1858.68
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Thoreau Assessees Preaching and Base Ball
Salience | Peripheral |
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Tags | FamousFamous |
Location | |
City/State/Country: | [[Concord [[[???]]], MA, US|Concord [[[???]]]]], MA, US |
Modern Address | |
Game | Base BallBase Ball |
Immediacy of Report | Contemporary |
Age of Players | AdultAdult |
Holiday | |
Notables | |
Text | "If I should draw a long breath in the neighborhood of these institutions, their weak and flabby sides would fall out, for my own inspiration would exhaust the air about them. "The church! It is eminently the timid institution, and the heads and pillars of it are constitutionally and by principle the greatest cowards in the community. The voice that goes up from the monthly concerts is not so brave and so cheering as that which rises from the frog-ponds of the land. The best 'preachers,' so called, are an effeminate class; their bravest thoughts wear petticoats. If they have any manhood they are sure to forsake the ministry, though they were to turn their attention to baseball." [[[did he write "baseball" or "base ball?"]]]
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Sources | Henry David Thoreau, Journal entry for November 16, 1858, Journals, [[[citation?]]] |
Warning | We are aware that this quotation is somewhat obscure. |
Comment | Edit with form to add a comment |
Query | Can you throw more light on what Thoreau is saying here? Some interplay on the 19CBB listserve, reports John Bowman, resulted in a shared feeling that Thoreau regarded base ball as more manly than being a preacher, and as an activity that was as disreputable as preaching. Edit with form to add a query |
Source Image | [[Image:|left|thumb]] |
External Number | |
Submitted by | John Bowman |
Submission Note | Posting to 19CBB, 2015 [[[date?Property "Submission Note" (as page type) with input value "Posting to 19CBB, 2015 [[[date?" contains invalid characters or is incomplete and therefore can cause unexpected results during a query or annotation process.] |
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