| 1 | Author: | EDITED BY
A Son of Temperance. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The fountain and the bottle  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | By Father Frane. “My dear Daughter,—As I write this, you are
playing about my room, a happy child, and all unconscious
of the great loss you will soon have to bear in
the death of your mother. Not long have I now to
remain upon the earth. The sands in my glass have
run low; the life-blood in my heart is ebbing; a few
more fluttering pulses, and my spirit will take its
flight from earth.—Ah, my child! not until you are
yourself a mother, can you understand how I am distressed
at the thought of leaving you alone in this
selfish and cruel world! But I will not linger on
this theme. “Mr. Guzzler,—Dear Sir:—I find that it won't
be convenient for me to lend you the money we
talked about. In fact, to tell the plain truth, I hardly
think it prudent to risk any thing with a man who
neglects his business. No one who lies in bed until
eleven or twelve in the morning, need expect to get
along. Pardon this freedom; but he is the best
friend, generally, who speaks the plainest. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 10 | Author: | Takayama, Chogyu | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Takiguchi nyudo | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | Japanese Text Initiative | | | | Description: | やがて
來
(
こ
)
む
壽永
(
じゆえい
)
の秋の哀れ、
治承
(
ぢしよう
)
の春の樂みに知る由もなく、
六歳
(
むとせ
)
の後に昔の夢を
辿
(
たど
)
りて、
直衣
(
なほし
)
の袖を絞りし人々には、
今宵
(
こよひ
)
の歡曾も中々に忘られぬ
思寢
(
おもひね
)
の涙なるべし。 | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 13 | Author: | Tayama, Katai | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Futon | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | Japanese Text Initiative | | | | Description: | 小石川の
切支丹坂
(
きりしたんざか
)
から
極楽水
(
ごくらくすい
)
に出る道のだらだら坂を下りようとして
渠
(
かれ
)
は考えた。「これで自分と彼女との関係は一段落を告げた。三十六にもなって、子供も三人あって、あんなことを考えたかと思うと、馬鹿々々しくなる。けれど……けれど……本当にこれが事実だろうか。あれだけの愛情を自身に注いだのは単に愛情としてのみで、恋ではなかったろうか」 | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 14 | Author: | Tokuda, Shusei | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Arakure | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | Japanese Text Initiative | | | | Description: | お
島
(
しま
)
が
養親
(
やしないおや
)
の口から、近いうちに自分に
入婿
(
いりむこ
)
の来るよしをほのめかされた時に、彼女の
頭脳
(
あたま
)
には、まだ何等の
分明
(
はっきり
)
した考えも起って来なかった。 | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 59 | Author: | Tarkington, Booth, 1869-1946 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Alice Adams | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE patient, an old-fashioned man, thought
the nurse made a mistake in keeping both of
the windows open, and her sprightly disregard
of his protests added something to his hatred
of her. Every evening he told her that anybody
with ordinary gumption ought to realize that night
air was bad for the human frame. "The human
frame won't stand everything, Miss Perry,'' he
warned her, resentfully. "Even a child, if it had
just ordinary gumption, ought to know enough not to
let the night air blow on sick people—yes, nor well
people, either! `Keep out of the night air, no matter
how well you feel.' That's what my mother used to
tell me when I was a boy. `Keep out of the night
air, Virgil,' she'd say. `Keep out of the night air.' '' | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 60 | Author: | Tarkington, Booth, 1869-1946 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Conquest of Canaan | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | A DRY snow had fallen steadily
throughout the still night, so that
when a cold, upper wind cleared the
sky gloriously in the morning the
incongruous Indiana town shone in a
white harmony—roof, ledge, and earth as evenly
covered as by moonlight. There was no thaw;
only where the line of factories followed the big
bend of the frozen river, their distant chimneys like
exclamation points on a blank page, was there a
first threat against the supreme whiteness. The
wind passed quickly and on high; the shouting of
the school-children had ceased at nine o'clock with
pitiful suddenness; no sleigh-bells laughed out on
the air; and the muffling of the thoroughfares
wrought an unaccustomed peace like that of Sunday.
This was the phenomenon which afforded the
opening of the morning debate of the sages in the
wide windows of the "National House.'' | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 61 | Author: | Tarkington, Booth, 1869-1946 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Flirt | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Valentine Corliss walked up Corliss Street the hottest afternoon
of that hot August, a year ago, wearing a suit of white serge
which attracted a little attention from those observers who were
able to observe anything except the heat. The coat was shaped
delicately; it outlined the wearer, and, fitting him as women's
clothes fit women, suggested an effeminacy not an attribute of
the tall Corliss. The effeminacy belonged all to the tailor, an
artist plying far from Corliss Street, for the coat would have
encountered a hundred of its fellows at Trouville or Ostende this
very day. Corliss Street is the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, the
Park Lane, the Fifth Avenue, of Capitol City, that smoky
illuminant of our great central levels, but although it esteems
itself an established cosmopolitan thoroughfare, it is still
provincial enough to be watchful; and even in its torrid languor
took some note of the alien garment. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 62 | Author: | Tarkington, Booth, 1869-1946 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Magnificent Ambersons; illustrated by Arthur William Brown | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | MAJOR AMBERSON had "made a fortune" in 1878, when other people were losing
fortunes, and the magnificence of the Ambersons began then. Magnificence,
like the size of a fortune, is always comparative, as even Magnificent Lorenzo
may now perceive, if he has happened to haunt New York in 1916; and the Ambersons
were magnificent in their day and place. Their splendour lasted throughout
all the years that saw their Midland town spread and darken into a city,
but reached its topmost during the period when every prosperous family with
children kept a Newfoundland dog. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 75 | Author: | Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1805-1859. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | democracy in America, volume 1 | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during
my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly
than the general equality of conditions. I readily discovered
the prodigious influence which this primary fact exercises on the
whole course of society, by giving a certain direction to public
opinion, and a certain tenor to the laws; by imparting new maxims
to the governing powers, and peculiar habits to the governed. I
speedily perceived that the influence of this fact extends far
beyond the political character and the laws of the country, and
that it has no less empire over civil society than over the
Government; it creates opinions, engenders sentiments, suggests
the ordinary practices of life, and modifies whatever it does not
produce. The more I advanced in the study of American society,
the more I perceived that the equality of conditions is the
fundamental fact from which all others seem to be derived, and
the central point at which all my observations constantly
terminated. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 80 | Author: | Tolstoy, Leo graf, 1828-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Hadji Murad | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | I WAS returning home by the fields. It was midsummer; the hay harvest
was over, and they were just beginning to reap the rye. At that season
of the year there is a delightful variety of flowers — red white and
pink scented tufty clover; milk-white ox-eye daisies with their bright
yellow centres and pleasant spicy smell; yellow honey-scented rape
blossoms; tall campanulas with white and lilac bells, tulip-shaped;
creeping vetch; yellow red and pink scabious; plantains with
faintly-scented neatly-arranged purple, slightly pink-tinged blossoms;
cornflowers, bright blue in the sunshine and while still young, but
growing paler and redder towards evening or when growing old; and
delicate quickly-withering almond-scented dodder flowers. I gathered a
large nosegay of these different flowers, and was going home,
when I noticed in a ditch, in full bloom, a beautiful thistle plant of
the crimson kind, which in our neighborhood they call "Tartar," and
carefully avoid when mowing — or, if they do happen to cut it down,
throw out from among the grass for fear of pricking their hands.
Thinking to pick this thistle and put it in the center of my nosegay, I
climbed down into the ditch, and, after driving away a velvety
bumble-bee that had penetrated deep into one of the flowers and had
there fallen sweetly asleep, I set to work to pluck the flower. But this
proved a very difficult task. Not only did the stalk prick on every
side — even through the handkerchief I wrapped round my hand — but it
was so tough that I had to struggle with it for nearly five minutes,
breaking the fibres one by one; and when I had at last plucked it, the
stalk was all frayed, and the flower itself no longer seemed so fresh
and beautiful. Moreover, owing to a coarseness and stiffness, it did
not seem in place among the delicate blossoms of my nosegay. I felt
sorry to have vainly destroyed a flower that looked beautiful in its
proper place, and I threw it away. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 92 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Tom Sawyer Abroad / by Mark Twain. | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | DO you reckon Tom Sawyer was satisfied after all
them adventures? I mean the adventures we had
down the river, and the time we set the darky Jim free
and Tom got shot in the leg. No, he wasn't. It only
just p'isoned him for more. That was all the effect it
had. You see, when we three came back up the river
in glory, as you may say, from that long travel, and
the village received us with a torchlight procession and
speeches, and everybody hurrah'd and shouted, it
made us heroes, and that was what Tom Sawyer had
always been hankering to be. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 95 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of
the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Boomerang,
and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression
of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance.
He roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had
commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion
of his boyhood named Leonidas W. Smiley — Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley
— a young minister of the Gospel, who he had heard was at one time
a resident of this village of Boomerang. I added that if Mr. Wheeler
could tell me any thing about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would
feel under many obligations to him. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 97 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Is Shakespeare Dead? | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | SCATTERED here and there through the stacks of unpublished
manuscript which constitute this formidable Autobiography
and Diary of mine, certain chapters will in some distant future be
found which deal with "Claimants"—claimants historically
notorious: Satan, Claimant; the Golden Calf, Claimant; the Veiled
Prophet of Khorassan, Claimant; Louis XVII., Claimant; William
Shakespeare, Claimant; Arthur Orton, Claimant; Mary Baker G.
