To S.M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing
        His Works   385

    To His Excellency General Washington   386

    Letter to Samson Occom   388




Letter to the Reader: The Age of Emerson   393

    Washington Irving (1785-1859)   424
        Rip Van Winkle   426


    James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)   443
        From The American Democrat   445
            On American Equality   445
            On American Slavery   448


    Cherokee Memorial   450
        [Memorial of tbe Cherokee Citizens,
            December 18, 1829]   452


    Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791-1865)   456
        The Indian's Welcome to tbe
            Pilgrim Fathers   457


    William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)   459
        Thanatopsis   460
        The Prairies   463


    William Apess (1798-1839)   467
        An Indian's Looking-Glass for the Wbite Man   467


    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)   475
        Nature   477
        The American Scholar   515
        Self-Reliance   532
        Concord Hymn   555
        The Rhodora   555


    Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)   557
        Young Goodman Brown   559
        The May-Pole of Merry Mount   570
        The Minister's Black Veil   581

                                                 viii