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1Author:  EDITED BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.Requires cookie*
 Title:  Out of his head  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: “On the seventeenth of August, in the year 16—, the morning sun, resting obliquely on the gables and roof-tops of Portsmouth, lighted up one of those grim spectacles not unusual in New England at that period. In Thomas Bailey Aldrich, whose death was briefly announced in The Times of Wednesday, America has lost the most brilliant man of letters of the generation that succeeded the Concord group. He was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in November, 1836, when Longfellow and Emerson were in their prime, and he reaped the benefit of their labours by coming into an age which they had familiarized with literature and cultivation. Mr. Aldrich early became a journalist, and was connected with the New York Evening Mirror, Willes's Home Journal, and other papers. The outbreak of the war saw him as newspaper correspondent, and in 1865 he became the editor of Every Saturday. Nine years in that post were followed by seven of miscellaneous work, till in 1881 he reached the height of his career as journalist by becoming editor of the Atlantic Monthly, a position he held till 1890. Meanwhile he had written much original matter both in prose and verse. His genius was many-sided, and it is surprising that so busy an editor and so prolific a writer should have attained the perfection of form for which Mr. Aldrich was remarkable. Among his novels “Prudence Palfrey” and “The Stillwater Tragedy” are the best known. From his country home at Porkapog, Mass., he sent out the charming “Porkapog Papers,” as graceful and delicate as their title was ungainly. He described with the skill of a Hawthorne his native town by the sea, and in “Marjorie Daw” and other works he proved himself an “American humourist” of a characteristic type. One of his books, “The Story of a Bad Boy,” has achieved notable distinction; it has been translated into French in a series entitled “Education et Récréation,” and into German as a specimen of American humour. It is, however, as a poet that Mr. Aldrich was chiefly entitled to recognition, and on his poetry that his fame will rest. Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman regarded him as “the most pointed and exquisite of our lyrical craftsmen”; and the words are well chosen. He was the doyen and the leader of the school of American poetry which is now being displaced by Mr. Bliss Carman and others, who are apparently more virile than the preceding generation. His was the poetry of exquisite finish and not of great force or profundity. To say that his lyrics are vers de société in the highest form is not to rate their content too low nor their manner too high; and it is in lyric song rather than in the longer poems, such as “Wyndham Towers,” that Mr. Aldrich excelled. Some of his poems—that on the intaglio head of Minerva, “When the Sultan goes to Ispahan,” and “Identity”— are in every anthology of American literature, and have won their author fame throughout the English-speaking world. Suddenly Loses Strength After Partially Recovering From an Operation.
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2Author:  Hawthorne Nathaniel 1804-1864Requires cookie*
 Title:  The marble faun: or, The romance of Monte Beni  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: Four individuals, in whose fortunes we should be glad to interest the reader, happened to be standing in one of the saloons of the sculpture-gallery in the Capitol at Rome. It was that room (the first, after ascending the staircase) in the centre of which reclines the noble and most pathetic figure of the Dying Gladiator, just sinking into his death-swoon. Around the walls stand the Antinous, the Amazon, the Lycian Apollo, the Juno; all famous productions of antique sculpture, and still shining in the undiminished majesty and beauty of their ideal life, although the marble that embodies them is yellow with time, and perhaps corroded by the damp earth in which they lay buried for centuries. Here, likewise, is seen a symbol (as apt at this moment as it was two thousand years ago) of the Human Soul, with its choice of Innocence or Evil close at hand, in the pretty figure of a child, clasping a dove to her bosom, but assaulted by a snake.
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3Author:  Hawthorne Nathaniel 1804-1864Requires cookie*
 Title:  The marble faun: or, The romance of Monte Beni  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: From the old butler, whom he found to be a very gracious and affable personage, Kenyon soon learned many curious particulars about the family history and hereditary peculiarities of the Counts of Monte Beni. There was a pedigree, the later portion of which — that is to say, for a little more than a thousand years — a genealogist would have found delight in tracing out, link by link, and authenticating by records and documentary evidences. It would have been as difficult, however, to follow up the stream of Donatello's ancestry to its dim source, as travellers have found it to reach the mysterious fountains of the Nile. And, far beyond the region of definite and demonstrable fact, a romancer might have strayed into a region of old poetry, where the rich soil, so long uncultivated and untrodden, had lapsed into nearly its primeval state of wilderness. Among those antique paths, now overgrown with tangled and riotous vegetation, the wanderer must needs follow his own guidance, and arrive nowhither at last.
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4Author:  Higginson Thomas Wentworth 1823-1911Requires cookie*
 Title:  Malbone  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: AS one wanders along this southwestern promontory of the Isle of Peace, and looks down upon the green translucent water which forever bathes the marble slopes of the Pirates' Cave, it is natural to think of the ten wrecks with which the past winter has strewn this shore. Though almost all trace of their presence is already gone, yet their mere memory lends to these cliffs a human interest. Where a stranded vessel lies, thither all steps converge, so long as one plank remains upon another. There centres the emotion. All else is but the setting, and the eye sweeps with indifference the line of unpeopled rocks. They are barren, till the imagination has tenanted them with possibilities of danger and dismay. The ocean provides the scenery and properties of a perpetual tragedy, but the interest arrives with the performers. Till then the shores remain vacant, like the great conventional arm-chairs of the French drama, that wait for Rachel to come and die.
