FTLN 3179 Now must your conscience my acquittance seal, FTLN 3180 And you must put me in your heart for friend, FTLN 3181 Sith you have heard, and with a knowing ear, FTLN 3182 That he which hath your noble father slain FTLN 31835 Pursued my life.

You shortly shall hear more.

The ears are senseless that should give us hearing FTLN 4128410 To tell him his commandment is fulfilled, FTLN 4129 That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

 It fits your wisdom so far to believe it FTLN 050130 As he in his particular act and place FTLN 0502 May give his saying deed, which is no further FTLN 0503 Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal. FTLN 0504 Then weigh what loss your honor may sustain FTLN 0505 If with too credent ear you list his songs FTLN 050635 Or lose your heart or your chaste treasure open FTLN 0507 To his unmastered importunity.

Season your admiration for a while FTLN 0392 With an attent ear, till I may deliver FTLN 0393 Upon the witness of these gentlemen FTLN 0394 This marvel to you. HAMLET  FTLN 0395205 For God’s love, let me hear!

I would not hear your enemy say so, FTLN 0368 Nor shall you do my ear that violence FTLN 0369 To make it truster of your own report FTLN 0370180 Against yourself. I know you are no truant.

I would not hear your enemy say so; Nor shall you do my ear that violence, To make it truster of your own report Against yourself: I know you are no truant. But what is your affair in Elsinore? We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

The word Houyhnhnm, in their tongue, signifies a horse, and, in its etymology, the perfection of natu

; for as to those filthy Yahoos, although there were few greater lovers of mankind at that time than myself, yet I confess I never saw any sensitive being so detestable on all accounts; and the more I came near them the more hateful they grew, while I stayed in that country.

About noon, I saw coming towards the house a kind of vehicle drawn like a sledge by four Yahoos.  There was in it an old steed,

My horror and astonishment are not to be described, when I observed in this abominable animal, a perfect human figure: the face of it indeed was flat and broad, the nose depressed, the lips large, and the mouth wide; but these differences are common to all savage nations, where the lineaments of the countenance are distorted, by the natives suffering their infants to lie grovelling on the earth, or by carrying them on their backs, nuzzling with their face against the mothers’ shoulders.  The fore-feet of the Yahoo differed from my hands in nothing else but the length of the nails, the coarseness and brownness of the palms, and the hairiness on the backs.  There was the same resemblance between our feet, with the same differences; which I knew very well, though the horses did not, because of my shoes and stockings; the same in every part of our bodies except as to hairiness and colour, which I have already described.

I heard the word Yahoo often repeated betwixt them; the meaning of which word I could not then comprehend, although it was the first I had learned to pronounce. 

this confirmed my first opinion, that a people who could so far civilise brute animals, must needs excel in wisdom all the nations of the world.  The gray came in just after, and thereby prevented any ill treatment which the others might have given me.  He neighed to them several times in a style of authority, and received answers.

Upon the whole, I never beheld, in all my travels, so disagreeable an animal, or one against which I naturally conceived so strong an antipathy.  So that, thinking I had seen enough, full of contempt and aversion, I got up, and pursued the beaten road,

I fell into a beaten road, where I saw many tracts of human feet, and some of cows, but most of horses.  At last I beheld several animals in a field, and one or two of the same kind sitting in trees.  Their shape was very singular and deformed, which a little discomposed me,

The women were proposed to be taxed according to their beauty and skill in dressing, wherein they had the same privilege with the men, to be determined by their own judgment.  But constancy, chastity, good sense, and good nature, were not rated, because they would not bear the charge of collecting.

I told him, “that in the kingdom of Tribnia, [454a] by the natives called Langdon, [454b] where I had sojourned some time in my travels, the bulk of the people consist in a manner wholly of discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with their several subservient and subaltern instruments, all under the colours, the conduct, and the pay of ministers of state, and their deputies.  The plots, in that kingdom, are usually the workmanship of those persons who desire to raise their own characters of profound politicians; to restore new vigour to a crazy administration; to stifle or divert general discontents; to fill their coffers with forfeitures; and raise, or sink the opinion of public credit, as either shall best answer their private advantage.  It is first agreed and settled among them, what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot; then, effectual care is taken to secure all their letters and papers, and put the owners in chains.  These papers are delivered to a set of artists, very dexterous in finding out the mysterious meanings of words, syllables, and letters: for instance, they can discover a close stool, to signify a privy council; a flock of geese, a senate; a lame dog, an invader; the plague, a standing army; a buzzard, a prime minister; the gout, a high priest; a gibbet, a secretary of state; a chamber pot, a committee of grandees; a sieve, a court lady; a broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, an employment; a bottomless pit, a treasury; a sink, a court; a cap and bells, a favourite; a broken reed, a court of justice; an empty tun, a general; a running sore, the administration. [455]

My master was yet wholly at a loss to understand what motives could incite this race of lawyers to perplex, disquiet, and weary themselves, and engage in a confederacy of injustice, merely for the sake of injuring their fellow-animals; neither could he comprehend what I meant in saying, they did it for hire.  Whereupon I was at much pains to describe to him the use of money, the materials it was made of, and the value of the metals; “that when a Yahoo had got a great store of this precious substance, he was able to purchase whatever he had a mind to; the finest clothing, the noblest houses, great tracts of land, the most costly meats and drinks, and have his choice of the most beautiful females.  Therefore since money alone was able to perform all these feats, our Yahoos thought they could never have enough of it to spend, or to save, as they found themselves inclined, from their natural bent either to profusion or avarice; that the rich man enjoyed the fruit of the poor man’s labour, and the latter were a thousand to one in proportion to the former; that the bulk of our people were forced to live miserably, by labouring every day for small wages, to make a few live plentifully.”

