Unit 1: Part 3 Vocabulary II

It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection.

Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, while by others it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition.

Temperance first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head, which is so necessary where constant vigilance was to be kept up, and guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits and the force of perpetual temptations.

In truth, I found myself incorrigible with respect to Order; and now I am grown old, and my memory bad, I feel very sensibly the want of it.

It may be well my posterity should be informed that to this little artifice, with the blessing of God, their ancestor owed the constant felicity of his life, down to his seventy-ninth year in which this is written.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that’s the stuff life is made of.

I had the same sick feeling when I was required to write my critical essay for my MFA exam—the only piece of noncreative writing necessary in order to get my graduate degree. How was I to start? There were rules involved here, unlike writing a poem or story, which I did intuitively.

I’ve managed to do a lot of things in my life I didn’t think I was capable of and which many others didn’t think me capable of either.

To make matters worse, I had left before any of my six brothers had ventured away from home. I had broken a terrible taboo.

The house on Destiny Street, Number 12, in the colonia Tepeyac, would be perhaps the only home I knew, and that nostalgia for a home would be a theme that would obsess me.

My mother flourished in her own home.

This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died—thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers.

This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable, and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated.

One day, when we had a smooth sea and moderate wind, two of my wearied countrymen who were chained together (I was near them at the time), preferring death to such a life of misery, somehow made through the nettings and jumped into the sea; immediately, another quite dejected fellow, who, on account of his illness, was suffered to be out of irons, also followed their example...

In this manner we continued to undergo more hardships than I can now relate, hardships which are inseparable from this accursed trade.

The clouds appeared to me to be land, which disappeared as they passed along. This heightened my wonder; and I was now more persuaded than ever, that I was in another world, and that every thing about me was magic.

We thought by this, we should be eaten by these ugly men, as they appeared to us; and, when soon after we were all put down under the deck again, there was much dread and trembling among us, and nothing but bitter cries to be heard all the night from these apprehensions, insomuch, that at last the white people got some old slaves from the land to pacify us.

The Account you give of the melancholly State of our dear Brother Mr. Cranch and his family is really distressing and must severely afflict you.

I have seen only Mr. Marshall and Mr. Stoddert, General Wilkinson and the two Commissioners Mr. Scott and Mr. Thornton.

You will form the best Idea of it from Inspection.

I am with unabated Confidence and affection your
John Adams

Here and there is a small cot, without a glass window, interspersed amongst the forests, through which you travel miles without seeing any human being.

The house is upon a grand and superb scale, requiring about thirty servants to attend and keep the apartments in proper order, and perform the ordinary business of the house and stables; an establishment very well proportioned to the President’s salary.

The house is upon a grand and superb scale, requiring about thirty servants to attend and keep the apartments in proper order, and perform the ordinary business of the house and stables; an establishment very well proportioned to the President’s salary.

Briesler entered into a contract with a man to supply him with wood.

A small part, a few cords only, has he been able to get. Most of that was expended to dry the walls of the house before we came in, and yesterday the man told him it was impossible for him to procure it to be cut and carted.

He has had recourse to coals; but we cannot get grates made and set.

An issue is a debatable idea. There is no right or wrong opinion.