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5Author:  Holland J. G. (Josiah Gilbert) 1819-1881Requires cookie*
 Title:  Sevenoaks  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: Everybody has seen Sevenoaks, or a hundred towns so much like it, in most particulars, that a description of any one of them would present it to the imagination—a town strung upon a stream, like beads upon a thread, or charms upon a chain. Sevenoaks was richer in chain than charms, for its abundant water-power was only partially used. It plunged, and roared, and played, and sparkled, because it had not half enough to do. It leaped down three or four cataracts in passing through the village; and, as it started from living springs far northward among the woods and mountains, it never failed in its supplies. “Mr. Robert Belcher: I have been informed of the shameful manner in which you treated a member of my family this morning—Master Harry Benedict. The bullying of a small boy is not accounted a dignified business for a man in the city which I learn you have chosen for your home, however it may be regarded in the little town from which you came. I do not propose to tolerate such conduct toward any dependent of mine. I do not ask for your apology, for the explanation was in my hands before the outrage was committed. I perfectly understand your relations to the lad, and trust that the time will come when the law will define them, so that the public will also understand them. Meantime, you will consult your own safety by letting him alone, and never presuming to repeat the scene of this morning. “Dear Sir: I owe an apology to the people of Sevenoaks for never adequately acknowledging the handsome manner in which they endeavored to assuage the pangs of parting on the occasion of my removal. The resolutions passed at their public meeting are cherished among my choicest treasures, and the cheers of the people as I rode through their ranks on the morning of my departure, still ring in my ears more delightfully than any music I ever heard. Thank them, I pray you, for me, for their overwhelming friendliness. I now have a request to make of them, and I make it the more boldly because, during the past ten years, I have never been approached by any of them in vain when they have sought my benefactions. The Continental Petroleum Company is a failure, and all the stock I hold in it is valueless. Finding that my expenses in the city are very much greater than in the country, it has occurred to me that perhaps my friends there would be willing to make up a purse for my benefit. I assure you that it would be gratefully received; and I apply to you because, from long experience, I know that you are accomplished in the art of begging. Your graceful manner in accepting gifts from me has given me all the hints I shall need in that respect, so that the transaction will not be accompanied by any clumsy details. My butcher's bill will be due in a few days, and dispatch is desirable. “Your letter of this date received, and contents noted. Permit me to say in reply: “Dear Benedict:—I am glad to know that you are better. Since you distrust my pledge that I will give you a reasonable share of the profits on the use of your patents, I will go to your house this afternoon, with witnesses, and have an independent paper prepared, to be signed by myself, after the assignment is executed, which will give you a definite claim upon me for royalty. We will be there at four o'clock.
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6Author:  Holmes Mary Jane 1825-1907Requires cookie*
 Title:  The Cameron pride, or, Purified by suffering  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: UNCLE EPHRAIM BARLOW was an old-fashioned man, clinging to the old-time customs of his fathers, and looking with but little toleration upon what he termed the “new-fangled notions” of the present generation. Born and reared amid the rocks and hills of the Bay State, his nature partook largely of the nature of his surroundings, and he grew into manhood with many a rough point adhering to his character, which, nevertheless, taken as a whole, was, like the wild New England scenery, beautiful and grand. None knew Uncle Ephraim Barlow but to respect him, and at the church in which he was a deacon, few would have been missed more than the tall, muscular man, with the long white hair, who, Sunday after Sunday, walked slowly up the middle aisle to his accustomed seat before the altar, and who regularly passed the contribution box, bowing involuntarily in token of approbation when a neighbor's gift was larger than its wont, and gravely dropping in his own ten cents —never more, never less, always ten cents—his weekly offering, which he knew amounted in a year to just five dollars and twenty cents. And still Uncle Ephraim was not stingy, as the Silverton poor could testify, for many a load of wood and bag of meal found entrance to the doors where cold and hunger would have otherwise been, while to his minister he was literally a holder up of the weary hands, and a comforter in the time of trouble. “Miss Helen Lennox: Please pardon the liberty I have taken in inclosing the sum of $500 to be used by you in procuring whatever Katy may need for present necessities. Presuming that the country seamstresses have not the best facilities for obtaining the latest fashions, my mother proposes sending out her own private dressmaker, Mrs. Ryan. You may look for her the last of the week. Mr. Wilford Cameron: — I give you credit for the kindest of motives in sending the check which I now return to you, with my compliments. We are not as poor as you suppose, and would almost deem it sacrilege to let another than ourselves provide for Katy so long as she is ours. And furthermore, Mrs. Ryan's services will not be needed, so it is not worth her while to make a journey here for nothing. “By the way, Helen, I heard him tell Wilford that you had one of the best shaped heads he ever saw, and that he thought you decidedly good looking. I must tell you now of the only thing which troubles me in the least, and I shall get used to that, I suppose. It is so strange Wilford never told me a word until she came. Think of little Katy Lennox with a waiting-maid, who jabbers French half the time, for she speaks that language as well as her own, having been abroad with the family once before. That is why they sent her to me; they knew her services would be invaluable in Paris. Her name is Esther, and she came the day after we did, and brought me such a beautiful mantilla from Wilford's mother, and the loveliest dress. Just the pattern was fifty dollars, she said. “My Dear Sister Helen:—I have just come in from a little party given by one of Mrs. Harvey's friends, and I am so tired, for you know I am not accustomed to such late hours. The party was very pleasant indeed, and everybody was so kind to me, especially Mr. Ray, who stood by me all the time, and who somehow seemed to help me, so that I knew just what to do, and was not awkward at all. I hope not, at least for Wilford's sake. AFTER German Philosophy and Hamilton's Metaphysics, it is a great relief to have introduced into the family an entirely new element — a character the dissection of which is at once a novelty and a recreation. It is absolutely refreshing, and I find myself returning to my books with increased vigor after an encounter with that unsophisticated, innocent-minded creature, our sister-in-law Mrs. Wilford Cameron. Such pictures as Juno and I used to draw of the stately personage who was one day coming to us as Wilford's wife, and of whom even mother was to stand in awe. Alas, how hath our idol fallen! And still I rather like the little creature, who, the very first night, nearly choked mother to death, giving her lace streamers a most uncomfortable twitch, and actually kissing father — a thing I have not done since I can remember. But then the Camerons are all a set of icicles, encased in a