| 21 | Author: | Sedgwick
Catharine Maria
1789-1867 | Add | | Title: | The Linwoods; Or, "sixty Years Since" in America | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | Some two or three years before our revolutionary
war, just at the close of day, two girls were seen
entering Broadway through a wicket garden-gate,
in the rear of a stately mansion which fronted on
Broad-street, that being then the court-end of the
city—the residence of unquestioned aristocracy—
(sic transit gloria mundi!) whence royal favour
and European fashions were diffused through the
province of New-York. “You must love me, or you could not endure my
stupid letters—you that can write so delightfully
about nothing, and have so much to write about,
while I can tell nothing but what I see, and I see
so little! The outward world does not much interest
me. It is what I feel that I think of and
ponder over; but I know how you detest what you
call sentimental letters, so I try to avoid all such
subjects. Compared with you I am a child—two
years at our age makes a great difference—I am
really very childish for a girl almost fourteen, and
yet, and yet, Isabella, I sometimes seem to myself
to have gone so far beyond childhood, that I have
almost forgotten that careless, light-hearted feeling
I used to have. I do not think I ever was so light-hearted
as some children, and yet I was not
serious—at least, not in the right way. Many a
time, before I was ten years old, I have sat up in
my own little room till twelve o'clock Saturday
night, reading, and then slept for an hour and a
half through the whole sermon the next morning.
I do believe it is the natural depravity of my
heart. I never read over twice a piece of heathen
poetry that moves me but I can repeat it—and
yet, I never could get past `what is effectual calling?'
in the Westminster Catechism; and I always
was in disgrace on Saturday, when parson Wilson
came to the school to hear us recite it:—oh dear,
the sight of his wig and three-cornered hat petrified
me!” “I have been enjoying a very pretty little episode
in my college life, passing the vacation at
Westbrook, with your old friends the Lees. A
month in a dull little country town would once
have seemed to me penance enough for my worst
sin, but now it is heaven to get anywhere beyond
the sound of college bells—beyond the reach of
automaton tutors—periodical recitations—chapel
prayers, and college rules. —Never say another word to
me of what you hinted in your last letter: indeed,
I am too young; and besides, I never should feel
easy or happy again with Jasper, if I admitted
such a thought. I have had but one opinion since
our visit to Effie; not that I believed in her—at
least, not much; but I have always known who
was first in his thoughts—heart—opinion; and besides,
it would be folly in me, knowing his opinions
about rank, &c. Mother thinks him very proud,
and somewhat vain; and she begins not to be
pleased with his frequent visits to Westbrook. She
thinks—no, fears, or rather she imagines, that Jasper
and I—no, that Jasper or I—no, that I—
it is quite too foolish to write, Isabella—mother
does not realize what a wide world there is between
us. I might possibly, sometimes, think he loved
(this last word was carefully effaced, and cared
substituted) cared for me, if he did not know you. “Thanks, dear Isabella, for your delightful letter
by Jasper—no longer Jasper, I assure you to his
face, but Mr. Meredith—oh, I often wish the time
back when I was a child, and might call him Jasper,
and feel the freedom of a child. I wonder if
I should dare to call you Belle now, or even Isabella?
Jasper, since his last visit at home, tells me
so much of your being `the mirror of fashion—
the observed of all observers' (these are his own
words—drawing-room terms that were never heard
in Westbrook but from his lips), that I feel a sort of
fearful shrinking. It is not envy—I am too happy
now to envy anybody in the wide world. Eliot is
at home, and Jasper is passing a week here. Is it
not strange they should be so intimate, when they
differ so widely on political topics? I suppose it
is because Jasper does not care much about the
matter; but this indifference sometimes provokes
Eliot. Jasper is very intimate with Pitcairn and
Lord Percy; and Eliot thinks they have more influence
with him than the honour and interest of
his country. Oh, they talk it over for hours and
hours, and end, as men always do with their arguments,
just where they began. Jasper insists that
as long as the quarrel can be made up it is much
wisest to stand aloof, and not, `like mad boys, to
rush foremost into the first fray;' besides, he says
he is tied by a promise to his uncle that he will
have nothing to do with these agitating disputes
till his education is finished. Mother says (she
does not always judge Jasper kindly) that it is very
easy and prudent to bind your hands with a promise
when you do not choose to lift them. —The world seems turned
upside down since I began this letter—war (war,
what an appalling sound) has begun—blood has
been spilt, and our dear, dear Eliot—but I must
tell you first how it all was. Eliot and Jasper were
out shooting some miles from Cambridge, when, on
coming to the road, they perceived an unusual commotion—old
men and young, and even boys, all
armed, in wagons, on horseback, and on foot, were
coming from all points, and all hurrying onward in
one direction. On inquiring into the hurly-burly,
they were told that Colonel Smith had marched to
Concord to destroy the military stores there; and
that our people were gathering from all quarters to
oppose his return. Eliot immediately joined them,
Jasper did not; but, dear Isabella, I that know
you so well, know, whatever others may think, that
tories may be true and noble. There was a fight
at Lexington. Our brave men had the best of it.
Eliot was the first to bring us the news. With
a severe wound in his arm, he came ten miles that
we need not be alarmed by any reports, knowing,
as he told mother, that she was no Spartan mother,
to be indifferent whether her son came home with
his shield or on his shield. Miss Linwood to Bessie Lee. —A week—a stormy, miserable
week has passed since I wrote the above, and it
has ended in Herbert's leaving us, and dishonouring
his father's name by taking a commission in the
rebel service. Papa has of course had a horrible
fit of the gout. He says he has for ever cast
Herbert out of his affections. Ah! I am not skilled
in metaphysics, but I know that we have no power
whatever over our affections. Mamma takes it all
patiently, and chiefly sorroweth for that Herbert
has lost caste by joining the insurgents, whom she
thinks little better than so many Jack Cades. “You say, my dear madam, that you have
heard `certain reports about me, which you are not
willing to believe, and yet cannot utterly discredit.'
