| | 142 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | The Domain of Arnheim  | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | From his cradle to his grave a gale of prosperity bore my
friend Ellison along. Nor do I use the word prosperity in its
mere worldly sense. I mean it as synonymous with happiness. The
person of whom I speak seemed born for the purpose of
foreshadowing the doctrines of Turgot, Price, Priestley and
Condorcet — of exemplifying by individual instance what has been
deemed the chimera of the perfectionists. In the brief existence
of Ellison I fancy that I have seen refuted the dogma, that in
man's very nature lies some hidden principle, the antagonist of
bliss. An anxious examination of his career has given me to
understand that, in general, from the violation of a few simple
laws of humanity arises the wretchedness of mankind — that as a
species we have in our possession the as yet unwrought
elements of content — and that, even now, in the present darkness and
madness of all thought on the great question of the social
condition, it is not impossible that man, the individual, under
certain unusual and highly fortuitous conditions, may be happy. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 143 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | Eleonora | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | I am come of a race noted for vigour of fancy and ardour of
passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet
settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence —
whether much that is glorious — whether all that is profound — does
not spring from disease of thought — from moods of mind
exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream
by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream
only by night. In their grey visions they obtain glimpses of
eternity, and thrill, in awaking, to find that they have been
upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn
something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere
knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however rudderless
or compassless, into the vast ocean of the
'light ineffable' and
again, like the adventurers of the Nubian geographer, '
aggressi sunt mare tenebrarum, quid in eo esset exploraturi'. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 144 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | Hop-Frog | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | I never knew any one so keenly alive to a joke as the king
was. He seemed to live only for joking. To tell a good story of
the joke kind, and to tell it well, was the surest road to his
favour. Thus it happened that his seven ministers were all noted
for their accomplishments as jokers. They all took after the
king, too, in being large, corpulent, oily men, as well as
inimitable jokers. Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether
there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I
have never been quite able to determine; but certain it is that a
lean joker is a rara avis in terris. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 145 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | The Island of the Fay | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | 'La musique,' says Marmontel, in those 'Contes Moraux'
1
which, in all our translations, we have insisted upon calling
'Moral Tales' as if in mockery of their spirit — 'la musique est
le seul des talents qui jouissent de lui-même; tous les autres
veulent des témoins.' He here confounds the pleasure derivable
from sweet sounds with the capacity for creating them. No more
than any other talent, is that for music susceptible of complete
enjoyment, where there is no second party to appreciate its
exercise. And it is only in common
with other talents that it produces effects which may be fully
enjoyed in solitude. The idea which the raconteur has either
failed to entertain clearly, or has sacrificed in its expression
to his national love of point, is, doubtless, the very tenable
one that the higher order of music is the most thoroughly
estimated when we are exclusively alone. The proposition, in
this form, will be admitted at once
by those who love the lyre
for its sake, and for its spiritual uses. But there is one
pleasure still within the reach of fallen mortality — and perhaps
only one — which owes even more than does music to the accessory
sentiment of seclusion. I mean the happiness experienced in the
contemplation of natural scenery. In truth, the man who would
behold aright the glory of God upon earth must in solitude behold
that glory. To me, at least, the presence — not of human life
only, but of life in any other form than that of the green things
which grow upon the soil and are voiceless — is a stain upon the
landscape — is at war with the genius of the scene. I love,
indeed, to regard the dark valleys, and the grey rocks, and the
waters that silently smile, and the forests that sigh in uneasy
slumbers, and the proud watchful mountains that look down upon
all — I love to regard these as themselves but the colossal
members of one vast animate and sentient whole — a whole whose
form (that of the sphere) is the most perfect and most inclusive
of all; whose path is among associate planets; whose meek
handmaiden is the moon; whose mediate sovereign is the sun; whose
life is eternity; whose thought is that of a God; whose enjoyment
is knowledge; whose destinies are lost in immensity; whose
cognizance of ourselves is akin with our own cognizance of the
animalculae which infest the brain — a being which we, in
consequence, regard as purely inanimate and material, much in the
same manner as these animalculae must thus regard us. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 146 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | King Pest | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | About twelve o'clock, one night in the month of October, and
during the chivalrous reign of the third Edward, two seamen
belonging to the crew of the Free and Easy, a trading schooner
plying between Sluys and the Thames, and then at anchor in that
river, were much astonished to find themselves seated in the tap-room of an ale-house in the parish of St Andrews, London — which
ale-house bore for sign the portraiture of a 'Jolly Tar'. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 147 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | Landor's Cottage | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | During a pedestrian tour last summer, through one or two of
the river counties of New York, I found myself, as the day
declined, somewhat embarrassed about the road I was pursuing.