refrigerator at that. If we were not, we should thaw out, when Katy leans on us so affectionately and looks up at us so wistfully, as if pleading for our love. Wilford does wonders; he used to be so grave, so dignified and silent, that I never supposed he would bear having a wife meet him at the door with cooing and kisses, and climbing into his lap right before us all. Juno says it makes her sick, while mother is dreadfully shocked; and even Will sometimes seems annoyed, gently shoving her aside and telling her he is tired. Your sister is very ill. Come as soon as possible. “Your child is dying at Silverton. Come at once. Dear Katy:—I have been suddenly called to leave the city on business, which will probably detain me for three days or more, and as I must go on the night train, I wish Esther to have my portmanteau ready with whatever I may need for the journey. As I proposed this morning, I shall dine with mother, but come home immediately after dinner. “Will you be sorry when you read this and find that I am gone, that you are free from the husband you do not love,—whom, perhaps, you never loved, though I thought you did. I trusted you once, and now I do not blame you as much as I ought, for you are young and easily influenced. You are very susceptible to flattery, as was proven by your career at Saratoga and Newport. I had no suspicion of you then, but now that I know you better, I see that it was not all childish simplicity which made you smile so graciously upon those who sought your favor. You are a coquette, Katy, and the greater one because of that semblance of artlessness which is the perfection of art. This, however, I might forgive, if I had not learned that another man loved you first and wished to make you his wife, while you, in your secret heart, wish you had known it sooner. Don't deny it, Katy; I saw it in your face when I first told you of Dr. Grant's confession, and I heard it in your voice as well as in your words when you said `A life at Linwood would be perfect rest compared with this.' That hurt me cruelly, Katy. I did not deserve it from one for whom I have done and borne so much, and it was the final cause of my leaving you, for I am going to Washington to enroll myself in the service of my country. You will be happier without me for awhile, and perhaps when I return, Linwood will not look quite the little paradise it does now. “Married—On Christmas Eve, at St. John's Church, Silverton, Mass., by the Rev. Mr. Kelly, Capt. Mark Ray, of the —th Regiment, N. Y. S. Vols., to Miss Helen Lennox, of Silverton.” Your husband cannot live long. Come immediately. “I knew how it would end, when you were in Georgetown,” she wrote, “and I am glad that it is so, praying daily that you may be happy with Dr. Grant and remember the sad past only as some dream from which you have awakened. I thank you for your invitation to visit Linwood, and when my work is over I may come for a few weeks and rest in your bird's nest of a home. Thank God the war is ended; but my boys need me yet, and until the last crutch has left the hospital, I shall stay where duty lies. What my life will henceforth be I do not know; but I have sometimes thought that with the funds you so generously bestowed upon me, I shall open a school for orphan children, taking charge myself, and so doing some good. Will you be the Lady Patroness, and occasionally enliven us with the light of your countenance? I have left the hospital but once since you were here, and then I went to Wilford's grave. I prayed for you while there, remembering only that you had been his wife. In a little box where no eyes but mine ever look, there is a bunch of flowers plucked from Wilford's grave. They are faded and withered, but something of their sweet perfume lingers still; and I prize them as my greatest treasure; for, except the lock of hair severed from his head, they are all that is remaining to me of the past, which now seems so far away. It is time to make my nightly round of visits, so I must bid you good-bye. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you, and be with you forever.
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7Author:  Holmes Mary Jane 1825-1907Requires cookie*
 Title:  Dora Deane, or, The East India uncle; and Maggie Miller, or, Old Hagar's secret  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: “Write to me, Dora, and tell me of yourself, that I may judge something of your character. Tell me, too, if you ever think of the lonesome old man, who, each night of his life, remembers you in his prayers, asking that if on earth he may never look on Fannie's child, he may at last meet and know her in the better land. And now farewell, my daughter, mine by adoption, if from no other cause. “What does she say?” cried Mrs. Deane and Alice, crowding around her, while with a rueful face she read that Dora would be delighted to meet Uncle Nat at Locust Grove, but could not come quite so soon as they wished to have her. “I cannot possibly come, as I have promised to be present at the dressing of the bride. “Do you fancy some direful calamity has befallen me, because I have not written to you for more than a week? Away with your fears, then, for nothing worse has come upon me than a badly broken limb, which will probably keep me a prisoner here for two months or more. Now don't be frightened, Rosa. I am not crippled for life, and even if I were, I could love you just the same, while you, I'm sure, would love me more. “They say 'tis a mighty bad wind which blows no one any good, and so, though I verily believe I suffer all a man can suffer with a broken bone, yet, when I look at the fair face of Maggie Miller, I feel that I would not exchange this high old bed, to enter which, needs a short ladder, even for a seat by you on that three-legged stool, behind the old writing-desk. I never saw anything like her in my life. Everything she thinks, she says, and as to flattering her, it can't be done. I've told her a dozen times at least that she was beautiful, and she didn't mind it any more than Rose does, when I flatter her. Still, I fancy if I were to talk to her of love, it might make a difference, and perhaps I shall, ere I leave the place. “I grant your request,” she said, “and take you for a sister well beloved. I had a half-sister once, they say, but she died when a little babe. I never looked upon her face, and connected with her birth there was too much of sorrow and humiliation for me to think much of her, save as of one who, under other circumstances, might have been dear to me. And yet, as I grow older, I often find myself wishing she had lived, for my father's blood was in her veins. But I do not even know where her grave was made, for we only heard one winter morning, years ago, that she was dead, with the mother who bore her. Forgive me, Maggie dear, for saying so much about that little child. Thoughts of you, who are to be my sister, make me think of her, who, had she lived, would have been a young lady now, nearly your own age. So in the place of her, whom, knowing, I would have loved, I adopt you, sweet Maggie Miller, my sister and my friend. May heaven's choicest blessings rest on you forever, and no shadow come between you and the one you have chosen for your husband. To my partial eyes he is worthy of you, Maggie, royal in bearing and queenly in form though you be, and that you may be happy with him will be the daily prayer of “If I had known,” she wrote, “I should have sot the table in the parlor certing, for though I'm plain and homespun, I know as well as the next one what good manners is, and do my endeavors to practise it. But do tell a body,” she continued, “where you was, muster day in Wooster. I knocked and pounded enough to raise the dead, and nobody answered. I never noticed you was deaf when you was here, though Betsey Jane thinks she did. If you be, I'll send you up a receipt for a kind of intment which Miss Sam Babbit invented, and which cures everything.