You say, also, `that though you should revolt with
horror from sanctioning your son in those liaisons
that are advised by Lord Chesterfield, and others
of your friends, yet you see no harm in' loverlike
attentions `to young persons in inferior stations;
they serve' you add, `to keep alive and cultivate
that delicate finesse so essential to the success
of a man of the world, and, provided they
have no immoral purpose, are quite innocent,' as the
object of them must know there is an `impassable
gulf between her and her superiors in rank, and
is therefore responsible for her mistakes.' I have
been thus particular in echoing your words, that I
may assure you my conduct is in conformity to
their letter and spirit. Tranquillize yourself, my
dear madam. There is nothing, in any little fooleries
I may be indulging in, to disquiet you for a
moment. The person in question is a divine little
creature—quite a prodigy for this part of the
world, where she lives in a seclusion almost equal to
that of Prospero's isle; so that your humble servant,
being scarce more than the `third man that e'er
she saw,' it would not be to marvel at `if he
should be the first that e'er she loved'—and if I am,
it is my destiny—my conscience is quite easy—
I never have committed myself, nor ever shall:
time and absence will soon dissipate her illusions.
She is an unaspiring little person, quite aware of
the gulf, as you call it, between us. She believes
that even if I were lover and hero enough to play
the Leander and swim it, my destiny is fixed on
the other side. I have no distrust of myself, and I
beg you will have none; I am saved from all responsibility
as to involving the happiness of this
lily of the valley, by her very clear-sighted mother,
7*
and her sage of a brother, her natural guardians. “I have arrived thus far, my dear mother, on
my journey; and, according to my promise, am
beginning the correspondence which is to soften
our separation. “My sweet sister Bessie, nothing has afflicted
me so much in leaving home as parting from you.
I am inclined to believe there can be no stronger
nor tenderer affection than that of brother and
sister; the sense of protection on one part, and
dependance on the other; the sweet recollections
of childhood; the unity of interest; and the communion
of memory and hope, blend their hearts
together into one existence. So it is with us—is
it not, my dear sister? With me, certainly; for
though, like most young men, I have had my
fancies, they have passed by like the summer
breeze, and left no trace of their passage. All the
love, liking (I cannot find a word to express the
essential volatility of the sentiment in my experience
of it) that I have ever felt for all my
favourites, brown and fair, does not amount to one
thousandth part of the immutable affection that I
bear you, my dear sister. I speak only of my
own experience, Bessie, and, as I well know,
against the faith of the world. I should be told
that my fraternal love would pale in the fires of
another passion, as does a lamp at the shining of
the sun; but I don't believe a word of it—do you,
Bessie? I am not, my dear sister, playing the
inquisitor with you, but fearfully and awkwardly
enough approaching a subject on which I thought
it would be easier to write than to speak; but I
find it cannot be easy to do that, in any mode,
which may pain you. —I arrived safely at
headquarters on the 22d. Colonel Ashley received
me with open arms. He applauded my
resolution to join the army, and bestowed his curses
liberally (as is his wont on whatever displeases him)
on the young men who linger at home, while the
gallant spirits of France and Poland are crossing
the ocean to volunteer in our cause. He rubbed
his hands exultingly when I told him that it was
your self-originating decision that I should leave
you. `The only son of your mother—that is, the
only one to speak of' (forgive him, Sam and Hal),
`and she a widow!' he exclaimed. `Let them talk
about their Spartan mothers, half men and demimonsters;
but look at our women-folks, as tender
and as timid of their broods as hens, and as bold
and self-sacrificing as martyrs! You come of a
good stock, my boy, and so I shall tell the gin'ral.
He's old Virginia, my lad; and looks well to blood
in man and horse.' —I write under the inspiration
of the agreeable consciousness that my letter may
pass under the sublime eye of your commander-in-chief,
or be scanned and sifted by his underlings.
I wish to Heaven that, without endangering your
bright orbs, I could infuse some retributive virtue
into my ink to strike them blind. But the deuse
take them. I defy their oversight. I am not discreet
enough to be trusted with military or political
secrets, and therefore, like Hotspur's Kate, I
can betray none. As to my own private affairs,
though I do not flatter myself I have attained a
moral eminence which I may challenge the world
to survey, yet I'll expose nothing to you, dear Belle,
whose opinion I care more for than that of king,
lords, and commons, which the whole world may
not know without your loving brother being dishonoured
thereby: so, on in my usual `streak o'
lightning style,' with facts and feelings. “No, no, my dear Belle, I cannot remove to the
city—it must not be; and I am sorry the question
is again mooted. `A woman, and naturally born
to fears,' I may be; but because I have that inconvenient
inheritance, I see no reason why I
should cherish and augment it. Your imagination,
which is rather an active agent, has magnified
the terrors of the times; and it seems just
now to be unduly excited by the monstrous tales
circulated in the city, of the atrocities the Yankees
have committed on the tories. I see in Rivington's
Gazette, which you wrapped around the
sugarplums that you sent the children (thank you),
various precious anecdotes of Yankee tigers and
tory lambs, forsooth! that are just about as true
as the tales of giants and ogres with which your
childhood was edified. The Yankees are a civilized
race, and never, God bless them! commit
gratuitous cruelties. If they still `see it to be
duty' (to quote their own Puritan phrase), they will
cling to this contest till they have driven the remnant
of your Israel, Belle, every tory and Englishman,
from the land; but they will commit no
episodical murders: it is only the ignorant man
that is unnecessarily cruel. They are an instructed,
kind-hearted, Christian people; and of this there
will be abundant proof while the present war is remembered.
