| | 61 | Author: | Bennett
Emerson
1822-1905 | Add | | | Title: | Ellen Norbury, or, The adventures of an orphan  | | | | 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: | It was Christmas eve, that happy period for the young
who have parents above the wants and miseries of griping
poverty, and notwithstanding a heavy snow was falling, the
streets of the goodly city of Philadelphia were thronged
with joyous citizens, many of them returning to their
cheerful firesides, loaded with toys, which were to greet
the eyes of the happy children, when they should awake on
the morrow, as the mysterious presents of fabled St. Nicholas.
It was a gala time to all but the homeless and destitute;
and, alas! there are too many such, who, with fevered
eyes, can only look upon the happiness of others through
that deep veil of hopeless gloom which shuts out every
cheerful ray. To such poor wretches it was a time of open
mockery; for they keenly felt that but one tithe of what
was now so freely spent for foolish toys, would have provided
them against the pangs of starvation and death. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 62 | Author: | Stowe
Harriet Beecher
1811-1896 | Add | | | Title: | My wife and I, or, Harry Henderson's history | | | | 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: | IT appears to me that the world is returning to its
second childhood, and running mad for Stories.
Stories! Stories! Stories! everywhere; stories in
every paper, in every crevice, crack and corner of the house.
Stories fall from the pen faster than leaves of autumn, and
of as many shades and colorings. Stories blow over here
in whirlwinds from England. Stories are translated from
the French, from the Danish, from the Swedish, from the
German, from the Russian. There are serial stories for
adults in the Atlantic, in the Overland, in the Galaxy, in
Harper's, in Scribner's. There are serial stories for youthful
pilgrims in Our Young Folks, the Little Corporal, “Oliver
Optic,” the Youth's Companion, and very soon we anticipate
newspapers with serial stories for the nursery. We shall have
those charmingly illustrated magazines, the Cradle, the Rocking
Chair, the First Rattle, and the First Tooth, with successive
chapters of “Goosy Goosy Gander,” and “Hickory
Dickory Dock,” and “Old Mother Hubbard,” extending
through twelve, or twenty-four, or forty-eight numbers. MY Dear Friend and Teacher:—I scarcely dare
trust myself to look at the date of your kind
letter. Can it really be that I have let it he
almost a year, hoping, meaning, sincerely intending to
answer it, and yet doing nothing about it? Oh! my
dear friend, I was a better girl while I was under your
care than I am now; in those times I really did my duties;
I never put off things, and I came somewhere near
satisfying myself. Now, I live in a constant whirl—a whirl
that never ceases. I am carried on from day to day, from
week to week, from month to month, with nothing to show
for it except a succession of what girls call “good times.”
I don't read any thing but stories; I don't study; I don't
write; I don't sew; I don't draw, or play, or sing, to any
real purpose. I just “go into society,” as they call it. I am
an idler, and the only thing I am good for is that I help to
adorn a house for the entertainment of idlers; that is
about all. My Dear Child:—You place me in an embarrassing position
in asking me to speak on a subject, when your parents
have already declared their wishes. My Dear Friend:—I am glad you have written as you have
to Eva. It is perfectly inexplicable to me that a girl of her
general strength of character can be so undecided. Eva has
been deteriorating ever since she came from Europe. This
fashionable life is to mind and body just like a hotbed to
tender plants in summer, it wilts everything down. Eva was
a good scholar and I had great hopes of her. She had a
warm heart; she has really high and noble aspirations, but
for two or three years past she has done nothing but run
down her health and fritter away her mind on trifles. She
is not half the girl she was at school, either mentally or
physically, and I am grieved and indignant at the waste.
Her only chance of escape and salvation is to marry a true
man. My Dear Belle: Thanks for your kind letter with all its
congratulations and inquiries,—for though as yet I have no
occasion for congratulation, and nothing to answer to
inquiry, I appreciate these all the same. My Dear Belle:—I told you I would write the end of my
little adventure, and whether the “hermit” comes or not.