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8Author:  Holmes Mary Jane 1825-1907Requires cookie*
 Title:  Edna Browning  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: ROBERT, son of Arthur and Anna Leighton, born April 5th, 18—,” was the record which the old family Bible bore of our hero's birth, parentage, and name, but by his mother and those who knew him best, he was always called Roy, and by that name we introduce him to our readers on a pleasant morning in May, when, wrapped in a heavy shawl, he sat in a corner of a car with a tired, worn look upon his face, and his teeth almost chattering with the cold. “And now, Roy, I want some money,—there's a good fellow. You remember you spoke of my marrying Maude Somerton, and said you'd give me money and stand by me, too. Do it now, Roy, and when mother goes into hysterics and calls Edna that creature, and talks as if she had persuaded me, whereas it was I who persuaded her, say a word for me, won't you? You will like Edna,—and, Roy, I want you to ask us to come home, for a spell, anyway. The fact is, I've romanced a little, and Edna thinks I am heir, or at least joint heir with you, of Leighton Homestead. She don't know I haven't a cent in the world but what comes from you, and I don't want her to. Set me up in business, Roy, and I'll work like a hero. I will, upon my word,—and please send me five hundred at once to the care of John Dana, Chicago. I shall be married and gone before this reaches you, so there's no use for mother to tear her eyes out. Tell her not to. I'm sorry to vex her, for she's been a good mother, and after Edna I love her and you best of all the world. Send the money, do. “I cannot help feeling that if she had known this fact, your unfortunate entanglement would have been prevented. “Oh, Roy, my Charlie is dead,—my Charlie is dead!” “Mr. Robert Leighton: Dear Sir,—Please find inclosed $300 of the $500 you sent to Charlie. “For value received I promise to pay to Robert Leighton, or bearer, the sum of two hundred dollars, with interest at seven per cent per annum, from date. “Perhaps you will get a wrong impression if I do not make some explanation. I did not care one bit for the money I supposed Charlie had, but maybe if I had known he had nothing but what you gave him, I should not have been married so soon. I should have told him to wait till we were older and had something of our own. I am so sorry, and I wish Mrs. Churchill had Charlie back and that I was Edna Browning. I don't want her to hate me, for she is Charlie's mother, and I did love him so much. MRS. CHURCHILL was better, and Georgie was talking again of going to Chicago, and had promised to find Edna and render her any service in her power. Roy had written to Edna at last, but no answer had come to him, and he was beginning to wonder at her silence and to feel a little piqued, when one day early in December Russell brought him a letter mailed in Canandaigua and directed to his mother in a bold, angular handwriting, which stamped the writer as a person of striking originality and strongly marked character. In his mother's weak state it would not do to excite her, and so Roy opened the letter himself and glanced at the signature: “Dear Madam—I've had it on my mind to write to you ever since that terrible disaster by which you were deprived of a son, who was taken to eternity without ever the chance for one last prayer or cry to be saved. Let us hope he had made his prayers beforehand and had no need for them. He had been baptized, I suppose, as I hear you are a church woman, but are you High or Low? Everything to my mind depends upon that. I hold the Low to be purely Evangelical, while the High,—well, I will not harrow up your feelings; what I want to say is, that I do not and never have for a single moment upheld my niece, or rather my great niece, Edna, in what she has done. I took her from charity when her father died, although he was higher than I in his views, and we used to hold many a controversial argument on apostolic succession, for he was a clergyman and my sister's son. His wife, who set up to be a lady and taught music in our select school, died when Edna was born, and I believe went to Heaven, though we never agreed as to the age when children should be confirmed, nor about that word regeneration in the baptismal service. I hold it's a stumbling block and ought to be struck out, while she said I did not understand its import, and confounded it with something else; but that's neither here nor there. Lucy was a good woman and made my nephew a good wife, though she would keep a girl, which I never did. DEAR Sister:—I write in great haste to tell you of little Annie's accident, and that you must come out and see her, if only for a few days. It happened the week after mother died. Her foot must have slipped, or hit on something, and she fell from the top of the stairs to tbe bottom, and hurt her back or hip; I hardly think the doctor knew which, or in fact what to do for her. She cannot walk a step, and lies all day in bed, or sits in her chair, with no other company than old Aunt Luna, who is faithful and kind. But Annie wants you and talks of you all the time, and last night, when I got home from the store, she told me she had written to you, and gave me this bit of paper, which I inclose. “Dear sister Gorgy,” the note began, “mother is dead and I've hurted my back and have to ly all day stil, and it do ake so hard, and I'me so streemly lonesome, and want to see my sweet, pretty sister so much. I ask Jack if you will come and he don't b'leeve you will, and then I 'members my mother say, ask Jesus if you want anything, and I does ask him and tell him my back akes, and mother's gone to live with him. And I want to see you, and won't he send you to me for Christ's sake, amen. And I know he will. Come, Gorgy, pleas, and bring me some choklets. “There has been a railroad accident, and your niece Edna's husband was killed. They were married yesterday morning in Buffalo. “Philip Overton:—I dare say you think me as mean as pussley, and that I kept that money Edna sent for my own, but I assure you, sir, I didn't. I put every dollar in the bank for her, and added another hundred besides. “Miss Jerusha Pepper:—Well done, good and faithful servant. Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all. Three cheers and a tiger for you. “I'd so much rather you would not,” he wrote; “I do not need the money, and it pains me to think of my little sister working so hard, and wearing out her young life, which should be happy, and free from care. Don't do it, Edna, please; and I so much wish you would let me know where you are, so that I might come and see you, and sometime, perhaps, bring you to Leighton, where your home ought to be. Write to me, won't you, and tell me more of yourself, and believe me always, “`Philip Overton, forward the enclosed to Edna, and oblige, Jerusha Amanda Pepper.' “According to orders, I send this to your Uncle Philip, and s'pose you'll answer through the same channel and tell if you'll come home about your business, and teach school for sixteen dollars a month, and I board you for the chores you'll do night and morning. “Don't for goodness' sake come here again on that business, and do let Edna alone. She nor no other woman is worth the powder you are wasting on her. If she don't answer your letter, and tell you she's in the seventh heaven because of your engagement, it's pretty likely she ain't thrown off her balance with joy by it. She didn't fancy that woman with a boy's name none too well when she saw her in Iona, and if I may speak the truth, as I shall, if I speak at 13* all, it was what she overheard that person say to her brother about you and your mother's opinion of poor girls like her, that kept her from going to Leighton with the body, and it's no ways likely she'll ever go now, so long as the thing with the boy's name is there as mistress. So just let her alone and it will work itself out. Anyway, don't bother me with so many letters, when I've as much as I can do with my house-cleaning, and making over comforters, and running sausages. “If you wish to avoid exposure, meet me to-night at twelve o'clock in the woodbine arbor at the foot of the garden. I have no desire to harm you, or spoil the fun to-morrow, but money I must have, so bring whatever you have about you, or if your purse chances to be empty, bring jewelry. I saw you with some superb diamonds on one night at the opera last winter. Don't go into hysterics. You've nothing to fear from me if you come down generous and do the fair thing. I reckon you are free from me, as I've been gone more than seven years. “Don't be a fool, but come. I rather want to see if you look as bad as I do.