Remember, Belle, these people have
unadulterated English blood in their veins, which
to you should be a prevailing argument in their favour;
and believe me, they have a fair portion of
the spirit of their freedom-loving and all-daring ancestors.
Our English mother, God bless her, too,
should have known better than to trammel, scold,
and try to whip her sons into obedience, when
they had come to man's estate, and were fit to
manage their own household. Thank Heaven, I
have outlived the prejudices against the people of
New-England which my father transmitted to his
children. `There they come,' he used to say,
when he saw these busy people driving into the
manor; `every snow brings them, and, d—n them,
every thaw too!' | | Similar Items: | Find |
22 | Author: | Sedgwick
Catharine Maria
1789-1867 | Add | | Title: | The Linwoods; Or, "sixty Years Since" in America | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | It is reasonable to suppose that the disclosures
which occurred in Sir Henry Clinton's library
would be immediately followed by their natural
sequences: that love declared by one party, and
betrayed by the other, would, according to the
common usages of society, soon issue in mutual
affiancing. But these were not the piping times
of peace, and the harmony of events was sadly
broken by the discords of the period. —I could have huged
you before we parted, I have been so pleased with
you from the beginin to the end of this biznes. I
felt for you in the loss of your hors, and I can't
bear the thots of your riden that sorry jade, that's
only been used to prouling about o' nights, on all
sorts of diviltry; so I've ordered Gurden to put
into your hands a likely oretur, that our fokes at
home has sent up to be sold to the ofisers in camp.
Take it, my boy, and don't feel beholden to me; for
when the war is at end, and it's conveneyent, we'll
settle for it. —I perceive by your letters of
the first, which, thanks to a kind Providence, have
duly come to hand, that it is now nearly three
months since you have heard from us. Much good
and much evil may befall in three months! Much
good have I truly to be grateful for: and chiefly
that your life and health have been thus precious
in the sight of the Lord, and that you have received
honour at the hand of man (of which our good Dr.
Wilson made suitable mention in his prayer last
Sabbath); and, as I humbly trust, approval from
Him who erreth not. “I have read your letters over and over again, till
they have fallen to pieces with the continual dropping
of my hot tears; but every syllable is imprinted
on my heart. You did not believe your
`sister would waste her sensibility, the precious
food of life, in moping melancholy.' Oh, Eliot,
how much better must I have appeared to you than
I was! I have been all my life a hypocrite. You
believed `my mind had a self-rectifying power,'
and I imposed this belief on you! I am ready,
now, to bow my head in the dust for it. `Love,'
said your letter, `can never be incurable when it is
a disease: that is to say, when its object is unworthy.'
Ah, my dear brother, there was your
fatal mistake. It was I that was unworthy—it
was your simple sister that, in her secret, unconfessed
thoughts, believed he loved her, knowing
all the while that his lot was cast with the high,
the gifted, the accomplished—with such as Isabella
Linwood, and not with one so humble in condition,
so little graced by art as I am. I do not blame
him. Heaven knows I do not. `Self-rectifying
power!' Eliot, talk to the reed, that has been uprooted
and borne away by the tides of the ocean,
of its `self-rectifying power!' ” Eliot's maliness was vanquished, and he wept
like a child over his sister's letter. He reproached
himself for having left home. He bitterly reproached
himself for not having foreseen the danger
of her long, exclusive, and confiding intercourse
with Meredith. He was almost maddened when
he thought of the perils to which she must have
been exposed, and of his utter inability to save her
from one of them. The only solacing thought that
occurred to him was the extreme improbability
that her fragile and exhausted frame could support
the fatigues she must encounter, and that even
now, while he wept over her letter (a fortnight had
elapsed since it was written), her gentle spirit
might have entered upon its eternal rest. —I have just chanced
to call at a poor blacksmith's, who, with his worthy
family, is at death's door with a protracted intermittent.
It seems to me that port, like that I
drank with you yesterday, might restore them.
As the man looks like too independent an American
to beg a favour, I have taken the liberty to give
him this order for a bottle or two, telling him, with
a poetic truth, that I had wine in your cellar. It is
your own fault if all your friends feel that they
have a property in your possessions. Adieu.” —Nathan Palmer, a lieutenant in the service
of your king, has been taken in my camp as a
spy, condemned as a spy, and will be hung as a spy. “I have received your note, Jasper; I do not
reply to it hastily; hours of watchfulness and reflection
at the bedside of my friend have given the
maturity of years to my present feeling. I have
loved you, I confess it now; not by a treacherous
blush, but calmly, deliberately, in my own handwriting,
without faltering or emotion of any sort.
Yes, I have loved you, if a sentiment springing
from a most attachable nature, originating in the
accidental intercourse of childhood, fostered by
pride, nurtured by flattery, and exaggerated by an
excited imagination, can be called love. | | Similar Items: | Find |
23 | Author: | Sedgwick
Catharine Maria
1789-1867 | Add | | Title: | Live and Let Live, Or, Domestic Service Illustrated | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | It was one of the coldest days felt in New-York,
during the winter of 182-, that a baker's cart made
its accustomed halt before a door in Church-street.
It was driven by Charles Lovett, the baker's son,
whose ruddy cheeks, quick movement, and beaming
eye bespoke health, industry, and a happy
temper. This latter attribute seemed somewhat
too severely tested by the tardiness of his customer,
for in vain had he whistled, clapped his
hands, stamped, and repeated his usual cry of
“Hurry! hurry!” He at last leaped from his cart
on to the broken step of the wretched dwelling,
when the upper half of the door was slowly opened,
and a thinly-clad girl appeared, who, in answer to
his prepared question, “Why, what ails you? are
you all asleep?” replied, “Mother does not wish
any bread this morning.” “After deliberating and advising with Mrs. Hyde,
who has been like the kindest of mothers to us,
we have come to a decision which only waits for
your approbation. The bakery is sold to Mr.
