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Discussion Groups / English Usage / July 2010Love your Life by Thoreau
"The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. May be they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it often happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means. which should be more disreputable." ---Henry David Thoreau What does "above being supported by the town" mean here? I don't quite understand what Thoreau was trying to say about the poor here. Please help me out, thanks! > "The town's poor seem to me often to live the most > independent lives of any. May be they are simply [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > was trying to say about the poor here. Please help > me out, thanks! They see taking charity provided by the town as demeaning. To hold yourself above something is to hold yourself as superior to it. Yilaner added the following to the totality of all human wisdom on 7/29/2010 in writing > "The town's poor seem to me often to live the most > independent lives of any. May be they are simply [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > was trying to say about the poor here. Please help > me out, thanks! They are not ashamed to take charity.  SignatureYours, Dan S. AMANDA: I don't understand you, Laura. You couldn't be satisfied with just sitting home, and yet whenever I try to arrange something for you, you seem to resist it. [She gets up.] Now take a look at yourself. No, wait! Wait just a moment -- I have an idea! LAURA; What is it now? [Amanda produces two powder puffs, which she wraps in hankerchiefs and stuffs in Laura's bosom.] LAURA: Mother, what are you doing? AMANDA: They call them "Gay Deceivers"! LAURA; I won't wear them! AMANDA: You will! LAURA: Why should I? AMANDA: Because, to be painfully honest, your chest is flat. LAURA: You make it seem like we're setting a trap. AMANDA: All pretty girls are a trap, a pretty trap, and men expect them to be. - The Glass Menagerie DanS. added the following to the totality of all human wisdom on 7/29/2010 in writing > Yilaner added the following to the totality of all human wisdom on 7/29/2010 > in writing [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > They are not ashamed to take charity. Oh, and they are also apt to steal or otherwise misappropriate things. SignatureYours, Dan S. -- AMANDA: You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don't plan for it! TOM: I will think that over and see what I can make of it. - The Glass Menagerie > Yilaner added the following to the totality of all human wisdom on > 7/29/2010 in writing [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > They are not ashamed to take charity. The reverse, surely. They are ashamed to take charity - but they are not ashamed to steal, even though it should be considered far worse to steal than to accept charity. SignatureCheryl P. Cheryl P. added the following to the totality of all human wisdom on 7/29/2010 in writing >> Yilaner added the following to the totality of all human wisdom on >> 7/29/2010 in writing [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > ashamed to steal, even though it should be considered far worse to steal than > to accept charity. Correct. Thanks for pointing that out. SignatureYours, Dan S. There are 10 kinds of people, those who can read binary and those who can't. >> Yilaner added the following to the totality of all human wisdom on >> 7/29/2010 in writing [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > >The reverse, surely. They are ashamed to take charity They *would be* ashamed to take charity, but they don't take it. They are above all that. "Better than that." >- but they are not >ashamed to steal, even though it should be considered far worse to steal >than to accept charity. Those are your bourgeois values. :) Stealing take initiative and cleverness. And that's why it is less of a paradox. They only do what they are not ashamed to do. SignaturePosters should say where they live, and for which area they are asking questions. I was born and then lived in Western Pa. 10 years Indianapolis 7 years Chicago 6 years Brooklyn, NY 12 years Baltimore 26 years |
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