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9Author:  Holmes Mary Jane 1825-1907Requires cookie*
 Title:  The English orphans, or, A home in the new world  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: “What makes you keep that big blue sun-bonnet drawn so closely over your face? are you afraid of having it seen?”
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10Author:  Holmes Mary Jane 1825-1907Requires cookie*
 Title:  Ethelyn's mistake  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: THERE was a sweet odor of clover blossoms in the early morning air, and the dew stood in great drops upon the summer flowers, and dripped from the foliage of the elm trees which skirted the village common. There was a cloud of mist upon the meadows, and the windings of the river could be distinctly traced by the white fog which curled above it. But the fog and the mists were rolling away as the warm June sun came over the eastern hills, and here and there signs of life began to be visible in the little New England town of Chicopee, where our story opens. The mechanics who worked in the large shoe-shop half way down Cottage Row had been up an hour or more, while the hissing of the steam which carried the huge manufactory had been heard since the first robin peeped from its nest in the alders by the running brook; but higher up, on Bellevue street, where the old inhabitants lived, everything was quiet, and the loamy road, moist and damp with the dews of the previous night, was as yet unbroken by the foot of man or rut of passing wheel. The people who lived there,—the Mumfords, and the Beechers, and the Grangers, and the Thorns,—did not belong to the working class. They held stocks in railroads and banks, and mortgages on farms, and could afford to sleep after the shrill whistle from the manufactory had wakened the echoes of the distant hills and sounded across the waters of Pordunk Pond. Only one dwelling showed signs of life, and that the large square building, shaded in front with elms and ornamented at the side with a luxuriant queen of the prairie, whose blossoms were turning their blushing faces to the rising sun. This was the Bigelow house, the joint property of Mrs. Dr. Van Buren, née Sophia Bigelow, who lived in Boston, and her sister, Miss Barbara Bigelow, the quaintest and kindest-hearted woman who ever bore the sobriquet of an old maid, and was aunt to everybody. She was awake long before the whistle had sounded across the river and along the meadow lands; and just as the robin, whose nest for four summers had been under the eaves where neither boy nor cat could reach it, brought the first worm to its clamorous young, she pushed the fringed curtain from her open window, and with her broad frilled cap still on her head, stood for a moment looking out upon the morning as it crept up the eastern sky. “Dear Ethie—I reckon mother is right, after all. She generally is, you know, so we may as well be resigned, and believe it wicked for cousins to marry each other. Of course I can never like Nettie as I have liked you, and I feel a twinge every time I remember the dear old times. But what must be must, and there's no use fretting. Do you remember old Colonel Markham's nephew, from out West,—the one who wore the short pants and the rusty crape on his hat when he visited his uncle in Chicopee, some years ago? I mean the chap who helped you over the fence the time you stole the colonel's apples. He has become a member of Congress, and quite a big gun for the West; so, at least, mother thinks. He called on her to-day with a message from Mrs. Woodhull, but I did not see him. He goes up to Chicopee to-morrow, I believe. He is looking for a wife, they say, and mother thinks it would be a good match for you, as you could go to Washington next winter and queen it over them all. But don't, Ethie, don't, for thunder's sake! It fairly makes me faint to think of you belonging to another, even though you may never belong to me.—Yours always, “Darling Ethie:—You must not think strange if I do not come to you this morning, for I am suffering from one of my blinding headaches, and can scarcely see to write you this. I shall be better by night. “It does not matter, as you would only be in the way, and I have something of a headache too. “You will find my Ethie in some respects a spoiled child,” she wrote, “but it is more my fault than hers. I have loved her so much, and petted her so much, that I doubt if she knows what a harsh word or cross look means. She has been carefully and delicately brought up, but has repaid me well for all my pains by her tender love. Please, dear Mrs. Markham, be very, very kind to her, and you will greatly oblige, “My own Darling Ethie:—Don't fail to be there to-night, and if possible leave the `old maid' at home, and come alone. We shall have so much better time. Your devoted “Dear cousin,” he wrote, “business for a Boston firm has brought me to Camden, where they have had debts standing out. Through the influence of Harry Clifford, who was a college chum of mine, I have an invitation to Mrs. Miller's, where I hope to meet yourself and husband. I should call to-day, but I know just how busy you must be with your costume, which I suppose you wish to keep incog., even from me. I shall know you, though, at once. See if I do not. Wishing to be remembered to the Judge, I am, yours truly, RICHARD: I am going away from you forever, and when you recall the words you spoke to me last night, and the deep humiliation you put upon me, you will readily understand that I go because we cannot live together any longer as man and wife. You said things to me, Richard, which women find hard to forgive, and which they never can forget. I did not deserve that you should treat me so, for, bad as I may have been in other respects, I am innocent of the worst thing you alleged against me, and which seemed to excite you so much. Until I heard it from you, I did not know Frank Van Buren was within a thousand miles of Camden. The note from him which I leave with this letter, and which you will remember was brought to the door by a servant, who said it had been mislaid and forgotten, will prove that I tell you truly. The other note which you found, and which must have fallen from the box where I kept it, was written years ago, when I was almost a little girl, with no thought that I ever could be the humbled, wretched creature I am now. “Dear, darling Andy:—If all the world were as good, and kind, and true as you, I should not be writing this letter, with my arrangements made for flight. Richard will tell you why I go. It would take me too long. I have been very unhappy here, though none of my wretchedness has been caused by you. Dear Andy, if I could tell you how much I love you, and how sorry I am to fall in your opinion, as I surely shall when you hear what has happened. Do not hate me, Andy, and sometimes when you pray, remember Ethie, won't you? She needs your prayers so much, for she cannot pray herself. I do not want to be wholly bad,—do not want to be lost forever; and I have faith that God will hear you. The beautiful consistency of your everyday life and your simple trust have been powerful sermons to me, convincing me that there is a reality in the religion you profess. Go on, Andy, as you have begun, and may the God whom I am not worthy to name, bless you, and keep you, and give you every possible good. In fancy I wind my arms around your neck, and kiss your dear, kind face, as with tears I write you my good-by. “I do not know whether you found your wife at Mrs. Amsden's or not; but I take the liberty of telling you that Frank Van Buren has returned, and solemnly affirms that if Mrs. Markham was on board the train which left here on the 17th, he did not know it. Neither did he see her at all when in Camden. He called on his way to the depot that night, and was told she was out. Excuse my writing you this. If your wife has not come back, it will remove a painful doubt; and if she has, please burn this and forget it.—Yours, “Dear Andy—I wish I could tell you how much I love you, and how sorry I am to fall in your good opinion, as I surely shall when you hear what has happened. Do not hate me, Andy; and sometimes, when you pray, remember Ethie, won't you?” “Miss Melinda Jones: Dear Madam—We found the letters Ethie writ, one to me and one to Dick, and Dick's was too much for him. He lies like a punk of wood, makin' a moanin' noise, and talkin' such queer things, that I guess you or somebody or'to come and see to him. I send to you because there's no nonsense about you, and you are made of the right kind of stuff. “My Darling Andy:—I know you have not forgotten me, and I am superstitious enough to fancy that you are with me in spirit constantly. I do not know why I am writing this to you, but something impels me to do it, and tell you that I am well. I cannot say happy yet, for the sundering of every earthly relation made too deep a wound for me not to feel the pain for months and may be years. I have employment, though,—constant employment,—and that helps me to bear, and keeps me from dwelling too much upon the past. “There's a strange woman sick here. Please come home.