The king, who, as I before observed, was a prince of excellent understanding, would frequently order that I should be brought in my box, and set upon the table in his closet: he would then command me to bring one of my chairs out of the box, and sit down within three yards distance upon the top of the cabinet, which brought me almost to a level with his face.  In this manner I had several conversations with him.  I one day took the freedom to tell his majesty, “that the contempt he discovered towards Europe, and the rest of the world, did not seem answerable to those excellent qualities of mind that he was master of; that reason did not extend itself with the bulk of the body; on the contrary, we observed in our country, that the tallest persons were usually the least provided with it; that among other animals, bees and ants had the reputation of more industry, art, and sagacity, than many of the larger kinds; and that, as inconsiderable as he took me to be, I hoped I might live to do his majesty some signal service.”  The king heard me with attention, and began to conceive a much better opinion of me than he had ever before.  He desired “I would give him as exact an account of the government of England as I possibly could; because, as fond as princes commonly are of their own customs (for so he conjectured of other monarchs, by my former discourses), he should be glad to hear of any thing that might deserve imitation.” Imagine with thyself, courteous reader, how often I then wished for the tongue of Demosthenes or Cicero, that might have enabled me to celebrate the praise of my own dear native country in a style equal to its merits and felicity. I began my discourse by informing his majesty, that our dominions consisted of two islands, which composed three mighty kingdoms, under one sovereign, beside our plantations in America.  I dwelt long upon the fertility of our soil, and the temperature of our climate.  I then spoke at large upon the constitution of an English parliament; partly made up of an illustrious body called the House of Peers; persons of the noblest blood, and of the most ancient and ample patrimonies.  I described that extraordinary care always taken of their education in arts and arms, to qualify them for being counsellors both to the king and kingdom; to have a share in the legislature; to be members of the highest court of judicature, whence there can be no appeal; and to be champions always ready for the defence of their prince and country, by their valour, conduct, and fidelity.  That these were the ornament and bulwark of the kingdom, worthy followers of their most renowned ancestors, whose honour had been the reward of their virtue, from which their posterity were never once known to degenerate.  To these were joined several holy persons, as part of that assembly, under the title of bishops, whose peculiar business is to take care of religion, and of those who instruct the people therein.  These were searched and sought out through the whole nation, by the prince and his wisest counsellors, among such of the priesthood as were most deservedly distinguished by the sanctity of their lives, and the depth of their erudition; who were indeed the spiritual fathers of the clergy and the people. That the other part of the parliament consisted of an assembly called the House of Commons, who were all principal gentlemen, freely picked and culled out by the people themselves, for their great abilities and love of their country, to represent the wisdom of the whole nation.  And that these two bodies made up the most august assembly in Europe; to whom, in conjunction with the prince, the whole legislature is committed. I then descended to the courts of justice; over which the judges, those venerable sages and interpreters of the law, presided, for determining the disputed rights and properties of men, as well as for the punishment of vice and protection of innocence.  I mentioned the prudent management of our treasury; the valour and achievements of our forces, by sea and land.  I computed the number of our people, by reckoning how many millions there might be of each religious sect, or political party among us.  I did not omit even our sports and pastimes, or any other particular which I thought might redound to the honour of my country.  And I finished all with a brief historical account of affairs and events in England for about a hundred years past. This conversation was not ended under five audiences, each of several hours; and the king heard the whole with great attention, frequently taking notes of what I spoke, as well as memorandums of what questions he intended to ask me. When I had put an end to these long discources, his majesty, in a sixth audience, consulting his notes, proposed many doubts, queries, and objections, upon every article.  He asked, “What methods were used to cultivate the minds and bodies of our young nobility, and in what kind of business they commonly spent the first and teachable parts of their lives?  What course was taken to supply that assembly, when any noble family became extinct?  What qualifications were necessary in those who are to be created new lords: whether the humour of the prince, a sum of money to a court lady, or a design of strengthening a party opposite to the public interest, ever happened to be the motive in those advancements?  What share of knowledge these lords had in the laws of their country, and how they came by it, so as to enable them to decide the properties of their fellow-subjects in the last resort?  Whether they were always so free from avarice, partialities, or want, that a bribe, or some other sinister view, could have no place among them?  Whether those holy lords I spoke of were always promoted to that rank upon account of their knowledge in religious matters, and the sanctity of their lives; had never been compliers with the times, while they were common priests; or slavish prostitute chaplains to some nobleman, whose opinions they continued servilely to follow, after they were admitted into that assembly?” He then desired to know, “What arts were practised in electing those whom I called commoners: whether a stranger, with a strong purse, might not influence the vulgar voters to choose him before their own landlord, or the most considerable gentleman in the neighbourhood?  How it came to pass, that people were so violently bent upon getting into this assembly, which I allowed to be a great trouble and expense, often to the ruin of their families, without any salary or pension? because this appeared such an exalted strain of virtue and public spirit, that his majesty seemed to doubt it might possibly not be always sincere.”  And he desired to know, “Whether such zealous gentlemen could have any views of refunding themselves for the charges and trouble they were at by sacrificing the public good to the designs of a weak and vicious prince, in conjunction with a corrupted ministry?”  He multiplied his questions, and sifted me thoroughly upon every part of this head, proposing numberless inquiries and objections, which I think it not prudent or convenient to repeat. Upon what I said in relation to our courts of justice, his majesty desired to be satisfied in several points: and this I was the better able to do, having been formerly almost ruined by a long suit in chancery, which was decreed for me with costs.  He asked, “What time was usually spent in determining between right and wrong, and what degree of expense?  Whether advocates and orators had liberty to plead in causes manifestly known to be unjust, vexatious, or oppressive?  Whether party, in religion or politics, were observed to be of any weight in the scale of justice?  Whether those pleading orators were persons educated in the general knowledge of equity, or only in provincial, national, and other local customs?  Whether they or their judges had any part in penning those laws, which they assumed the liberty of interpreting, and glossing upon at their pleasure?  Whether they had ever, at different times, pleaded for and against the same cause, and cited precedents to prove contrary opinions?  Whether they were a rich or a poor corporation?  Whether they received any pecuniary reward for pleading, or delivering their opinions?  And particularly, whether they were ever admitted as members in the lower senate?” He fell next upon the management of our treasury; and said, “he thought my memory had failed me, because I computed our taxes at about five or six millions a-year, and when I came to mention the issues, he found they sometimes amounted to more than double; for the notes he had taken were very particular in this point, because he hoped, as he told me, that the knowledge of our conduct might be useful to him, and he could not be deceived in his calculations.  But, if what I told him were true, he was still at a loss how a kingdom could run out of its estate, like a private person.”  He asked me, “who were our creditors; and where we found money to pay them?”  He wondered to hear me talk of such chargeable and expensive wars; “that certainly we must be a quarrelsome people, or live among very bad neighbours, and that our generals must needs be richer than our kings.”  He asked, what business we had out of our own islands, unless upon the score of trade, or treaty, or to defend the coasts with our fleet?”  Above all, he was amazed to hear me talk of a mercenary standing army, in the midst of peace, and among a free people.  He said, “if we were governed by our own consent, in the persons of our representatives, he could not imagine of whom we were afraid, or against whom we were to fight; and would hear my opinion, whether a private man’s house might not be better defended by himself, his children, and family, than by half-a-dozen rascals, picked up at a venture in the streets for small wages, who might get a hundred times more by cutting their throats?” He laughed at my “odd kind of arithmetic,” as he was pleased to call it, “in reckoning the numbers of our people, by a computation drawn from the several sects among us, in religion and politics.”  He said, “he knew no reason why those, who entertain opinions prejudicial to the public, should be obliged to change, or should not be obliged to conceal them.  And as it was tyranny in any government to require the first, so it was weakness not to enforce the second: for a man may be allowed to keep poisons in his closet, but not to vend them about for cordials.” He observed, “that among the diversions of our nobility and gentry, I had mentioned gaming: he desired to know at what age this entertainment was usually taken up, and when it was laid down; how much of their time it employed; whether it ever went so high as to affect their fortunes; whether mean, vicious people, by their dexterity in that art, might not arrive at great riches, and sometimes keep our very nobles in dependence, as well as habituate them to vile companions, wholly take them from the improvement of their minds, and force them, by the losses they received, to learn and practise that infamous dexterity upon others?” He was perfectly astonished with the historical account gave him of our affairs during the last century; protesting “it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce.” His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with the answers I had given; then taking me into his hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: “My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them.  I observe among you some lines of an institution, which, in its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions.  It does not appear, from all you have said, how any one perfection is required toward the procurement of any one station among you; much less, that men are ennobled on account of their virtue; that priests are advanced for their piety or learning; soldiers, for their conduct or valour; judges, for their integrity; senators, for the love of their country; or counsellors for their wisdom.  As for yourself,” continued the king, “who have spent the greatest part of your life in travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country.  But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.”

