Why read it?Merlyn teaches King Arthur the art of leadership. Part of his training was in learning to live with the animals and gain their perspective. Finally, he founded the Round Table. Merlyn is a most amazing character. A delightful and imaginative tale of what was to become known as Camelot. And a great deal of wisdom.
Ideas:
King Arthur’s slogan: “Might for right.”
“…in the effort to impose a world of peace, he found himself up to the elbows in blood.” p. 354.
“His blood might have had too much oxygen in it, from the way he was conscious of every stone in every wall, and all the colors of the valley, and the joyful stepping of his horse.” p. 359.
“There is a thing called knowledge of the world, which people do not have until they are middle-aged…something which cannot be taught to younger people, because it is not logical and does not obey laws which are constant.” p. 366.
“You can’t teach a baby to walk by explaining the matter to her logically—she has to learn the strange poise of walking by experience.” p. 366.
Why read it?Merlyn teaches King Arthur the art of leadership. Part of his training was in learning to live with the animals and gain their perspective. Finally, he founded the Round Table. Merlyn is a most amazing character. A delightful and imaginative tale of what was to become known as Camelot. And a great deal of wisdom..
Ideas:
“…the Unicorn, called by the Greeks, Rhinoceros.” p. 244.
“…made it clear that the business of the philosopher was to make ideas available and not to impose them on people.” p. 256.
“…until they themselves were ready to refrain from warfare, being confronted with its reality.” p. 287.
“Lancelot began to shudder, not as the knight but at the cruelty in himself.” p. 350.
“At twenty-two, the age of thirty seems to be the verge of senility.” p. 352.
Why read it?Merlyn teaches King Arthur the art of leadership. Part of his training was in learning to live with the animals and gain their perspective. Finally, he founded the Round Table. Merlyn is a most amazing character. A delightful and imaginative tale of what was to become known as Camelot. And a great deal of wisdom.
Ideas:
“There is one fairly good reason for fighting—and that is, if the other man starts it.” p. 222.
“Wrongs have to be redressed by reason, not by force.” p. 223.
“You can always spot the villain…in the last resort, it is ultimately the man who strikes the first blow.” p. 223.
“…your reign will be an endless series of petty battles…in which the poor man will be the only one who dies.” p. 225.
Arthur: “I don’t think things oughtto be done because you are able to do them; I think they should be done because you ought to do them.” p. 235.
Why read it?Merlyn teaches King Arthur the art of leadership. Part of his training was in learning to live with the animals and gain their perspective. Finally, he founded the Round Table. Merlyn is a most amazing character. A delightful and imaginative tale of what was to become known as Camelot. And a great deal of wisdom.
Ideas:
Of King Arthur: “…an open face, with kind eyes and a reliable or faithful expression, as though he were a good learner who enjoyed being alive and did not believe in original sin.” p. 211.
“The magician’s eyes veiled themselves like a vulture’s….” p. 213.
Merlyn: “Asking advice is a fatal thing.” p. 213.
Merlyn: “I said the war will happen for dozens of reasons, not for one.” p. 220.
Merlyn: “The destiny of man is to unite, not to divide; if you keep on dividing, you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees.” p. 221.
Why read it? The education of King Arthur for leadership by Merlyn. Part of his training was in learning to live with the animals and gain their perspective. Finally, he founded the Round Table. Merlyn is a most amazing character. A delightful and imaginative tale of what was to become known as Camelot. And a great deal of wisdom.
Ideas:
Wart: “Why do people not think, when they are grown up, as I do when I am young?” p. 172.
Merlyn: “The best thing for being sad…is to learn something.” p. 173.
God to man (Adam) after the Creation: “As for you, Man, you will be a naked tool all your life…able to see some of Our sorrows and to feel some of Our joys; we are partly sorry for you, Man, but partly hopeful.” p. 183.
“And, O, I should have liked to do great deeds, and be brave, and conquer my own fears.” p. 184.
Agravaine: “ ‘Four things,’ he whispered, ‘that a Lothian cannot trust—a cow’s horn, a horse’s hoof, a dog’s snarl, and an Englishman’s laugh.” p. 206.