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11Author:  Holmes Mary Jane 1825-1907Requires cookie*
 Title:  The homestead on the hillside, and other tales  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: “Dear Anna—I know you will be provoked; I was, but I have recovered my equanimity now. George, the naughty boy, has not come home. He is going to remain for two years in a German university. I am the bearer of many letters and presents for you, which you must come for. Hugh M'Gregor accompanied me home. You remember I wrote you about him. We met in Paris, since which time he has clung to me like a brother, and I don't know whether to like him or not. He is rich and well educated, but terribly awkward. It would make you laugh to see him trying to play the agreeable to the ladies; and then,—shall I tell you the dreadful thing? he wears a wig, and is ten years older than I am! Now, you know if I liked him very much, all this would make no difference, for I would marry anything but a cobbler, if I loved him, and he were intelligent.
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12Author:  Holmes Mary Jane 1825-1907Requires cookie*
 Title:  Hugh Worthington, of [!]  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: It was a large, old-fashioned, wooden building, with long, winding piazzas, and low, square porches, where the summer sunshine held many a fantastic dance, and where the winter storm piled up its drifts of snow, whistling merrily as it worked, and shaking the loosened casement, as it went whirling by. In front was a wide-spreading grassy lawn with the carriage road winding through it, over the running brook and onward beneath tall forest trees until it reached the main highway, a distance of nearly half a mile. In the rear was a spacious garden, with bordered walks, climbing roses and creeping vines showing that some where there was a ruling hand, which, while neglecting the sombre building and suffering it to decay, lavished due care upon the grounds, and not on these alone, but also on the well kept barns, and the white-washed dwellings of the negroes,— for ours is a Kentucky scene, and Spring Bank a Kentucky home. “Wanted — by an unfortunate young married woman, with a child a few months old, a situation in a private family either as governess, seamstress, or lady's maid. Country preferred. Address —” “Wanted. — By an invalid lady, whose home is in the country, a young woman, who will be both useful and agreeable, either as a companion or waiting-maid. No objection will be raised if the woman is married, and unfortunate, or has a child a few months old. “What a little eternity it is since I heard from you, and how am I to know that you are not all dead and buried. Were it not that no news is good news, I should sometimes fancy that Hugh was worse, and feel terribly for not having gone home when you did. But of course if he were worse, you would write, and so I settle down upon that, and quiet my troublesome conscience. “I said, brother was afraid it was improper under the 9* circumstances for me to go, afraid lest people should talk; that I preferred going at once to New York. So it was finally decided, to the doctor's relief, I fancied, that we come here, and here we are — hotel just like a beehive, and my room is in the fifth story. “Dear Hugh: — I have at last discovered who you are, and why I have so often been puzzled with your face. You are the boy whom I met on the St. Helena, and who rescued me from drowning. Why have you never told me this?
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13Author:  Holmes Mary Jane 1825-1907Requires cookie*
 Title:  'Lena Rivers  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: For many days the storm continued. Highways were blocked up, while roads less frequented were rendered wholly impassable. The oldest inhabitants of Oakland had “never seen the like before,” and they shook their gray heads ominously as over and adown the New England mountains the howling wind swept furiously, now shrieking exultingly as one by one the huge forest trees bent before its power, and again dying away in a low, sad wail, as it shook the casement of some low-roofed cottage, where the blazing fire, “high piled upon the hearth,” danced merrily to the sound of the storm-wind, and then whirling in fantastic circles, disappeared up the broad-mouthed chimney. “Forgive me, darling, that I leave you so abruptly. Circumstances render it necessary, but be assured, I shall come back again. In the meantime, you had better return to your parents, where I will seek you. Enclosed are five hundred dollars, enough for your present need. Farewell. “Dear Helleny, mebby you'll wonder when you see a letter from me, but I'll be hanged if I can help 'ritin', I am so confounded lonesome now you are gone, that I dun know nothing what to do with myself. So I set on the great rock where the saxefax grows, and think, and think, till it seems 's ef my head would bust open. Wall, how do you git along down amongst them heathenish Kentucks & niggers? I s'pose there ain't no great difference between 'em, is there? When I git a little more larnin', I b'lieve I'll come down there to keep school. O, I forgot to tell you that our old line back cow has got a calf—the prettiest little critter—Dad has gin her to me, and I call her Helleny, I do, I swow! And when she capers round, she makes me think of the way you danced `High putty Martin' the time you stuck a sliver in your heel—” “Dear Grandma: When you read this I shall be gone, for I cannot longer stay where all look upon me as a wretched, guilty thing. I am innocent, grandma, as innocent as my angel mother when they dared to slander her, but you do not believe it, and that is the hardest of all. I could have borne the rest, but when you, too, doubted me, it broke my heart, and now I am going away. Nobody will care—nobody will miss me but you. “My Lost 'Lena: By this title it seems appropriate for me to call you, for you are more surely lost to me than you would be were this summer sun shining upon your grave. And, 'Lena, believe me when I say I would rather, far rather, see you dead than the guilty thing you are, for then your memory would be to me as a holy, blessed influence, leading me on to a better world, where I could hope to greet you as my spirit bride. But now, alas! how dark the cloud which shrouds you from my sight.