So said Hester Prynne, and glanced her sad eyes downward at the scarlet letter. And, after many, many years, a new grave was delved, near an old and sunken one, in that burial-ground beside which King's Chapel has since been built. It was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle.

“What a strange, sad man is he!” said the child, as if speaking partly to herself. “In the dark night-time he calls us to[281] him, and holds thy hand and mine, as when we stood with him on the scaffold yonder. And in the deep forest, where only the old trees can hear, and the strip of sky see it, he talks with thee, sitting on a heap of moss! And he kisses my forehead, too, so that the little brook would hardly wash it off! But here, in the sunny day, and among all the people, he knows us not; nor must we know him! A strange, sad man is he, with his hand always over his heart!” “Be quiet, Pearl! Thou understandest not these things,” said her mother. “Think not now of the minister, but look about thee, and see how cheery is everybody's face to-day. The children have come from their schools, and the grown people from their workshops and their fields, on purpose to be happy. For, to-day, a new man is beginning to rule over them; and so—as has been the custom of mankind ever since a nation was first gathered—they make merry and rejoice; as if a good and golden year were at length to pass over the poor old world!”

Most of the spectators testified to having seen, on the breast of the unhappy minister, a SCARLET LETTER—the very semblance of that worn by Hester Prynne—imprinted in the flesh. As regarded its origin, there were various explanations, all of which must necessarily have been conjectural. Some affirmed that the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the very day when Hester Prynne first wore her ignominious badge, had begun a course of penance,—which he afterwards, in so many futile methods, followed out,—by inflicting a hideous torture on himself. Others contended that the stigma had not been produced until a long time subsequent,

It proved not difficult to re-establish the intimacy of the two companions, on the same footing and in the same degree as heretofore. The young clergyman, after a few hours of privacy, was sensible that the disorder of his nerves had hurried him into an unseemly outbreak of temper, which there had been nothing in the physician's words to excuse or palliate. He marvelled, indeed, at the violence with which he had thrust back the kind old man, when merely proffering the advice which it was his duty to bestow, and which the minister himself had expressly sought. With these remorseful feelings, he lost no time in making the amplest apologies, and besought his friend still to continue the care, which, if not successful in restoring him to health, had, in all probability, been the means of prolonging his feeble existence to that hour. Roger Chillingworth readily assented, and went on with his medical supervision of the minister; doing his best for him, in all good faith, but always quitting the patient's apartment, at the close of a professional interview, with a mysterious and puzzled smile upon his lips. This expression was invisible in Mr. Dimmesdale's[166] presence, but grew strongly evident as the physician crossed the threshold. “A rare case!” he muttered. “I must needs look deeper into it. A strange sympathy betwixt soul and body! Were it only for the art's sake, I must search this matter to the bottom!” It came to pass, not long after the scene above recorded, that the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, at noonday, and entirely unawares, fell into a deep, deep slumber, sitting in his chair, with a large black-letter volume open before him on the table. It must have been a work of vast ability in the somniferous school of literature. The profound depth of the minister's repose was the more remarkable, inasmuch as he was one of those persons whose sleep, ordinarily, is as light, as fitful, and as easily scared away, as a small bird hopping on a twig. To such an unwonted remoteness, however, had his spirit now withdrawn into itself, that he stirred not in his chair, when old Roger Chillingworth, without any extraordinary precaution, came into the room. The physician advanced directly in front of his patient, laid his hand upon his bosom, and thrust aside the vestment, that, hitherto, had always covered it even from the professional eye. Then, indeed, Mr. Dimmesdale shuddered, and slightly stirred. After a brief pause, the physician turned away. But, with what a wild look of wonder, joy, and horror! With what a ghastly rapture, as it were, too mighty to be expressed only by the eye and features, and therefore bursting forth through the whole ugliness of his figure, and making itself even riotously manifest by the extravagant gestures with which he threw up his arms towards the ceiling, and stamped his foot upon the floor![167] Had a man seen old Roger Chillingworth, at that moment of his ecstasy, he would have had no need to ask how Satan comports himself, when a precious human soul is lost to heaven, and won into his kingdom. But what distinguished the physician's ecstasy from Satan's was the trait of wonder in it!