Why read it? The education of King Arthur for leadership by Merlyn. Part of his training was in learning to live with the animals and gain their perspective. Finally, he founded the Round Table. Merlyn is a most amazing character. A delightful and imaginative tale of what was to become known as Camelot. And a great deal of wisdom.
Ideas:
Merlyn talks to Neptune: “Snylrem stnemilpmoc ot enutpen dna lliw eh yldnik tpecca siht yob sa a hsif?” [Read the sentence from left to right, but the words from right to left.] p. 38.
“…a face which had been ravaged by all the passions of an absolute monarch—by cruelty, sorrow, age, pride, selfishness, loneliness and thoughts too strong for individual brains.” p. 44.
“…the common forest of those times was like a jungle on the Amazon…most of the Forest Sauvage was almost impenetrable, an enormous barrier of eternal trees, the dead ones fallen against the live and held to them by ivy.” p. 86.
“He heard the bowstrings twang again, the purr of the feathers in the air.” p. 104.
From the ants’ perspective: “A question was a sign of insanity to them…life was not questionable: it was dictated.” p. 18.
Life as an ant: “The repeating voices in his head, which he could not shut off—the lack of privacy…the dreary blank which replaced feeling…the total monotony more than the wickedness….” p. 121.
“Rooks don’t just fly, like other birds, but they fly for fun.” p. 146.
“The pigeon, said Archimedes [the owl], is a kind of Quaker…dresses in gray…dutiful child, a constant lover, and a wise parent, she knows, like all philosophers, that the hand of every man is against her…has learned throughout the centuries to specialize in escape.” p. 147.
Why read it? The education of King Arthur for leadership by Merlyn. Part of his training was in learning to live with the animals and gain their perspective. Finally, he founded the Round Table. Merlyn is a most amazing character. A delightful and imaginative tale of what was to become known as Camelot. And a great deal of wisdom.
Ideas:
“The Wart was called the Wart because it more or less rhymed with Art, which was short for his real name.” p. 3.
“In the afternoon the program was: Mondays and Fridays, tilting and horsemanship; Tuesdays, hawking; Wednesdays, fencing; Thursdays, archery; Saturdays, the theory of chivalry…terminology of the chase and hunting etiquette.” p. 4.
“The Wart found that, although he was frightened of the danger of the forest before it happened, once he was in it he was not frightened any more.” p. 14.
“…another arrow came whirr and frump….” p. 14.
“…knights were bound by their vows to help people in distress.” p. 15.
On armor: “First you have to stop to unwind the brachet [hound that hunts by scent], then your visor falls down, then you can’t see through your spectacles; nowhere to sleep, never know where you are; rheumatism in the winter, sunstroke in the summer…this horrid armor takes hours to put on…either frying or freezing, and it gets rusty…have to sit up all night polishing the stuff.” p. 18.
“…fell off his horse with a tremendous clang…hopping round the white horse with one foot in the stirrup.” p. 19.
Of Merlyn’s room: “…was the most marvelous room that he had ever been in…. Thousands of brown books in leather bindings…a gun case with all sorts of weapons which would not be invented for half a thousand years….” p. 24.
“At this the bird [Archimedes, the owl] became so nervous that it made a mess on Merlyn’s head.” p. 25.
“He [Merlyn] talked to them [animals], not in baby-talk like a maiden lady, but correctly in their own growls and barks.” p. 37.
Mark Twain. 1884. Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. 1982.
Why read it? A vivid re-creation of the time of slavery in the U.S. A moral dilemma for Huck who, in helping Jim, the escaped slave, is violating the law.
Ideas:
[Huck is almost caught stealing bread and butter by Aunt Sally; he avoids detection by putting the bread and butter under his hat; he is sitting in the hot room with the other people waiting for the threatened escape of Jim, when the butter melts under his hat.] p. 891.
Huck: “”And the place getting hotter and hotter, and the butter beginning to melt and run down my neck and behind my ears, and pretty soon…a streak of butter come a trickling down my forehead, and Aunt Sally she sees it, and turns white as a sheet, and says, ‘For the land’s sake what is the matter with the child!—he’s got the brain fever as shore as you’re born, and they’re oozing out.’” p. 891.
“Goodnessgracioussakes.” p. 900.
