| | 402 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Gentle Boy  | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IN the course of the year 1656, several of the people called
Quakers, led,
as they professed, by the inward movement of the spirit, made their
appearance in New England. Their reputation, as holders of mystic
and
pernicious principles, having spread before them, the Puritans
early
endeavored to banish, and to prevent the further intrusion of the
rising
sect. But
the measures by which it was intended to purge the land of heresy,
though
more than sufficiently vigorous, were entirely unsuccessful. The
Quakers,
esteeming persecution as a divine call to the post of danger, laid
claim to
a holy courage, unknown to the Puritans themselves, who had shunned
the cross, by providing for the peaceable exercise of their
religion in a
distant wilderness. Though it was the singular fact, that every
nation of
the earth rejected the wandering enthusiasts who practised peace
towards
all men, the place of greatest uneasiness and peril, and therefore,
in their
eyes the most eligible, was the province of Massachusetts Bay. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 403 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Great Carbuncle | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | AT nightfall, once in the olden time, on the rugged side of one of
the Crystal Hills, a party of adventurers were refreshing
themselves, after
a toilsome and fruitless quest for the Great Carbuncle. They had
come
thither,
not as friends nor partners in the enterprise, but each, save one
youthful
pair, impelled by his own selfish and solitary longing for this
wondrous
gem. Their feeling of brotherhood, however, was strong enough to
induce
them to contribute a mutual aid in building a rude hut of branches,
and
kindling a great fire of shattered pines, that had drifted down the
head-long current of the Amonoosuck, on the lower bank of which
they
were to
pass the night. There was but one of their number, perhaps, who had
become so estranged from natural sympathies, by the absorbing spell
of the
pursuit, as to acknowledge no satisfaction at the sight of human
faces, in
the remote and solitary region whither they had ascended. A vast
extent of
wilderness lay between them and the nearest settlement, while a
scant
mile above their heads was that black verge where the hills throw
off their
shaggy mantle of forest trees, and either robe themselves in clouds
or
tower naked into the sky. The roar of the Amonoosuck would have
been
too awful for endurance if only a solitary man had listened, while
the
mountain stream talked with the wind. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 404 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Dr. Heidegger's Experiment | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THAT very singular man, old Dr. Heidegger, once invited four
venerable friends to meet him in his study. There were three
white-bearded gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr.
Gascoigne, and a withered gentlewoman, whose name was the Widow
Wycherly. They were all melancholy old creatures, who had been
unfortunate in life, and whose greatest misfortune it was that they
were not long ago in their graves. Mr. Medbourne, in the vigor of his
age, had been a prosperous merchant, but had lost his all by a frantic
speculation, and was now little better than a mendicant. Colonel
Killigrew had wasted his best years, and his health and substance, in
the pursuit of sinful pleasures, which had given birth to a brood of
pains, such as the gout, and divers other torments of soul and body.
Mr. Gascoigne was a ruined politician, a man of evil fame, or at least
had been so till time had buried him from the knowledge of the present
generation, and made him obscure instead of infamous. As for the Widow
Wycherly, tradition tells us that she was a great beauty in her day;
but, for a long while past, she had lived in deep seclusion, on account
of certain scandalous stories which had prejudiced the gentry of the
town against her. It is a circumstance worth mentioning that each of
these three old gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr.
Gascoigne, were early lovers of the Widow Wycherly, and had once been
on the point of cutting each other's throats for her sake. And, before
proceeding further, I will merely hint that Dr. Heidegger and all his
foul guests were sometimes thought to be a little beside
themselves,—as is not unfrequently the case with old people, when
worried either by present troubles or woful recollections. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 405 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | A YOUNG fellow, a tobacco pedlar by trade, was on his way from
Morristown, where he had dealt largely with the Deacon of the
Shaker
settlement, to the village of Parker's Falls, on Salmon River. He
had a
neat little cart, painted green, with a box of cigars depicted on
each side
panel,
and an Indian chief, holding a pipe and a golden tobacco stalk, on
the
rear. The pedlar drove a smart little mare, and was a young man of
excellent character, keen at a bargain, but none the worse liked by
the Yankees; who, as I have heard them say, would rather be shaved
with a
sharp
razor than a dull one. Especially was he beloved by the pretty
girls along
the Connecticut, whose favor he used to court by presents of the
best
smoking tobacco in his stock; knowing well that the country lasses
of
New England are generally great performers on pipes. Moreover, as
will
be seen in the course of my story, the pedlar was inquisitive, and
something of a tattler, always itching to hear the news and anxious
to
tell it
again. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 406 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Hollow of the Three Hills | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IN those strange old times, when fantastic dreams and madmen's
reveries
were realized among the actual circumstances of life, two persons
met together at an appointed hour and place. One was a lady,
graceful in
form
and fair of feature, though pale and troubled, and smitten with an
untimely blight in what should have been the fullest bloom of her
years; the
other was an ancient and meanly-dressed woman, of ill-favored
aspect,
and so withered, shrunken, and decrepit, that even the space since
she began to decay must have exceeded the ordinary term of human
existence.