Yes, my dear, sure enough, he did come, and mamma and
we all like him immensely; he had really quite a success
among us. Even Ida, who never receives calls, was gracious
and allowed him to come into her sanctum because he is a
champion of the modern idea about women. Have you seen
an article in the “Milky Way” on the “Women of our
Times,” taking the modern radical ground? Well, it was
by him; it suited Ida to a hair, but some little things in
it vexed me because there was a phrase or two about the
“fashionable butterflies,” and all that; that comes a great
deal too near the truth to be altogether agreeable. I don't
care when Ida says such things, because she's another
woman, and between ourselves we know there is a deal of
nonsense current among us, and if we have a mind to
talk about it among ourselves, why its like abusing one's
own relations in the bosom of the family, one of the sweetest
domestic privileges, you know; but, when lordly man
begins to come to judgment and call over the roll of our
sins, I am inclined to tell him to look at home, and to say,
“Pray, what do you know about us sir?” I stand up for my
sex, right or wrong; so you see we had a spicy little controversy,
and I made the hermit open his eyes, (and, between
us, he has handsome eyes to open). He looked innocently
astonished at first to be taken up so briskly, and called to
account for his sayings. You see the way these men have
of going on and talking without book about us quite blinds
them; they can set us down conclusively in the abstract
when they don't see us or hear us, but when a real live girl
meets them and asks an account of their sayings they
begin to be puzzled. However, I must say my lord can
talk when he fairly is put up to it. He is a true, serious,
earnest-hearted man, and does talk beautifully, and his
eyes speak when he is silent. The forepart of the evening,
you see we were in a state of most charming agreement;
he was in our little “Italy,” and we had the nicest
of times going over all the pictures and portfolios and the
dear old Italian life; it seems as if we had both of us seen,
and thought of, and liked the same things—it was really
curious! “Dear Cousin:—I have had no time to keep up
correspondence with anybody for the past year. The state
of my father's health has required my constant attention,
day and night, to a degree that has absorbed all my power,
and left no time for writing. For the last six months father
has been perfectly helpless with the most distressing form
of chronic rheumatism. His sufferings have been protracted
and intense, so that it has been wearing even to witness
them; and the utmost that I could do seemed to bring very
little relief. And when, at last, death closed the scene, it
seemed to be in mercy, putting an end to sufferings which
were intolerable. My Darling Belle:—I have been a naughty girl to let your
letter lie so long. But my darling, it is not true, as you
there suggest, that the bonds of sisterly affection, which
bound us in school, are growing weaker, and that I no
longer trust you as a confidential friend. Believe me, the
day will never come, dearest Belle, when I shall cease to
unfold to you every innermost feeling. My Dearest Belle:—Since I wrote to you last there have
been the strangest changes. I scarcely know what to think.
You remember I told you all about Easter Eve, and a certain
person's appearance, and about the stolen glove and all
that. Your theory of accounting for all this was precisely
mine; in fact I could think of no other. And, Belle, if I
could only see you I could tell you of a thousand little
things that make me certain that he cares for me more than
in the way of mere friendship. I thought I could not be
mistaken in that. There has been scarcely a day since our
acquaintance began when I have not in some way seen him
or heard from him; you know all those early services, when
he was as constant as the morning, and always walked
home with me; then, he and Jim Fellows always spend
at least one evening in a week at our house, and there
are no end of accidental meetings. For example, when we
take our afternoon drives at Central Park we are sure to
see them sitting on the benches watching us go by, and it
came to be quite a regular thing when we stopped the carriage
at the terrace and got out to walk to find them there,
and then Alice would go off with Jim Fellows, and Mr. H.
and I would stroll up and down among the lilac hedges and
in all those lovely little nooks and dells that are so charming.
I'm quite sure I never explored the treasures of the
Park as I have this Spring. We have rambled everywhere—
up hill and down dale—it certainly is the loveliest and
most complete imitation of wild nature that ever art perfected.
One could fancy one's self deep in the country in
some parts of it; far from all the rush and whirl and
frivolity of this great, hot, dizzy New York. You may
imagine that with all this we have had opportunity to
become very intimate. He has told me all about himself,
all the history of his life, all about his mother, and his
home; it seems hardly possible that one friend could speak
more unreservedly to another, and I, dear Belle, have
found myself speaking with equal frankness to him. We
know each other so perfectly that there has for a long time
seemed to be only a thin impalpable cob-web barrier between
us; but you know Belle, that airy filmy barrier is
something that one would not by a look or a word disturb.
