| | 181 | Author: | Phelps
Elizabeth Stuart
1844-1911 | Add | | | Title: | Hedged in  | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | “HOUSES in streets are the places to live
in”? Would Lamb ever have said it
if he had spent, as I did, half a day in, and in
the region of, No. 19 Thicket Street, South
Atlas? “And how, if it were lawful, I could pray for
greater trouble, for the greater comfort's sake.”
John Bunyan provided you and me with a morning's
discussion when he said that. Do you remember?
Because I am writing to you, and
because Nixy sits studying beside me, are reasons
sufficient why I should recall the words on this
particular occasion. I am crowded for time, but I write to
tell you — for I would prefer that you should
hear it from me — that we have at length identified
and brought home Eunice's child. Whatever there is to tell you this time
is the quiet close of a stormy epoch in our
family history, — rich in wrecks, like all stormy
things. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 182 | Author: | Warner
Anna Bartlett
1824-1915 | Add | | | Title: | Dollars and cents | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | I WAS but a young thing, not yet
“Standing with reluctant feet
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet”—
when there came a change in our outward circumstances.
During my first years, we had enjoyed what some of our
ancestors had toiled for; and my father after each day's
soaring and diving into philosophy and science walked about
our garden in silk stockings and with a rose in his mouth,—
at that time I was a little thing that the rose-bushes looked
down upon. And I looked up to them, with admiring eyes
that often went higher still, and took in the straw hat that
Mr. Howard wore of an afternoon: certainly that hat was
a miracle for all purposes of shade and adornment. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 185 | Author: | Evans
Augusta J.
(Augusta Jane)
1835-1909 | Add | | | Title: | Vashti, or, "Until death us do part" | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | “I CAN hear the sullen, savage roar of the breakers, if
I do not see them, and my pretty painted bark —
expectation — is bearing down helplessly upon them.
Perhaps the unwelcome will not come to-day. What then? I
presume I should not care; and yet, I am curious to see him, —
anxious to know what sort of person will henceforth rule the
house, and go in and out here as master. Of course the pleasant,
peaceful days are at an end, for men always make din and strife
in a household, — at least my father did, and he is the only one I
know much about. But, after all, why borrow trouble? — the
interloper may never come.” “I congratulate you, my young friend, on the correctness of
your French themes, which I leave in the drawer of the library-table.
When I return I will examine those prepared during my
absence; and, in the interim, remain, “Dr. Grey: For God's sake come as quick as possible.
I am afraid my mother is dying. “Edith, — No lingering vestige of affection, no remorseful
tenderness, prompted that mission from which I have recently
returned, and only the savage scourgings of implacable duty
could have driven me, like a galley-slave, to my hated task.
The victim of a horrible and disfiguring disease which so completely
changed his countenance that his own mother would
scarcely have recognized him, — and the tenant of a charity hospital
in the town of —, I found that man who has proved the
Upas of your life and of mine. During his delirium I watched
and nursed him — not lovingly (how could I?) but faithfully,
kindly, pityingly. When all danger was safely passed, and his
clouded intellect began to clear itself, I left him in careful
hands, and provided an ample amount for his comfortable
maintenance in coming years. I spared him the humiliation
of recognizing in his nurse his injured and despised wife; and,
as night after night I watched beside the pitiable wreck of a
once handsome, fascinating, and idolized man, I fully and freely
forgave Maurice Carlyle all the wrongs that so completely
stranded my life. To-day he is well, and probably happy, while
he finds himself possessed of means by which to gratify his
extravagant tastes; but how long his naturally fine constitution
can hold at bay the legion of ills that hunt like hungry wolves
along the track of reckless dissipation, God only knows. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 188 | Author: | Winthrop
Theodore
1828-1861 | Add | | | Title: | John Brent | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | I write in the first person; but I shall not
maunder about myself. I am in no sense the
hero of this drama. Call me Chorus, if you
please, — not Chorus merely observant and impassive;
rather Chorus a sympathizing monitor
and helper. Perhaps I gave a certain crude
momentum to the movement of the play, when
finer forces were ready to flag; but others bore
the keen pangs, others took the great prizes,
while I stood by to lift the maimed and cheer
the victor. “We are hastening on. I can write you but
one word. Our journey has been prosperous.