“Hester Prynne,” cried he, with a piercing earnestness, “in[308] the name of Him, so terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do what—for my own heavy sin and miserable agony—I withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come hither now, and twine thy strength about me! Thy strength, Hester; but let it be guided by the will which God hath granted me! This wretched and wronged old man is opposing it with all his might!—with all his own might, and the fiend's! Come, Hester, come! Support me up yonder scaffold!” The crowd was in a tumult. The men of rank and dignity, who stood more immediately around the clergyman, were so taken by surprise, and so perplexed as to the purport of what they saw,—unable to receive the explanation which most readily presented itself, or to imagine any other,—that they remained silent and inactive spectators of the judgment which Providence seemed about to work. They beheld the minister, leaning on Hester's shoulder, and supported by her arm around him, approach the scaffold, and ascend its steps; while still the little hand of the sin-born child was clasped in his. Old Roger Chillingworth followed, as one intimately connected with the drama of guilt and sorrow in which they had all been actors, and well entitled, therefore, to be present at its closing scene. “Hadst thou sought the whole earth over,” said he, looking darkly at the clergyman, “there was no one place so secret,—no high place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me,—save on this very scaffold!” “Thanks be to Him who hath led me hither!” answered the minister. Yet he trembled, and turned to Hester with an expression of doubt and anxiety in his eyes, not the less evidently betrayed, that there was a feeble smile upon his lips.[309] “Is not this better,” murmured he, “than what we dreamed of in the forest?” “I know not! I know not!” she hurriedly replied. “Better? Yea; so we may both die, and little Pearl die with us!” “For thee and Pearl, be it as God shall order,” said the minister; “and God is merciful! Let me now do the will which he hath made plain before my sight. For, Hester, I am a dying man. So let me make haste to take my shame upon me!” Partly supported by Hester Prynne, and holding one hand of little Pearl's, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale turned to the dignified and venerable rulers; to the holy ministers, who were his brethren; to the people, whose great heart was thoroughly appalled, yet overflowing with tearful sympathy, as knowing that some deep life-matter—which, if full of sin, was full of anguish and repentance likewise—was now to be laid open to them. The sun, but little past its meridian, shone down upon the clergyman, and gave a distinctness to his figure, as he stood out from all the earth, to put in his plea of guilty at the bar of Eternal Justice. “People of New England!” cried he, with a voice that rose over them, high, solemn, and majestic,—yet had always a tremor through it, and sometimes a shriek, struggling up out of a fathomless depth of remorse and woe,—“ye, that have loved me!—ye, that have deemed me holy!—behold me here, the one sinner of the world! At last!—at last!—I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood; here, with this woman, whose arm, more than the little strength wherewith I have crept hitherward, sustains me, at this dreadful moment, from grovelling down upon my face! Lo, the scarlet letter which Hester wears! Ye have all shuddered at it! Wherever[310] her walk hath been,—wherever, so miserably burdened, she may have hoped to find repose,—it hath cast a lurid gleam of awe and horrible repugnance round about her. But there stood one in the midst of you, at whose brand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered!” It seemed, at this point, as if the minister must leave the remainder of his secret undisclosed. But he fought back the bodily weakness,—and, still more, the faintness of heart,—that was striving for the mastery with him. He threw off all assistance, and stepped passionately forward a pace before the woman and the child. “It was on him!” he continued, with a kind of fierceness; so determined was he to speak out the whole. “God's eye beheld it! The angels were forever pointing at it! The Devil knew it well, and fretted it continually with the touch of his burning finger! But he hid it cunningly from men, and walked among you with the mien of a spirit, mournful, because so pure in a sinful world!—and sad, because he missed his heavenly kindred! Now, at the death-hour, he stands up before you! He bids you look again at Hester's scarlet letter! He tells you, that, with all its mysterious horror, it is but the shadow of what he bears on his own breast, and that even this, his own red stigma, is no more than the type of what has seared his inmost heart! Stand any here that question God's judgment on a sinner? Behold! Behold a dreadful witness of it!”

But the object that most drew my attention, in the mysterious package, was a certain affair of fine red cloth, much worn and faded. There were traces about it of gold embroidery, which, however, was greatly frayed and defaced; so that none, or very[33] little, of the glitter was left. It had been wrought, as was easy to perceive, with wonderful skill of needlework; and the stitch (as I am assured by ladies conversant with such mysteries) gives evidence of a now forgotten art, not to be recovered even by the process of picking out the threads. This rag of scarlet cloth,—for time and wear and a sacrilegious moth had reduced it to little other than a rag,—on careful examination, assumed the shape of a letter. It was the capital letter A. By an accurate measurement, each limb proved to be precisely three inches and a quarter in length. It had been intended, there could be no doubt, as an ornamental article of dress; but how it was to be worn, or what rank, honor, and dignity, in by-past times, were signified by it, was a riddle which (so evanescent are the fashions of the world in these particulars) I saw little hope of solving. And yet it strangely interested me. My eyes fastened themselves upon the old scarlet letter, and would not be turned aside. Certainly, there was some deep meaning in it, most worthy of interpretation, and which, as it were, streamed forth from the mystic symbol, subtly communicating itself to my sensibilities, but evading the analysis of my mind.

The wives, who pay an entire obedience to their husbands,

Tuscan then demanded what he would do. He said they would travel towards the sea, plant a new colony, and defend it by their valor; and when they could find a ship, either driven by stress of weather, or guided by Providence that way, they would seize it, and make it a prize, till it had transported them to their own countries: at least they should be made free in his kingdom, and be esteemed as his fellow-sufferers, and men that had the courage and the bravery to attempt, at least, for liberty; and if they died in the attempt, it would be more brave than to live in perpetual slavery.