For weeks I have felt every day that surely the next time
we meet all this must come to a crisis. That he would
say in words what he says in looks—in involuntary actions—
what in fact I am perfectly sure of. Till he speaks I must
be guarded. I must hold myself back from showing him
the kindly interest I really feel. For I am proud, as you
know, Belle, and have always held the liberty of my heart
as a sacred treasure. I have always felt a secret triumph in
the consciousness that I did not care for anybody, and that
my happiness was wholly in my own hands, and I mean
to keep it so. Our friendship is a pleasant thing enough,
but I am not going to let it become too necessary, you
understand. It isn't that I care so very much, but my curiosity
is really excited to know just what the real state of
the case is; one wants to investigate interesting phenomena
you know. When I saw that little glove movement
on Easter Eve I confess I thought the game all in my own
hands, and that I could quietly wait to say “checkmate”
in due form and due time; but after all nothing came of it;
that is, nothing decisive; and I confess I didn't know what
to think. Sometimes I have fancied some obstacle or en
tanglement or commitment with some other woman—this
Cousin Caroline perhaps—but he talks about her to me in
the most open and composed manner. Sometimes I fancy
he has heard the report of my engagement to Sydney. If
he has, why doesn't he ask me about it? I have no objection
to telling him, but I certainly shall not open the subject
myself. Perhaps, as Ida thinks, he is proud and poor
and not willing to be a suitor to a rich young good-for-nothing.
Well, that can't be helped, he must be a suitor if
he wins me, for I shan't be; he must ask me, for I certainly
shan't ask him, that's settled. If he would “ask
me pretty,” now, who knows what nice things he might
hear? I would tell him, perhaps, how much more one true
noble heart is worth in my eyes than all that Wat Sydney
has to give. Sometimes I am quite provoked with him
that he should look so much, and yet say no more, and I
feel a naughty wicked inclination to flirt with somebody
else just to make him open those “grands yeux” of his a
little wider and to a little better purpose. Sometimes I
begin to feel a trifle vindictive and as if I should like to
give him a touch of the claw. The claw, my dear, the little
pearly claw that we women keep in reserve in the “patte
de velours,” our only and most sacred weapon of defense. Dear Henderson:—You need feel no hesitancy about accepting
in full every advantage in the position I propose
to you, since you may find it weighted with disadvantages
and incumbrances you do not dream of. In short, I shall
ask of you services for which no money can pay, and till
I knew you there was no man in the world of whom I had
dared to ask them. I want a friend, courageous, calm, and
true, capable of thinking broadly and justly, one superior
to ordinary prejudices, who may be to me another, and in
some hours a stronger, self. MY DEAREST BELLE:—Since I last wrote you wondrous
things have taken place, and of course I
must keep you au courant. Dear Hal:—My head buzzes like a swarm of
bees. What haven't I done since you left? The Van Arsdels
are all packing up and getting ready to move out, and
of course I have been up making myself generally useful
there. I have been daily call-boy and page to the adorable
Alice. Mem:—That girl is a brick! Didn't use to think
so, but she's sublime! The way she takes things is so
confounded sensible and steady! I respect her—there's
not a bit of nonsense about her now—you'd better believe.
They are all going up to the old paternal farm to spend
the summer with his father, and by Fall there'll be an
arrangement to give him an income (Van Arsdel I mean),
so that they'll have something to go on. They'll take a
house somewhere in New York in the Fall and do fairly;
but think what a change to Alice! Dear Hal:—I promised you a family cat, but I am going
to do better by you. There is a pair of my kittens that
would bring laughter to the cheeks of a dying anchorite.
They are just the craziest specimens of pure jollity that
flesh, blood, and fur could be wrought into. Who wants
a comic opera at a dollar a night when a family cat will
supply eight kittens a year? Nobody seems to have found
out what kittens are for. I do believe these two kittens of
mine would cure the most obstinate hypochondria of mortal
man, and, think of it, I am going to give them to you!
Their names are Whisky and Frisky, and their ways are
past finding out. Dear Sister:—I am so tired out with packing, and all the
thousand and one things that have to be attended to! You
know mamma is not strong, and now you and Ida are
gone, I am the eldest daughter, and take everything on my
shoulders. Aunt Maria comes here daily, looking like a
hearse, and I really think she depresses mamma as much
by her lugubrious ways as she helps. She positively is a
most provoking person. She assumes with such certainty
that mamma is a fool, and that all that has happened out
of the way comes by some fault of hers, that when she has
been here a day mamma is sure to have a headache. But
I have discovered faculties and strength I never knew I
possessed. I have taken on myself the whole work of separating
the things we are to keep from those which are to
be sold, and those which we are to take into the country
with us, from those which are to be stored in New York
for our return. I don't know what I should have done if
Jim Fellows hadn't been the real considerate friend he is.