The land undulated very remarkably; and my path, for the last
hour, had wound about and about so confusedly, in its effort to
keep in the valleys, that I no longer knew in what direction lay
the sweet village of B—, where I had determined to stop for
the night. The sun had scarcely shone — strictly speaking — during
the day, which, nevertheless, had been unpleasantly warm. A
smoky mist, resembling that of the Indian summer, enveloped all
things, and, of course, added to my uncertainty. Not that I
cared much about the matter. If I did not hit upon the village
before sunset, or even before dark, it was more than possible
that a little Dutch farmhouse, or something of that kind, would
soon make its appearance — although, in fact, the neighbourhood
(perhaps on account of being more picturesque than fertile) was
very sparsely inhabited. At all events, with my knapsack for a
pillow, and my hound as a sentry, a bivouac in the open air was
just the thing which would have amused me. I sauntered
on, therefore, quite at ease — Ponto taking charge of my gun — until at
length, just as I had begun to consider whether the numerous
little glades that led hither and thither were intended to be
paths at all, I was conducted by one of the most promising of
them into an unquestionable carriage-track. There could be no
mistaking it. The traces of light wheels were evident; and
although the tall shrubberies and overgrown undergrowth met
overhead, there was no obstruction whatever below, even to the
passage of a Virginian mountain wagon — the most aspiring vehicle,
I take it, of its kind. The road, however, except in being open
through the wood — if wood be not too weighty a name for such an
assemblage of light trees — and except in the particulars of
evident wheel-tracks — bore no resemblance to any road I had
before seen. The tracks of which I speak were but faintly
perceptible, having been impressed upon the firm, yet pleasantly
moist surface of — what looked more like green Genoese velvet than
anything else. It
was grass, clearly — but grass such as we
seldom see out of England — so short, so thick, so even, and so
vivid in colour. Not a single impediment lay in the wheel-route —
not even a chip or dead twig. The stones that once obstructed
the way had been carefully placed — not thrown — along the sides of
the lane, so as to define its boundaries at bottom with a kind of
half-precise, half-negligent, and wholly picturesque definition.
Clumps of wild flowers grew everywhere, luxuriantly, in the
interspaces. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 148 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | Mellonta Tauta | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Now, my dear friend — now, for your sins, you are to suffer the
infliction of a long gossiping letter. I tell you distinctly
that I am going to punish you for all your impertinences by being
as tedious, as discursive, as incoherent and as unsatisfactory as
possible. Besides, here I am, cooped up in a dirty balloon, with
some one or two hundred of the canaille, all bound on a
pleasure excursion (what a funny idea some people have of
pleasure!), and I have no prospect of touching terra firma
for a month at least. Nobody to talk to. Nothing to do. When
one has nothing to do, then is the time to correspond with one's
friends. You perceive, then, why it is that I write you this
letter — it is on account of my ennui and your sins. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 149 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | The Murders in the Rue Morgue | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in
themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate
them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things,
that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately
possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man
exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as
call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that
moral activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from even
the most trivial occupations bringing his talent into play. He is
fond of enigmas, of conundrums, hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his
solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the
ordinary apprehension praeternatural. His results, brought about
by the very soul and essence of method, have, in truth, the whole
air of intuition. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 150 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | The Mystery of Marie Roget | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | There are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who
have not occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling
half-credence in the supernatural, by coincidences of so
seemingly marvellous a character that, as mere coincidences,
the intellect has been unable to receive them. Such sentiments —
for the half-credences of which I speak have never the full force of
thought — such sentiments are seldom thoroughly stifled unless by
reference to the doctrine of chance, or, as it is technically
termed, the Calculus of Probabilities. Now this Calculus is, in
its essence, purely mathematical; and thus we have the anomaly of
the most rigidly exact in science applied to the shadow and
spirituality of the most intangible in speculation. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 151 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | The Imp of the Perverse | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | In the consideration of the faculties and impulses — of the
prima mobilia of the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to
make room for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a
radical, primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally
overlooked by all the moralists who have preceded them. In the
pure arrogance of the reason, we have all overlooked it. We have
suffered its existence to escape our senses solely through want of
belief — of faith; — whether it be faith in Revelation, or faith in
the Kabbala. The idea of it has never occurred to us, simply
because of its supererogation. We saw no need of impulse — for
the propensity. We could not perceive its necessity. We could not
understand, that is to say, we could not have understood, had the
notion of this primum mobile ever obtruded itself; — we could
not have understood in what manner it might be made to further the
objects of humanity, either temporal or eternal. It cannot be
denied that phrenology and, in great measure, all metaphysicianism
have been concocted a priori. The intellectual or logical man,
rather than the understanding or observant man, set himself to
imagine designs — to dictate purposes to God. Having thus fathomed,
to his satisfaction, the intentions of Jehovah, out of these
intentions he built his innumerable systems of mind. In the matter
of phrenology, for example, we first determined, naturally enough,
that it was
the design of the Deity that man should eat. We then
assigned to man an organ of alimentiveness, and this organ is the
scourge with which the Deity compels man, will-I nill-I, into
eating. Secondly, having settled it to be God's will that man
should continue his species, we discovered an organ of amativeness,
forthwith. And so with combativeness, with ideality, with
causality, with constructiveness, — so, in short, with every organ,
whether representing a propensity, a moral sentiment, or a faculty
of the pure intellect. And in these arrangements of the
principia of human action, the Spurzheimites, whether right or
wrong, in part, or upon the whole, have but followed, in principle,
the footsteps of their predecessors; deducing and establishing
everything from the preconceived destiny of man, and upon the
ground of the objects of this Creator. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 152 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | The Purloined Letter | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of
18—, I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a
meerschaum, in company with my friend, C. Auguste Dupin, in his
little back library, or book-closet, au troisième, No. 33 Rue
Dunôt, Faubourg St. Germain. For one hour at least we had
maintained a profound silence; while each, to any casual
observer, might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied
with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of
the chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally discussing
certain topics which had formed matter for conversation between
us at an earlier period of the evening; I mean the affair of the
Rue Morgue, and the mystery attending the murder of Marie Rogêt.