Eddy, Claimant
—and the rest of them. Eminent Claimants,
successful Claimants, defeated Claimants, royal Claimants, pleb
Claimants, showy Claimants, shabby Claimants, revered Claimants,
despised Claimants, twinkle starlike here and there and yonder
through the mists of history and legend and tradition—and oh, all
the darling tribe are clothed in mystery and romance, and we read
about them with deep interest and discuss them with loving
sympathy or with rancorous resentment, according to which side
we hitch ourselves to. It has always been so with the human race.
There was never a Claimant that couldn't get a hearing, nor one
that couldn't accumulate a rapturous following, no matter how
flimsy and apparently unauthentic his claim might be. Arthur
Orton's claim that he was the lost Tichborne baronet come to life
again was as flimsy as Mrs.
Eddy's that she wrote Science and
Health from the direct dictation of the Deity; yet in England near
forty years ago Orton had a huge army of devotees and incorrigible
adherents, many of whom remained stubbornly unconvinced after
their fat god had been proven an impostor and jailed as a perjurer,
and to-day Mrs. Eddy's following is not only immense, but is daily
augmenting in numbers and enthusiasm. Orton had many fine and
educated minds among his adherents, Mrs. Eddy has had the like
among hers from the beginning. Her church is as well equipped in
those particulars as is any other church. Claimants can always
count upon a following, it doesn't matter who they are, nor what
they claim, nor whether they come with documents or without. It
was always so. Down out of the long-vanished past, across the
abyss of the ages, if you listen
you can still hear the believing
multitudes shouting for Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 101 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Innocents Abroad | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | FOR months the great pleasure excursion
to Europe and the Holy Land was chatted about in the newspapers everywhere
in America and discussed at countless firesides. It was a novelty in the
way of excursions — its like had not been thought of before, and it
compelled that interest which attractive novelties always command. It was
to be a picnic on a gigantic scale. The participants in it, instead of
freighting an ungainly steam ferry-boat with youth and beauty and pies and
doughnuts, and paddling up some obscure creek to disembark upon a grassy
lawn and wear themselves out with a long summer day's laborious frolicking
under the impression that it was fun, were to sail away in a great
steamship with flags flying and cannon pealing, and take a royal holiday
beyond the broad ocean in many a strange clime and in many a land renowned
in history! They were to sail for months over the breezy Atlantic and the
sunny Mediterranean; they were to scamper about the decks by day, filling
the ship with shouts and laughter — or read novels and poetry in the shade
of the smokestacks, or watch for the jelly-fish and the nautilus over the
side, and the shark, the whale, and other strange monsters of the deep;
and at night they were to dance in the open air, on the upper deck, in the
midst of a ballroom that stretched from horizon to horizon, and was domed
by the bending heavens and lighted by no meaner lamps than the stars and
the magnificent moon-dance, and promenade, and smoke, and sing, and make
love, and search the skies for constellations that never associate with
the "Big Dipper" they
were so tired of; and they were to see the ships of twenty
navies — the customs and costumes of twenty curious
peoples — the great cities of half a world — they were to
hob-nob with nobility and hold friendly converse with kings and
princes, grand moguls, and the anointed lords of mighty empires! It
was a brave conception; it was the offspring of a most ingenious
brain. It was well advertised, but it hardly needed it: the bold
originality, the extraordinary character, the seductive nature, and
the vastness of the enterprise provoked comment everywhere and
advertised it in every household in the land. Who could read the
program of the excursion without longing to make one of the party? I
will insert it here. It is almost as good as a map. As a text for
this book, nothing could be better: | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 102 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Mysterious Stranger; A Romance by Mark Twain [pseud.] with
illustrations by N.C. Wyeth. | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IT WAS IN 1590—winter. Austria was far away from the world, and asleep;
it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever.
Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by the
mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in Austria. But
they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were
all proud of it. I remember it well, although I was only a boy; and I remember,
too, the pleasure it gave me. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 106 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Roughing It | | | | Published: | 1998 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | MY brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada
Territory—an office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself
the duties and dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of
State, and Acting Governor in the Governor's absence. A salary of
eighteen hundred dollars a year and the title of "Mr. Secretary,"
gave to the great position an air of wild and imposing grandeur. I
was young and ignorant, and I envied my brother. I coveted his
distinction and his financial splendor, but particularly and
especially the long, strange journey he was going to make, and the
curious new world he was going to explore. He was going to
travel! I never had been away from home, and that word "travel"
had a seductive charm for me. Pretty soon he would be hundreds
and hundreds of miles away on the great plains and deserts, and
among the mountains of the Far West, and would see buffaloes and
Indians, and prairie dogs, and antelopes, and have all kinds of
adventures, and may be get hanged or scalped, and have ever such
a fine time, and write home and tell us all about it, and be a hero.
And he would see the gold mines and the silver mines, and maybe
go about of an afternoon when his work was done, and pick up two
or three pailfuls of shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and silver on
the hillside. And by and by he would become very rich, and return
home by sea, and be able to talk as calmly about San Francisco and
the ocean, and "the isthmus" as if it was nothing of any
consequence to have seen those marvels face to face. What I
suffered in contemplating his happiness, pen cannot describe. And
so, when he offered me, in cold blood, the sublime position of
private secretary under him, it appeared to me that
the heavens and the earth passed away, and the firmament was
rolled together as a scroll! I had nothing more to desire. My
contentment was complete.
ENVIOUS CONTEMPLATIONS.
At the end of an hour or two I was ready for the journey. Not
much packing up was necessary, because we were going in the
overland stage from the Missouri frontier to Nevada, and
passengers were only allowed a small quantity of baggage apiece.
There was no Pacific railroad in those fine times of ten or twelve
years ago—not a single rail of it. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 116 | Author: | Tenney, Charles N. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 1861 June 16 | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | Would you be offended if I were to say my dear Addie? for I'm sure I would
much rather call you by the name my heart prompts me to. I am very well quite
so. and trust you are. Brig--or rather Lieut. Case is also quite well. He has improve
a great deal since he left home. and you may rest assured that he will be well
cared for, for we all love him very much I know there is no man to whom I am as
much attached as to your brother, you may well be proud of such a brother. I prophecy that no man will sooner reach a place in the hearts
of the people equal to Col. Ellsworth or even Stephen A.
Douglas or Lincoln, [part of page missing] than
your brother,H[part of page missing] B. Case. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 117 | Author: | Tenney, Charles N. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, September 16, 1861 | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | War has its visissitudes as well as the other phases of life and they
are not a few I'll assure you. For the past few weeks things have been
constantly changing; one day we would be reposing in perceived
security and perhaps the next morning be awakened and moved to haste
to prepare to meet the meet the enemy who were momentarily expected to
come upon us, still except in the instance of Cross Lanes they have
not made an open attack upon us. The ?
But you will think this is a
strange opening for a letter but today it is my
"style" Among other changes, ten, includ ing
Will B and my self, from Co. H. have been detailed as
guards on the Steamer Silver Lake under command of Lieut Wood. (I wish
very much that Hal was in his place) We have made these trips from
Camp E, 12 miles above Charleston Va. to Gallipolis
Ohio and we are now We have on board several of the wounded from
the battle ofCarnix's Ford1 fought last
Tuesday, and the remains of Col. Lowe of the 12th O. Regt. who fell at
the same battle fighting bravely. Among the wounded are Col. Lytle of
the 10th Regt Lieut. Col. Mason of the 13th and Capt
McGoverty of the 13th. It is perhaps necessary for me to
state that the day was won by our gallent Ohio boys. as you ere this
musthave received the particulars
I had no idea of the feelings
produced by being engaged in a battle until the fight at Cross
Lanes2. These feelings were indescribable.
I had no thoughts of dodging the balls nor did I think of getting
killed All I did was to take one thought of friends (including you, my
dear Addie) then watch for an opportunity to send some
"Secesh"
to
"Kingdom Come" but although we saw them on our front, right, and
left, I thought I would reserve my fire till I was sure of my man, or
at least till the order was given to fire so lost a chance to discharge my
piece | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 119 | Author: | Tenney, Charles N. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 1861 October 1 | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | You will doubtless think I mean you shall have enough of my nons sense but perhaps it will be as heretofore, you may not get this.