Papa is overwhelmed with settling up business matters,
and one wants to save him every care, and Jim has really
been like a brother—looking up a place to store the goods,
finding just the nicest kind of a man to cart them, and
actually coming in and packing for me, till I told him I
knew he must be giving us time that he wanted for himself
—and all this with so much fun and jollification that we
really have had some merry times over it, and quite
shocked Aunt Maria, who insists on maintaining a general
demeanor as if there were a corpse in the house. My Dear Eva:—Notwithstanding all that has passed, I
cannot help writing to show that interest in your affairs,
which it may be presumed, as your aunt and godmother,
I have some right to feel, and though I know that my
advice always has been disregarded, still I think it my
duty to speak, and shall speak. My Dear Old Boy:—I think we have got it. I mean got
the house. I am not quite sure what your wife will say,
but I happened to meet Miss Alice last night and I told her,
and she says she is sure it will do. Hear and understand. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 63 | Author: | Thorpe
Thomas Bangs
1815-1878 | Add | | | Title: | The hive of "The bee-hunter" | | | | 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: | Originally, the wild turkey was found scattered
throughout the whole of our continent, its habits only
differing, where the peculiarity of the seasons compelled
it to provide against excessive cold or heat. In the
“clearing,” it only lives in its excellent and degenerated
descendant of the farm-yard, but in the vast prairies and
forests of the “far west,” this bird is still abundant,
and makes an important addition to the fare of wild life. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 64 | Author: | Trowbridge
J. T.
(John Townsend)
1827-1916 | Add | | | Title: | The deserted family, or, Wanderings of an outcast | | | | 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: | On the afternoon of a quiet summer's day,
a weary foot traveller turned aside from a dusty
country road, and on the grassy slope of a
pleasant hillside sat down upon the ground.
With a heavy sigh he removed from his brow
a torn and faded straw hat, and brushing back
the moist locks of gray hair that fell upon his
forehead, gazed sadly down into the beautiful
valley before him. “Dearest Cousin: The terrible excitement
of this awful day, the confusion around
me, the smell of murder which invades my
nostrils, the weighty cares on my mind, my
unsteady nerves, and the bruised state of the
tin pan on the bottom of which I write this
letter, must be my apology for the wretched
scrawl I send you. “Adored Alice: How I shall write this
note I know not. The tin pan which served
me as a desk before has been wrested from me
by a barbarous multitude. I am driven to use
a rough board, which I hold upon my knee.
The truth is, I am looked upon as a maniac by
some; others consider me a reporter for the
Gazette and Recorder. My friends shake
their heads doubtfully at my enterprise. But
nothing can daunt me. Write I must, and
will! “Star of my Existence, dearest Cousin:
In the midst of my imperative duties, I snatch
a few minutes from my much-occupied time
to keep you posted up. I have testified — told
the truth — the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth. I feel relieved. I have done my
duty. I have acted — a man! “Meet me to-morrow morning, at ten, in the
spot we have called Shadowland. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 66 | Author: | Phelps
Elizabeth Stuart
1844-1911 | Add | | | Title: | Men, women, and ghosts | | | | 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: | None at all. Understand that, please, to begin
with. That you will at once, and distinctly, recall
Dr. Sharpe — and his wife, I make no doubt. Indeed,
it is because the history is a familiar one, some
of the unfamiliar incidents of which have come into my
possession, that I undertake to tell it. “I have been so lonely since mother died, that my
health, never of the strongest, as you know, has suffered
seriously. My physician tells me that something
is wrong with the periphrastic action, if you know
what that is,” [I suppose Miss Fellows meant the
peristaltic action,] “and prophesies something dreadful,
(I 've forgotten whether it was to be in the head,
or the heart, or the stomach,) if I cannot have change
of air and scene this winter. I should dearly love to
spend some time with you in your new home, (I fancy
it will be drier than the old one,) if convenient to
you. If inconvenient, don't hesitate to say so, of
course. I hope to hear from you soon. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 68 | Author: | Bennett
Emerson
1822-1905 | Add | | | Title: | Rosalie Du Pont, or, Treason in the camp | | | | 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: | It was on a fine, pleasant morning, toward
the latter part of September, 1780, that a
heavy double knock resounded through the
elegant mansion of Graham Percy, in Queen-street.
