I should be frightful to my fellow-beings, and that children would cling to their mothers' gowns, at sight of me!"

They shrank back into the dusky passage-way, and closed the door. But, going up the staircase again, they found the whole interior of the house ten-fold more dismal, and the air closer and heavier, for the glimpse and breath of freedom which they had just snatched . They could not flee; their jailer had but left the door ajar, in mockery, and stood behind it, to watch them stealing out. At the threshold, they felt his pitiless gripe upon them. For, what other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!

Holgrave

Chapt. XII “The Daguerreotypist”

Holgrave, as he told Phoebe, somewhat proudly, could not boast of his origin, unless as being exceedingly humble, nor of his education, except that it had been the scantiest possible, and obtained by a few winter-months' attendance at a district school. Left early to his own guidance, he had begun to be self-dependent while yet a boy; and it was a condition aptly suited to his natural force of will. Though now but twenty-two years old (lacking some months, which are years in such a life), he had already been, first, a country schoolmaster; next, a salesman in a country store; and, either at the same time or afterwards, the political editor of a country newspaper. He had subsequently travelled New England and the Middle States, as a peddler, in the employment of a Connecticut manufactory of cologne-water and other essences. In an episodical way, he had studied and practised dentistry, and with very flattering success, especially in many of the factory-towns along our inland streams. As a super-numerary official, of some kind or other, aboard a packet-ship, he had visited Europe, and found means, before his return, to see Italy, and part of France and Germany. At a later period, he had spent some months in a community of Fourierists. Still more recently, he had been a public lecturer on Mesmerism, for which science (as he assured Phoebe, and, indeed, satisfactorily proved, by putting Chanticleer, who happened to be scratching near by, to sleep) he had very remarkable endowments.

[…] "Shall we never, never get rid of this Past?" cried he, keeping up the earnest tone of his preceding conversation. -- "It lies upon the Present like a giant's dead body! In fact, the case is just as if a young giant were compelled to waste all his strength in carrying bout the corpse of the old giant, his grandfather, who died a long while ago, and only needs to be decently buried. just think a moment, and it will startle you to see what slaves we are to by-gone times, -- to Death, if we give the matter the right word!"


24


A.A. 2009/10

"But I do not see it," observed Phoebe.

[…] We read in dead men's books! We laugh at dead men's jokes, and cry at dead men's pathos! We are sick of dead men's diseases, physical and moral, and die of the same remedies with which dead doctors killed their patients! We worship the living Deity according to dead men's forms and creeds. Whatever we seek to do, of our own free motion, a dead man's icy hand obstructs us!

L’arte rivelatrice: il dagherrotipo del giudice

"If you would permit me," said the artist, looking at Phoebe, "I should like to try whether the daguerreotype can bring out disagreeable traits on a perfectly amiable face. […] There is a wonderful insight in Heaven's broad and simple sunshine. While we give it credit only for depicting the merest surface, it actually brings out the secret character with a truth that no painter would ever venture upon, even could he detect it. […].

"I know the face," she replied; "for its stern eye has been following me about, all day. It is my Puritan ancestor, who hangs yonder in the parlor. To be sure, you have found some way of copying the portrait without its black velvet cap and gray beard, and have given him a modern coat and satin cravat, instead of his cloak and band. I don't think him improved by your alterations."

"You would have seen other differences, had you looked a little longer," said Holgrave, laughing, yet apparently much struck. "I can assure you that this is a modern face, and one which you will very probably meet. Now, the remarkable point is that the original wears, to the world's eye, -- and, for aught I know, to his most intimate friends, -- an exceedingly pleasant countenance, indicative of benevolence, openness of heart, sunny good-humor, and other praiseworthy qualities of that cast. The sun, as you see, tells quite another story, and will not be coaxed out of it, after half a dozen patient attempts on my part. Here we have the man, sly, subtle, hard, imperious, and, withal, cold as ice. Look at that eye! Would you like to be at its mercy? At that mouth! Could it ever smile? And yet, if you could only see the benign smile of the original! It is so much the more unfortunate, as he is a public character of some eminence, and the likeness was intended to be engraved."


25

christopher columbus: extracts from journal...

Documents