He, pointing to the dead body, sighing, cried, "Behold her there." They put off the flowers that covered her, with their sticks, and found she was killed, and cried out, "O monster! that hast murdered thy wife." Then asking him why he did so cruel a deed; he replied, he had no leisure to answer impertinent questions. "You may go back," continued he, "and tell the faithless Governor he may thank Fortune that I am breathing my last;

Tuscan, seeing that, cried out, "I love thee, O Caesar! and therefore will not let thee die, if possible," and running to him, took him in his arms: but, at the same time, warding a blow that Caesar made at his bosom, he received it quite through his arm; and Caesar having not the strength to pluck the knife forth, though he attempted it, Tuscan neither pulled it out himself, nor suffered it to be pulled out,

punishments hereafter are suffered by one's self; and the world takes no cognizance whether this God have revenged 'em, or not, 'tis done so secretly, and deferred so long: while the man of no honor suffers every moment the scorn and contempt of the honester world, and dies every day ignominiously in his fame, which is more valuable than life. I speak not this to move belief, but to show you how you mistake, when you imagine that he who will violate his honor will keep his word with his gods."

Trefry, who was naturally amorous, and loved to talk of love as well as anybody, proceeded to tell him they had the most charming black that ever was beheld on their plantation, about fifteen or sixteen years old, as he guessed; that for his part he had done nothing but sigh for her ever since she came; and that all the white beauties he had seen never charmed him so absolutely as this fine creature had done;

s soon as they approached him, they venerated and esteemed him; his eyes insensibly commanded respect, and his behavior insinuated it into every soul. So that there was nothing talked of but this young and gallant slave, even by those who yet knew not that he was a prince. I ought to tell you that the Christians never buy any slaves but they give 'em some name of their own, their native ones being likely very barbarous, and hard to pronounce; so that Mr. Trefry gave Oroonoko that of Caesar; which name will live in that country as long as that (scarce more) glorious one of the great Roman: for 'tis most evident he wanted no part of the personal courage of that Caesar, and acted things as memorable, had they been done in some part of the world replenished with people and historians that might have given him his due. But his misfortune was to fall in an obscure world, that afforded only a female pen to celebrate his fame; though I doubt not but it had lived from others' endeavors if the Dutch, who immediately after his time took that country, had not killed, banished, and dispersed all those that were capable of giving the world this great man's life much better than I have done. And Mr. Trefry, who designed it, died before he began it, and bemoaned himself for not having undertook it in time.

Caesar met this monstrous beast of mighty size and vast limbs, who came with open jaws upon him; and fixing his awful stern eyes full upon those of the beast, and putting himself into a very steady and good aiming posture of defense, ran his sword quite through her breast down to her very heart, home to the hilt of the sword: the dying beast stretched forth her paw, and going to grasp his thigh, surprised with death in that very moment, did him no other harm than fixing her long nails in his flesh very deep, feebly wounded him, but could not grasp the flesh to tear off any. When he had done this, he hollowed to us to return: which, after some assurance of his victory, we did, and found him lunging out the sword from the bosom of the tiger, who was laid in her blood on the ground; he took up the club, and with an unconcern that had nothing of the joy or gladness of a victory, he came and laid the whelp at my feet. We all extremely wondered at his daring, and at the bigness of the beast, which was about the height of an heifer, but of mighty great and strong limbs.

I shall now relate a thing that, possibly, will find no credit among men; because 'tis a notion commonly received with us that nothing can receive a wound in the heart and live: but when the heart of this courageous animal was taken out, there were seven bullets of lead in it, the wound seamed up with great scars, and she lived with the bullets a great while, for it was long since they were shot. This heart the conqueror brought up to us, and 'twas a very great curiosity which all the country came to see; and which gave Caesar occasion of many fine discourses of accidents in war and strange escapes.

. Do you not hear every day how they upbraid each other with infamy of life, below the wildest savages? And shall we render obedience to such a degenerate race, who have no one human virtue left, to distinguish them from the vilest creatures? Will you, I say, suffer the lash from such hands?" They all replied with one accord, "No, no, no; Caesar has spoke like a great captain, like a great king."

Redcrosse had previously begun his battle believing in the strength of physical prowess; yet, his physical might proves to be no match for Errour.

As Redcrosse approaches Errour�s cave, he is encased by darkness. However, Spenser writes that �his glistring armor made/A litle glooming light, much like shade,/By which he saw the ugly monster plaine.�17 When Redcrosse�s light infiltrates the cave, Errour starts and begins to hide, �for light she hated as the deadly bale.�18 The armor that Redcrosse bears frightens Errour; she does not want to be seen by men, so she attempts to find the darkness once again in order to hide herself. Spenser explains in the same stanza that Errour desires a place where no one is able to see her. Her penchant against light relates directly to Biblical metaphor, with light representing goodness and virtue, and the darkness representing temptation and wickedness. Paul, who also penned the book of Romans, writes, �The night is nearly over, the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.�19 With the aid of the light from his Christian armor, Redcrosse scatters the darkness of Errour�s cave and reveals the vile creature, exposing the sin which resides within.

which eyes did lacke”

Redcross not only represents the Knight of Holiness, he also represents new Christians. For instance, he had yet to have been tested because he is a new Christian but he also wants to be a pure as he can. As a new Christian, he also easily persuaded in the wrong direction and pleading for God’s help who is wrapped in error’s ways is a wonderful allegory to show that Redcross, as a new Christian is easily persuaded and that he needs God’s help to keep him from falling into this creature’s ways. Much to his luck, the more experienced Christian, Una, steps in to guide him in his battle. She tells him “Add faith vnto your force, and be not faint/ Strangle her, else she sure will strangle thee” (1.1.19.3-4). Una, representing a unified church, saves Redcross from impending doom with her advice.

Representing the Knight of Holiness, his light is also his faith and Errour has no interest in the light he has to offer and only wants to remain in her darkness or lack of faith

Fly Fly/ this is no place for liuing men” (1.1.13.7-9).

rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if watching the weather, some with their heads under their wings, or buried in their bosoms, and others swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames,

Oh these women! these women! Could that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks?—Was her encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his rival?—Heaven only knows, not I!—Let it suffice to say, Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had been sacking a hen-roost, rather than a fair lady’s heart. Without looking to the right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth, on which he had so often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks, roused his steed most uncourteously from the comfortable quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming of mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of timothy and clover.

his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and his imagination expanded with the idea, how they might be readily turned into cash, and the money invested in immense tracts of wild land, and shingle palaces in the wilderness.

green glassy eyes

I profess not to know how women’s hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for the man must battle for his fortress at every door and window.