Mr. Armstrong is very kind. My dear father,
I fear, is shattered out of all steadiness. God
guard him, and guide me! My undying love
to your friend. “We sail at once for home. My father cannot
be at peace until he is in Lancashire again.
Don't forget me, dear friends. I go away sick
at heart. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 190 | Author: | Woolson
Constance Fenimore
1840-1894 | Add | | | Title: | Castle nowhere | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | NOT many years ago the shore bordering the head
of Lake Michigan, the northern curve of that
silver sea, was a wilderness unexplored. It is a wilderness
still, showing even now on the school-maps
nothing save an empty waste of colored paper, generally
a pale, cold yellow suitable to the climate, all
the way from Point St. Ignace to the iron ports on
the Little Bay de Noquet, or Badderknock in lake
phraseology, a hundred miles of nothing, according to
the map-makers, who, knowing nothing of the region,
set it down accordingly, withholding even those
long-legged letters, “Chip-pe-was,” “Ric-ca-rees,” that
stretch accommodatingly across so much townless territory
farther west. This northern curve is and always
has been off the route to anywhere; and mortals, even
Indians, prefer as a general rule, when once started,
to go somewhere. The earliest Jesuit explorers and
the captains of yesterday's schooners had this in common,
that they could not, being human, resist a crosscut;
and thus, whether bark canoes of two centuries
ago or the high, narrow propellers of to-day, one and
all, coming and going, they veer to the southeast or
west, and sail gayly out of sight, leaving this northern
curve of ours unvisited and alone. A wilderness
still, but not unexplored; for that railroad of the
future which is to make of British America a garden
of roses, and turn the wild trappers of the Hudson's
Bay Company into gently smiling congressmen, has it
not sent its missionaries thither, to the astonishment
and joy of the beasts that dwell therein? According
to tradition, these men surveyed the territory, and
then crossed over (those of them at least whom the
beasts had spared) to the lower peninsula, where,
the pleasing variety of swamps being added to the
labyrinth of pines and sand-hills, they soon lost
themselves, and to this day have never found what
they lost. As the gleam of a camp-fire is occasionally
seen, and now and then a distant shout heard
by the hunter passing along the outskirts, it is supposed
that they are in there somewhere, surveying
still. “Respected Sir, — I must see you, you air in
danger. Please come to the Grotter this afternoon
at three and I remain yours respectful, “Mr. Solomon Bangs: My cousin Theodora Wentworth
and myself have accepted the hospitality of
your house for the night. Will you be so good as
to send tidings of our safety to the Community, and
oblige, “E. Stuart: The woman Dorcas Bangs died this
day. She will be put away by the side of her husband,
Solomon Bangs. She left the enclosed picture,
which we hereby send, and which please acknowledge
by return of mail. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 192 | Author: | Flint
Timothy
1780-1840 | Add | | | Title: | Francis Berrian, or, The Mexican patriot | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | In the autumn of this year I set out from Massachusetts
for the remote regions of the southwest on the
Spanish frontier, where I reside. When I entered the
steam-boat from Philadelphia to Baltimore, having taken
a general survey of the motley group, which is usually
seen in such places, my eye finally rested on a young
gentleman, apparently between twenty-five and thirty,
remarkable for his beauty of face, the symmetry of his
fine form, and for that uncommon union of interest,
benevolence, modesty, and manly thought, which are
so seldom seen united in a male countenance of great
beauty. The idea of animal magnetism, I know, is
exploded. I, however, retain my secret belief in the
invisible communication between minds, of something
like animal magnetism and repulsion. I admit that this
electric attraction of kindred minds at first sight, and
antecedent to acquaintance, is inexplicable. The world
may laugh at the impression, if it pleases. I have,
through life, found myself attracted, or repelled at first
sight, and oftentimes without being able to find in the