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14Author:  Holmes Mary Jane 1825-1907Requires cookie*
 Title:  Marian Grey; or, The heiress of Redstone hall  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: The night was dark and the clouds black and heavy which hung over Redstone Hall, whose massive walls loomed up through the darkness like some huge sentinel keeping guard over the spacious grounds by which it was surrounded. Within the house all was still, and without there was no sound to break the midnight silence save the sighing of the autumnal wind through the cedar trees, or the roar of the river, which, swollen by the recent heavy rains, went rushing on to meet its twin sister at a point well known in Kentucky, where our story opens, as “The Forks of the Elkhorn.” From one of the lower windows a single light was shining, and its dim rays fell upon the face of a white-haired man, who moaned uneasily in his sleep, as if pursued by some tormenting fear. At last, as the old-fashioned clock struck off the hour of twelve, he awoke, and glancing nervously toward the corner, whence the sound proceeded, he whispered, “Have you come again, Ralph Lindsey, to tell me of my sin?” “Dearest Alice—Precious little Alice. If my heart was not already broken, it would break at leaving you. Don't mourn for me much, darling. Tell Dinah and Hetty, and the other blacks, not to cry— and if I've ever been cross to them, they must forget it now that I am gone. God bless you all. Good by —good by.” M. Raymond—I now take my pen in hand to inform you that A young Woman, calling herself Marian lindsey has ben staying with me awhile And she said you was her Husband what she came of and left you for I don't know and I spose its none of my Biznes all I have to do is to tell you that she died wun week ago come sunday with the cankerrash and she made me Promise to rite and tell you she was ded and that she forgives you all your Sins and hope you wouldn't wate long before you marred agen it would of done your Hart good to hear her taulk like a Sante as she did. I should of writ soonner only her sicknes hindered me about gettin reddy for a journey ime goin to take my only Brother lives in scotland and ime goin out to live with him i was most reddy when Marian took sick if she had lived she was coming back to you I bleave and now that shes ded ime going rite of in the — which sales tomorrough nite else ide ask you to come down and see where she died and all about it. i made her as comfitable as I could and hopin you wouldnt take it to hard for Deth is the Lot of all i am your most Humble Servant “I should prefer your wife to be somewhat nearer your equal in point of family, it is true, but your description of Marian Grey won my heart entirely, and you have my consent to offer yourself at once. By so doing, you will probably deprive Alice of her governess and me of a pleasant companion, for I had made an arrangement with Ben to have Miss Grey with us next year. But no matter for that. Woo and win her just the same, and Heaven grant you a happier future than my past has been. “You and I have suffered alke, and in each of our hearts there is a hidden grave. I saw it in the tears you shed when talking to me of Marian Grey. Heaven bless you, Ben Burt, for all you have been to her. 13 She is one of the fairest, best, of God's creation, but she was not meant for you nor me; and we must learn to go our way without her. You have done for her more, perhaps, than either Mr. Raymond or myself would have done in the same circumstances, and thus far you are more worthy of her esteem. You will please accept the inclosed as a token that I appreciate your self-denying labors for Marian Grey. Use it for that grocery we talked about, if you choose, or for any purpose you like. If you have any delicacy just consider it a loan to be paid when you are a richer man than I am. You cannot return it, of course, for when you receive it I shall be gone. “For vally rec. I promise to pay Bill Gordon, or bearer, the sum of three hundred dollars with use from date. “Think not that you have displeased me,” he said, “for this is not why I send you from me. Both of us cannot stay, and though for Alice's sake I would gladly keep you here, it must not be. I am going to New Orleans, to be absent three or four weeks, and shall not expect to find you here on my return. You will need money, and I enclose a check for a thousand dollars. Don't refuse to take it, for I give it willingly, and conduct is sadly at variance with my words, you must believe me when I say that in all the world you have not so true a friend, as “Frederic knows it all, and we are so happy. We are to have a great party on the 20th, and you must surely come. Don't fail us, that's a dear, good Ben, but come as soon as you get this. Then I will tell you what I can't write now, for Frederic keeps worrying me with teasing me to kiss him.
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15Author:  Jones J. B. (John Beauchamp) 1810-1866Requires cookie*
 Title:  Freaks of fortune, or, The history and adventures of Ned Lorn  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: It was Christmas eve. The snow was descending rapidly. Gusts of wind howled mournfully through the streets, and ever and anon they burst from the alleys and narrow courts in explosions. Many a face was turned quickly away from the rude blasts of the storm in the vain endeavor to escape their unfriendly peltings. But it might not be. Every street had its pedestrians. From the Delaware to the Schuylkill; from the grimly frowning Moyamensing prison to the extreme northern limits of the environs of Philadelphia; human beings might have been seen passing with unceasing tramp along the pavements. Some on business; some in quest of pleasure, and others— poor miserable creatures!—because they were destitute of homes; unfortunate outcasts, relying upon some chance occurrence for the means of shelter. And, perhaps, a majority of these were females, with delicate cheeks and throbbing hearts; and yet with light and tattered garments; no sufficient covering to protect their heads from the howling frost-laden blasts; and no effectual defences for their feet against the chilling snow. “My dear Ned—I was pained to learn the nature of your note to Mr. Lonsdale. If I had been acquainted with the character of its contents, I should not have been the bearer of it. It was, however, a mere indiscretion on your part, superinduced by provocations sufficient to have tempted almost any young man to commit a far greater extravagance. I have seen and conversed with Lonsdale, and have undertaken to say that the matter will not be referred to again on your part. Indeed I have withdrawn the offensive note, and doubt not the act will be sanctioned by you, since you have had ample time to meditate deliberately on the subject.
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16Author:  Jones J. B. (John Beauchamp) 1810-1866Requires cookie*
 Title:  Wild western scenes, or, The White Spirit of the wilderness  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: At one of the sources of the Arkansas River—an inconsiderable stream of limpid water, coming fresh and pure from the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains—a thousand miles beyond the permanent habitations of the anglo-saxon race on the western continent, an abode had been established by the little party whose adventures are narrated in the ensuing pages.