However, I will address you once more. "I am well as usual, and hope these few lines
will find you the same," and having a few moments liesure I improve the same in
writing to you.-There,- cant I tell a thing two or three times if any one can? It
would be a pleasure to me to be in Mecca, to-day. I could enjoy my self, "right
smart, I reckon" and the Virginians say. Mecca, I suppose is not so lively now, as
last year at this time. of course the War produces its
awful effects even in Oildom, does it not? I, you
percieve, am off the boat now, the Valley has become so quiet as not to need a guard,
so we came off last Saturday | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 127 | Author: | Tenney, Charles N. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 1862 January 01 | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | How do you do, this beautiful day? Did you ever see such a beautiful new years day
in your life? The day here is as pleasant as the most delightful day I ever saw in
May. The main things wanted thought, to make me
perfectly happy to-day, are, first a letter from my Addie.
second Hal's recovery from his present indisposition. He
has not been well for the past few days and last night he was some worse, but
is, I trust, better this morning I hope he will soon be able to resume his duties. He
is not so bad however, as to call in the Doctor yet, and I hope will not. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 128 | Author: | Tenney, Charles N. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 1862 Jan 13 | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | I must add a few lines more to you my own dear friend. Hal has told me all. Do you imagine that those things
would deter me from having the same feelings which I other= wise would
have? Far from it, dearest Addie; my
mind is not so prejudiced by contact with the world, as to make
me think that the misdemeanors of one member of a family should
detract from the merit of an- other. My own experience teaches me
better. On the contrary, I love you better than
ever. Do not think me presumptious. Addie if I say I love you. Do not
discard me from your thoughts. I
will try to make myself worthy of your love. Do I speak too
assured? Hallie assures me that he has not the
least object= ion to our correspondence, and leaves me to act as I see
proper. With you, now rests my happiness Shall I be happy or the
reverse? Do you ask me to wait until you become better acquainted
with me? I do not ask or expect that on so short acquaintance you
shall decide forever. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 131 | Author: | Tenney, Charles E. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 1862 January 23 | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | After patiently waiting for several days, I have been rewarded by the
reception of a kind letter from my only correspondent, and as a matter
of pleasure, rather than duty, I devote this stormy evening to answer
it Capt. Wood came back yesterday, and the letter you sent by him,
Hallie gave me to-day. Have I not sufficiently answered it? Dear Addie, may I not consider part thereof as
though it never had been written? Now as Hallie has told me all, do not for a moment think that any such thing could make me "curse" you, or even
make me think otherwise of you, dear Addie,
than I always have. Only allowmeto love you, dearest. Will you not?
You have doubtless recieved one or two letters since you wrote the letter now
before me. I shall have little rest until I recieve a reply. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 132 | Author: | Tenney, Charles N. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 1862 Jan 30 | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | Conflicting emotions have tossed me about, all unmindful of my poor heart, fairly
disturbing my rest at night, until to day. To add to my trials, my
best friend, and brother, Hal. yesterday
started for home. How sad I felt! But I could not bear to pain his noble heart, so I
strove to appear cheerful. I did not send even a line to you, by him , something restrained me--told me I should soon
recieve a letter from you--. and I could not-- dare not
write in my. (then) unhappy state of mind. True enough, when the mail arrived this
morning, a letter came for Hal. My heart told me, that in that
envelope was a letter for me. Lieut. Boisbine, for me, opened it and my heart was gladdened.
Your letter found me well, and made me happy. I
say "happy." Hope was infused into my heart, and with Hope comes Happiness. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 133 | Author: | Tenney, Charles N. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 1862 February 15 | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | Your darling letter was received today, and I improve the first
opportunity to try to answer it. I say try, for I
am inad- equate to the task of making my
letters as interesting as yours, but if they are as productive of
happenings as you persist in saying they are, why, I will give you any
quantity of them. Yours, well, I can compare them
to nothing but angels visits, and like them, I could wish they were more
frequently received. You may imagine my joy at receiving yours today
it made me happy, for it reassurred me that you love me, and you know, how
that is. Do you not | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 134 | Author: | Tenney, Charles N. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 1862 February 23 | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | Now that you are here before me, can we not have a few moments quiet "tete a tete," all by our selves? How does my
darling Addie manage to pass away the weary monotonous hours which
seem to lag merely to annoy us? In singing, sleighing, and having "good
times" I suppose. I think I never saw time pass as wearily, as it does
here. It is a joyous time when the mail comes in, and plenty of letters
come for us. but then my day does not come more
than once a week. & sometimes it passes
over without my getting any. How glad I was, when
Cap Asper gave me your letter yesterday, I can not
tell you. You may imagine my surprise, and gratification on percieving
that it contained your miniature. I can only thank you now, and hope
that I may come home soon and repay you better. But it is not one quarter as pretty as the original, but it
serves to assure me that
you love me, and I ought to be very
grateful. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 135 | Author: | Tenney, Charles N. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 1862 February 26 | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | Few, very very few, have as kind or as good a friend as I find
in my darling Addie. Again I was made happy by the reception of a letter from her
whom my heart holds very dear & near. There being no more pleasant duty before me
this evening, I devote it to communicating my scattered thoughts, per
paper to you. Now do not imagine that there is any duty,
which, in pleasure, comes between us, for such is not the case, | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 140 | Author: | Tenney, Charles | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 21 March 1862 & 28 March 1862 | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | Imagine, if you can my joyful surprise, on arriving in from Strasburg, Pa- was
the fact of my having four letters. "In luck", said I upon opening them I found three
good long letters from Addie two notes from Laurie and one good letter from
Gail. "It never rains, but pours" is an old adage, and if true, I may expect some
other good fortune soon, I am at a loss to know how
to answer your triple favor, and my perplexity increases when I note the
multitudinous(horrors! what a long word!)subjects to write about. I guess I will confine myself to writing that which contains no public interest reserving that for the "Chron". Firstly the
"grand move" is much followed up, and is nearly at a "level", and
notwithstanding the 7th was included, we are all safe. My
health is excel lent and trust it will continue so. Gen.
Shields with his entire command moved on the 18th toward Strasburg. Ha ha! Aint
I fortunate? Moore just came in with the mail, and two more letters came for
"Chas N. Tenney."/ from the other from N.
J. Braden of Gustavus | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 141 | Author: | Tenney, Charles | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 7 April 1862 | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | I know you must be very anxious to know the reason why I do not
oftener write to you, but much as I would love to have constant
correspondence with you, even daily, yet it seems
as if the "fortunes of War", or something else,
are against me; Every day since I wrote last—(the last of
March2) I have inquired if letters could
be sent, and invariably received a negative answer. But I have grown
impatient at the delay, so write, hoping to see some one I know, going to
Win=
chester3, with whom I can send this
and thus,"run the Blockade". | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 144 | Author: | Tenney, Charles, fl. 1861-1863 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 28 April 1862 | | | | Published: | 2005 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | So you are going away from
Mecca to be "Addie" no longer, but
Mistress1. To leave
"Maple Grove", Papa, Laurie, and Auntie (to say nothing of the rest.) and
install yourself as head of a large school, to "teach the young scholars how to
shoot". I fancy I see you just ringing the first bell; then as that strange motley
crowd gathers in and by pairs sort themselves, and then then as you tap the bell to
secure order. I seem to see you look around as if seeking if some
friend were there. Did I hear aright? Methought I heard a
chapter from the Bible by way of introduction. Then I heard that silvery voice -
perhaps at first tremblingly - addressing the school in accents of kindness saying you will love and wish to be loved. Do not fear,
my love. I have been in the same place. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 145 | Author: | Tenney, Charles | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 13 August 1862 | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | I embrace the first oppertunity I
have to write you to apease you of my perfect safety. You have heard of the
great battle of the 9th and must be anxious to learn
of my fate. I escaped without a scratch, and am grateful to God for
his mercy. I knew when I wrote you last that when an engagement should
seem that we should be sent to the front. but I
could not tell you, for I knew you would suffer so much on my account.
Now that the battle is over, the rebels in full retreat and only 104 104 men left in the noble old
7th I can tell you. Gen. Pope said he wanted
Tyler's Brigade (now Geary's) in the front “to set an example to
the eastern troops”and nobly has the example been set. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 147 | Author: | Tenney, Charles N. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 5
Spetember 1862 | | | | Published: | 2005 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | At last, I have a chance to write a few lines,with a hope that it will soon reach you. I
wrote you a good long letter from Culpepper on the 18th of August, but as we left
there that day, I supposed it has never been sent. On the 20th, an order was recieved from Gen.
Halleck forbidding the further transmission of mails, and until now I have had no opportunity
to send a line to apprise you of my safety. I know how you must suffer, and how thoughless you
must think me, but all I can plead is the inexorable character of military orders. I have much
to write you as soon as we can remain 24 hours in a place. Since the 18th, we have been
constantly under arms and for more than 3/4 of the time under fire from the enemy, but we have
not lost a man. I have kept a full journal of all our proceedings, which I shall send to the
Chronicle for publication, as soon as I can. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 148 | Author: | Tenney, Charles N. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, September 9, 1862 | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | Your very short, but withal kind letter of Aug. 18th,
I recieved yesterday, and although there is no
certainty of a chance to send it, I will reply to it today. You will
forgive me for writing on so poor quality of paper, when I tell you that
mine is all with the company wagon, and this sheet is all I could
obtain out here in the woods. You will wonder why I do not oftenerwrite to you and what can induce me
to remain silent for so long a time, I wrote you a letter a few days since,
but could not send it until a day before yes=
terday. —In it, I gave you a very hasty sketch of what we had
been doing for the two or three weeks previous, and said "when we could
remain 24 hours in a place, I had much to write you. Although we have
remained in our present position for nearly forty eight hours, we know not
how soon we may move three, ten or twenty miles, but I will do all I can
in the interim. My health (notwithstanding the constant exposure)
remains in excellent condition, which I consider somewhat remarkable, as
the officers who are much better cared for than the men, and very many of
the men are suffering from Colds. summer complaints, &c. Perhaps it is owing to your prayers, and your wish for
me to care for my health. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 149 | Author: | Tenney, Charles N. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, September 21st, 1862 | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | Ere this reaches you, the telegraph will have informed you of the great battle of the
17
th
, at Sharpsburg and you will be painfully anxious to learn
the fate of your Charlie. Through the mercy of the"God of battles," as
heretofore, I came through perfectly safe. To your prayers, precious one, I owe my safety.