Werner, a German, who, when a stranger and quite
destitute, came to the Lovetts, as it seemed, accidentally.
Werner was honest and industrious; he
understood the business thoroughly, and introduced
some improvements. For the last two years he
has been a partner, and now he has bought out
Charles. His two sisters and their old parents
arrived a few weeks since, and a happier family
I never saw. How strange that such a train of
consequences should come from Werner just coming
in to breakfast with us one morning at Mr.
Lovett's. This is what Mrs. Hyde says we should
call providential. Our Father in heaven provides
the opportunity for doing good, and his faithful
children improve it. But to our own affairs: it is
not five years since Mr. Lovett went to Ohio, and
there are already four thousand inhabitants in the
village. The people, he says, are very anxious to
have the bakery going; the bakehouse is built on
the lot Mr. Lovett set off to Charles for his services
when he was apprentice to him. Our house
is nearly done, and large enough for us all. The
ladies in the village will have plenty of work for
the girls' millinery and dressmaking establishment,
and dear Jemmie will keep Charles's books, and
all of us will be in a way to earn an honourable
living; all but you, dear mother; the remainder of
your life must be rest. You shall be our queen-bee,
and we will be your workers. Mrs. Hyde wishes
you to consent to the wedding being here; she
says it will save time (as we must return here on
our way to Pittsburgh) and save the expense of
a journey to Massachusetts. Charles likes this
plan, and I want you to know our family before I
leave it. Mrs. Hyde says she will provide lodgings
for you all at a boarding-house near to us. Is
not this most kind? Oh, mother, you will like her so
much! She has such beautiful manners, not only
in the drawing-room and to ladies, but to all, down to
the man that sweeps off the flagging, and the poor
that beg at her door. She truly seems to see the
image of God in every human creature; it makes
people civil to speak to her; her manners inspire
them with self-respect. She never lowers herself,
but raises them. If some people looked as differently
as they act to those above and those below
them, they would sometimes appear like the “loathly
ladie” in the ballad. | | Similar Items: | Find |
24 | Author: | Sedgwick
Catharine Maria
1789-1867 | Add | | Title: | The Boy of Mount Rhigi | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | There is a certain portion of the Tahconnick range
of mountains, in the western part of Massachusetts,
called Rhigi, said to have been thus named by
Swiss emigrants who settled there, and who probably
came from the neighborhood of Mount Rhigi, in Switzerland,
one of the beautiful resorts of that most beautiful
land.[1]
[1]There are other similar traces of Swiss settlement in this
neighborhood. Bash Bish, the lovely fall now becoming known
and celebrated, is a corruption of a very common Swiss name of
their minor falls. The love of the father-land is expressed by
the names the emigrant gives to the land of his adoption. The
Pilgrim bestowed on the New England settlements the names
of his old England home — Norfolk, Suffolk, Boston, Northampton,
Stockbridge, &c., and the New Englander repeats
them in his new home in the far west.
“Firstly, I enclose the two dollars
you gave me for travelling expenses. I met
Mr. Lyman on board the steamboat, and he gave me
five dollars, which he said he owed me for my aid in
the drawings he made for the New York architect.
Fine! After the wet time of parting was over, I was
in luck. Mr. Porter would not take any thing for
bringing me to the boat, — thirty good miles, — because
I helped him pick up apples one day after Jesse Porter
broke his arm. I was pretty hungry; but hearing they
charged half a dollar for supper, I bought some
crackers and cheese before I went on board. So I
came to the city for fifty cents. Such bustle and
confusion as there was on the wharf where we landed!
I made my way through it as well as I could, and
inquired the way to Chambers Street, not far, No. —,
where Mrs. Dawson lives. I saw the windows were
all closed, and so I sat my box of clothes down, and
sat on it. I began to feel both lonesome and hungry;
nothing seemed like morning — the fresh, beautiful
morning of the country. The sun shining on
chimneys and brick walls, instead of hill-tops and
sparkling waters; not a solitary bird singing; not
even a cock crowing. After a while, milkmen began
to appear. There was a different one for almost every
house, and each made a horrid outcry; and, after
a while, a woman came out of a cellar, and took a
measure of milk. Though they live in great houses,
this seems poverty to me. By and by, there came a
lively little driver with baskets full of bread. I remembered
Dr. Franklin's account of his buying a loaf
of bread and eating it as he walked through the
streets of Philadelphia, when first he went there;
and, though I do not expect to eat bread in kings'
houses, as he afterwards did, I thought there would
be no harm in following his example; so I bought a
sixpenny loaf of bread, and, with a draught of milk
from a milkman, I made a good breakfast. You see,
mother, I am determined to make my money last, if
possible, till I can earn more, and not call on you or
trouble our kind friend Mrs. Dawson. As soon as
her blinds were opened, I rung. The man who opened
the door smiled when I asked for Mrs. Dawson, and
said she would rise in about two hours. How long
those two hours were! But when they were over,
and I was summoned to her, she was as kind as ever.