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17Author:  Kirkland Caroline M. (Caroline Matilda) 1801-1864Requires cookie*
 Title:  The evening book, or, Fireside talk on morals and manners  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: What an old-fashioned word! Yes—and it means an old-fashioned thing too. A “post-coach” of twenty years ago in comparison with a rail-car of the present day, is as the “household” of our great-grandfathers to the “menage” or our time. The keep of a feudal castle would look rather out of place among the conservatories, artificial waterworks, and Chinese bridges of a modern garden; perhaps the household, or citadel of home, has as little claim to a position of honor among the “refinements” of fashionable society. What need of walls or intrenchments when we live for the public? Privacy is but another word for ennui; retirement has but one meaning or value—that of affording opportunity of preparation for display. If we would shut out the world, it is only when nature imperiously demands a moment's respite from its glare. Happy they whose nerves, like iron, grow the tougher by hammering! They need lose no time. `I hardly dare take the pen to write to you, John, yet it seems better than leaving you without a word. I shall not try to excuse myself, but I feel sure I should never have been happy, or have made you happy, if I had kept to our engagement only for shame's sake. I did love you at the beginning; I was not deceitful then; but afterwards I learned to love another better, and for this you are partly to blame. You are too grave and serious for me: I have not spirits enough for us both. I always felt down-hearted after we had been together, although you were always so kind and good. Do not fret about this; fall in love with somebody else—somebody that is gay and light-hearted. I know I am running a great risk, and very likely shall be sorry that I ever left a man so good as you are for one who is more pleasant, but not any better, not so good, perhaps. I would have told you sooner, but could not make up my mind. God bless you and farewell.
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18Author:  Landon Melville D. (Melville De Lancey) 1839-1910Requires cookie*
 Title:  Eli Perkins (at large)  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. ‘If you get the best of whiskey, Eli, whiskey will get the best of you.” 627EAF. Page 009. In-line Illustration. Image of Uncle Consider with his hand on his chin. “Shoes are worn high in the neck, flounced with point aquille lace, cut on the bias. High heels are common in Saratoga, especially in the hop room. Cotton hose, open at the top, are very much worn, some of them having as many as three holes in them. Cotton plows are not seen. My dear Nevy—Yours received. While your Uncle Consider was in Afriky your maden Aunt Ruth and I thot wed get up an expedishun to New York to do sum Spring tradin'. The stanza— “I want to be an angel,” which you have just sung will not help you much unless you change your course of life. You must commence dressing more like angels here in this world if you want to be a real live angel in the next. You'd make healthy lookin' angels, wouldn't you? Now, wouldn't you? Angels don't wear pearl powder, do they? and angels don't wear false braids. They don't enamel their faces and smell of Caswell and Hazard's cologne, nor bore holes in their ears like Injuns and put Tiffany's ear-rings in them! Angels don't dye their hair, nor wear big diamonds, and have liveries and footmen, like many of our “shoddy” people. They— I shall never forget how Donn Pirate, a District of Columbia brigand, and I fell out and had a big fight. I shall also long remember the terrible thrashing he gave me. I knew I had been whipped by Donn because I saw the marks on Donn's face and also talked with the doctor who sponged him off and put liniment on him. But oh, it was a fearful castigation! I never want to be whipped again. If ever any man wants to continue to serve humanity—wants to make a martyr of himself—wants to reduce himself to a lump of jelly like the boneless man in the circus, by whipping me, I hope he will read this and reflect. My Darling Julia: First let me tell you all about myself. I'm just lovely, and having such a time! Flirting in Saratoga ain't like flirting in New York— in the horrid box at the opera, or on the atrocious stairs at a party. We have just the whole back balcony all to ourselves—and then we walk over to the graveyard, and pretend to go down to bowl, and stray off into Congress Spring Park. Then the drives! My lovely phaeton—and Prancer, she's just too sweet for anything! Now, the idea of calling a horse sweet! Yes, married Brown's Boys. You will see them in every large city and at every watering-place—men married to suffering, neglected wives, but flirting with scores of young ladies. I will try and see you to-night in the piano corner of the big parlor—at eight. Manage to be there with Lizzie and Charley, for they are spooney and we can “shake” them, and they will take it as a kindness. “Yours informing me that I am engaged in Pottsville is received. Very well; if she is young and wealthy I will keep the engagement. In fact, young or old I'll keep the engagement at all hazards—or rather at Pottsville. Have no fears about my being detained by accidents. I have never yet failed to be present when I lectured. Everything seems to impel me to keep this engagement. Everywhere here in Illinois the people follow me around in great crowds and enthusiastically invite me to go away. Illinois railroad presidents say they will cheerfully supply me with free passage on the trains rather than have me remain in the State another night; and almost every railroad president in Ohio and Pennsylvania, including Mr. Tom Scott, has supplied me with perpetual free passes—hoping I may be killed on the trains. Gentlemen: I received your note this morning, inviting me to go up in the balloon. You say you desire me to go as the representative of the Daily Bugle—to be the official historian of the first great aerial voyage across the Atlantic. You also say: [To the Editor of the Daily Bugle.]
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19Author:  Lippard George 1822-1854Requires cookie*
 Title:  The midnight queen, or, Leaves from New-York life  
 Published:  2003 
 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 GEO. LIPPARD, ESQ. “Dear Frank,—My sentence expires in two weeks from to-day. Send me some decent clothes, and let me know where I will meet you. Glad to hear that your plans as regards our daughter approach a `glorious' completion. “I am called away this afternoon to Havana on important business it admits of not a single hour's delay—and if I succeed in the speculation which I have in my eye, I will clear some $300,000. When you read this, I will be on board the steamer off Sandy Hook. I will be absent from four to five weeks. You will at once remove from the house which yourself and mother now occupy, and take possession of my town mansion in Broadway. The servants have the requisite orders; everything will be at your command. And don't fret yourself to death in my absence, darling. Yours, &c., &c.
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20Author:  Locke David Ross 1833-1888Requires cookie*
 Title:  Divers views, opinions, and prophecies of yoors trooly, Petroleum V. Nasby  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: I wuz born a Whig. My parents wuz a member uv that party, leastways my mother wuz, and she alluz did the votin, allowin my father, uv course, to go thro the manual labor uv castin the ballot, in deference to the laws uv the country, which does not permit females or niggers to vote, no matter how much intelleck they may hev in2 em.
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