Day before yesterday, I recieved two letters from you, dated Aug 31
st
& Sept. 8
th
and Sept. 10
th
, one enclosing a note from Dora, and I need not tell you that they were recieved
with pleasure, for you already know how I prize your letters. But I owe you an
explanation for not writing oftener than I have for the past month, and will give it now.
If you have recieved the letters I wrote from near Georgetown and near Rockville, you
will have seen why I did not write while on the Rappahannock. The
day I wrote you last. we marched some eight miles, and with the exception of two days
when it rained. (and we had no shelter.) have been marching or doing some duty
equally laborious, thus putting it completely beyond any power to write— part of
the time, even in my diary. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 150 | Author: | Tenney, Charles N. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 25 September 1862 | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | Here I am once more in Virginia-- again on sacred soil. Not only in Va. but way
up on the Blue Ridge, where the very clouds are often under our feet. It would
be very pleasant, if it were not for two very serious drawbacks.-- It is quite
cold, and we have to go down the mountain half a mile for water, There is a kind
of Block house up here, from which and we have a splendid view of the
surrounding country, particularly to the north and west. We can see the
church-spires of Martinsburg with the aid of a field glass.- 21 miles distant
and were it not for intervening hills and forest we could see Winchester. Away
as far as the eye can reach the Alleghenies raise their lofty peaks, far above
the heights of North Mountain and the Shenandoah Mountains both of which
intervene. As far as romance goes, this is by far the most interesting place we
have been in. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 151 | Author: | Tenney, Charles N. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 26 September 1862 | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | Very many days have elapsed since I last indited a letter to you, but you have been by
no means forgotten, but while we have been tramping over the hills and vales of
"sacred Virginia," and "Maryland, my Maryland," my mind has
often wandered away up "where the water tastes like ile," and
delighted itself in calling up hours never to be forgotten. But this is not telling
you why I have not sooner written. Since we evacuated Cullpepper on
the 19th of August, until we came
to this point, (the 23d inst.) we have been constantly engaged in
all the duties and troubles of an arduous cam- paign. When the
rebels performed that astounding feat of outflanking the seat of war itself, we lay in a
state of fancied security on the Rappahannock, never dreaming that two weeks later we
would be fighting in Maryland, yet the deed was accomplished,
and even Fredericktown a union city was invested and infested by
a subtle and cunning foe. Of course, Maryland must be
liberated,
and who should do it, but the "Splendid Army of
Va." Thus by a series of "forced marches," adroit escapes from a surrounding enemy,
and "brilliant reconnoissances," we were transferred over into MD. hitherto to be known
as "Capital defense army," and we have accomplished the task. — Maryland
is free from rebel tread, though pol- luted by rebel dead. We
have fought the battles of South Mountain and Sharpsburg, and the rebel army went
out of Maryland 40,000 weaker than it entered. We — our Corps d'armee - occupy Loudon Heights below the far famed town of Harper's Ferry,
and from the elevated position we occupy. we naturally feel above
common people. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 156 | Author: | Tenney, Charles N. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 1862 November 13 | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | I recieved your charming letter of the 2d just as I was taking my letter of
the 9th to the office and I thought I would wait and answer it. But, Addie mine, I had no idea of waiting six days ere attending to that important and not unpleasant duty — but my health was
in such a state — that I was unable to attend to "office duties."
But lest I frighten you, I will tell you all — just as it really
was — I had a slight attack of Liver Complaint which troubled me
some, but I am recovering from it now — not in my fancy — but really
getting well — I am somewhat thinner and
weaker than I was, but that might have been expected — During
the entire time, I have remained in the office — so you see I
have not been "dangerous" by any means. I should not have been so
explicit, but you are so fearful I half conceal the real truth, but my
darling rest assured I can conceal
nothing from you — which I know you so wish
to know, | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 157 | Author: | Tenney, Charles | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from Charles N. Tenney to Adelaide E. Case, 25 November 1862 | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | The Corinne Carr Nettleton Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Nettletoncivilwarletters | | | | Description: | Does my chirography look familiar to you? or has it been so long since you had the
pleasure of seeing a specimen that you fail? But I have just recieved two darling letters from you dated Nov. 9th
& 16th, in both of which you complain of not recieving
a letter from “Charley” fortwo-three
weeks. I do not wonder that you begin to feel alarmed about him, but calm your
fears my love, I am neither dead nor changed, & I am enjoying better health
than I have for three weeks past, and am steadily gaining, so that I think there is
no immediate danger of my demise nor consignment to the Hospital.— I must
apologize for not writing within the past week as I promised to do.— We
have changed the Pro Marshal, and with the change came a great
deal of work for
“us four clerks”, and we have had to keep
hard at work from dawn of day until half past ten at night.
Thus you see but very little time for letter
writing remained for us. Will you not pardon me
under the circumstances? | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 159 | Author: | Trenton, Annie | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Annie Armentrout to Kate Armentrout, February 8, 1862 | | | | Published: | 2002 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-BrandLetterscivilwar | | | | Description: | If you think it is so lonely since the "V. Rts." left I will try & have
you forget them a few moments, by reading a letter from Home for fear if you
think of them so much you will become troublesome on aunt's hands. And I now
don't wonder at you feeling lonely, since I have heard that that certain Mister is out of reach of
his "Plug of tobacco," & so far away from "his Cousin Janey." Now Kate dont go to grieving about
him, for I will have him a plug by the time you get home, not worth
while though to get it before as you have forbid him coming
until you return "for fear he would fall in love with me." | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 160 | Author: | Trout, Annie | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Annie Armentrout to Kate Armentrout, February 20, 1862 | | | | Published: | 2002 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Civil War Collection | UVA-LIB-BrandLetterscivilwar | | | | Description: | I will commence my letter with the sad description of John's funeral. He died
Thursday night at twelve oclock, his corps reached
home or rather his Uncle Toms Saturday evening, & his funeral was
preached there, to a large congregation of dearly loved school mates &
friends on Monday. Oh Kate I never saw any one look so life like in my life not one change from the dear face we parted with last
summer not one did I say, not one in outward
appearance, but oh that one great change that had sealed those dear lips, dimed those eyes & stilled that tender loving heart. Kate I
felt as though I must say something to him to wake him up for I could but think
he was sleeping, no mortal hand could have smoothed that countenance to such
perfect tranquility. John now sleeps to wake no more but his pure spirit
unconfined is exploring the regions of the unknown world. After remembering
& sending messages to all his schoolmates & friends he told his
Pa to tell one & all to meet him in Heaven
& his last moments were prayer haveing become
perfectly concious. Kate Just two days before his
death his Father in mooving his sachel let your likeness fall. John said "Pa
take that home with you & take good care of it." I donot know whether he said any more about it or not. I
wanted to have a talk with Mr Lightner the day of the funeral but so many were
around him asking about John that I had no chance. Doctor McFarland preached an
exelent sermon from
Psams
the CXIX 119 chapter
75:76:&77th verses. The first hymn: It is the Lord, enthroned in Light;
The second: Lord we share thy best
designs; The last: submissive to thy will, My God. He is buried in Mr Pilson's
graveyard by the side of his uncle John Tompson & now farewell dear Jno until the resurrection morn where we hope to
meet you in realms of light & blessedness: Farewell, Farewell. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 161 | Author: | Twine, Charles | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Liberian Letters: Charles Twine to Dr. James H. Minor 1858
January 28 | | | | Published: | 1998 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Liberianletters | | | | Description: | I hope thes lines may find you well as thes leave me 2 pole Axes
tow
grubings
H
hoes one
han Saw. Send tow
cage of nails
no
4
no
10 one Set of knifes &
forks one dusen
tine plats, please send me Barrel of Bacon send me one Barrel of Hearen.
one Barrel of
Crus
Sugar. one cage of Butter one Box of SheseChees. please send me 3 Role of Calco of difrent
kind 1 Role of onblich
cotten one Role of
bleasch cotten
please send me a
patten
of broad cloth the other got
disstroyed by accident
Send me tow black satten ves please Send me one Role of beadticken please send
me a
pladed
cantepin
tow blanket one bead
stide Send me one box of
calafenuas hats of diffrent kind three
cuse
pare brogins
tow pare fine welted shause for Sunday send me Fahler pice & one bag of Duck shauts
please send me box of soap
please send me some fine Pocket hankerchif send me one dusin
sockes send me some flackes
thread 3 hole
bucket I want tow nice Gay silk
hanker chif please send me one
Whipe saw
jamun
stile please send tobacco seedes some of all you have one
hand please send me barrel syrup please send me some saks
to take one or tow bottel of Cast oil send me me some vinager | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 163 | Author: | Twine, Charles | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Liberian Letters: Charles Twine to Dr. James H. Minor 1860
January 19 | | | | Published: | 1999 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | UVA-LIB-Liberianletters | | | | Description: | I write you these lines to inform you of my health which is quite well
& hope these will find you the same. I recive the meshesed you sent me
& I understan
that you was in sulted about the letter I send you but Deare Sir I did not
meane to insulte you. I
was very glad to hear that your family was well
& your
peopel was well
if you aras insulted Sir I aske your parden When you
see my sister please tell her howdy for me. tell her if I never see her on erth I
hop to meet her in heaven whose
perstin will be no more
Lucy &
Adline
send thare best respects hear
tell Susan she must excuse me for not writing to
her but I will write her on the next Ship Myself & will will send you some mony
the reason I write before
twas because I thugh I had
some money there but if I have none I will stop
writen
over those to you I heard that some
of the peopel have some things come but I
have not recive anything as yeat
if I have anything else home Please send it to me
in
me
ennything you see proper
tell
Aunt rachel Hardy for
me &
auncel John
&
Sadey Brackston & Caroling Brackston
&
Noley
Sharps
tell sadey & Courotiny tha mus write me | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 166 | Author: | Thornton, W. M. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from W. M. Thornton to Carter Thornton, April 14, 1896; [a
machine-readable transcription] | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Description: | I sent off a long
letter to mamma on yesterday. Tonight
I hear that her second draft has come
and so I shall scratch this note off
for you and begin to think that you
are really coming home again, when
the money for your steamer tickets has
to be sent on. I shall surely be glad
to see you. The two troubled, sorrow-
ful years seem very long and very lone-
ly and I wonder now that I could
brave a second and a worse one after
the unhappy first. Today real dig-
ging began for our new buildings.