She told me she had procured for me an excellent
place in a retail shop in Broadway, where, if I did as
well as my employer expected from her account of
me, I should receive enough, even the first year, to
pay my board. Before going there, she advised me to
secure a boarding-place; she had made inquiries for
this, and gave me references, and off I set. I went
from one to another. At one there was a multitude
of clerks, and a coarse, slatternly housekeeper; at
another there was a set of low traders. I went in
while they were at dinner, and a very slight observation
13
of their vulgar manners and conversation convinced
me they were not associates that I should
relish or you would approve. The next was full,
and the last was too filthy for any thing. As I
came off the steps quite discouraged, there was a
little fat lady walking before me in a gray silk
gown, and a white shawl, looking as neat as a new
pin. Two dirty shavers of boys had filled a squirt-gun
in the gutter, and had taken aim at the lady's
nice gown. I sprang upon them just in time,
wrenched the squirt-gun from their hands, and sent
it off out of sight. They began kicking and bawling;
and she, turning round, learned the mischief
they had intended. She was very thankful to me,
very good natured, and talkative. She told me the
gown was new, just come home, and she had put it
on for a wedding-visit, — a visit to her niece's husband's
first cousin; it was her best gown, too; she
had heard of the boys playing such tricks; boys
would be boys, &c., &c. O, mother dear! her
tongue goes by machinery. (Not father's!) She had
such a friendly way, and did not seem a very great
lady, and asked me so many questions, — my name,
where I came from, &c., — that I thought I would tell
her what I was in search of. This silenced her
for a moment; then she said, “Come home with me,
and we'll see what can be done. I'll talk to Plenty,
— Plenty is my sister, — and perhaps — but I won't
raise expectations yet. We live in Mercer Street,
retired and central too.” “It seems to me, dear mother, that I have lived a
year in the last fortnight. On the very Monday that
I sent you an account of the upshot at Holson's, Mr.
Nevis obtained the promise of an excellent situation
for me with Messrs. James Bent & Co., where his
son, my friend, already is. Mr. Bent is respected as
a man of strict integrity, and every part of his establishment
is well conducted; and I am to have a salary
of $150. Only imagine how rich I shall be! `It
never rains, but it pours!' Coming out of Mr. Bent's,
who should I meet but Mr. Lyman! He has more
work on hand than he can do, — making plans and
drawings for the first architect in the city, — and he
wanted me to help him. Never was any thing more
opportune. The place I am to have at Mr. Bent's
will not be vacant till next month, and now I can be
earning something; and, to tell the truth, mother, I do
need a little fitting up for summer.” “Your present, my dear son, was very acceptable,
as a proof of your abiding and ever-thoughtful love;
but do not send me any thing more at present.
Keep your earnings for your summer's outfit. We
want for nothing. Thanks to a kind Providence, my
health is good, and Annie's. There is never lack
of work for willing hands; and our wants, except
for your afflicted father, are small. His cough is
severe, and he declines daily, so that the doctor says
he should not be surprised if he dropped away at
any minute. His appetite continues remarkably. I
might find it difficult to satisfy it, but our kind
neighbors send in daily of their best. We have
plenty of fresh. To-day, dear old Mrs. Allen sent a
quarter of a roaster, and your father ate nearly the
whole of it. You know he was always remarkably
fond of pig. Our neighbors never let him be out of
custards, pies, and preserves. You know, Harry, I
never liked to call on my neighbors for watchers in
sickness, and think that, in most cases, it's much
better doing without them; but father feels different.
He likes company, he says, when he is awake, and I
am no talker. He is able yet to engage his own
watchers. He borrows the sheriff's old horse, and
jogs round after them. I don't oppose, though I
sometimes fear he will die on the road; but it serves
to divert him. “My dear cousin, — I am proud to call you so, —
Harry Davis, your visit to me has done me, as I
humbly hope, great good. I had lived here ten years,
within a stone's throw of this jail, and never seen
the inside of it. I call myself a Christian. I am
a professor. I pray daily in my family for those
who are in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity,
and yet I have never, till you came here, lifted
one of my fingers to loosen these bonds. I pray that
missionaries, preaching the good news of salvation,
may be sent to the whole human family. I subscribe
to charitable societies, — and so I should, as God has
prospered me, — and yet I have not done the duty
nearest to me. If I had, or if my Christian neighbors
had, the scenes of filth, idleness, and iniquity in that
jail would never have existed to witness against us.
I have taken measures to have that rascally jailer
removed. They talk of a disinfecting fluid. There
should be a moral disinfection in the character of the
man who has the care of the tenants of a jail — morally
diseased creatures. It is now three months since
I have been with Mr. Bent; and, excepting
my poor father's death, life has been all smooth sailing
with me. You have been getting on so nicely!
Clapham Hale giving such complete satisfaction to
Mr. Norton, and you and Annie — as appears by
your last letter — surprised with his improved appearance
and manly bearing. Does he not seem like one
of us? | | Similar Items: | Find |
25 | Author: | Simms
William Gilmore
1806-1870 | Add | | Title: | Martin Faber | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | “This is a fearful precipice, but I dare
look upon it. What, indeed, may I not
dare—what have I not dared! I look before
me, and the prospect, to most men full
of terrors, has few or none for me. Without
adopting too greatly the spirit of cant
which makes it a familiar phrase in the
mouths of the many, death to me will prove
a release from many strifes and terrors. I do
not fear death. I look behind me, and though
I may regret my crimes, they give me no
compunctious apprehensions. They were
among the occurrences known to, and a necessary
sequence in the progress of time and
the world's circumstance. They might have
been committed by another as well as by myself.
They must have been committed! I
was but an instrument in the hands of a power
with which I could not contend. | | Similar Items: | Find |
28 | Author: | Allston
Washington
1779-1843 | Add | | Title: | Monaldi | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | Among the students of a seminary at Bologna
were two friends, more remarkable for their attachment
to each other, than for any resemblance
in their minds or dispositions. Indeed there was
so little else in common between them, that hardly
two boys could be found more unlike. The character
of Maldura, the eldest, was bold, grasping,
and ostentatious; while that of Monaldi, timid
and gentle, seemed to shrink from observation.