The servant who opened the door,
beheld a stranger, dressed in deep black, with
a strongly-marked, deadly-pale countenance,
and small, black, fiery eyes, that seemed capable
of penetrating to his very soul. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 70 | Author: | Bennett
Emerson
1822-1905 | Add | | | Title: | Viola, or, Adventures in the far South-west | | | | 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: | “Away! away! away! three cheers
for freedom! and ho for the sunny
South!” “Dear Morton—We meet strangely
—we have from the first—and since I
saw you on the boat at New Orleans, I
have thought there may be such a thing
as a special Providence. Oh, Morton, if
you love me—if you ever loved me—
forsake me not now! Till I saw you
last, despair had for months sat like an
incubus upon my heart. Hope had fled
me, and in vain I labored to lure her
back. She came with you; and since
then has fluttered in sight, but ready to
take wing and leave me forever. You,
Morton, and hope, are so united, that
neither can come alone. Oh, misery!
misery! how well I know the meaning
of the term! What shall I say of the
past? I could pour out my soul to you
in words, were we together; but I can
say nothing on paper. Yet something
I must say. My mother is dead. My
father—oh! that he better deserved the
name!—what shall I say of him? Morton,
to be brief, my father has sold me
to a man I detest, and is now on his
way to deliver me to my purchaser.
In other words, and to speak without
enigma, my father having failed in business,
is resolved to retrieve his fortune
by disposing of my hand to a French
count, who boasts of a distant connection
with Louis Philippe. He is rich,
and owns a country seat somewhere
near the Brazos; but I cannot direct you
to it, nor do I even know the vicinity.
I only know it is called D'Estang Ville.
You may perhaps find it from the name
—that is, should you care to trouble
yourself about it. Thither I am to be
transported; and once there my father
has solemnly sworn I shall become the
wife of D'Estang, or take the alternative
of ending my days in a convent, in the
interior of Mexico. Of the two, my
choice is already made. I will never
wed this count. Morton, my hope is
in you, or death. If you fail me, the
latter may not. I would not die now—
but can I live a life of misery? I have
knelt and prayed to my father to forego
his terrible resolve. In vain. He is
inexorable. Oh! how he has changed
of late! He is another being. Mother
and wealth were his idols. One is
dead—the other lost; and now he would
rebuild his fortunes on the crushed
hopes and broken heart of his only
child. He cannot love me, Morton, and
I have learned to fear him. Could he
have loved my mother? If so, why am
I treated thus? Of M. D'Estang—he
once visited my father in the city of
Mexico. I was then a child—but it
seems he conceived a passion for me
even then, which years have strengthened
rather than weakened. I say passion;
for had he ever loved, he would
not buy me like a slave now. How he
and my father met within a year, and
how one bought and the other sold me,
I cannot tell you now—perhaps I may
when we meet, should God permit us
to meet again on earth. My hand trembles,
and tears dim my eyes. Morton,
dear Morton, I cannot write more. I
have stolen away to do this. Will it
ever reach you? and can you assist me
if it does? Oh, Morton, by the sweet
past! by our then happy hopes of the
future! I conjure you to come to my aid!