The other contracts are not yet let out
and will not be until May. But it
makes us all feel more cheerful to have
any actual work going on. Jack had
a card from Mrs. Stapleton this even-
ing announcing her safe arrival at
Hamburg. She is with you long since,
of course, and you have extracted all
her news. I trust she is more cheerful
under the German skies and that
the climate and life will be good
for her. She is fond of music and
will enjoy that, I know; and I think
she will be glad to be with your
mamma and Janet once more. Is
it not queer how your mamma's
little canary has perked up since
he got home? He never sang a note
from the day he left the UVa on his
journey to Montana. A few days
after I got him back I heard him
apparently trying his throat, and
now he wakes me almost every
morning, warbling away as soon as the skies brighten—
not so sweetly as of old, but still real singing again. He
would be a little buzzard, however, if he did not sing now.
The Spring is fairly opening, the air is soft and mild, and
the mocking birds are fluting away for dear life. This little
fellow is ashamed to be left out of the concert. I shall
send your mamma two announcements which will inter-
est and amuse her — one of Becnel's graduation as Doc-
tor of Medicine at the Tulane (I told her of meeting him
there) — the other of Mayberry's marriage to Miss Rhett
of Charleston. I think that is doing pretty well for both
of our old friends. The Dramatic Club had to postpone
their Easter entertainment because of Jennie Randolph's
illness. They telegraphed for Lizzie Harrison to take her place
and Lizzie is to come; but she will need some time to learn
the part and rehearse thoroughly and so the play was put
off for two or three weeks. Mary Stuart went off yesterday
to Roanoke on a visit and to be for a time under her Uncle
Willie's professional care. The poor little child looks badly
and I am afraid no doctor can do a great deal for her.
Her cheerfulness and high spirit are undaunted however;
she is always bright and gay and full of interest in life.
Dearest love to all of you from the Doc up to mamma. Write me
a line when you can. We are all well, and the various invalids of
our community are all doing nicely. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 167 | Author: | Thornton, John T. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter from John T. Thornton to Mrs. E. Rosalie Thornton, Oct. 27, 1895 [a
machine-readable transcription] | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Description: | I write to let you know of a most
fearful calamity which has befallen the dear old
University. This morning I heard cries of fire and
found that the Annex was in flames. Everyone
was running to the Rotunda and soon a large
crowd was assembled. No water could be gotten as
high as the flames, only a miserable little stream
of water about six feet in length came from the
hose when at the level of the ground. In response
to telegrams, Lynchburg and Richmond sent
their engines by special trains, but the Lynchburg
engine was delayed in the road and did not
arrive within an hour of the expected time.
I received a telegram from Richmond when the
fire had been almost put out & wired back not
to send the engine. Their was nothing to do but
to try to keep the fire from Buckmaster's and
Tuttle's houses and to save all that was within
the Rotunda and annex. They tried to blow
up the portico between the Annex and the
rotunda in the hope that, if the engine should
arrive in time, the lib Rotunda might be saved
But all to no purpose. Soon the flames had gained
possession of the Rotunda and nothing is now
left standing but the bare and ruined walls.
The boys worked like fiends to save all that was
possible. Kent estimates that only 1/10 of the books
was saved but he is wrong—In my opinion at
least 1/3 or over were saved. The Austin Collection was
lost entirely. The statue of Jefferson, Minor's bust,
the pictures were saved in fairly good condition.
The School of Athens was lost. Uncle Frank's valuable
physical apparatus was carried out but the greater
part so broken as to be practically useless.
Only 25000 insurance wh. no where near covers
the loss. Is estimated that 75000 will scarcely
rebuild the rotunda and annex to say nothing
of loss in books and instruments. No change in
lectures which will continue as usual, the classes
meeting in Wash Hall, Temperance Hall, Museum
and Professor's offices. Papa is back in his old
room — 5 W.L. where the chairman's office will be.
Papa is so busy that he cannot write to you to
night and told me to let you know of the loss.
Am so exhausted myself that I cannot write much.
The Professors are taking it bravely — not lamenting
the past but making plans for the future.
You can imagine how distressed everyone is.
I myself, now that the excitement has worn
off, am getting more and more miserable
every minute and I can't expressed to you
my sorrow. I love this old University with all
my heart and if I who am comparatively young
am so grieved what must be the distress of those
old professor's who have worked for the University
so long and lectured so often within those
now ruined walls! What a number of blows have
struck this University within the year you have been
away! Misfortune after misfortune has crippled
its usefulness and now that this crowning glory of
the University, this building planned and built by
Jefferson, this splendid library, our so famous copy
of the School of Athens, the dear old clock that
never kept time, should be destroyed seems the
seems to be the crowning evil and the worst that
this Nemesis who pursues us could let fall on
our heads. Horrible! horrible! horrible! The things
gets worse the more I think about it. However
lamentations do no good. We can only depend
on state aid and the generosity of our alumni.
Have just opened a telegram from Geo. Anderson of
Richmond saying that he wanted to start a
subscription immediately. Telegrams of sympathy
come from all sides. O'Ferral seems especially
interested. That is a good sign that the state will help
us. Some taking a cheerful view of the situation
say that in the end it will benefit the U Va. by
bringing her more before the people. Cannot offer
any opinion on that subject. Thank you very much
for the beautiful pair of gloves and more especially for
thinking of me and of my 20th anniversary. Had
intended to write you a special letter of thanks to-day
but am too tired and miserable. Love to the children
and yourself. Excuse hasty scribble, & believe me | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 168 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter, Mark Twain, Hartford, CT, to Fred J. Hall, 1890 Dec 27 [a machine-readable transcription] | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Description: | I don't believe Whitford.
Webster was too big a coward
to bring a suit when advised
against it. The real mistake
was in trusting law business
to an ignorant, blethering
gas-pipe like Whitford.
I am not saying this in
hatred, for I do not dislike
Whitford. He is simply a
damned fool — in Court —
& will infallibly lose every
suit you put into his hands.
If you are going to have
any [illeg.]lawsuits with Gill,
I beg that you will either
compromise or have
some other law conduct
the thing. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 169 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Regular Toast. Woman—God Bless Her [a machine-readable transcription] | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Description: | The toast includes
the sex, universally: it is to Woman,
comprehensively, wheresoever
she may be found. Let us con-
sider her ways. First, comes the
matter of dress. This is a most
important consideration, in a
subject of this nature, & must
be disposed of before we can
intelligently proceed to examine the profounder
depths of the theme. For text, let
us take the dress of two antipodal
types — the savage woman of
Central Africa, & the cultivated
daughter of our high modern
civilization. Among the
Fans, a great negro tribe, a woman,
when dressed for breakfast, or
home, or to go to market, or go out
a pick-up dinner, or to sit at home,
or to go out calling, or to a simple or to take a simple tea with
friends & neighbors, or to go out
calling, does not wear anything
at all but just her complexion.
That is all; that is her entire
outfit. It is the lightest cos-
tume in the world, but is made
of the darkest material. It has
often been mistaken for mourning.
It is the trimmest, & neatest, & grace-
fulest costume that is now in
fashion; it wears well, is fast
colors, doesn't show dirt; you
don't have to send it down town
to wash, & have some of it come
back scorched with the flat-iron, &
some of it with the buttons ironed
off, & some of it petrified with
starch, & some of it chewed by the
calf, & some of it rotted with
acids, & some of it exchanged
for other customers' things that
haven't any virtue but holiness,
& don't fit you anyhow,
& ten-twelfths of the pieces over-
charged for, & the rest of the dozen
stolen"mislaid." And it always fits; it is the
perfection of a fit. And it is the
handiest dress in the whole realm
of fashion. It is always ready, always "done up."
When you call on a Fan lady &
send up your card, the hired
girl never says, "Please take
a seat, madam is dressing —
she will be down in three-quarters
of an hour." No, madam is
always dressed, always ready
to receive; & before you can get
the door-mat before your eyes, she
is in your midst. And the hired
girl never has to say to a lady
visitor, "Please excuse madam,
she is undressing;" & even if
she ever had to bring such an
excuse at all, she wouldn't say
it in that way: she would say,
"Please excuse madam, she's skins,
not herself!" Then again, the
Fan ladies don't go to church to
see what each other has got on;
& they don't go back home & describe
it & slander it. The farthest they
ever go is to say some little biting
thing about the ultra fashionables | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 173 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter, Mark Twain, Langham Hotel, London, to (Elisha) Bliss, (1873) Jul 7 [a machine-readable transcription] | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Description: | Finally concluded
not to go to Paris.