The one, proud and impatient, was ever laboring
for distinction; the world, palpable, visible, audible,
was his idol; he lived only in externals, and could
neither act nor feel but for effect; even his secret
reveries having an outward direction, as if he
could not think without a view to praise, and
anxiously referring to the opinion of others; in
short, his nightly and his daily dreams had but one
subject — the talk and the eye of the crowd. The
other, silent and meditative, seldom looked out of
himself either for applause or enjoyment; if he
ever did so, it was only that he might add to, or
sympathize in the triumph of another; this done,
he retired again, as it were to a world of his own,
where thoughts and feelings, filling the place of
men and things, could always supply him with
occupation and amusement. | | Similar Items: | Find |
30 | Author: | Belknap
Jeremy
1744-1798 | Add | | Title: | The Foresters | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | To perform the promise which
I made to you before I began my journey,
I will give you such an account of this,
once forest, but now cultivated and pleasant
country, as I can collect from my
conversation with its inhabitants, and
from the perusal of their old family papers,
which they have kindly permitted
me to look into for my entertainment.
By these means I have acquainted
myself with the story of their first
planting, consequent improvements and
present state; the recital of which will
occupy the hours which I shall be able to
spare from business, company and sleep,
during my residence among them. | | Similar Items: | Find |
31 | Author: | Bennett
Emerson
1822-1905 | Add | | Title: | The Bandits of the Osage | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | “`My dear son, God be with you! I am dying,
and can never see you again on earth, but will in
the land of spirits. My strength is failing—I
have but a few minutes to live, and will devote
them to you. You have often questioned me of
your father. I have delayed answering you,—but
the time has now come when it is necessary you
should know all. God give me strength to pen,
and you to read the secret of my life!—and Ronald,
dear Ronald, whatever you do, do not reproach,
do not curse my memory! I shall enter
but little into detail, for time and strength will
not permit. At the age of twelve I was left an
orphan, and was taken in charge of some distant
relatives of my mother, with whom I lived in
easy circumstances, until the age of sixteen.
They were not wealthy, and yet had enough
wherewithal to live independent. They treated
me with much affection, and life passed pleasantly
for four years. At the age of sixteen, I accidentally
became acquainted with Walter Langdon,
only son of Sir Edgar Langdon, whose large
estate and residence—for he was very wealthy—
was but a few miles distant. He found opportunity
and declared his attachment, but at the
same time informed me that our relations on either
side would be opposed to our union, and begged
me to make no mention of it, but to prepare myself
and elope with him; that when the ceremony
was over, and no alternative, all parties would
become reconciled. He was young, handsome, and
accomplished—his powers of conversation brilliant.
He plead with a warmth of passion I could
not withstand—for know, Ronald, I loved him,
with the ardent first love of a girl of sixteen, and
I consented. Alas! Ronald, that I am forced to
tell you more: this rash act was my ruin! | | Similar Items: | Find |
32 | Author: | Bennett
Emerson
1822-1905 | Add | | Title: | The Renegade | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | That portion of territory known throughout Christendom as Kentucky,
was, at an early period, the theatre of some of the wildest tragedies, most
hardy contested and bloody scenes ever placed on record. In fact its very
name, derived from the Indian word Kan-tuck-kee, and which was applied
to it long before its discovery by the whites, is peculiarly significant in
meaning—being no less than “the dark and bloody ground.” History makes
no mention of its being inhabited prior to its settlement by the present race,
but rather serves to aid us in the inference, that from time immemorial it
was used as a “neutral ground,” whereon the different savage tribes were
wont to meet in deadly strife; and hence the portentious name by which it
was known among them. But notwithstanding its ominous title, Kentucky,
when first beheld by the white hunter, presented all the attractions he would
have envied in Paradise itself. The climate was congenial to his feelings—
the country was devoid of savages—while its thick tangles of green cane—
abounding with deer, elk, bears, buffaloes, panthers, wolves and wild cats,
and its more open woods with pheasant, turkey and partridges—made it the
full realization of his hopes—his longings. What more could he ask? And
when he again stood among his friends, beyond the Alleghanies, is it to be
wondered at that his excited feelings, aided by distance, should lead him to
describe it as the El Dorado of the world? Such indeed he did describe it;
and to such glowing descriptions, Kentucky is doubtless partially indebted
for her settlement so much in advance of the surrounding territory. “Dear Son:—If in the land of the living, return as speedily as possible
to your afflicted and anxious parents, who are even now mourning you as dead.
You can return in safety; for your cousin, whom you supposed you had
fatally wounded, recovered therefrom, and publicly exonerated you from all
blame in the matter. He is now, however, no more—having died of late
with the scarlet fever. Elvira, his wife, is also dead. She died insane. As
a partial restitution for the injury done you, your cousin has made you heir
by will, to all his property, real estate and personal, amounting, it is said, to
over twenty thousand dollars. Your mother is in feeble health, caused by
anxiety on your account. For further information, inquire of the messenger
who will bear you this. | | Similar Items: | Find |
33 | Author: | Bennett
Emerson
1822-1905 | Add | | Title: | The Trapper's Bride, Or, Spirit of Adventure | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | It was in the autumn of 18— that I
isited the city of New York for the first
ime. I had long been desirous of seeing
hat great city, the grand commercial
and mercantile emporium of the western
world: the London of America. This
city is one of the oldest in the United
States, and by far the largest in the Republic,
and decidedly the most important
in a business point of view. Its mercantile
interests are greater and vastly
more extended, than are those of any
other city in the Union. Early in the
history of this country it was founded by
a colony of Dutch, a people then widely
known for the spirit and energy with
which they carried on mercantile pursuits,
and more especially for their commercial
operations. This spirit they
brought with them to their new home:
and, as the town grew in importance, and
increased in wealth, they pushed their
branches of business, which were found
profitable to them, besides being more to
their liking than any other pursuits in
life: and in this way they gained an advance
over the other settlements in the
country, which they have ever since continued
to hold. New York possesses by
its location all the natural advantages for
commercial pursuit. Its wide harbor,
which affords a safe anchorage for the
largest ships, looks out upon the boundless
ocean, which is traversed at this time
by its thousands of stout, staunch vessels.
