Directions: Read each passage below. Analyze how the passage relates to the themes of transcendental literature, what message the author is trying to portray, and how the message applies to modern life. Passage
Transcendental Themes
Author’s Message
Connection to Modern Life
Our life is frittered away by detail...simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million, count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.

Hardly a man takes a half hour’s nap after dinner, but when he wakes he holds up his head and asks, “What’s the news?”...After a night’s sleep the news is as indispensable as the breakfast.

I have never received more than one or two letters in my life...that were worth the postage...If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications?

We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad? Each one is a man...The rails are laid on them...and ever few years a new lot is laid down and run over.