Ichabod became the object of whimsical persecution to Bones, and his gang of rough riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful domains; smoked out his singing school, by stopping up the chimney; broke into the school-house at night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe and window stakes, and turned every thing topsy-turvy:

Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail, or tapping of a wo

The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these matters, maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away by supernatural means

Brom Bones too, who shortly after his rival’s disappearance conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar, was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin; which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell.

Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like a whirlwind.  

 The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed only suit of rusty black, and arranging his looks by a bit of broken looking-glass, that hung up in the schoolhouse. That he might make his appearance before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman, of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly mounted, issued forth, like a knight-errant in quest of adventures. But it is meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed.

His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry; for, as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves.

Under cover of his character of singing-master, he made frequent visits at the farmhouse; not that he had any thing to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents, which is so often a stumbling-block in the path of lovers. Balt Van Tassel was an easy indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let her have her way in every thing.

From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received the nickname of BROM BONES

Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a country coquette

From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight, the peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had any thing but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, and such like easily-conquered adversaries, to contend with;

he pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth

Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within those every thing was snug, happy, and well-conditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance, rather than the style in which he lived.

it is not to be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his eyes;

 Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was, to pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen to their marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman,

he was a kind of travelling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house; so that his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction. He was, moreover, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several books quite through

When school hours were over, he was even the companion and playmate of the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons would convoy some of the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed it behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils

To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.

I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud; for it is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the great State of New-York

inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow imaginative—to dream dreams, and see apparitions.

the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the revolutionary war;

Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives

IN the bosom of one of those spacious coves

abrasiveness so blatant in "Rip Van Winkle." We have no shrewish wife, whose death in a "fit of passion" allows for Rip's carefree dotage upon his return to the village.

The narrator's sardonic comment that "the old country wives ... are the best judges of these matters" is clue enough to a rather disparaging attitude; resenting the authority of women is nothing new to Irving's fiction. Yet this remark does not alter the fact that the community listens to the women's stories. And this particular one is a favorite in Sleepy Hollow because it both warns and neutralizes threatening males. Ichabod becomes the community's most recent lesson by example, the shivering victim of his own acquisitive fantasies and proof positive of the truth of legend.

A close look at the stories that circulate through the Dutch community shows that Ichabod's expulsion follows directly from women's cultivation of local folklore. Female-centered Sleepy Hollow, by means of tales revolving around the emasculated, headless "dominant spirit" of the region, figuratively neuters threatening masculine interlopers like Ichabod to ensure the continuance of the old Dutch domesticity, the Dutch wives' hearths, and their old wives' tales.

Although this passage is supposed to be humorous, it nonetheless reveals Irving's characteristic misogyny and the male fear of disempowerment played out again and again throughout the tale. In contrast to Rip Van Winkle, however, the Hollow men displace this fear from women to characters of folklore. It is a misunderstanding that, as in the case of Ichabod, ensures men's continued thraldom.

[Ichabod] would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man, than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was--a woman.(278)

Perhaps the most convincing proof of the pervasiveness of female influence in Sleepy Hollow is that all the men have set themselves to challenging it. Accordingly, the narrator not only concedes the connection between women and spirits, but he also establishes women as the greatest source of fear for men: [Ichabod] would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man, than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was--a woman.(278)

Ah, why should wrath be mute and fury dumb?

 I will enchant the old Andronicus     With words more sweet, and yet more dangerous,     Than baits to fish or honey-stalks to sheep,     When as the one is wounded with the bait,     The other rotted with delicious feed.

Go drag the villain hither by the hair;

Go take him away, and hang him presently.   CLOWN. How much money must I have?   TAMORA. Come, sirrah, you must be hang'd.   CLOWN. Hang'd! by'r lady, then I have brought up a neck to a fair

  Shall we be thus afflicted in his wreaks,     His fits, his frenzy, and his bitterness?     And now he writes to heaven for his redress.

But what says Jupiter, I ask thee?

Enter the CLOWN, with a basket and two pigeons in it

 MARCUS. Kinsmen, shoot all your shafts into the court;     We will afflict the Emperor in his pride.

earing off the dead NURSE

                    [Takes the CHILD from the NURSE, and draws]     Stay, murderous villains, will you kill your brother!     Now, by the burning tapers of the sky     That shone so brightly when this boy was got,     He dies upon my scimitar's sharp point     That touches this my first-born son and heir.     I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus,     With all his threat'ning band of Typhon's brood,     Nor great Alcides, nor the god of war,     Shall seize this prey out of his father's hands.     What, what, ye sanguine, shallow-hearted boys!     Ye white-lim'd walls! ye alehouse painted signs!     Coal-black is better than another hue     In that it scorns to bear another hue;     For all the water in the ocean     Can never turn the swan's black legs to white,     Although she lave them hourly in the flood.     Tell the Empress from me I am of age     To keep mine own- excuse it how she can.

 I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus,

AARON. Zounds, ye whore! Is black so base a hue?

NURSE. Good morrow, lords.     O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor?   AARON. Well, more or less, or ne'er a whit at all,

She's with the lion deeply still in league,

O, why should nature build so foul a den,     Unless the gods delight in tragedies?

Cornelia never with more care     Read to her sons than she hath read to thee     Sweet poetry and Tully's Orator.

Extremity of griefs would make men mad;     And I have read that Hecuba of Troy     Ran mad for sorrow.

At that that I have kill'd, my lord- a fly.   TITUS. Out on thee, murderer, thou kill'st my heart!     Mine eyes are cloy'd with view of tyranny;     A deed of death done on the innocent     Becomes not Titus' brother. Get thee gone;     I see thou art not for my company.   MARCUS. Alas, my lord, I have but kill'd a fly.   TITUS. 'But!' How if that fly had a father and mother?     How would he hang his slender gilded wings     And buzz lamenting doings in the air!     Poor harmless fly,     That with his pretty buzzing melody     Came here to make us merry! And thou hast kill'd him.   MARCUS. Pardon me, sir; it was a black ill-favour'd fly,     Like to the Empress' Moor; therefore I kill'd him.   TITUS. O, O, O!     Then pardon me for reprehending thee,     For thou hast done a charitable deed.     Give me thy knife, I will insult on him,     Flattering myself as if it were the Moor     Come hither purposely to poison me.     There's for thyself, and that's for Tamora.