In the spot where they encountered, no mortal could observe them.
Three
little hills stood near each other, and down in the midst of them
sunk a
hollow basin, almost mathematically circular, two or three hundred
feet
in breadth, and of such depth that a stately cedar might but just
be visible
above the sides. Dwarf pines were numerous upon the hills, and
partly fringed the outer verge of the intermediate hollow, within
which
there
was nothing but the brown grass of October, and here and there a
tree
trunk that had fallen long ago, and lay mouldering with no green
successsor from its roots. One of these masses of decaying wood,
formerly
a majestic oak, rested close beside a pool of green and sluggish
water
at the
bottom of the basin. Such scenes as this (so gray tradition tells)
were
once the resort of the Power of Evil and his plighted subjects; and
here,
at midnight or on the dim verge of evening, they were said to stand
round
the mantling pool, disturbing its putrid waters in the performance
of an
impious baptismal rite. The chill beauty of an autumnal sunset was
now
gilding the three hill-tops, whence a paler tint stole down their
sides into
the hollow. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 407 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | John Inglefield's Thanksgiving | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | On the evening of Thanksgiving Day, John Inglefield, the
blacksmith, sat in his elbow-chair, among those
who had been keeping festival at his board. Being
the central figure of the domestic circle, the
fire threw its strongest light on his massive and
sturdy frame, reddening his rough visage, so that
it looked like the head of an iron statue, all
aglow from his own forge, and with its features
rudely fashioned on his own anvil. At John
Inglefield's right hand was an empty chair. The
other places round the hearth were filled by the
members of the family, who all sat quietly, while,
with a semblance of fantastic merriment, their
shadows danced on the wall behind them. One of
the group was John Inglefield's son, who had been
bred at college, and was now a student of theology
at Andover. There was also a daughter of sixteen,
whom nobody could look at without thinking of a
rose-bud almost blossomed. The only other person
at the fireside was Robert Moore, formerly an
apprentice of the blacksmith, but now his
journeyman, and who seemed more like an own son of
John Inglefield than did the pale and slender
student. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 408 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | My Kinsman, Major Molineux | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | AFTER the kings of Great Britain had assumed the right of
appointing
the colonial governors, the measures of the latter seldom met with
the
ready and generous approbation which had been paid to those of
their
predecessors, under the original charters. The people looked with
most
jealous scrutiny to the exercise of power which did not emanate
from
themselves, and they usually rewarded their rulers with slender
gratitude for the compliances by which, in softening their
instructions
from
beyond the sea, they had incurred the reprehension of those who
gave
them. The annals of Massachusetts Bay will inform us, that of six
governors in the space of about forty years from the surrender of
the
old
charter, under James II., two were imprisoned by a popular
insurrection; a third, as Hutchinson inclines to believe, was
driven from
the
province by the whizzing of a musket-ball; a fourth, in the opinion
of
the same historian, was hastened to his grave by continual
bickerings
with the House of Representatives; and the remaining two, as well
as
their successors, till the Revolution, were favored with few and
brief intervals of peaceful sway. The inferior members of the court
party,
in
times of high political excitement, led scarcely a more desirable
life.
These remarks may serve as a preface to the following adventures,
which chanced upon a summer night, not far from a hundred years
ago.
The reader, in order to avoid a long and dry detail of colonial
affairs, is
requested to dispense with an account of the train of circumstances
that
had caused much temporary inflammation of the popular mind. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 409 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Lady Eleanore`s Mantle | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | MINE excellent friend, the landlord of the Province House,
was pleased, the other evening, to invite Mr. Tiffany and
myself to an oyster supper. This slight mark of respect
and gratitude, as he handsomely observed, was far less than
the ingenious tale-teller, and I, the humble-note-taker of
his narratives, had fairly earned, by the public notice
which our joint lucubrations had attracted to his
establishment. Many a cigar had been smoked within his
premises-many a glass of wine, or more potent aqua vita,
had been quaffed-many a dinner had been eaten by curious
strangers, who, save for the fortunate conjunction of Mr.