objects of these feelings any assignable reason, either
for the one or the other. I have experienced, too,
that, on after acquaintance, I have very seldom had
occasion to find these first impressions deceptive. It is
of no use to inquire, if these likes and dislikes be the
result of blind and unreasonable prejudice. I feel that
they are like to follow me through my course. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 193 | Author: | Flint
Timothy
1780-1840 | Add | | | Title: | The Shoshonee Valley | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | At Length the south breeze began once more to
whisper along the valley, bringing bland airs, spring
birds, sea fowls, the deep trembling roar of unchained
mountain streams, a clear blue sky, magpies and orioles,
cutting the ethereal space, as they sped with
their peculiar business note, on the great instinct errand
of their Creator to the budding groves. The
snipe whistled. The pheasant drummed on the fallen
trunks in the deep forest. The thrasher and the
robin sang; and every thing, wild and tame, that had
life, felt the renovating power, and rejoiced in the retraced
footsteps of the great Parent of nature. The
inmates of William Weldon's dwelling once more
walked forth, in the brightness of a spring morning,
choosing their path where the returning warmth had
already dried the ground on the south slopes of the
hills. The blue and the white violet had already
raised their fair faces under the shelter of the fallen
tree, or beneath the covert of rocks. The red bud
and the cornel decked the wilderness in blossoms; and
in the meadows, from which the ice had scarcely disappeared,
the cowslips threw up their yellow cups
from the water. As they remarked upon the beauty
of the day, the cheering notes of the birds, the deep
hum of a hundred mountain water-falls, and the exhilarating
influence of the renovation of spring, William
Weldon observed in a voice, that showed awakened
remembrances—`dear friends, you have, perhaps,
none of you such associations with this season,
as now press upon my thoughts, in remembrances
partly of joy and sadness. Hear you those million
mingled sounds of the undescribed dwellers in the
spring-formed waters? How keenly they call up the
fresh recollections of the spring of my youth, and my
own country! The winter there, too, is long and severe.
What a train of remembrances press upon me!
I have walked abroad in the first days of spring.—
When yet a child, I was sent to gather the earliest
cowslips. I remember my thoughts, when I first dipped
my feet in the water, and heard these numberless
peeps, croaks, and cries; and thought of the countless
millions of living things in the water, which seemed
to have been germinated by spring; and which appeared
to be emulating each other in the chatter of
their ceaseless song. How ye return upon my
thoughts, ye bright morning visions! What a fairy
creation was life, in such a spring prospect! How
changed is the picture, and the hue of the dark brown
years, as my eye now traces them in retrospect.—
These mingled sounds, this beautiful morning, these
starting cowslips, the whole present scene brings back
1*
the entire past. Ah! there must be happier worlds
beyond the grave, where it is always spring, or the
thoughts, that now spring in my bosom, had not been
planted there.' Minister of Jesus—A wretch in agony implores you
by Him, who suffered for mankind, to have mercy
upon him. He extenuates nothing. The vilest outrage
and abandonment were his purpose. He confesses,
that he deserves the worst. His only plea is,
that he was ruined by the doting indulgence of his
parents. Luxury and pleasure have enervated him,
and he has not the courage to bear pain. Death is
horror to him, and Oh, God! Oh, God!—the terrible
death of a slow fire. Christ pitied his tormentors.
Oh! let Jessy pity me. The agony is greater, than
human nature can bear. Oh! Elder Wood, come,
and pray with, and for `They have unbound my hands, and furnished me
with the means of writing this. They are dancing
round the pile, on which I am to suffer by fire. My
oath, that I would possess thee, at the expense of
death and hell, rings in my ears, as a knell, that would
awaken the dead. Oh God! have mercy. Every
thing whirls before my eyes, and I can only pray, that
you may forget, if you cannot forgive | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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