So you can take
the Herald letters &
put them in a pam-
phlet along with the
Enclosed article
about the Jumping
Frog in French,
(which is entirely new)
& then add enough
[Written in margin:
I enclose Prefatory remarks,
"To the Reader." You can mention,
if you choose, that the Frog article
has not been printed before.
of my old sketches to
make a good fat
25 cent pamphlet
& let it slide — but
don't charge more
than 25c nor less.
If you haven't a
Routledge edition of
my sketches to select
from you will find
one at my house or
Warner's. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 175 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter, Mark Twain, Hartford, CT, to "Miss Harriet," 1876 Jun 14 [a machine-readable transcription] | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Description: | I am a long
time answering your
letter, my dear Miss
Harriet, but then you
must remember that
it is an equally long
time since I received
it — so that makes us
even, & nobody to blame
on either side. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 177 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter, Mark Twain, New York, to "Dear Folks" (Jane Clemens et al), 1867 Apr 15 [a machine-readable transcription] | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Description: | I need not have hurried
here so fast, but I didn't know
that. All passages had to be se-
cured & the Twelve hundred & fifty
dollars fare paid in to-day the
15th, for the Holy Land Excursion,
& so I had to be here I thought —
but the first man I met this
morning was the chief of the
Alta bureau with a check
for $1,250 in his hand & a tele-
graphic dispatch from the
proprietors of the Alta say-
ing "Ship Mark Twain in the
Holy Land Pleasure Excursion
& pay his passage." So we
just went down & attended to the
matter. We had to wait awhile,
because the chief manager was
not in & we did not make our-
selves known. A newspaper
man came in to get & asked
how many names were booked
& what notabilities were going, &
a fellow (I don't know who he
was, but he seemed to be connected
with the concern,) said "Lt. Gen.
Sher-
man, Henry Ward Beecher & Mark
Twain are going, & probably Gen.
Banks!" I thought that was very good — an exceedingly good joke for
a poor ignorant clerk. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 178 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter, Mark Twain, Hartford, CT, to (George) Bentley, 1877 Sep 15 [a machine-readable transcription] | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Description: | I sent you No. 1 of
a series of 4 articles which
I have been writing for
the Atlantic Monthly, &
with this I enclose No. 2.
I saw Mr. Chatto in New
York lately, & told him
he could have these ad-
vance sheets for one
of his magazines in case
you did not wish to use
them. I have just writ-
ten Mr. Chatto that I have
not heard from you &
therefore cannot inform
him whether you want
the advance sheets or
not. I have suggested
that he inquire of you. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 180 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Mark Twain, New York, to Joseph H. Twichell, 1868 Nov 28 [a machine-readable transcription] | | | | Published: | | | | | Description: | Sound the loud timbrel! —
& let yourself out to your to your most
prodigious capacity — for I have fought
the good fight & lo! I have won! Re-
fused three times — warned to
quit, once
— accepted at last! — & beloved! —
Great Caesar's ghost, if there were a
church in town with a steeple high
enough to make it an object, I would
would go out & jump over it! And
I persecuted her parents for 48 hours
& at last they couldn't stand the siege
any longer & so they made a conditional
surrender: — which is to say, if
she
[illeg.] makes up her mind thoroughly
& eternally, & I prove that I have
done nothing criminal or particularly
shameful in the past, & establish a
good character in the future & settle
down, I may take the sun out of their
domestic firmament, the angel out of
their fireside heaven. [Thunders of
applause.] She felt the first symp-
toms last Sunday — my lecture, Mon-
day night, brought the disease to the
surface — Tuesday & Tuesday night
she avoided me & would not do more
than be simply polite to me because
her parents said NO absolutely
(al-
most,) — Wednesday they capitulated &
marched out with their side-arms
— Wednesday night — she said over
& over & over again that she loved
me but was sorry she did & hoped
it would yet pass away — Thursday
I was telling her what a splendid
magnificent fellows you & your
wife were, & when my enthusiasm
got the best of me & the tears sprang
to my eyes, she just jumped up &
said she was glad & proud [illeg.] she
loved me! — & Friday night I left
(to save her sacred name from the
tongues of the gossips — & the last
thing she said was: "Write
im-
mediately & just as often as
you
can!" Hurra! [Hurricanes
of applause.] There's the history of it. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 181 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Letter to Elisha Bliss | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Description: | Finally concluded not to go to Paris. So you can take the Herald letters & put them in a
pamphlet along with the enclosed article about the Jumping Frog in French, (which is entirely
new) & then add enough [along side of paper: I enclose prefatory remarks, "To the
Reader." You can mention, if you choose, that the Frog article has not been printed before] of
my old sketches to make a good fat 25 cent pamphlet & let it slide — but don't
charge more than 25 c[ents] nor less. If you haven't a Routledge edition of my
sketches to select from you will find one at my house or Warner's. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 186 | Author: | Twain, Mark: related material: Ade, George | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Mark Twain and the Old Time Subscription Book | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | MARK TWAIN should be doubly blessed for
saving the center table from utter dullness. Do you remember that
center table of the seventies? The marbled top showed glossy in the
subdued light that filtered through the lace curtains, and it was clammy
cold even on hot days. The heavy mahogany legs were chiseled into
writhing curves from which depended stern geometrical designs or
possibly bunches of grapes. The Bible had the place of honor and was
flanked by subscription books. In those days the house never became
cluttered with the ephemeral six best sellers. The new books came a
year apart, and each was meant for the center table, and it had to be so
thick and heavy and emblazoned with gold that it could keep company with
the bulky and high-priced Bible. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 187 | Author: | Brock: Board of Trade | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Whitehall: The Board of Trade to Governor James Glen, November 15, 1750 (excerpt) / by the Board of Trade | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | We come now to that Letter of yours which relates to the internal State
of Your Government. And before we make any observations
on the Reasons given in your Letter to evince the Necessity of a Paper
Currency in your Province and what else you have said upon the Subject,
it will be proper to tell you that the Report of the Committee of
Conference which you have sent us on the present State of Paper Currency
in your Province, and the Bills now outstanding differs from an Account
which we have had prepared here for our Use from the several Acts of
Assembly which have been passed in your Government for emitting such
Currency. We will state to you what We understand to be the Amount of
the Paper Currency at present outstanding in your Province and the
operations which every Act has had, that you may compare our State with
that of the Committee and explain the Reason of their differing. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 190 | Author: | Taylor, Bayard | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Views A-Foot; Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | [from Chapter XIX, "Leipsic and Dresden"] The railroad
brought us in three hours from Leipsic, over the eighty miles of plain
that intervene. We came from the station through the Neustadt,
passing the Japanese Palace and the equestrian statue of Augustus the
Strong. The magnificent bridge over the Elbe was so much injured by the
late inundation as to be impassable, and we were obliged to go some
distance up the river bank and cross on a bridge of boats. Next morning
my first search was for the Picture Gallery. We set off at random, and
after passing the Church of Our Lady, with its lofty dome of solid
stone, which withstood the heaviest bombs during the war with Frederick
the Great, came to an open square, one side of which was occupied by an
old, brown, red-roofed building,
which I at once recognized as the
object of our search. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 191 | Author: | Thanet, Octave | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Day of The Cyclone | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IT was a warm day.
Perhaps but for that
it might not have
happened, since Captain Barris is a most
temperate man. Unluckily the day was
warm, very warm,
and Archy was tired with a long ride in
the "accommodation train:" and a vision of a glass of beer — cool, foaming,
pleasantly stinging — rose before him.
He had just been stationed at Rock
Island Arsenal, and all his knowledge of
the town of Grinnell was the fact that he
had inherited some property within its
limits. Quite innocently, therefore, he
stared about him for some sign of refreshment. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 192 | Author: | Thoreau, Henry David | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Civil Disobedience | | | | Published: | 1998 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best
which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up
to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally
amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is
best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared
for it, that will be the kind of government which the will
have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most
governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes,
inexpedient. The objections which have been brought against
a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve
to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing
government. The standing army is only an arm of the
standing government. The government itself, which is only
the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will,
is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the
people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war,
the work of comparatively a few individuals using the
standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the
people would not have consented to this measure. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 194 | Author: | Thompson, Charles Miner | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Miss Wilkins: An Idealist in Masquerade | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | ON any walk or drive in rural New England, in the springtime,
one is sure to find on some abandoned farm an unkempt old apple
orchard. The gnarled and twisted trees uphold on their rotting
trunks more dead than living branches, and bear, if at all, only a
few scattered and ghostly blossoms. And in that group of pitiable
trees, dying there in the warm sunshine, there will be nothing to
suggest life and joyousness except the golden woodpeckers with
their flickering flight, and the bluebirds with their musical, low
warble. If, indeed, the orchard stands upon a sloping hillside,
one can glance away and see in the valley prosperous villages,
smiling, fertile farms, and other orchards, well kept, healthy, and
looking from their wealth of blossoms like white clouds stranded.