Peace, tender sapling; thou art made of tears,     And tears will quickly melt thy life away

How now! Has sorrow made thee dote already?     Why, Marcus, no man should be mad but I.     What violent hands can she lay on her life?     Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands?     To bid Aeneas tell the tale twice o'er     How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?     O, handle not the theme, to talk of hands,     Lest we remember still that we have none.

 MESSENGER

MARCUS. But yet let reason govern thy lament.   TITUS. If there were reason for these miseries,     Then into limits could I bind my woes.

Aaron will have his soul black like his face.

  [He cuts off TITUS' hand]

 For now I stand as one upon a rock,     Environ'd with a wilderness of sea,

Which of your hands hath not defended Rome     And rear'd aloft the bloody battle-axe,     Writing destruction on the enemy's castle?

AARON. Titus Andronicus, my lord the Emperor     Sends thee this word, that, if thou love thy sons,     Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself, old Titus,     Or any one of you, chop off your hand     And send it to the King: he for the same     Will send thee hither both thy sons alive,     And that shall be the ransom for their fault.   TITUS. O gracious Emperor! O gentle Aaron!     Did ever raven sing so like a lark     That gives sweet tidings of the sun's uprise?     With all my heart I'll send the Emperor my hand.     Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off?

  And in the fountain shall we gaze so long,     Till the fresh taste be taken from that clearness,

Perchance she weeps because they kill'd her husband;     Perchance because she knows them innocent.

  This way to death my wretched sons are gone;     Here stands my other son, a banish'd man,     And here my brother, weeping at my woes.     But that which gives my soul the greatest spurn     Is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul.

 MARCUS. O, thus I found her straying in the park,     Seeking to hide herself as doth the deer     That hath receiv'd some unrecuring wound.

  Is that the one will help to cut the other.     'Tis well, Lavinia, that thou hast no hands;     For hands to do Rome service is but vain.

 LUCIUS. My gracious lord, no tribune hears you speak

LUCIUS. To rescue my two brothers from their death;     For which attempt the judges have pronounc'd     My everlasting doom of banishment.   TITUS. O happy man! they have befriended thee.     Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive     That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?     Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey     But me and mine; how happy art thou then     From these devourers to be banished!     But who comes with our brother Marcus here? Enter MARCUS with LAVINIA

There is never a beginning, there is never an end, to the inexplicable continuity of this web of God, but always circular power returning into itself. Therein it resembles his own spirit, whose beginning, whose ending, he never can find, — so entire, so boundless

The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature.

him the past instructs; him the future invites. Is not, indeed, every man a student, and do not all things exist for the student's behoof? And, finally, is not the true scholar the only true master?

magma solidification; sedimentation of weathered rock debris; and metamorphism. As a result of these processes, three main types of rock occur:

As the nineteenth century drew to a close, social purity campaigns became increasingly opposed to ‘deviant’ sexual practices, including homosexuality, resulting in a ‘veil of silence’ over sexual topics

  For there is no friend like a sister           In calm or stormy weather;           To cheer one on the tedious way,           To fetch one if one goes astray,           To lift one if one totters down,           To strengthen whilst one stands.

By the summer of 1859 Rossetti was devoting a good deal of time to her work at Highgate, and its influence can be seen in her poems about illicit love, betrayal, and illegitimacy, such as “Cousin Kate,” “‘The Iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children,’“ and “From Sunset to Star Rise,” though poems composed before the period of her work at Highgate— “An Apple-Gathering,” “The Convent Threshold,” and “Maude Clare” for instance—demonstrate her prior interest in the fallen woman. “Goblin Market,” with its theme of a fallen woman being saved by a “sister,” can also be seen as informed by Rossetti’s experiences at the St. Mary Magdalene Penitentiary. Her interest in this topic reflects the Victorian concern about prostitution as a social evil; other Pre-Raphaelite treatments of the subject include Dante Gabriel’s poem “Jenny,” begun in 1847 and revised in 1858-1859 and again in 1870; his unfinished painting Found (1854-1881); and William Holman Hunt’s The Awakened Conscience (1853).”  

Victorian ideas about separate spheres of influence exemplified in 'the Angel of the House', were deep-rooted and intensified abhorrence of what was seen as completely deviant behaviour. Approaches to the problem tended to identify three main causes of 'falleness'; these were fallenenss instigated by seduction; falleness caused by degeneracy or immorality and falleness caused by poverty. Whilst not exclusive causes these do give an indication of a writer or social commentator's views on related issues such as the relationship between the sexes and the alleviation of poverty.

These descriptions show that imperialism is mainly the government’s interest but not the people’s.

humorists are very commonly the youngest children in their families. When I was the littlest kid at our supper table, there was only one way I could get anybody’s attention, and that was to be funny. I had to specialize. I used to listen to radio comedians very intently, so I could learn how to make jokes. And that’s what my books are, now that I’m a grownup—mosaics of jokes

she was the person I wrote for—that every successful creative person creates with an audience of one in mind. That’s the secret of artistic unity. Anybody can achieve it, if he or she will make something with only one person in mind. I didn’t realize that she was the person I wrote for until after she died. INTERVIEWER She loved literature? VONNEGUT She wrote wonderfully well. She didn’t read much—but then again, neither in later years did Henry David Thoreau. My father was the same way: he didn’t read much, but he could write like a dream. Such letters my father and sister wrote! When I compare their prose with mine, I am ashamed. INTERVIEWER Did your sister try to write for money, too? VONNEGUT No. She could have been a remarkable sculptor, too. I bawled her out one time for not doing more with the talents she had. She replied that having talent doesn’t carry with it the obligation that something has to be done with it. This was startling news to me. I thought people were supposed to grab their talents and run as far and fast as they could. INTERVIEWER What do you think now? VONNEGUT Well—what my sister said now seems a peculiarly feminine sort of wisdom. I have two daughters who are as talented as she was, and both of them are damned if they are going to lose their poise and senses of humor by snatching up their talents and desperately running as far and as fast as they can. They saw me run as far and as fast as I could—and it must have looked like quite a crazy performance to them. And this is the worst possible metaphor, for what they actually saw was a man sitting still for decades.

