Status Updates From Sheppard Lee, Written by Hi...

I agree with what I take to be the central point of the Book VI, that violence is always tragic and can never be fully justified. But the image of an innocent slave owner killed by his slaves doesn’t feel like a great way to make this point


That being said the section isn’t totally without merit: the emergence of a revolutionary conscience is cool, ditto the ideas around the pamphlet and its creation of history

Book VI didn’t age as well as the rest of the book; in fact, it aged pretty poorly. That being said, I’m not done with it yet, and I have the impression Bird’s going to save it, as it seems Tom is on the cusp of developing a revolutionary conscious.

“What is the world around us but a great concert-hall, echoing with the music of birds and beasts, of wind, water, and foliage? what but a great gallery of pictures, painted by the hand of Providence? Nature is a painter—Nature is a musician; and her sons can do nothing better than follow her example.” Book V, Ch 3.

“As for the president, we would have him reserved for a nobler purpose; we would have him boiled down to a soap, according to the plan recommended by the French chymists, to be used by his successor in scouring the constitution and the minds of the people.”

Book IV, Chapter 7.

Outrageous. Absolutely hilarious. Genuinely one of the funniest books I’ve ever read.

Its musings on the soul and the body feel serious without being suffocating, and extremely prescient given the near ubiquity of bodies, orientation, space, etc in modern theoretical writing.

"Reader, if thou art a rich man, and despisest thy neighbour, remember that he has a thousand friends of his class where thou has one of thine, and that he can beat thee at the elections. If thou art a gentleman, remember that thy cobbler is another, or thinks himself so - which is all the same thing in America."

"'Who can say the calling of the quack is not honest - nay, even philanthropic? He is a public benefactor - a friend even of the physicians; for he frees them from the painful necessity of killing, by making men their own executioners.'"

"I say the acquittal was perhaps owing in part to the testimony of the surgeons; though much of it might be attributed to the marvellous humanity that reigns in the criminal courts of the city of Brotherly Love, to the great benefit and encouragement of that proscribed and injured class of men, namely - murderers."

"To this condition he had been reduced by goodness; for, being an amateur in that virtuous art . . . he had borrowed from the hoards of his employers (the president and directors of a certain stock-company, . . .), and thus, perforce, made charitable an institution that was chartered to be uncharitable. He committed the fault, however, of borrowing without the previous ceremony of asking."