I was a mere wreck of my former self.

I might have whipped till you fell dead under the lash. But I wanted you to live; I would have bettered your condition. Others cannot do it. You are my slave.

“though you have been criminal towards me, I feel for you, and I can pardon you if you obey my wishes. Tell me whether the fellow you wanted to marry is the father of your child. If you deceive me, you shall feel the fires of hell.”

He promised to care for my child, and to buy me, be the conditions what they might.

Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing.

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

. The doctrine of hatred must be preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide;

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius.

Cast the bantling on the rocks, Suckle him with the she-wolf’s teat; Wintered with the hawk and fox, Power and speed be hands and feet.

“Man is his own star; and the soul that can Render an honest and a perfect man, Commands all light, all influence, all fate; Nothing to him falls early or too late.

This imbalance allows for the subjectivity of innocence to continue polarizing until it becomes nearly impossible for some to see the truth.

This is not to say that Rowlandson’s depiction of the colonial encounter isn’t valid or worth the empathy it so easily conjures up for readers.

prescribes an overdose of sorrow, disillusionment and hypocrisy to the unsuspecting reader

At first they were all against it, except my husband would come for me, but afterwards they assented to it, and seemed much to rejoice in it; some asked me to send them some bread, others some tobacco, others shaking me by the hand, offering me a hood and scarfe to ride in; not one moving hand or tongue against it.

They mourned (with their black faces) for their own losses, yet triumphed and rejoiced in their inhumane, and many times devilish cruelty to the English

They would pick up old bones, and cut them to pieces at the joints, and if they were full of worms and maggots, they would scald them over the fire to make the vermine come out, and then boil them, and drink up the liquor, and then beat the great ends of them in a mortar, and so eat them. They would eat horse’s guts, and ears, and all sorts of wild birds which they could catch; also bear, venison, beaver, tortoise, frogs, squirrels, dogs, skunks, rattlesnakes; yea, the very bark of trees; besides all sorts of creatures, and provision which they plundered from the English. I can but stand in admiration to see the wonderful power of God in providing for such a vast number of our enemies in the wilderness, where there was nothing to be seen, but from hand to mouth.

strangely did the Lord provide for them; that I did not see (all the time I was among them) one man, woman, or child, die with hunger.

I can but admire to see the wonderful providence of God in preserving the heathen for further affliction to our poor country. They could go in great numbers over, but the English must stop. God had an over-ruling hand in all those things.

It is the Lord’s doing, and it should be marvelous in our eyes.

Then I took it of the child, and eat it myself, and savory it was to m

In this town there were four English children, captives; and one of them my own sister’s

By which I certainly understood (though I suspected it before) that whatsoever the Indians told me respecting him was vanity and lies. Some of them told me he was dead, and they had killed him; some said he was married again, and that the Governor wished him to marry; and told him he should have his choice, and that all persuaded I was dead.

Yet I can say, that in all my sorrows and afflictions, God did not leave me to have my impatience work towards Himself, as if His ways were unrighteous. But I knew that He laid upon me less than I deserved.

but when I was without, and saw nothing but wilderness, and woods, and a company of barbarous heathens, my mind quickly returned to me,

He answered me that such a time his master roasted him, and that himself did eat a piece of him, as big as his two fingers, and that he was very good meat. But the Lord upheld my Spirit, under this discouragement; and I considered their horrible addictedness to lying, and that there is not one of them that makes the least conscience of speaking of truth. I

for which she gave me a mess of broth, which was thickened with meal made of the bark of a tree, and to make it the better, she had put into it about a handful of peas, and a few roasted ground nuts.

films

the ever-shifting definition of American Literature.

it moves beyond the voices of old white men talking about even older white men.

What is the difference between American literature and American history?

as the Indians told me.

my children gone, my relations and friends gone, our house and home and all our comforts—within door and without—all was gone

was the waste that was there made of horses, cattle, sheep, swine, calves, lambs, roasting pigs, and fowl (which they had plundered in the town), some roasting, some lying and burning, and some boiling to feed our merciless enemies

Oh the roaring, and singing and dancing, and yelling of those black creatures in the night, which made the place a lively resemblance of hell

Now away we must go with those barbarous creatures, with our bodies wounded and bleeding, and our hearts no less than our bodies.

The lovers fled into the mountains which are near the town of Calca. Being tired after a long journey, they climbed to the top of a rock and went to sleep. They heard a great noise in their sleep, so they arose. The princess took one shoe in her hand and kept the other on her foot. Then looking towards the town of Calca both were turned into stone. To this day the two statues may be seen between Calca and Huayllapampa.

It began to call Chuqui-llantu by her own name. She was terribly frightened, got out of bed, and beheld the shepherd on his knees before her, shedding many tears. She was satisfied on seeing him, and inquired how he had got inside the palace. He replied that the cloak which she carried had arranged about that. then Chuqui-llantu embraced him, and put her finely worked lipi mantles on him, and they slept together.

Then she saw the cloak and told the mother that it was a very pretty cloak, asking where it came from. The old woman told her that it was a cloak which, in ancient times, belonged to a woman beloved by Pachacamac, a deity very celebrated in the valleys on the coast. She said it had come to her by inheritance; but the princess, with many endearments, begged for it until at last the mother consented. When Chuqui-llantu took it into her hands she liked it better than before and, after staying a short time longer in the hut, she took leave of the old woman, and walked along the meadows looking about in hopes of seeing him whom she longed for.

she gathered certain herbs which are believed to be cures for grief

Seeing that all the fountains were very favourable, the princess went to repose for a little while, for all night she had been conversing with the checollo in her dream.

Her death seemed inevitable. She could have no cure but to go to him whom she so dearly loved, and if she did her father the Sun would order her to be killed.

She thought she saw a bird flying from one tree to another, and singing very softly and sweetly.

women of the Sun cooking and preparing food. Chuqui-llantu said that she was very tired with her walk, and that she did not want any supper. All the rest supped with her sister,

But Chuqui-llantu was unable to rest owing to the great love she felt for the shepherd Acoya-napa, and she regretted that she had not shown him what was in her breast. But at last she went to sleep.

On entering, the doorkeepers looked to see if they brought with them anything that would do harm, because it was often found that women had brought with them, hidden in their clothes, such things as fillets and necklaces.

They repeated their question about the flock, and told him not to be afraid, for they were children of the Sun, who was lord of all the land, and to give him confidence they took him by the arm.

He strolled behind his flock, and presently began to play upon his flute very softly and sweetly, neither feeling anything of the amorous desires of youth, nor knowing anything of them.