But if one be of a pessimistic complexion, he can shut his eyes to
that pleasanter prospect, gaze only at the old orchard, and think
of it as typical of New England. So, in fact, in its limited
degree, it is; but almost to the ultimate degree of exactness is it
typical of the New England village which Miss Wilkins delights to
draw. In place of the worn-out trees there are gnarled and twisted
men and women. There are, of course, the young people, with their
brief, happy time of courtship, to take the place in it of the
birds; but her village, like the orchard, is a desolate and
saddening spectacle. In that community of Pembroke which she has
celebrated, what twisted characters! Barney Thayer refuses to
marry Charlotte Barnard because, as the result of a quarrel with
her father, Cephas, he hastily vows never to enter the house again.
Not the anger of his mother, not the suffering of his sweetheart,
not even jealousy of handsome Thomas Paine,—who, seeing her
forsaken, makes bold to woo,—has power to move him from his
stubborn stand. The selfish pride of Cephas is so great that he
lets his daughter's happiness be destroyed rather than admit
himself wrong, or take the smallest step to reconcile him with her
lover. Barney Thayer inherits his self-will from his mother, a
woman of indomitable will, who rules her family with an iron hand.
When she hears that Barney has refused to marry Charlotte, she
forbids him ever to step within her door again; when her youngest
son, Ephraim, who has a weak heart and whom the doctor has
forbidden her to whip, disobeys her, she whips him, and he dies;
when her daughter Rebecca falls in love with William Berry, she
forbids the marriage for a trivial cause, and when Rebecca, denied
the legitimate path of love, steps aside into the other way, she
disowns and casts her out. She loses all her children rather than
yield to them the least shadow of her authority. Charlotte
Barnard's cousin, Sylvia Crane, leaving her own house on the Sunday
night of Charlotte's quarrel with Barney to comfort her, misses the
weekly call of Richard Alger, her lover. His nature, compounded of
habit and pride and stubbornness, does not let him come again, once
his pride has been offended, once his habit has been broken. Silas
Berry—William Berry's father—is determined to sell his cherries
for an exorbitant price. When the young people refuse to buy, he
tells William and Rose, his children, to invite them to a picnic
and cherry-picking. When the guests are departing, he waylays them
to demand payment for his cherries. He outrages common decency
with his mean trickery, but he has his way. Nearly every character
in the book is a monstrous example of stubbornness,—of that will
which enforces its ends, however trivial, even to self-destruction.
The people are not normal; they are hardly sane. Such is
Miss Wilkins's village, and it is a true picture; but it wholly
represents New England life no more than the dying apple orchard
wholly represents New England scenery. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 198 | Author: | Tolstoy, Count Ilya | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | My Last Visit to My Mother | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | WITH all the other appalling news from Russia comes word of the
devastation of the home of Leo Tolstoy and the burning of his
manuscripts. This news is so horrible that I cannot believe it is true.
I cannot believe the people can be so blinded as to attack a helpless
old woman, the widow of the greatest man of Russia, and destroy the
precious relics that have no other value except that of preserving the
memory of this man. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 200 | Author: | Torrey, Bradford | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | On Foot in the Yosemite | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | WHEN flocks of wild geese light in the Yosemite, Mr. Muir
tells us, they have hard work to find their way out again.
Whatever direction they take, they are soon stopped by the wall,
the height of which they seem to have an insuperable difficulty in
gauging. There is something mysterious about it, they must think.
The rock looks to be only about so high, but when they should be
flying far over its top, northward or southward as the season may
be, here they are once more beating against its stony face; and
only when, in their bewilderment, they happen to follow the
downward course of the river, do they hit upon an exit. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 202 | Author: | Turgenev, Ivan | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Living Mummy | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | "A DRY fisherman and a wet hunter make sorry figures," says the French proverb.
Never having had any turn for angling, I can form no opinion as to the feelings
of a fisherman in fine sunny weather — or tell how far, in foul
weather, the satisfaction he obtains from a good catch makes up for the
unpleasantness of getting drenched. But, for any one out shooting, rain is an
actual disaster. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 203 | Author: | Trites, W.B. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Dostoievsky | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE Slav peril has been much talked about of late. Now
the Slav peril means, if it means anything, Russian thought;
and Russian thought, as it reveals itself in Russian literature and Russian dancing, seems to me the most splendid and
most desirable thought in the world to-day. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 204 | Author: | Trux, J. J. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Negro Minstrelsy — Ancient and Modern | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | It is now some eighteen or twenty years since an enterprising
Yankee, actuated, it is but charitable to suppose, by the purest
love of musical art, by the enthusiasm of the discoverer, or by a
proper and praiseworthy desire for posthumous fame, produced upon
the boards of one of our metropolitan theatres, a musical sketch
entitled "Jim Crow." Beyond the simple fact of its production by
the estimable gentleman above referred to, the origin of this
ancient and peculiar melody is beyond the reach of modern
antiquarian lore. Whether it was first sung upon the banks of the
Alatamaha, the Alabama, or the Mississippi; or, whether it is pre-American, and a relic of heathen rites in Congo, or in that
mysterious heart of Africa, which foot of civilized man has never
trod, is a problem whose solution must be left to the zeal and
research of some future Ethiopian Oldbuck. It is sufficient for
the present disquisition to know that it appeared in the manner
above stated. To those (if there can be any such) who are
unacquainted with its character and general scope, it may be proper
to remark that "Jim Crow" is what may be called a dramatic song,
depending for its success, perhaps more than any play ever written
for the stage, upon the action and mimetic powers of the performer.
Its success was immediate and marked. It touched a chord in the
American heart which had never before vibrated, but which now
responded to the skilful fingers of its first expounder, like the
music of the Bermoothes to the magic wand of Prospero. The
schoolboy whistled the melody on his unwilling way to his daily
tasks. The ploughman checked his oxen in mid-furrow, as he reached
its chorus, that the poetic exhortation to "do just so," might have
the action suited to the word. Merchants and staid professional
men, to whom a joke was a sin, were sometimes seen by the eyes of
prying curiosity in private to unbend their dignity to that weird
and wonderful posture, now, alas! seldom seen but in historic
pictures, or upon the sign of a tobacconist; and of the thoroughly
impressive and extraordinary sights which the writer of this
article has in his lifetime beheld, the most memorable and
noteworthy was that of a young lady in a sort of inspired rapture,
throwing her weight alternately upon the tendon Achillis of the
one, and the toes of the other foot, her left hand resting upon her
hip, her right, like that of some prophetic sybil, extended aloft,
gyrating as the exigencies of the song required, and singing Jim
Crow at the top of her voice. Popularity like this laughs at
anathemas from the pulpit, or sneers from the press. The song
which is sung in the parlor, hummed in the kitchen, and whistled in
the stable, may defy oblivion. But such signal and triumphant
success can produce but one result. Close upon the heels of Jim
Crow, came treading, one after the other, "Zip Coon," "Long-tailed
Blue," "Ole Virginny neber tire," "Settin' on a Rail," and a host
of others, all of superior merit, though unequal alike in their
intrinsic value, and in their participation in public approval.
The golden age of negro literature had commenced. Thenceforward
for several years the appearance of a new melody was an event whose
importance can hardly be appreciated by the coming generation. It
flew from mouth to mouth, and from hamlet to hamlet, with a
rapidity which seemed miraculous. The stage-driver dropped a stave
or two of it during a change of the mails at some out of the way
tavern; it was treasured up and remembered, and added to from day
to day, till the whole became familiar as household words. Yankee
Doodle went to town with a load of garden vegetables. If upon his
ears there fell the echo of a new plantation song, barter and
sight-seeing were secondary objects till he had mastered both its
words and music. Thereafter, and until supplanted by some equally
enthusiastic and enterprising neighbor, Yankee Doodle was the hero
of his native vale, of Todd Hollow. Like the troubadours and
minstrels of ancient days, he found open doors and warm hearts
wherever he went. Cider, pumpkin pie, and the smiles of the fair
were bestowed upon him with an unsparing hand. His song was for
the time to him the wand of Fortunatus. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 214 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The American Vandal Abroad | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | I am to speak of the American Vandal this evening, but I wish to say
in advance that I do not use this term in derision or apply it as a
reproach, but I use it because it is convenient; and duly and properly
modified, it best describes the roving, independent, free-and-easy
character of that class of traveling Americans who are not
elaborately educated, cultivated, and refined, and gilded and filigreed
with the ineffable graces of the first society. The best class of our
countrymen who go abroad keep us well posted about their doings in
foreign lands, but their brethren vandals cannot sing their own praises
or publish their adventures. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 220 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Great Revolution in Pitcairn | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | LET me refresh the reader's memory a little. Nearly
a hundred years ago the crew of the British ship
Bounty mutinied, set the captain and his officers adrift
upon the open sea, took possession of the ship, and
sailed southward. They procured wives for themselves
among the natives of Tahiti, then proceeded to a lonely
little rock in mid-Pacific, called Pitcairn's Island,
wrecked the vessel, stripped her of everything that
might be useful to a new colony, and established themselves
on shore. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 226 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Life on the Mississippi | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE Mississippi is well worth reading about. It is not a
commonplace river, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable.
Considering the Missouri its main branch, it is the longest
river in the world—four thousand three hundred miles.
It seems safe to say that it is also the crookedest river in the world,
since in one part of its journey it uses up one thousand three hundred
miles to cover the same ground that the crow would fly over in six
hundred and seventy-five. It discharges three times as much water
as the St. Lawrence, twenty-five times as much as the Rhine,
and three hundred and thirty-eight times as much as the Thames.
