Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
or design on our rst. There must be some. There must be many. The whole truth
can only be disclosed after numerous and repeated conversations. These must take
place at considerable intervals, and when all is told, then shall you be ready to
encounter the nal ordeal, and load yourself with heavy and terric sanctions.
I shall be the proper judge of the completeness of your confession.—Knowing
previously, and by unerring means, your whole history, I shall be able to detect all
that is decient, as well as all that is redundant. Your confessions have hitherto
adhered to the truth, but decient they are, and they must be, for who, at a single
trial, can detail the secrets of his life? whose recollection can fully serve him at an
instant’s notice? who can free himself, by a single eort, from the dominion of fear
and shame? We expect no miracles of fortitude and purity from our disciples. It is
our discipline, our wariness, our laborious preparation that creates the excellence
we have among us. We nd it not ready made.
I counsel you to join Mrs. Benington without delay. You may see me when
and as often as you please. When it is proper to renew the present topic, it shall
be renewed. Till then we will be silent.—Here Ludloe left me alone, but not to
indierence or vacuity. Indeed I was overwhelmed with the reections that arose
from this conversation. So, said I, I am still saved, if I have wisdom enough to
use the opportunity, from the consequences of past concealments. By a distinction
which I had wholly overlooked, but which could not be missed by the sagacity and
equity of Ludloe, I have praise for telling the truth, and an excuse for withholding
some of the truth. It was, indeed, a praise to which I was entitled, for I have made
no additions to the tale of my early adventures. I had no motive to exaggerate
or dress out in false colours. What I sought to conceal, I was careful to exclude
entirely, that a lame or defective narrative might awaken no suspicions.
The allusion to incidents at Toledo confounded and bewildered all my thoughts.
I still held the paper he had given me. So far as memory could be trusted, it was
the same which, an hour after I had received it, I burnt, as I conceived, with my
own hands. How Ludloe came into possession of this paper; how he was apprised
of incidents, to which only the female mentioned and myself were privy; which she
had too good reason to hide from all the world, and which I had taken innite pains
to bury in oblivion, I vainly endeavoured to conjecture.
3.19.2 Reading and Review Questions
1. What is the eect of this work being unnished, and why?
2. How reliable a narrator is Carwin? How do you know?
3. How, if at all, are Carwin’s ambitions uniquely American?
4. How does Carwin’s ability to imitate the voices of other people aect his
individuality, or character?
5. How does Carwin’s ventriloquism connect with nature, particularly with
nature in America?
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