But you must come disguised. If seen
and recognised, I verily believe your
life will be taken. It is fearful to think
so, Morton—it is terrible! No more. “I am a prisoner in the tower; secure
the bearers of this; let no one
leave the Ville, on pain of death, and
come instantly to my release. “Let the bearers of this, my particular
friends, be provided with four
good horses, and be permitted to leave
the Ville without question or hindrance. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 71 | Author: | Bennett
Emerson
1822-1905 | Add | | | Title: | Walde-Warren: | | | | 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: | Far up towards the headwaters
of one of the tributaries
of the Cumberland river,
and not many leagues distant
from that portion of the Cumberland
mountains which divides
the state of Tennessee,
there is a wild, beautiful, romantic
valley. This valley
is about three miles in extent,
oval in shape, with the breadth
of a mile and a half in the
centre, closing up at either
end by the peculiar curve of
the hills which environ it, and
leaving just sufficient space
for the passage of the stream
alluded to, and a traveled
road which winds along its
banks and slightly cuts the
southern base of the projecting
eminences. About central
way of this valley, is a quiet,
picturesque village, of neat
white houses, overlooked by
the mountains, and as rural
and sequestered as one could
wish to find. This village occupies
both sides of the
stream, which is spanned by
an arched wooden bridge, beneath
which the waters
sparkle, foam and roar, as
they dash over a rocky bed,
and dart away with the frolic-someness
of youth. In fact
the stream itself may not inappropriately
be likened to a
youth just freed from the
trammels and helplessness
of infancy, when budding
strength begins to give buoyancy,
independence, ambition,
and love of wild adventure;
for, nurtured among the
mountains, and fed to a good
estate, it has burst from the
control of parental nature, and
now comes hopping, skipping
and dancing along, with childish
playfulness—occasionally
sobered for a moment as it
glides past some steep overhanging
cliff, like a youth full
of timid curiosity on entering
a place of deep shadow—but
in the main, wild, merry and
sportive—laughing in the sunshine—rollicking,
gamboling,
purling and roaring—now
playing hide and seek among
the bushes, and now rushing
away, with might and main,
to explore the world that lays
before it, unconscious that
aught of difficulty may lie in
its path. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 72 | Author: | Bennett
Emerson
1822-1905 | Add | | | Title: | Wild Scenes on the Frontiers, Or, Heroes of the West | | | | 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: | We talk of the ferocity, the vindictiveness, the treachery,
and the cruelty of the native savage; and, painting him
in the darkest colors, tell how, when his hunting grounds
covered the sites of our now proudest cities, he was wont
to steal down upon a few harmless whites, our forefathers,
and butcher them in cold blood, sparing neither sex nor
age, except for a painful captivity, to end perhaps in
the most demoniac tortures; and we dwell upon the
theme, till our little innocent children shudder and creep
close to our sides, and look fearfully around them, and
perhaps wonder how the good God, of whom they have
also heard us speak, could ever have permitted such human
monsters to encumber His fair and beautiful earth. But
do we reverse the medal and show the picture which
impartial Truth has stamped upon the other side—and
which, in a great measure, stands as a cause to the opposite
effect—stands as a cause for savage ferocity, vindictiveness,
treachery and cruelty? Do we tell our young
and eager listeners that the poor Indian, living up to the
light he had, and not unfrequently beyond it, knew no
better than to turn, like the worm when trampled upon,
and bite the foot that crushed him? That we had taken
the land of his father's graves and driven him from his
birthright hunting grounds? That we had stolen his cattle,
robbed him of his food, destroyed his growing fields,
burned his wigwams, and murdered his brothers, fathers,
wives and little ones, besides instigating tribe to war
against tribe—and that, knowing nothing of the Christian
code, to return good for evil, he fulfilled the law of his
nature and education in taking his “great revenge” upon
any of the pale-faced race he should chance to meet? No!
we seldom show this side of the medal—for the natural
inquiry of the innocent listener might contain an unpleasant
rebuke: | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 74 | Author: | Ward
Artemus
1834-1867 | Add | | | Title: | Artemus Ward's panorama | | | | 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: | YOU are entirely welcome ladies and gentlemen
to my little picture-shop.1
1 “My little picture-shop.”—I have already stated that the
room used was the lesser of the two on the first-floor of the
Egyptian Hall. The panorama was to the left on entering,
and Artemus Ward stood at the south-east corner facing the
door. He had beside him a music-stand, on which for the
first few days he availed himself of the assistance afforded by
a sheet of foolscap on which all his “cues” were written out
in a large hand. The proscenium was covered with dark
cloth, and the picture bounded by a great gilt frame. On the
rostrum behind the lecturer was a little door giving admission
to the space behind the picture where the piano was placed.
Through this door Artemus would disappear occasionally in
the course of the evening, either to instruct his pianist to play
a few more bars of music, to tell his assistants to roll the
picture more quickly or more slowly, or to give some instructions
to the man who worked “the moon.” The little
lecture-room was thronged nightly during the very few
weeks of its being open.
My dear Sir,—My wife was dangerously unwell for over sixteen
years. She was so weak that she could not lift a teaspoon to her mouth.
But in a fortunate moment she commenced reading one of your lectures.
