| | 41 | 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 |
| 43 | 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 |
| 45 | Author: | McHenry
James
1753-1816 | Add | | | Title: | The wilderness, or, Braddock's times | | | | 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: | Let melancholy spirits talk as they please concerning
the degeneracy and increasing miseries of
mankind, I will not believe them. They have
been speaking ill of themselves, and predicting
worse of their posterity, from time immemorial;
and yet, in the present year, 1823, when, if the
one hundreth part of their gloomy forebodings
had been realized, the earth must have become
a Pandemonium, and men something worse than
devils, (for devils they have been long ago,
in the opinion of these charitable denunciators,)
I am free to assert, that we have as many honest
men, pretty women, healthy children, cultivated
fields, convenient houses, elegant kinds of furniture,
and comfortable clothes, as any generation
of our ancestors ever possessed. “I am glad you are come back so soon.—
My sister—your wife—was cast down in your absence.
But I could not blame her—for I remember
when Shanalow, my husband, went first to
hunt, after our marriage, I was disconsolate, and
dreamed every night of evil till he returned. He
is now gone to his fathers, and shall never more
return. But he died of a breast-wound fighting
the Otawas, and our whole tribe has praised
him. The warning which Tonnaleuka had given
Charles to be circumspect in regard to the enemy,
was not lost upon him. He employed Paddy
Frazier as a scout to hover round the French station
at Le Bœuf in order to watch their motions
and give him the earliest intelligence of their
design. He also kept four or five of his men
constantly employed in ranging on horseback,
those quarters of the country from which he could
be suddenly attacked, while the whole of the remainder
were busily engaged in digging trenches,
and preparing long pointed stakes to fix in the
ground to form their stoccade fortification. From
the friendly Indians he at first rceived considerable
aid in forwarding his works; but in a few
days he began to perceive their ardour in his behalf
to diminish; and suspecting that they had
imbided some unfriendly feeling towards him, he
thought proper to visit king Shingiss, and expostulate
with him on the subject. “My persuading you to submit, at this time,
to a residence in a dark subterraneous cell, is a
proof how anxious I am for your safety. You
will, no doubt, feel your situation lonely and disagreeable;
but I hope the necessity for it will not
be of long continuance; and, in the meanwhile,
in order to relieve its tediousness as much as possible,
I shall send you a supply of such books as I
possess, best suited for your entertainment. You
may be also assured, that our family will let you
want for nothing in their power to afford you
comfort. “We, the officers of the Virginia regiment, are
highly sensible of the particular mark of distinction
with which you have honoured us in returning
your thanks for our behaviour in the late action;
and cannot help testifying our grateful acknowledgments
for your “high sense” of what we
shall always esteem a duty to our country and the
best of kings. “Dear Sir—The progress we have made in the
transaction, in which your son and my niece were
to be the parties disposed of, had induced me to
hope for a speedy and final settlement of the affair;
but I am sorry to say, that owing to some
misadventure on the part of your son, the bargain
is likely to fail on your side. My niece,
which was the part of the concern for which I
stood engaged, is still substantial and ready for delivery,
when the equivalent shall be forthcoming,
and the demand made. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 46 | Author: | Morris
George Pope
1802-1864 | Add | | | Title: | The little Frenchman and his water lots, with other sketches of the times | | | | 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: | How much real comfort every one might enjoy,
if he would be contented with the lot in which
heaven has cast him, and how much trouble would
be avoided if people would only “let well alone.”
A moderate independence, quietly and honestly
procured, is certainly every way preferable even to
immense possessions achieved by the wear and tear
of mind and body so necessary to procure them.
Yet there are very few individuals, let them be
doing ever so well in the world, who are not always
straining every nerve to do better; and this is one
of the many causes why failures in business so
frequently occur among us. The present generation
seem unwilling to “realize” by slow and sure
degrees; but choose rather to set their whole hopes
upon a single cast, which either makes or mars them
for ever! | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 47 | Author: | Melville
Herman
1819-1891 | Add | | | Title: | Typee | | | | 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 | Wiley & Putnam's library of American books | wiley & putnams library of american books | | | | Description: | Six months at sea! Yes, reader, as I live, six months out of
sight of land; cruising after the sperm-whale beneath the scorching
sun of the Line, and tossed on the billows of the wide-rolling
Pacific—the sky above, the sea around, and nothing else!
Weeks and weeks ago our fresh provisions were all exhausted.
There is not a sweet potato left; not a single yam. Those glorious
bunches of bananas which once decorated our stern and
quarter-deck, have, alas, disappeared! and the delicious oranges
which hung suspended from our tops and stays—they, too, are
gone! Yes, they are all departed, and there is nothing left us
but salt-horse and sea-biscuit. Oh! ye state-room sailors, who
make so much ado about a fourteen days' passage across the
Atlantic; who so pathetically relate the privations and hardships
of the sea, where, after a day of breakfasting, lunching, dining
off five courses, chatting, playing whist, and drinking champaignpunch,
it was your hard lot to be shut up in little cabinets of mahogany
and maple, and sleep for ten hours, with nothing to disturb
you but “those good-for-nothing tars, shouting and tramping over
head,”—what would ye say to our six months out of sight of land? Returning health and peace of mind gave a new interest to everything
around me. I sought to diversify my time by as many
enjoyments as lay within my reach. Bathing in company with
troops of girls formed one of my chief amusements. We sometimes
enjoyed the recreation in the waters of a miniature lake,
into which the central stream of the valley expanded. This
lovely sheet of water was almost circular in figure, and about
three hundred yards across. Its beauty was indescribable. All
around its banks waved luxuriant masses of tropical foliage,
soaring high above which were seen, here and there, the symmetrical
shaft of the cocoa-nut tree, surmounted by its tuft of
graceful branches, drooping in the air like so many waving ostrich
plumes. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
|
