Chapter 1, Activity 3

In the beginning of this excerpt, Twain gives the speaker the persona of an optmistic. The jovial and euphemistic words he uses show that the reader has a lot of hope for life. The reader's imagination is seen as very festive and exuberant. The reader is seen as full of hope and believes that the world is a wonderful place to be, the descriptive words such as "delightful", "rose-tinted", "fancy", "voluptuous votary", "graceful", "delicious", and "elysian" prove this point. Mark Twain also characterizes the speaker as a dreamer though using the words "fairylike" and "enchanting." But in the midst of all these fancy visions, the reader has a sudden realization and enlightening that his/her vision is not really reality. The speaker is then catergorized as a cynic and disbeliever. The speaker then goes on to say that what he/she had envisioned is "all vanity." The ending sentence is also a conclusion of the speaker's sudden change and negative attitude towards his/her dreams - "earthly pleasures cannot satisfy the longings of the soul!"