Tiffany and me, would never have ventured through that
darksome avenue, which gives access to the historic
precincts of the Province House. In short, if any credit be
due to the courteous assurances of Mr. Thomas Waite, we
had brought his forgotten mansion almost as effectually
into public view as if we had thrown down the vulgar range
of shoe-shops and dry-good stores, which hides its
aristocratic front from Washington Street. It may be
unadvisable, however, to speak too loudly of the increased
custom of the house, lest Mr. Waite should find it difficult
to renew the lease on so favorable terms as heretofore. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 411 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Main-Street | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | A respectable-looking individual makes his bow, and
addresses the public. In my daily walks along the principal street of my
native town, it has often occurred to me, that, if its growth from infancy
upward, and the vicissitude of characteristic scenes that have passed along
this thoroughfare, during the more than two centuries of its existence, could
be presented to the eye in a shifting panorama, it would be an exceedingly
effective method of illustrating the march of time. Acting on this idea, I
have contrived a certain pictorial exhibition, somewhat in the nature of a
puppet-show, by means of which I propose to call up the multiform and
many-colored Past before the spectator, and show him the ghosts of his
forefathers, amid a succession of historic incidents, with no greater trouble
than the turning of a crank. Be pleased, therefore, my indulgent patrons, to
walk into the show-room, and take your seats before yonder mysterious curtain.
The little wheels and springs of my machinery have been well oiled; a
multitude of puppets are dressed in character, representing all varieties of
fashion, from the Puritan cloak and jerkin to the latest Oak Hall coat; the
lamps are trimmed, and shall brighten into noontide sunshine, or fade away in
moonlight, or muffle their brilliancy in a November cloud, as the nature of
the scene may require; and, in short, the exhibition is just ready to
commence. Unless something should go wrong, — as, for instance, the misplacing
of a picture, whereby the people and events of one century might be thrust
into the middle of another, or the breaking of a wire, which would bring the
course of time to a sudden period, — barring, I say, the casualties to which
such a complicated piece of mechanism is liable, I flatter myself, ladies and
gentlemen, that the performance will elicit your generous approbation. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 412 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The May-Pole of Merry Mount | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | BRIGHT were the days at Merry Mount, when the Maypole was the
banner staff of that gay colony! They who reared it, should their
banner be
triumphant, were to pour sunshine over New England's rugged hills,
and
scatter flower seeds throughout the soil. Jollity and gloom were
contending for an empire. Midsummer eve had come, bringing deep
verdure to
the forest, and roses in her lap, of a more vivid hue than the
tender buds
of Spring. But May, or her mirthful spirit, dwelt all the year
round at
Merry Mount, sporting with the Summer months, and revelling with
Autumn, and basking in the glow of Winter's fireside. Through a
world
of
toil and care she flitted with a dreamlike smile, and came hither
to find a
home among the lightsome hearts of Merry Mount. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 413 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Minister's Black Veil | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE sexton stood in the porch of Milford meeting-house, pulling
busily at
the bell-rope. The old people of the village came stooping along
the street.
Children, with bright faces, tripped merrily beside their parents,
or mimicked a graver gait, in the conscious dignity of their Sunday
clothes.
Spruce bachelors looked sidelong at the pretty maidens, and fancied
that
the Sabbath sunshine made them prettier than on week days. When the
throng had mostly streamed into the porch, the sexton began to toll
the
bell, keeping his eye on the Reverend Mr. Hooper's door. The first
glimpse of the clergyman's figure was the signal for the bell to
cease its
summons. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 414 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Mrs. Bullfrog | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IT makes me melancholy to see how like fools some very sensible
people
act in the matter of choosing wives. They perplex their judgments
by a
most undue attention to little niceties of personal appearance,
habits,
disposition, and other trifles which concern nobody but the lady
herself.
An unhappy gentleman, resolving to wed nothing short of perfection,
keeps his heart and hand till both get so old and withered that no
tolerable woman will accept them. Now this is the very height of
absurdity.
