| | 161 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of
the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Boomerang,
and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression
of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance.
He roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had
commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion
of his boyhood named Leonidas W. Smiley — Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley
— a young minister of the Gospel, who he had heard was at one time
a resident of this village of Boomerang. I added that if Mr. Wheeler
could tell me any thing about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would
feel under many obligations to him. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 162 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Mysterious Stranger; A Romance by Mark Twain [pseud.] with
illustrations by N.C. Wyeth. | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IT WAS IN 1590—winter. Austria was far away from the world, and
asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so
forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by
the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in Austria. But
they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were all
proud of it. I remember it well, although I was only a boy; and I remember, too,
the pleasure it gave me. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 163 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Roughing It | | | | Published: | 1998 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | MY brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada
Territory—an office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself
the duties and dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of
State, and Acting Governor in the Governor's absence. A salary of
eighteen hundred dollars a year and the title of "Mr. Secretary,"
gave to the great position an air of wild and imposing grandeur. I
was young and ignorant, and I envied my brother. I coveted his
distinction and his financial splendor, but particularly and
especially the long, strange journey he was going to make, and the
curious new world he was going to explore. He was going to
travel! I never had been away from home, and that word "travel"
had a seductive charm for me. Pretty soon he would be hundreds
and hundreds of miles away on the great plains and deserts, and
among the mountains of the Far West, and would see buffaloes and
Indians, and prairie dogs, and antelopes, and have all kinds of
adventures, and may be get hanged or scalped, and have ever such
a fine time, and write home and tell us all about it, and be a hero.
And he would see the gold mines and the silver mines, and maybe
go about of an afternoon when his work was done, and pick up two
or three pailfuls of shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and silver on
the hillside. And by and by he would become very rich, and return
home by sea, and be able to talk as calmly about San Francisco and
the ocean, and "the isthmus" as if it was nothing of any
consequence to have seen those marvels face to face. What I
suffered in contemplating his happiness, pen cannot describe. And
so, when he offered me, in cold blood, the sublime position of
private secretary under him, it appeared to me that
the heavens and the earth passed away, and the firmament was
rolled together as a scroll! I had nothing more to desire. My
contentment was complete.
At the end of an hour or two I was ready for the journey. Not
much packing up was necessary, because we were going in the
overland stage from the Missouri frontier to Nevada, and
passengers were only allowed a small quantity of baggage apiece.
There was no Pacific railroad in those fine times of ten or twelve
years ago—not a single rail of it. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 168 | Author: | Washington, Booker T. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Negro Self-Help | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | FROM time to time in the past a great deal of matter has been
furnished to the public, with the praiseworthy purpose of portraying
the individual struggles and sacrifices of colored youths to secure an
education. These efforts of struggling young men and women, with
no inspiration in family tradition and fortune, and with little or no
money with which to secure the knowledge they crave, is one of the
most encouraging as well as pathetic features I have come across in
my educational work during the past twenty years. As a hopeful
indication of race character, and I may safely so describe it, it must
be of peculiar interest to the average American interested in the
Negro people. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 169 | Author: | Washington, Booker T. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Negro Progress in Virginia | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE members of the colored race who live outside of Virginia are
beginning to grow somewhat jealous of the progress which our race is
making in this commonwealth. The Negro race in Virginia is going
forward, in my opinion, in all the fundamental and substantial things of
life, faster than the Negro himself realizes and faster than his white
neighbor realizes. I say this notwithstanding there are many existing
weaknesses and much still to be accomplished. This progress which
Virginia Negroes are now experiencing is owing to two causes. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 174 | Author: | Zerbe, J. S. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Aeroplanes | | | | Published: | 1998 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE "SCIENCE" OF AVIATION.—It may be
doubted whether there is such a thing as a "science
of aviation." Since Langley, on May 6,
1896, flew a motor-propelled tandem monoplane
for a minute and an half, without a pilot, and the
Wright Brothers in 1903 succeeded in flying a
bi-plane with a pilot aboard, the universal opinion
has been, that flying machines, to be successful,
must follow the structural form of birds, and
that shape has everything to do with flying. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 175 | Author: | Phillips, David Graham, 1867-1911 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise, Volume II | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | SUSAN'S impulse was toward the stage. It had become a definite ambition with her,
the stronger because Spenser's jealousy and suspicion had forced her to keep it
a secret, to pretend to herself that she had no thought but going on
indefinitely as his obedient and devoted mistress. The hardiest and best growths
are the growths inward—where they have sun and air from without. She
had been at the theater several times every week, and had studied the
performances at a point of view very different from that of the audience. It was
there to be amused; she was there to learn. Spenser and such of his friends as
he would let meet her talked plays and acting most of the time. He had forbidden
her to have women friends. "Men don't demoralize women; women demoralize each
other," was one of his axioms. But such women as she had a bowing acquaintance
with were all on the stage—in comic operas or musical farces. She was
much alone; that meant many hours every day which could not but be spent by a
mind like hers in reading and in thinking. Only those who have observed the
difference aloneness makes in mental development, where there is a good mind,
can appreciate how rapidly, how broadly, Susan expanded. She read plays more
than any other kind of literature.
She did not read them casually but was always
thinking how they would act. She was soon making in imagination stage scenes out
of dramatic chapters in novels as she read. More and more clearly the characters
of play and novel took shape and substance before the eyes of her fancy. But the
stage was clearly out of the question. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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