Tom Sawyer: “They hain’t no right to shut him [Jim] up…turn him loose! He ain’t no slave, he’s as free as any cretur that walks this earth…. Old Miss Watson died two months ago, and she was ashamed she ever was going to sell him down the river, and said so; and she set him free in her will.” p. 908.
Aunt Sally: “Then what on earth did you want to set him free for, seeing he was already free?” Tom: Well, that is a question…just like women…I wanted the adventure of it.” p. 908.
Huck: “…so there ain’t nothing more to write about and I am rotton glad of it, because if I’d a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn’t a tackled it and ain’t agoing to no more.” p. 912.
Huck: “But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before.” p. 912.
Comment: Huck Finn is often censored because of the frequent use of the "N" word. I hope these quotes help people to understand the true nature of the novel. RayS.
Mark Twain. 1884. Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. 1982.
Why read it? A vivid re-creation of the time of slavery in the U.S. A moral dilemma for Huck who, in helping Jim, the escaped slave, is violating the law.
Ideas:
Huck: “We begun to come to trees with Spanish moss on them, hanging down from the limbs like long gray beards…and it made the woods look solemn and dismal.” p. 830.
Huck: “First [the king and the duke] done a lecture on temperance; but they didn’t make enough for them both to get drunk on.” p. 830.
Huck: “I’d see him [Jim] standing my watch on top of his’n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping;and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was…and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was…and then says to myself, ‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’—and tore it [the letter to Miss Watson telling where Jim was] up.” p. 834.
Huck: “And for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in [Hell], and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.” p. 835.
Huck: “When I got there it was still and Sunday-like and hot and sunshiny—the hands was gone to the fields, and there was them kind of faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome and like everybody’s dead and gone; and if a breeze fans along and quivers the leaves, it makes you feel mournful, because you feel like it’s spirits whispering—spirits that’s been dead ever so many years—and you always think they’re talking about you.” p. 839.
Huck: “Phelps’s was one of those little one-horse cotton plantations; and they all look alike…hound asleep there, in the sun; more hounds asleep, round about; about three shade-trees away off in a corner, some currant bushes and gooseberry bushes in one place by the fence; outside of the fence a garden and a watermelon patch; then the cotton fields begins, and after the fields, the woods.” p. 839.
Huck: “I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come, for I’d noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my mouth, if I left it alone.” p. 480.
Huck: “…it don’t make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t got no sense, and just goes for him anyway…takes up more room than all the rest of a person’s insides, and yet ain’t no good no how.” p. 851.
Huck: “It shows how a body can see and don’t see at the same time.” p. 852.
Huck: “…and I see in a minute it [Tom’s plan for rescuing Jim] was worth fifteen of mine, for style, and would make Jim just as free a man as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides.” p. 853.
Mark Twain. 1884. Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. 1982.
Why read it? A vivid re-creation of the time of slavery in the U.S. A moral dilemma for Huck who, in helping Jim, the escaped slave, is violating the law.
Ideas:
Col. Sherburn: “The pitifulest thing is a mob; that’s what an army is—a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but with courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and fromtheir officers.” p. 768.
Huck: “I went to sleep, and Jim didn’t call me when it was my turn [to watch]; he often done that.” p. 777.
Huck: “He [Jim] was thinking about his wife and his children…and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white people do for their’n…don’t seem natural, but I reckon it’s so…he was…mighty good…, Jim was.” p. 777.
[Jim recounts how his daughter had scarlet fever, which made her deaf; he beat her because she didn’t do what he told her to do—shut the door, when the door slams shut because of a wind, she never moves; he discovers that she is deaf and he feels terrible about how he had treated her.] p. 777.
King: “…but to-morrow we want all to come—everybody, for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so it’s fitten that his funeral orgies sh’d be public.” p. 789.
Huck: “There warn’t no other sound but the scrapin of the feet on the floor, and blowing noses—because people always blows them more at a funeral than they do at other places except church.” p. 801.
Huck: “…and yet here’s a case where I’m blest if it don’t look to me like the truth is better, and actuly safer, than a lie…must lay it in my mind, and think it over some time or other, it’s so kind of strange and unregular.” p. 807.