A kind Providence has so skilfully adapted sex to sex and the mass
of individuals to each other, that, with certain obvious
exceptions, any
male
and female may be moderately happy in the married state. The true
rule
is to ascertain that the match is fundamentally a good one, and
then to
take it for granted that all minor objections, should there be
such, will
vanish, if you let them alone. Only put yourself beyond hazard as
to the
real basis of matrimonial bliss, and it is scarcely to be imagined
what
miracles, in the way of recognizing smaller incongruities,
connubial love
will effect. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 416 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Procession of Life | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | LIFE figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession. All
of us have
our places, and are to move onward under the direction of the Chief
Marshal. The grand difficulty results from the invariably mistaken
principles
on which the deputy marshals seek to arrange this immense concourse
of
people, so much more numerous than those that train their
interminable
length through streets and highways in times of political
excitement.
Their scheme is ancient, far beyond the memory of man or even the
record of history, and has hitherto been very little modified by
the
innate
sense of something wrong, and the dim perception of better methods,
that
have disquieted all the ages through which the procession has taken
its
march. Its members are classified by the merest external
circumstances,
and thus are more certain to be thrown out of their true positions
than if
no principle of arrangement were attempted. In one part of the
procession
we see men of landed estate or moneyed capital gravely keeping each
other company, for the preposterous reason that they chance to have
a
similar standing in the tax-gatherer's book. Trades and professions
march
together with scarcely a more real bond of union. In this manner,
it cannot be denied, people are disentangled from the mass and
separated
into
various classes according to certain apparent relations; all have
some artificial badge which the world, and themselves among the
first,
learn to
consider as a genuine characteristic. Fixing our attention on such
outside
shows of similarity or difference, we lose sight of those realities
by which
nature, fortune, fate, or Providence has constituted for every man
a
brotherhood, wherein it is one great office of human wisdom to
classify
him. When the mind has once accustomed itself to a proper
arrangement
of the Procession of Life, or a true classification of society,
even though
merely speculative, there is thenceforth a satisfaction which
pretty well
suffices for itself without the aid of any actual reformation in
the order of
march. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 417 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Prophetic Pictures | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | BUT THIS PAINTER!" cried Walter Ludlow, with animation. "He not
only excels in his peculiar art, but possesses vast acquirements in
all other learning and science. He talks Hebrew with Dr. Mather, and
gives lectures in anatomy to Dr. Boylston. In a word, he will meet the
best instructed man among us on his own ground. Moreover, he is a
polished gentleman, a citizen of the world-yes, a true cosmopolite;
for he will speak like a native of each clime and country of the globe
except our own forests, whither he is now going. Nor is all this
what I most admire in him." | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 419 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Roger Malvin's Burial | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | ONE of the few incidents of Indian warfare naturally susceptible of
the
moonlight of romance was that expedition undertaken for the defence
of
the frontiers in the year 1725, which resulted in the
well-remembered
``Lovell's Fight.'' Imagination, by casting certain circumstances
judicially into the shade, may see much to admire in the heroism of
a
little band
who gave battle to twice their number in the heart of the enemy's
country. The open bravery displayed by both parties was in
accordance
with
civilized ideas of valor; and chivalry itself might not blush to
record the
deeds of one or two individuals. The battle, though so fatal to
those who
fought, was not unfortunate in its consequences to the country; for
it
broke the strength of a tribe and conduced to the peace which
subsisted
during several ensuing years. History and tradition are unusually
minute in their memorials of their affair; and the captain of a
scouting party
of frontier men has acquired as actual a military renown as many a
victorious leader of thousands. Some of the incidents contained in
the
following pages will be recognized, notwithstanding the
substitution
of fictitious names, by such as have heard, from old men's lips,
the fate
of the
few combatants who were in a condition to retreat after ``Lovell's
Fight.'' | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 420 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Shaker Bridal | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | ONE day, in the sick chamber of Father Ephraim, who had been forty
years the presiding elder over the Shaker settlement at Goshen,
there was
an assemblage of several of the chief men of the sect. Individuals
had come
from the rich establishment at Lebanon, from Canterbury, Harvard,
and
Alfred, and from all the other localities where this strange people
have
fertilized the rugged hills of New England by their systematic
industry.
An elder was likewise there, who had made a pilgrimage of a
thousand
miles from a village of the faithful in Kentucky, to visit his
spiritual kindred, the children of the sainted mother Ann. He had
partaken of
the
homely abundance of their tables, had quaffed the far-famed Shaker
cider, and had joined in the sacred dance, every step of which is
believed to
alienate the enthusiast from earth, and bear him onward to heavenly
purity and bliss. His brethren of the north had now courteously
invited him
to be present on an occasion, when the concurrence of every eminent
member of their community was peculiarly desirable. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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