She got better at once. She gained strength so rapidly that she lifted the
cottage piano quite a distance from the floor, and then tipped it over on
to her mother-in-law, with whom she had had some little trouble. We
like your lectures very much. Please send me a barrel of them. If you
should require any more recommendations, you can get any number of
them in this place, at two shillings each, the price I charge for this one,
and I trust you may be ever happy. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 76 | Author: | EDITED BY
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. | Add | | | Title: | Out of his head | | | | 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: | “On the seventeenth of August, in the year
16—, the morning sun, resting obliquely on the
gables and roof-tops of Portsmouth, lighted up
one of those grim spectacles not unusual in New
England at that period. In Thomas Bailey Aldrich, whose death was briefly
announced in The Times of Wednesday, America has lost
the most brilliant man of letters of the generation that
succeeded the Concord group. He was born in Portsmouth,
New Hampshire, in November, 1836, when Longfellow
and Emerson were in their prime, and he reaped
the benefit of their labours by coming into an age which
they had familiarized with literature and cultivation.
Mr. Aldrich early became a journalist, and was connected
with the New York Evening Mirror, Willes's Home
Journal, and other papers. The outbreak of the war
saw him as newspaper correspondent, and in 1865 he
became the editor of Every Saturday. Nine years in
that post were followed by seven of miscellaneous work,
till in 1881 he reached the height of his career as
journalist by becoming editor of the Atlantic Monthly, a
position he held till 1890. Meanwhile he had written
much original matter both in prose and verse. His genius
was many-sided, and it is surprising that so busy an
editor and so prolific a writer should have attained the
perfection of form for which Mr. Aldrich was remarkable.
Among his novels “Prudence Palfrey” and “The
Stillwater Tragedy” are the best known. From his
country home at Porkapog, Mass., he sent out the charming
“Porkapog Papers,” as graceful and delicate as their
title was ungainly. He described with the skill of a
Hawthorne his native town by the sea, and in “Marjorie
Daw” and other works he proved himself an “American
humourist” of a characteristic type. One of his
books, “The Story of a Bad Boy,” has achieved
notable distinction; it has been translated into
French in a series entitled “Education et Récréation,”
and into German as a specimen of American humour. It
is, however, as a poet that Mr. Aldrich was chiefly
entitled to recognition, and on his poetry that his fame
will rest. Mr. Edmund Clarence Stedman regarded him
as “the most pointed and exquisite of our lyrical craftsmen”;
and the words are well chosen. He was the
doyen and the leader of the school of American poetry
which is now being displaced by Mr. Bliss Carman and
others, who are apparently more virile than the preceding
generation. His was the poetry of exquisite finish and
not of great force or profundity. To say that his lyrics
are vers de société in the highest form is not to rate their
content too low nor their manner too high; and it is in
lyric song rather than in the longer poems, such as
“Wyndham Towers,” that Mr. Aldrich excelled. Some
of his poems—that on the intaglio head of Minerva,
“When the Sultan goes to Ispahan,” and “Identity”—
are in every anthology of American literature, and have
won their author fame throughout the English-speaking
world. Suddenly Loses Strength After Partially
Recovering From an Operation. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 77 | Author: | Hawthorne
Nathaniel
1804-1864 | Add | | | Title: | The marble faun: or, The romance of Monte Beni | | | | 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: | Four individuals, in whose fortunes we should be glad
to interest the reader, happened to be standing in one of
the saloons of the sculpture-gallery in the Capitol at
Rome. It was that room (the first, after ascending the
staircase) in the centre of which reclines the noble and
most pathetic figure of the Dying Gladiator, just sinking
into his death-swoon. Around the walls stand the Antinous,
the Amazon, the Lycian Apollo, the Juno; all
famous productions of antique sculpture, and still shining
in the undiminished majesty and beauty of their ideal
life, although the marble that embodies them is yellow
with time, and perhaps corroded by the damp earth in
which they lay buried for centuries. Here, likewise, is
seen a symbol (as apt at this moment as it was two thousand
years ago) of the Human Soul, with its choice of
Innocence or Evil close at hand, in the pretty figure of a
child, clasping a dove to her bosom, but assaulted by a
snake. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 78 | Author: | Hawthorne
Nathaniel
1804-1864 | Add | | | Title: | The marble faun: or, The romance of Monte Beni | | | | 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: | From the old butler, whom he found to be a very
gracious and affable personage, Kenyon soon learned
many curious particulars about the family history and
hereditary peculiarities of the Counts of Monte Beni.