Huck: “Well, I says to myself at last, I’m agoing to chance it; I’ll up and tell the truth this time, though it does seem like setting down on a kag of powder and touching it off just to see where you’ll go to.” p. 807.
Huck: “…it’s because you ain’t one of these leather-face people…don’t want no better book than what your face is.” p. 810.
Huck: “A body might stump his toe, and take pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his brains out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull up and say, ‘Why he stumped his toe.’ ” p. 813.
Mark Twain. 1884. Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. 1982.
Why read it? A vivid re-creation of the time of slavery in the U.S. A moral dilemma for Huck who, in helping Jim, the escaped slave, is violating the law.
Ideas:
Jim: “Huck, you’s debes’ fren’ Jim’s ever had; en you’r de only fren’ old Jim’s got now…de ole true Huck; de on’y white genlmandat ever kep’ his promise to olde Jim.” p. 712.
Huck: “Well, then, says I, what’s the use you learning to do right [turning Jim in], when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong [NOT turning Jim in], and the wages is just the same…after this always do whichever come handiest at the time.” p. 714.
Buck Grangerford explaining a feud to Huck: “A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man’s brother kills him, then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the cousins chip in—and by-and-by everybody’s killed off and there ain’t no more feud…it’s kind of slow, and takes a long time.” p. 731.
Buck to Huck: “Oh, yes, Pa knows [who started the feud], I reckon, and some of the other old folks; but they don’t know, now, what the row was about in the first place.” p. 731.
Huck: “Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. …feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.” p. 739.
Huck: “…when we got her out to about the middle, we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current wanted her to; then we lit the pipes and dangled our legs in the water and talked about all kinds of things.” p. 741.
Huck: “Once or twice a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in the dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up and out of her chimbleys…and by-and-by her waves would get to us a long time after she was gone, and joggle the raft a bit.” p. 742.
Huck: “It didn’t take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn’t no kings nor dukes, at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds.” p. 747.
Huck: “It almost killed Jim a-laughing…the easiest…to laugh that ever was, anyway.” p. 750.
Huck: “And so he [the preacher] went on , and the people groaning and crying and saying Amen….” p. 753.
Mark Twain. 1884. Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. 1982.
Why read it? A vivid re-creation of the time of slavery in the U.S. A moral dilemma for Huck who, in helping Jim, the escaped slave, is violating the law.
Ideas:
Huck: “I couldn’t tell nothing about voices in a fog, for nothing don’t look natural nor sound natural in a fog.” p. 705.
Huck: “I set perfectly still, then, listening to my heart thump…..” p. 705.
Jim to Huck: “When I got all wore out wid work, en widdecallin’ for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz mos’ broke bekase you wuzlos’, en I didn’t k’yer no mo’ what become er me en deraf’…. When I wakes up en fine you back agin’, all safe en soun’, de tears come en I could a got down on my knees en kiss’ you’ foot I’s so thankful; en all you wuzthinkin’ ‘bout wuz how you could make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie.” p. 709.
Huck: “It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to [Jim]—but I done it, and I warn’t ever sorry for it afterwards, neither…didn’t do him no more mean tricks, and I wouldn’t done that one if I’d a knowed it would make him feel that way.” p. 709.
Huck: “…behind a monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession.” p. 710.
Huck: “Jim said it made him feel all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom.” p. 710.
Huck: “I begun to get through my head that he was most free—and who was to blame for it? …me…couldn’t get that out of my conscience….” p. 711.
Huck: “…conscience up and says, every time, ‘But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a paddled ashore and told somebody.” p. 711.
“Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself…was saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free state he would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the two children, and if their master wouldn’t sell them, they’d get an Ab’litionist to go and steal them.” p. 711.
Huck: “Here was [Jim] which I had as good as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would steal his children—children that belonged to a man I didn’t even know; a man that hadn’t ever done me no harm…sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him.” p. 712.
Comment: You can’t get any more ironic than that last statement. RayS.
Mark Twain. 1884. Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. 1982.
Why read it? A vivid re-creation of the time of slavery in the U.S. A moral dilemma for Huck who, in helping Jim, the escaped slave, is violating the law.