Its intercourse with foreign nations
across the ocean is extremely easy from
this circumstance, and its active citizens
saw this advantage from the first; it was
the strong inducement which led them to
settle on that narrow neck of land upon
which the city is built, and as I have
said, early turned their attention to the
subject of navigation, and to embark in
the pursuits of commerce. As the country
grew, and the population increased,
foreign trade also became more profitable,
and this city was the port that received
the returning ships laden with the
treasures and luxuries of foreign climes,
and in turn sent them back freighted
with the surplus productions of our own
land, to be exchanged in distant countries.
At the date of my story, the city
had become large and wealthy. It had
already secured the largest share of trade
in foreign staples and commodities from
other parts of our country, and merchants
from other cities on the sea-board as well
as inland cities and towns came here to
purchase their stocks. Merchants from
all parts of the country flowed to New
York, as offering the best chance to do
business profitably, and advantageously;
and foreigners, also, who came to this
country, were pretty sure to make this
port on their arrival, and quite as sure to
remain and engage in business in this
enterprising and prosperous city. From
successful business, many of the city
merchants grew very wealthy, and retiring
from active business, they built for
themselves elegant mansions in which
they resided in the bosom of their families,
enjoying all the comforts and pleasures,
both social and domestic, their
amassed wealth could purchase for
them; hence there grew up in this
city, and very naturally too, an aristocracy
of wealth, and with wealth an
aristocracy of fashion; indeed this city
soon became what in truth it has ever
since continued to be, the source and
fountain of the fashion. Here were to
be seen the latest styles of female costume;
here the fashionable bean got
the cue for the approved and last method
of the tie of his cravat, or the color and
size of his coat buttons, the length and
shape of his whiskers and moustaches.
In fact, in this respect, New York is to
America what Paris is to France; and
here you will ever find a crowd devoted
to the gay goddess whose temples are the
milliners, the mantua-makers, tailors and
barbers' shops. | | Similar Items: | Find |
34 | Author: | Bird
Robert Montgomery
1806-1854 | Add | | Title: | Calavar, Or, the Knight of the Conquest | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | In the year of Grace fifteen hundred and twenty,
upon a day in the month of May thereof, the sun rose
over the islands of the new deep, and the mountains
that divided it from an ocean yet unknown, and
looked upon the havoc, which, in the name of God,
a Christian people were working-upon the loveliest
of his regions. He had seen, in the revolution of a
day, the strange transformations which a few years
had brought upon all the climes and races of his
love. The standard of Portugal waved from the
minarets of the east; a Portuguese admiral swept
the Persian Gulf, and bombarded the walls of Ormuz;
a Portuguese viceroy held his court on the shores
of the Indian ocean; the princes of the eastern continent
had exchanged their bracelets of gold for the
iron fetters of the invader; and among the odours of
the Spice Islands, the fumes of frankincense ascended
to the God of their new masters. He passed on his
course: the breakers that dashed upon the sands of
Africa, were not whiter than the squadrons that
rolled among them; the chapel was built on the
shore, and under the shadow of the crucifix was
fastened the first rivet in the slavery of her miserable
children. Then rose he over the blue Atlantic:
the new continent emerged from the dusky deep; the
ships of discoverers were penetrating its estuaries
and straits, from the Isles of Fire even to the frozen
promontories of Labrador; and the roar of cannon
went up to heaven, mingled with the groans and blood
of naked savages. But peace had descended upon
the islands of America; the gentle tribes of these
paradises of ocean wept in subjection over the graves
of more than half their race; hamlets and cities were
springing up in their valleys and on their coasts;
the culverin bellowed from the fortress, the bell
pealed from the monastery; and the civilization and
vices of Europe had supplanted the barbarism and
innocence of the feeble native. Still, as he careered
to the west, new spectacles were displayed before
him; the followers of Balboa had built a proud city
on the shores, and were launching their hasty barks
on the surges of the New Ocean; the hunter of the
Fountain of Youth was perishing under the arrows
of the wild warriors of Florida, and armed Spaniards
were at last retreating before a pagan multitude. One
more sight of pomp and of grief awaited him: he
rose on the mountains of Mexico; the trumpet of
the Spaniards echoed among the peaks; he looked
upon the bay of Ulua, and, as his beams stole tremblingly
over the swelling current, they fell upon the
black hulls and furled canvas of a great fleet riding
tranquilly at its moorings. The fate of Mexico was
in the scales of destiny; the second army of invaders
had been poured upon her shores. In truth, it
was a goodly sight to look upon the armed vessels
that thronged this unfrequented bay; for peacefully
and majestically they slept on the tide, and as the
morning hymn of the mariners swelled faintly on the
air, one would have thought they bore with them to
the heathen the tidings of great joy, and the good-will
and grace of their divine faith, instead of the
earthly passions which were to cover the land with
lamentation and death. | | Similar Items: | Find |
35 | Author: | Bird
Robert Montgomery
1806-1854 | Add | | Title: | The Infidel, Or, the Fall of Mexico | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | The traveller, who wanders at the present day
along the northern and eastern borders of the Lake
of Tezcuco, searches in vain for those monuments
of aboriginal grandeur, which surrounded it in the
age of Montezuma. The lake itself, which, not so
much from the saltness of its flood as from the
vastness of its expanse, was called by Cortes the
Sea of Anahuac, is no longer worthy of the name.