I looked upon it, therefore, as something of a coincidence, when
the door of our apartment was thrown open
and admitted our old
acquaintance, Monsieur G—, the Prefect of the Parisian police. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 154 | Author: | Pullen, Clarence | Add | | | Title: | The Pueblo of Acoma | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | PERHAPS the most interesting people among the aborigines of
the American continent are the Pueblo (town) Indians of New Mexico
and Arizona, who have an ethnological affinity, if not a direct
kinship, with the succession of different migratory peoples,
beginning with the Toltecs and ending with the Aztecs, who, between
the seventh and the twelfth centuries, passed southward from the
unknown region, Aztlan, to colonize the Valley of Mexico and its
environing vales and plains. The substantial and permanent
character of the houses composing the pueblos of these tribes, each
tiny town being an independent community; the primitive
civilization that still prevails among their inhabitants, unchanged
in centuries; the adherence of the people to pastoral,
horticultural, and agricultural pursuits; their gentleness,
hospitality, industry, and thrift; their bravery in defence of home
and liberty; their chastity; and the isolation that each existing
pueblo has maintained in the midst of surrounding tribes and the
settlements of the whites — are all noteworthy characteristics; and
in their social relations within each city these Indians afford as
nearly as has ever been attained an example of rational and
successful communism. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 156 | Author: | Remington, Frederic | Add | | | Title: | The Art of War and Newspaper Men | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | LESS than two weeks ago I passed over the trail from
Rushville, Nebraska, to the Pine Ridge Agency behind Major-General
Nelson A. Miles. To-night the moon is shining as it did then, but
it will go down in the middle of the night, and I can see in my
mind's eye the Second Infantry and the Ninth Troopers, with their
trains of wagons, plodding along in the dark. The distance is
twenty-eight miles, and at four o'clock in the morning they will
arrive. When the Ogallalas view the pine-clad bluffs they will see
in the immediate foreground a large number of Sibley tents, and,
being warriors, they will know that each Sibley has eighteen men in
it. They will be much surprised. They will hold little impromptu
councils, and will probably seek for the motive of this
concentration of troops. And some man will say: "Well, the
soldiers are here, and if your people don't keep quiet— Well, you
know what soldiers are for." The Ogallalas will understand why the
soldiers are there without any further explanation. There may be
and probably will be some white friend of the Indians who can tell
them something they do not know. A little thing has happened since
the Ogallalas laid their arms down, and that is that the bluecoats
in the Second Infantry can put a bullet into the anatomy of an
Ogallala at one thousand yards' range with almost absolute
certainty if the light is fair and the wind not too strong. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 157 | Author: | Richardson, James | Add | | | Title: | Our Patent-System, and What We Owe to It | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | We are a nation of inventors, and every invention is patented;
yet, curiously, there is no subject quite so void of interest to the
average gentle reader," as patents and patent-rights. Why, it is
hard to say; for there is no factor of modern civilization that
comes home to every one more constantly or more closely. Indeed, in
their ubiquity and unresting action, patents have been aptly likened
to the taxes which Sydney Smith described as following the overtaxed
Englishmen of his day from the cradle to the grave. Does the
comparison hold as well, as some assert, in respect to
burdensomeness? | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 158 | Author: | Schwatka, Frederick | Add | | | Title: | The Sun-Dance of the Sioux | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | A FEW years ago it was the good fortune of the writer to witness,
at the Spotted Tail Indian Agency, on Beaver Creek, Nebraska, the
ceremony of the great sun-dance of the Sioux. Perhaps eight
thousand Brule Sioux were quartered at the agency at that time, and
about forty miles to the west, near the head of the White River,
there was another reservation of Sioux, numbering probably a
thousand or fifteen hundred less Ordinarily each tribe or
reservation has its own celebration of the sun-dance; but owing to
the nearness of these two
agencies it was this year thought
best to join forces and celebrate the savage rites with unwonted
splendor and barbarity. Nearly half way between the reservations
the two forks of the Chadron (or Shadron) creek form a wide plain,
which was chosen as the site of the great sun-dance. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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