| | 44 | Author: | Knight, Enoch | Add | | | Title: | The Real Artemus Ward  | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE above epitaph, written by the genial humorist's mother, one may
read on a marble slab in the little cemetery at Waterford, Oxford
County, Maine,— "Water-ford near Rum-ford," as he used to say, "the
little village that nestled amongst the hills and never did anything but
nestle." It is a charming spot where rest the remains of Charles Farrar
Browne, looking out upon the little lake, and hard by the edge of a
beech and maple wood,
Where ruddy children tumbled in their play,
And lovers came to woo,
in the days when I first knew the place. Born in the same year and in
the same neighborhood as himself, and all the scenes of his early life
being as dear and familiar to me as the songs of the birds or the crests
of the bordering hills, it has seemed partly a duty, as well as a
privilege and pleasure, to add my little contribution to the literature
his career has called forth. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 47 | Author: | Melville, Herman, 1819-1891 | Add | | | Title: | Billy Budd / by Herman Melville | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IN THE time before steamships, or then more frequently than now, a
stroller along the docks of any considerable sea-port would
occasionally have his attention arrested by a group of bronzed
mariners, man-of-war's men or merchant-sailors in holiday attire
ashore on liberty. In certain instances they would flank, or, like a
body-guard quite surround some superior figure of their own class,
moving along with them like Aldebaran among the lesser lights of his
constellation. That signal object was the "Handsome Sailor" of the
less prosaic time alike of the military and merchant navies. With no
perceptible trace of the vainglorious about him, rather with the
off-hand unaffectedness of natural regality, he seemed to accept the
spontaneous homage of his shipmates. A somewhat remarkable instance
recurs to me. In Liverpool, now half a century ago, I saw under the
shadow of the great dingy street-wall of Prince's Dock (an obstruction
long since removed) a common sailor, so intensely black that he must
needs have been a native African of the unadulterate blood of Ham. A
symmetric figure much above the average height. The two ends of a
gay silk handkerchief thrown loose about the neck danced upon the
displayed ebony of his chest; in his ears were big hoops of gold,
and a Scotch Highland bonnet with a tartan band set off his shapely
head. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 48 | Author: | Merritt, Abraham, 1882-1943 | Add | | | Title: | The Metal Monster / by Abraham Merritt | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IN THIS great crucible of life we call the world—in the
vaster one we call the universe—the mysteries lie close
packed, uncountable as grains of sand on ocean's shores.
They thread gigantic, the star-flung spaces; they creep,
atomic, beneath the microscope's peering eye. They walk
beside us, unseen and unheard, calling out to us, asking
why we are deaf to their crying, blind to their wonder. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 53 | Author: | Raine, William McLeod | Add | | | Title: | "At the Dropping-off Place" | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IN THE cabin situated on Lot 10, Block E, Water Street, Eagle City,
Alaska, four men were striving to wear away the torment-laden, sleepless
Yukon night. It was twelve o'clock by the Waterbury watch which hung on
the wall, but save for a slight murkiness there was no sign of darkness.
The mosquitoes hummed with a fiendish pertinacity that effectually
precluded sleep. The thermometer registered one hundred degrees of
torture. A thick smoke from four pipes and a smudge-fire hung cloudlike
over the room, but entirely failed to disturb the countless pests. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 54 | Author: | Sadlier, Anna T. | Add | | | Title: | Arabella | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Arabella stood thoughtfully there on that ridge of land, where the brown
earth was studded with daisies and mulleins, the common children of the soil.
The sky was a clear gold at the horizon, and Arabella, gazing thereon, pondered
on something she had just heard. She had suddenly become an heiress. She
looked down on her plain, brown frock, at her coarse shoes, and at her hands
roughened by work about the house. She had been the orphan, the charity-child,
and now — | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 56 | Author: | Sinclair, Upton, 1878-1968 | Add | | | Title: | The Jungle | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | It was four o'clock when the ceremony was over and the carriages began
to arrive. There had been a crowd following all the way, owing to the
exuberance of Marija Berczynskas. The occasion rested heavily upon
Marija's broad shoulders—it was her task to see that all things went
in due form, and after the best home traditions; and, flying wildly
hither and thither, bowling every one out of the way, and scolding and
exhorting all day with her tremendous voice, Marija was too eager to
see that others conformed to the proprieties to consider them herself.
She had left the church last of all, and, desiring to arrive first at
the hall, had issued orders to the coachman to drive faster. When that
personage had developed a will of his own in the matter, Marija had
flung up the window of the carriage, and, leaning out, proceeded to tell
him her opinion of him, first in Lithuanian, which he did not understand,
and then in Polish, which he did. Having the advantage of her in altitude,
the driver had stood his ground and even ventured to attempt to speak;
and the result had been a furious altercation, which, continuing all the
way down Ashland Avenue, had added a new swarm of urchins to the cortege
at each side street for half a mile. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 57 | Author: | Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894 | Add | | | Title: | Across the Plains: With Other Memories and Essays | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | MONDAY. -It was, if I remember rightly, five o'clock when we were
all signalled to be present at the Ferry Depot of the railroad. An
emigrant ship had arrived at New York on the Saturday night,
another on the Sunday morning, our own on Sunday afternoon, a
fourth early on Monday; and as there is no emigrant train on Sunday
a great part of the passengers from these four ships was
concentrated on the train by which I was to travel. There was a
babel of bewildered men, women, and children. The wretched little
booking-office, and the baggage-room, which was not much larger,
were crowded thick with emigrants, and were heavy and rank with the
atmosphere of dripping clothes. Open carts full of bedding stood
by the half-hour in the rain. The officials loaded each other with
recriminations. A bearded, mildewed little man, whom I take to
have been an emigrant agent, was all over the place, his mouth full
of brimstone, blustering and interfering. It was plain that the
whole system, if system there was, had utterly broken down under
the strain of so many passengers. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 58 | Author: | Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894 | Add | | | Title: | The Silverado Squatters | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE scene of this little book is on a high mountain. There
are, indeed, many higher; there are many of a nobler outline.
It is no place of pilgrimage for the summary globe-trotter;
but to one who lives upon its sides, Mount Saint Helena soon
becomes a centre of interest. It is the Mont Blanc of one
section of the Californian Coast Range, none of its near
neighbours rising to one-half its altitude. It looks down on
much green, intricate country. It feeds in the spring-time
many splashing brooks. From its summit you must have an
excellent lesson of geography: seeing, to the south, San
Francisco Bay, with Tamalpais on the one hand and Monte
Diablo on the other; to the west and thirty miles away, the
open ocean; eastward, across the corn-lands and thick tule
swamps of Sacramento Valley, to where the Central Pacific
railroad begins to climb the sides of the Sierras; and
northward, for what I know, the white head of Shasta looking
down on Oregon. Three counties, Napa County, Lake County,
and Sonoma County, march across its cliffy shoulders. Its
naked peak stands nearly four thousand five hundred feet
above the sea; its sides are fringed with forest; and the
soil, where it is bare, glows warm with cinnabar. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 60 | Author: | Thanet, Octave | Add | | | Title: | The Day of The Cyclone | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IT was a warm day.
Perhaps but for that
it might not have
happened, since Captain Barris is a most
temperate man. Unluckily the day was
warm, very warm,
and Archy was tired with a long ride in
the "accommodation train:" and a vision of a glass of beer — cool, foaming,
pleasantly stinging — rose before him.
He had just been stationed at Rock
Island Arsenal, and all his knowledge of
the town of Grinnell was the fact that he
had inherited some property within its
limits. Quite innocently, therefore, he
stared about him for some sign of refreshment. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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