The labours of that unhappy race of men, whose
bondage the famous Conquistador cemented in the
blood of their forefathers, have conducted, through
the bowels of a mountain, the waters of its great
tributaries, the pools of San Cristobal and Zumpango;
and these, rushing down the channel of
the Tula, or river of Montezuma, and mingled with
the surges of the great Gulf, support fleets of
modern argosies, instead of piraguas and chinampas,
and expend upon foundering ships-of-war the
wrath, which, in their ancient beds, was wasted
upon reeds and bulrushes. With the waters,
which rippled through their streets, have vanished
the numberless towns and cities, that once beautified
the margin of the Alpine sea; the towers have
fallen, the lofty pyramids melted into earth or air,
and the palaces and tombs of kings will be looked
for in vain, under tangled copses of thistle and
prickly-pear. | | Similar Items: | Find |
36 | Author: | Bird
Robert Montgomery
1806-1854 | Add | | Title: | The Infidel, Or, the Fall of Mexico | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | Before sunrise on the following morning, many
a feathered band of allies from distant tribes was
pouring into Tezcuco; for this was the day on
which the Captain-General had appointed to review
his whole force, assign the several divisions to the
command of his favourite officers, and expound the
system of warfare, by which he expected to reduce
the doomed Tenochtitlan. The multitudes that
were collected by midday would be beyond our
belief, did we not know that the royal valley, and
every neighbouring nook of Anahuac capable of
cultivation, were covered by a population almost
as dense as that which makes an ant-heap of the
`Celestial Empire,' at this day. | | Similar Items: | Find |
37 | Author: | Bird
Robert Montgomery
1806-1854 | Add | | Title: | Nick of the Woods, Or, the Jibbenainosay | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | When the soldier recovered his senses, it was
to wonder again at the change that had come over
the scene. The loud yells, the bitter taunts, the
mocking laughs, were heard no more; and nothing
broke the silence of the wilderness, save the stir
of the leaf in the breeze, and the ripple of the
river against its pebbly banks below. He glanced
a moment from the bush in which he was lying,
in search of the barbarians who had lately covered
the slope of the hill, but all had vanished; captor
and captive had alike fled; and the sparrow
twittering among the stunted bushes, and the
grasshopper singing in the grass, were the only
living objects to be seen. The thong was still
upon his wrists, and as he felt it rankling in his
flesh, he almost believed that his savage captors,
with a refinement in cruelty the more remarkable
as it must have robbed them of the sight of his
dying agonies, had left him thus bound and wounded,
to perish miserably in the wilderness alone. | | Similar Items: | Find |
38 | Author: | Bird
Robert Montgomery
1806-1854 | Add | | Title: | The Adventures of Robin Day | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | Sylla, the Roman dictator, is, as far as I know,
the only great man on record who attributed his
advancement to good luck; all other great men being
modestly content to refer their successes in life to
their own merits; insisting, with the philosophers,
that there is not, in reality, any such thing as luck
at all, good, bad, or indifferent, but that every man's
fortune, whether happy or evil, is referable to his
own agency, the direct result of his own wise or
foolish actions. Such may be the fact, for aught I can
say, (it is a comfortable doctrinef or the fortunate,)
and I do not pretend to controvert it; but of one
thing I am very certain, namely, that whether there
be bad luck in the world or not, there is an abundance
of those unhappy personages who are commonly
considered its victims—that is to say, unlucky
dogs; of which race I was undoubtedly born
a member. | | Similar Items: | Find |
39 | Author: | Bird
Robert Montgomery
1806-1854 | Add | | Title: | The Adventures of Robin Day | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | Much as I had reason to fear and detest this
remarkable personage, Captain Brown, by whom I
had been so basely defrauded and cheated into a participation
in knavery, and who, I had cause from
his own confessions, to believe was, or had once
been, a noted pirate; yet my feelings at sight of
him mingled something like satisfaction with my
fear and resentment. I was so forlorn and helpless
in the midst of embarrassment and danger, so much
in want of a friend to counsel and assist me, that
even Captain Hellcat's countenance appeared to me
desirable: at such a moment, I could have accepted
the friendship almost of Old Nick himself. He had
done me a great deal of mischief, to be sure; but, in
my present situation, it was scarce possible he could
do me any more. From his courage and worldly
experience, nay even from his good will—for I
almost looked upon him as a friend, though a mischievous
and dangerous one—much was to be expected:
and, besides, our adventures together had
established a kind of community of interests between
us, at least to a certain extent, (were we not house-robbers
and runaways together?) which, I thought,
must ensure me his good offices, at this moment of
difficulty and distress. I resolved, in a word, having
no other way to help myself, to throw myself
upon his friendship, and trust to him for rescue from
the dangers that beset me. | | Similar Items: | Find |
40 | Author: | Brown
Charles Brockden
1771-1810 | Add | | Title: | Edgar Huntly, Or, Memoirs of a Sleep-walker | | | Published: | 1997 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | Description: | Next morning I stored a
small bag with meat and bread, and
throwing an axe on my shoulder, set
out, without informing any one of my
intentions, for the hill. My passage
was rendered more difficult by these
incumbrances, but my perseverance surmounted
every impediment, and I gained,
in a few hours, the foot of the tree, whose
trunk was to serve me for a bridge.
In this journey I saw no traces of the
fugitive. | | Similar Items: | Find |
|