John Neal (1793–1876) was an American editor, poet, novelist, art/literary critic, and man of affairs. He was also an early women’s rights advocate, prohibitionist, and temperance advocate, an opponent of dueling, accomplished lawyer, boxer, and architect.
Born in Falmouth, Maine, Neal went into business but failed, qualified as a lawyer, then became editor of Portico, a short-lived but influential literary monthly published by the chauvinistic Delphian Club, Baltimore. He sometimes signed himself ‘Jehu O’Cataract.’
Neal’s melodramatic novel Keep Cool (1817,) about a man’s guilt over the death of his opponent in a duel, made him famous. Among his many other novels is Logan, A Family History (1822,) about an actual Englishman who married the queen of a Native American tribe. Soon after its publication, Neal went to England 1824–27, where he acted as secretary to philosopher Jeremy Bentham.
Neal’s best novel is Rachel Dyer (1828,) about a Salem witch. His autobiography is Wandering Recollections of a Somewhat Busy Life (1869.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by John Neal
A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man.
Kites rise against, not with the wind.
No man ever worked his passage anywhere in a dead calm.
—John Neal
Topics: Forgiveness, Adversity
The million covet wealth, but how few dream of its perils! Few are aware of the extent to which it ministers to the baser passions of our nature; of the selfishness it engenders; the arrogance which it feeds; the self-security which it inspires; the damage which it does to all the nobler feelings and holier aspirations of the heart!
—John Neal
Topics: Wealth
Drinking water neither makes a man sick nor in debt nor his wife a widow.
—John Neal
A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man; it is what he wants and must have to be good for anything. Hardship and opposition are the native soil of manhood and self-reliance.
—John Neal
Topics: Opposition, Adversity, Difficulties
Talk to the point, and stop when you have reached it.—Be comprehensive in all you say or write.—To fill a volume about nothing is a credit to nobody.
—John Neal
Topics: Brevity
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