INTERVIEWER Let’s talk about the women in your books. VONNEGUT There aren’t any. No real women, no love. INTERVIEWER Is this worth expounding upon? VONNEGUT It’s a mechanical problem. So much of what happens in storytelling is mechanical, has to do with the technical problems of how to make a story work. Cowboy stories and policeman stories end in shoot-outs, for example, because shoot-outs are the most reliable mechanisms for making such stories end. There is nothing like death to say what is always such an artificial thing to say: “The end.” I try to keep deep love out of my stories because, once that particular subject comes up, it is almost impossible to talk about anything else. Readers don’t want to hear about anything else. They go gaga about love. If a lover in a story wins his true love, that’s the end of the tale, even if World War III is about to begin, and the sky is black with flying saucers.

I understand how scientific reasoning and playfulness work, even though I have no talent for joining in. I enjoy the company of scientists, am easily excited and entertained when they tell me what they’re doing. I’ve spent a lot more time with scientists than with literary people, my brother’s friends, mostly. I enjoy plumbers and carpenters and automobile mechanics, too.

Dr. Felix Hoenikker, the absentminded scientist, was a caricature of Dr. Irving Langmuir, the star of the G.E. research laboratory. I knew him some. My brother worked with him. Langmuir was wonderfully absentminded. He wondered out loud one time whether, when turtles pulled in their heads, their spines buckled or contracted. I put that in the book. One time he left a tip under his plate after his wife served him breakfast at home. I put that in. His most important contribution, though, was the idea for what I called “Ice-9,” a form of frozen water that was stable at room temperature. He didn’t tell it directly to me. It was a legend around the laboratory—about the time H. G. Wells came to Schenectady. That was long before my time. I was just a little boy when it happened—listening to the radio, building model airplanes.

INTERVIEWER What happened when you reached the front? VONNEGUT I imitated various war movies I’d seen.

She was a good writer, it turned out, but she had no talent for the vulgarity the slick magazines required. Fortunately, I was loaded with vulgarity, so, when I grew up, I was able to make her dream come true.

The first fancy city I’d ever seen. A city full of statues and zoos, like Paris. We were living in a slaughterhouse, in a nice new cement-block hog barn. They put bunks and straw mattresses in the barn, and we went to work every morning as contract labor in a malt-syrup factory. The syrup was for pregnant women

The Franklin Library is bringing out a deluxe edition of Slaughterhouse Five, I believe. VONNEGUT Yes. I was required to write a new introduction for it. INTERVIEWER Did you have any new thoughts? VONNEGUT I said that only one person on the entire planet benefited from the raid, which must have cost tens of millions of dollars. The raid didn’t shorten the war by half a second, didn’t weaken a German defense or attack anywhere, didn’t free a single person from a death camp. Only one person benefited—not two or five or ten. Just one. INTERVIEWER And who was that? VONNEGUT Me. I got three dollars for each person killed. Imagine that.

INTERVIEWER So every afternoon you would go to the Echo office— VONNEGUT Yeah. And one time, while I was writing, I happened to sniff my armpits absentmindedly. Several people saw me do it, and thought it was funny—and ever after that I was given the name “Snarf.” In the annual for my graduating class, the class of 1940, I’m listed as “Kurt Snarfield Vonnegut, Jr.” Technically, I wasn’t really a snarf. A snarf was a person who went around sniffing girls’ bicycle saddles. I didn’t do that. “Twerp” also had a very specific meaning, which few people know now. Through careless usage, “twerp” is a pretty formless insult now. INTERVIEWER What is a twerp in the strictest sense, in the original sense? VONNEGUT It’s a person who inserts a set of false teeth between the cheeks of his ass. INTERVIEWER I see. VONNEGUT I beg your pardon; between the cheeks of his or her ass. I’m always offending feminists that way. INTERVIEWER I don’t quite understand why someone would do that with false teeth. VONNEGUT In order to bite the buttons off the backseats of taxicabs. That’s the only reason twerps do it. It’s all that turns them on.

I adopted my sister’s sons after she died, and it’s spooky to watch them try to make her impossible dreams come true. INTERVIEWER What were your sister’s dreams like? VONNEGUT She wanted to live like a member of The Swiss Family Robinson, with impossibly friendly animals in impossibly congenial isolation. Her oldest son, Jim, has been a goat farmer on a mountaintop in Jamaica for the past eight years. No telephone. No electricity.

Which member of your family had the most influence on you as a writer? VONNEGUT My mother, I guess. Edith Lieber Vonnegut. After our family lost almost all of its money in the Great Depression, my mother thought she might make a new fortune by writing for the slick magazines. She took short-story courses at night. She studied magazines the way gamblers study racing forms.

INTERVIEWER What did the Germans say? VONNEGUT They said the war was all over for us, that we were lucky, that we could now be sure we would live through the war, which was more than they could be sure of. As a matter of fact, they were probably killed or captured by Patton’s Third Army within the next few days. Wheels within wheels. INTERVIEWER Did you speak any German? VONNEGUT I had heard my parents speak it a lot. They hadn’t taught me how to do it, since there had been such bitterness in America against all things German during the First World War. I tried a few words I knew on our captors, and they asked me if I was of German ancestry, and I said, “Yes.” They wanted to know why I was making war against my brothers. INTERVIEWER And you said—? VONNEGUT I honestly found the question ignorant and comical. My parents had separated me so thoroughly from my Germanic past that my captors might as well have been Bolivians or Tibetans, for all they meant to me. INTERVIEWER After you were captured, you were shipped to Dresden? VONNEGUT In the same boxcars that had brought up the troops that captured us—probably in the same boxcars that had delivered Jews and Gypsies and Jehovah’s Witnesses and so on to the extermination camps. Rolling stock is rolling stock.