Ideas:
Huck: “I put on the sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to look in and see my face was like looking down a joint of stove pipe…only Jim said I didn’t walk like a girl; and he said I must quit pulling up my gown to get at my britches pocket.” p. 677.
Huck: “So I knocked at the door and made up my mind I wouldn’t forget I was a girl.” p. 678.
Huck: “So she dropped the lump into my lap, just at that moment, and I clapped my legs together on it and she went on talking…you do a girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men, maybe…. When you set out to thread a needle, don’t hold the thread still and fetch the needle up to it; hold the needle still and poke the thread at it—that’s the way a woman most always does, but a man always does ‘tother way…and mind you, when a girl tries to catch anything in her lap, she throws her knees apart, she don’t clap them together, the way you did when you catched the lump of lead…. I spotted you for a boy when you was threading the needle.” p. 683.
Huck: “It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it warn’t often that we laughed, only a little kind of a low chuckle.” p. 688.
Jim to Huck: “Oh, dang it, now, don’t take onso, we all has to have our troubles and this’n’ll come out all right.” p. 696.
Huck: “…so we struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned in and slept like dead people.” p. 698.
Huck: “Well, he [Jim] was right; he was most always right; he had an uncommon level head….” p. 699.
Jim on Solomon’s harem and “million” wives: “Mos’ likely dey was rackety times in de nusssery… I reck’n de wives quarrels considerable; en dat ‘crease de racket… dey say Sollermun de wises’ man dat ever live’ …doan’ take no stock in dat…. why…would a wise man want to live in de mids’ er such a blimblammin’ all de time?” p. 700.
Jim on Solomon: “I don k’yer what de widdder say; he warn’t no wise man…. Does you know ‘bout dat chile dat he ‘uz gwyne to chop in two?” p. 700.
Jim on Solomon: “But you take a man dat’s got ‘bout five million chillen runnin’ roun’ de house…he as soon chop a chile in two as a cat…a chile or two, mo’ or less, warn’t no consekens to Sollermun, dad fetch him.” p. 701.
Mark Twain. 1884. Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. 1982.
Why read it? A vivid re-creation of the time of slavery in the U.S. A moral dilemma for Huck who, in helping Jim, the escaped slave, is violating the law.
Ideas:
Huck: “[Pap] hopped around the cabin considerable, first on one leg and then on the other, holdin’ first one shin and then the other one, and at last he let out with his left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rattling kick, but it warn’t good judgment, because that was the boot that had a couple of his toes leaking out of the front end of it; and down he went in the dirt, and rolled there, and held his toe; and the cussing he done then laid over anything he had ever done previous.” p. 651.
Huck: “After supper Pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky there for two drinks and one delirium tremens.” p. 651.
Huck: “Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late, and smelt late—you knowwhat I mean—I don’t know the words to put it in.” p. 658.
Jim: “…en I hear ole missus tell dewidder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but she didn’t want to, but she could git eight hundid dollars for me, en it ‘uzsich a big stack o’ money she couldn’ resis’.” p. 666.
Jim: “So I says, a raff is what I’s arter, it doan’ make no track.” p. 667.
Huck: “And Jim said you musn’t count the things you are going to cook for dinner, because that would bring bad luck…same if you shook the table cloth after sundown…he said if a man owned a bee-hive, and that man died, the bees must be told about before sun-up next morning, or else the bees would all weaken and quit work and die…said bees wouldn’t sting idiots.” p. 668.
Jim: “Ef you got hairy arms en a hairy breas’, it’s a sign dat you’r agwyne to be rich…dey’s some use in a sign like dat, ‘kase it’s so fur ahead…maybe you’s gut to be po’ a long time fust, en so you might git discourage’ en kill yo’sef ‘f you didn’ know by de sign dat you gwyne to be rich bymeby.” p. 668.
Huck: “…and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild; and next…fst! it was as bright as glory and you’d have a little glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about, away off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as sin again in a second, and now you’d hear the thunder let go with an awful crash and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling down the sky…like rolling empty barrels down stairs….” p. 672.
Huck: “…he [Jim] said he [the dead man] might come and ha’nt us, he said a man that warn’t buried was more likely to a-ha’nting around than one that was planted and comfortable…sounded pretty reasonable….” p. 675.