No other river has so vast a drainage-basin: it draws its water
supply from twenty-eight States and Territories; from Delaware,
on the Atlantic seaboard, and from all the country between that and Idaho
on the Pacific slope—a spread of forty-five degrees of longitude.
The Mississippi receives and carries to the Gulf water from
fifty-four subordinate rivers that are navigable by steamboats,
and from some hundreds that are navigable by flats and keels.
The area of its drainage-basin is as great as the combined areas
of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany,
Austria, Italy, and Turkey; and almost all this wide region is fertile;
the Mississippi valley, proper, is exceptionally so. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 227 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Morals Lecture | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | I WAS SOLICITED to go round the world on a lecture tour by a man in Australia. I asked him
what they wanted to be lectured on. He wrote back that those people were very coarse and
serious and that they would like something solid, something in the way of education, something
gigantic, and he proposed that I prepare about three or four lectures at any rate on just morals,
any kind of morals, but just morals, and I like that idea. I liked it very much and was perfectly
willing to engage in that kind of work, and I should like to teach morals. I have a great enthusiasm
in doing that and I shall like to teach morals to those people. I do not like to have them taught to
me and I do not know any duller entertainment than that, but I know I can produce a quality of
goods that will satisfy those people. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 228 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Twain, Mark: Selected Obituaries | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | It will be many a day before the people of the United States forget
Mark Twain, the man. Since far back in the 70's he had been one of our
national celebrities, and perhaps the greatest of the clan, beaming,
expansive and kindly: a star at all great public feasts; the friend of
Presidents and millionaires, of archbishops and actors, welcome
everywhere and always in good humor, a fellow of infinite jest. As the
years passed his picturesque figure grew more and more familiar and
lovable. Every town of any pretensions knew him. He was in ceaseless
motion, making a speech here, taking a degree there, and always dripping
fun. The news that he was to be present was enough to make a success of
anything, from a bacchanal of trust magnates to a convocation of
philologists. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 230 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Arousing More Interest | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | JOHN SMITH, ESQ. —
Dear Sire: It gratifies me, more than tongue can express, to receive this kind attention at your
hand, and I hasten to reply to your flattering note. I am filled with astonishment to find you here,
John Smith. I am astonished, because I thought you were in San Francisco. I am almost certain I
left you there. I am almost certain it was you, and I know if it was not you, it was a man whose
name is similar. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 232 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Roughing It Lecture, version 2 | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: By request, I will ask leave to introduce the lecturer
of the evening, Mr. Clemens, otherwise Mark Twain — a gentleman whose great
learning, whose historical accuracy, whose devotion to science, and whose
veneration for the truth, are only equaled by his high moral character and
his majestic presence. I refer in these vague and general terms to myself.
I am a little opposed to the custom of ceremoniously introducing a lecturer
to an audience, partly because it seems to me that it is not entirely
necessary, I would much rather make it myself. Then I can get in all the
facts. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 233 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Sociable Jimmy | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | [I sent the following home in a private letter some
time ago from a certain little village. It was in
the days when I was a public lecturer. I did it because
I wished to preserve the memory of the
most artless, sociable, and exhaustless talker I ever
came across. He did not tell me a single
remarkable thing, or one that was worth remembering;
and yet he was himself so interested in his
small marvels, and they flowed so naturally and comfortably
from his lips that his talk got the
upper hand of my interest, too, and I listened as one who
receives a revelation. I took down what
he had to say, just as he said it—without
altering a word or adding one.] | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 234 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Arousing Interest | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | EDITOR, Sunday Republican: You may not know that I am
going to lecture at Mercantile Hall tomorrow night for the benefit of the South St. Louis Mission
Sunday School, but I am. I do not consider any apology necessary. I would like to have a
Sunday School of my own, but I would not be competent to run it, you know, because I have not
had experience, and so I have thought that the next most gratifying thing I could do would be to
give somebody else's Sunday School a lift. I used to go to Sunday School myself, a long time
ago, and it is on that account that I have always taken a powerful interest in such institutions
since. I even rose to be a teacher in one once, but they discharged me because they said the
information I imparted was of too general a character. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 236 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Whittier Birthday Dinner Speech | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THIS is an occasion peculiarly meet for the digging up of pleasant
reminiscences concerning literary folk; therefore I will drop lightly
into history myself. Standing here on the shore of the Atlantic and
contemplating certain of its largest literary billows, I am reminded of
a thing which happened to me thirteen years ago, when I had just
succeeded in stirring up a little Nevadian literary puddle myself, whose
spume-flakes were beginning to blow thinly Californiaward. I started an
inspection tramp through the southern mines of California. I was callow
and conceited, and I resolved to try the virtue of my nom de guerre. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 237 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Morals Lecture | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | I WAS SOLICITED to go round the world on a lecture tour by a man in Australia. I asked him
what they wanted to be lectured on. He wrote back that those people were very coarse and
serious and that they would like something solid, something in the way of education, something
gigantic, and he proposed that I prepare about three or four lectures at any rate on just morals,
any kind of morals, but just morals, and I like that idea. I liked it very much and was perfectly
willing to engage in that kind of work, and I should like to teach morals. I have a great enthusiasm
in doing that and I shall like to teach morals to those people. I do not like to have them taught to
me and I do not know any duller entertainment than that, but I know I can produce a quality of
goods that will satisfy those people. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 244 | Author: | Tarkington, Booth, 1869-1946 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Conquest of Canaan | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | A DRY snow had fallen steadily throughout the still night, so that when a cold, upper wind
cleared the sky gloriously in the morning the incongruous Indiana town shone in a white
harmony—roof, ledge, and earth as evenly covered as by moonlight. There was no thaw;
only where the line of factories followed the big bend of the frozen river, their distant
chimneys like exclamation points on a blank page, was there a first threat against the supreme
whiteness. The wind passed quickly and on high; the shouting of the school-children had ceased
at nine o'clock with pitiful suddenness; no sleigh-bells laughed out on the air; and the
muffling of the thoroughfares wrought an unaccustomed peace like that of Sunday.
This was the phenomenon which afforded the opening of the morning debate of the sages in the
wide windows of the "National House.'' | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 245 | Author: | Tarkington, Booth, 1869-1946 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Flirt | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Valentine Corliss walked up Corliss Street the hottest afternoon
of that hot August, a year ago, wearing a suit of white serge
which attracted a little attention from those observers who were
able to observe anything except the heat. The coat was shaped
delicately; it outlined the wearer, and, fitting him as women's
clothes fit women, suggested an effeminacy not an attribute of
the tall Corliss. The effeminacy belonged all to the tailor, an
artist plying far from Corliss Street, for the coat would have
encountered a hundred of its fellows at Trouville or Ostende this
very day. Corliss Street is the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, the
Park Lane, the Fifth Avenue, of Capitol City, that smoky
illuminant of our great central levels, but although it esteems
itself an established cosmopolitan thoroughfare, it is still
provincial enough to be watchful; and even in its torrid languor
took some note of the alien garment. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 250 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of
the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Boomerang,
and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression
of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance.
He roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had
commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion
of his boyhood named Leonidas W. Smiley — Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley
— a young minister of the Gospel, who he had heard was at one time
a resident of this village of Boomerang. I added that if Mr. Wheeler
could tell me any thing about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would
feel under many obligations to him. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 251 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Mysterious Stranger; A Romance by Mark Twain [pseud.] with
illustrations by N.C. Wyeth. | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IT WAS IN 1590—winter. Austria was far away from the world, and
asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so
forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by
the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in Austria. But
they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were all
proud of it. I remember it well, although I was only a boy; and I remember, too,
the pleasure it gave me. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 252 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Roughing It | | | | Published: | 1998 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | MY brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada
Territory—an office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself
the duties and dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of
State, and Acting Governor in the Governor's absence. A salary of
eighteen hundred dollars a year and the title of "Mr. Secretary,"
gave to the great position an air of wild and imposing grandeur. I
was young and ignorant, and I envied my brother. I coveted his
distinction and his financial splendor, but particularly and
especially the long, strange journey he was going to make, and the
curious new world he was going to explore. He was going to
travel! I never had been away from home, and that word "travel"
had a seductive charm for me. Pretty soon he would be hundreds
and hundreds of miles away on the great plains and deserts, and
among the mountains of the Far West, and would see buffaloes and
Indians, and prairie dogs, and antelopes, and have all kinds of
adventures, and may be get hanged or scalped, and have ever such
a fine time, and write home and tell us all about it, and be a hero.
And he would see the gold mines and the silver mines, and maybe
go about of an afternoon when his work was done, and pick up two
or three pailfuls of shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and silver on
the hillside. And by and by he would become very rich, and return
home by sea, and be able to talk as calmly about San Francisco and
the ocean, and "the isthmus" as if it was nothing of any
consequence to have seen those marvels face to face. What I
suffered in contemplating his happiness, pen cannot describe. And
so, when he offered me, in cold blood, the sublime position of
private secretary under him, it appeared to me that
the heavens and the earth passed away, and the firmament was
rolled together as a scroll! I had nothing more to desire. My
contentment was complete.
At the end of an hour or two I was ready for the journey. Not
much packing up was necessary, because we were going in the
overland stage from the Missouri frontier to Nevada, and
passengers were only allowed a small quantity of baggage apiece.
There was no Pacific railroad in those fine times of ten or twelve
years ago—not a single rail of it. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
|