There was a pedigree, the later portion of which — that
is to say, for a little more than a thousand years — a
genealogist would have found delight in tracing out, link
by link, and authenticating by records and documentary
evidences. It would have been as difficult, however, to
follow up the stream of Donatello's ancestry to its dim
source, as travellers have found it to reach the mysterious
fountains of the Nile. And, far beyond the region of
definite and demonstrable fact, a romancer might have
strayed into a region of old poetry, where the rich soil,
so long uncultivated and untrodden, had lapsed into
nearly its primeval state of wilderness. Among those
antique paths, now overgrown with tangled and riotous
vegetation, the wanderer must needs follow his own guidance,
and arrive nowhither at last. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 79 | Author: | Higginson
Thomas Wentworth
1823-1911 | Add | | | Title: | Malbone | | | | 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: | AS one wanders along this southwestern
promontory of the Isle of Peace, and
looks down upon the green translucent water
which forever bathes the marble slopes of the
Pirates' Cave, it is natural to think of the ten
wrecks with which the past winter has strewn
this shore. Though almost all trace of their
presence is already gone, yet their mere memory
lends to these cliffs a human interest. Where
a stranded vessel lies, thither all steps converge,
so long as one plank remains upon another.
There centres the emotion. All else
is but the setting, and the eye sweeps with indifference
the line of unpeopled rocks. They
are barren, till the imagination has tenanted
them with possibilities of danger and dismay.
The ocean provides the scenery and properties
of a perpetual tragedy, but the interest arrives
with the performers. Till then the shores remain
vacant, like the great conventional arm-chairs
of the French drama, that wait for
Rachel to come and die. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 80 | Author: | Holland
J. G.
(Josiah Gilbert)
1819-1881 | Add | | | Title: | Sevenoaks | | | | 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: | Everybody has seen Sevenoaks, or a hundred towns so much
like it, in most particulars, that a description of any one of
them would present it to the imagination—a town strung upon
a stream, like beads upon a thread, or charms upon a chain.
Sevenoaks was richer in chain than charms, for its abundant
water-power was only partially used. It plunged, and roared,
and played, and sparkled, because it had not half enough to
do. It leaped down three or four cataracts in passing through
the village; and, as it started from living springs far northward
among the woods and mountains, it never failed in its
supplies. “Mr. Robert Belcher: I have been informed of the
shameful manner in which you treated a member of my family
this morning—Master Harry Benedict. The bullying of a
small boy is not accounted a dignified business for a man in
the city which I learn you have chosen for your home, however
it may be regarded in the little town from which you
came. I do not propose to tolerate such conduct toward any
dependent of mine. I do not ask for your apology, for the
explanation was in my hands before the outrage was committed.
I perfectly understand your relations to the lad, and
trust that the time will come when the law will define them,
so that the public will also understand them. Meantime, you
will consult your own safety by letting him alone, and never
presuming to repeat the scene of this morning. “Dear Sir: I owe an apology to the people of Sevenoaks
for never adequately acknowledging the handsome manner in
which they endeavored to assuage the pangs of parting on the
occasion of my removal. The resolutions passed at their
public meeting are cherished among my choicest treasures, and
the cheers of the people as I rode through their ranks on the
morning of my departure, still ring in my ears more delightfully
than any music I ever heard. Thank them, I pray you,
for me, for their overwhelming friendliness. I now have a
request to make of them, and I make it the more boldly because,
during the past ten years, I have never been approached
by any of them in vain when they have sought my benefactions.
The Continental Petroleum Company is a failure, and
all the stock I hold in it is valueless. Finding that my expenses
in the city are very much greater than in the country,
it has occurred to me that perhaps my friends there would be
willing to make up a purse for my benefit. I assure you that
it would be gratefully received; and I apply to you because,
from long experience, I know that you are accomplished in
the art of begging. Your graceful manner in accepting gifts
from me has given me all the hints I shall need in that respect,
so that the transaction will not be accompanied by any clumsy
details. My butcher's bill will be due in a few days, and dispatch
is desirable. “Your letter of this date received, and contents noted.
Permit me to say in reply: “Dear Benedict:—I am glad to know that you are better.
Since you distrust my pledge that I will give you a reasonable
share of the profits on the use of your patents, I will go to
your house this afternoon, with witnesses, and have an independent
paper prepared, to be signed by myself, after the
assignment is executed, which will give you a definite claim
upon me for royalty. We will be there at four o'clock. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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