| | 181 | Author: | Derby
George Horatio
1823-1861 | Add | | | Title: | The Squibob papers  | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | “Dear Sir: — I am requested by a number of
your brother officers, and other gentlemen, to solicit
you to deliver the oration at the celebration
of the approaching Fourth of July, at this post. “Dear Sir: — I have the honor to acknowledge
the receipt of your very polite invitation to
address a number of my brother officers, and other
gentlemen, on the coming glorious anniversary,
at Vancouver. Dear Cate, you know I luv you mor an any
uther Girle in the World, and wat's the Reson
you allways want Me to tell you so. I no you ar
almost gitting tired of waiting for me; I no you luv
me fit to brake your hart. I no we ort to git
marid, but how kin we if we kant — sa! Wat's
the use in thinkin bout it. I thort wen I sold mi
mule that I wud have nough to pay the precher
and by you nice goun. But I tried mi luk at
poker and got strapt the fust nite. Cate, you
never played poker — in korse not. Wel, it's
a confounded mity nice game as long as you kin
sit behind a smorl par; but when you kant get a
par, the pot's gone. I luv you so much, Cate, that
I allmost hav a notion to sel me 1 horse wagin and
buck a nite or 2 at farow; but how kin I — sa!
Mi whol wagin wudent fech more an fore or 5
good staks. ile go back to the mountings an
work and dig and swet and do every thing I kin
to get money to git marid. I ain't any ways gelus,
Cate, but pleze don't hug and kiss and set on
J—n B—s lapp any noor. you know he
ain't worth shaks, he kant drink mor an 3 hornes
'thout gittin tite; I kin stand up under fiftey.
You know I kin lick him 2, and hav dun it and
kin do it agin. But I ain't a bit gelus, I no I out
to marid long ago. leven years is rether long to
kort a gal, but ile hav you yit Cate. Gentlemen, — At a large and respectable meeting
held by your guests this evening, in the bar
room of your exquisite hotel. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 182 | Author: | Duganne
A. J. H.
(Augustine Joseph Hickey)
1823-1884 | Add | | | Title: | Bianca, or, The star of the valley | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | DUSK was deepening
over the Alpine
summits, and huge
shadows stalked
slowly downward,
broadening gloomily
through the valleys.
All nature
was sinking into the
sealed quiet of a
winter's night, only
to be broken, during
the long hours,
by the rumbling
thunders of shifting
fields of snow in the passes and declivities of
the mountains, or perchance the sudden rushing
crash of an avalanchine slide of gathered ice,
bearing terror and destruction to the slumbering
villages below. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 184 | Author: | Duganne
A. J. H.
(Augustine Joseph Hickey)
1823-1884 | Add | | | Title: | The tenant-house, or,, Embers from poverty's hearthstone | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | WHEN a stranger, under guidance and protection of
police, or a home missionary, fearlessly breaking
bread with outcasts, penetrates some gloomy court or
narrow alley in the great Christian city of New York, he
beholds destitution and squalor of most repulsive feature:
he discovers tottering buildings crowded with sickly and
depraved human beings; stalwart, malign-looking men,
glancing furtively at every passer-by; brazen-browed women,
with foul words upon their reeking lips; children
of impure thoughts and actions, leering with wicked precocity.
When he enters the wretched abiding-places of
these unhappy people, he may find, amid associations of
vice and uncleanness, many suffering and patient souls
bearing earthly martyrdom with serene trust in their
Heavenly Father, and plucking, even out of their “ugly
and venomous” adversity, the “jewel” of immortal peace.
Such struggling ones do not dwell long in the darkness
and dolor of their probation; for the celestial ladders,
let down from Mercy's throne, rest quite as often upon the
black pavement of a tenant-court as amid the flowers that
tesselate a palace garden; and up, unceasingly, on the
shining rounds, glide disenthralled spirits of the poor and
lowly watchers for their Lord. “Your letter was received yesterday, and I have
spent the hours since in weeping and prayer. I have
prayed for you, dear Charles! with my heart sobbing, well-nigh
to break. O could I ever dream that you would
leave me for another? But I must not chide you—God
knows how I love you, dearest—I would lay down my life
for you cheerfully, without a murmur. But it is a hard
sacrifice you require of me—to give you up to another
woman, Charles! when you have sworn to love no other
one but your Margaret. You tell me you do not love the
lady—that you will marry her only for your worldly prospeets!
O Charles! I feel this is all wrong; but, alas!
what dare I say to you? I am poor—without fortune but
my deep love—God knows, I would resign a throne for
your affection, if I were a queen, instead of a portionless
girl. Charles! what was it that you said?—O Heaven!
did I understand your meaning?—that your love for me
would remain unchanged, and we should be happy after
your marriage! After your marriage, Charles! Do you
not know me better? Do you think I would consent to
do wrong, even of my great love for you? No, Charles!
after your marriage, we must never meet more! Beloved,
bear with me—it is the last time I shall annoy you. You
will wed the lady, Charles! Do not wrong her trust!—
be kind to her when she becomes your—wife! make her
happy! love her—and forget me! I shall not live a
great while, dear Charles; for my heart will break, in
thinking of the past, and of my hopes, all, all withered.
Farewell, dearest! I submit to your wishes, but I must
never see you after you are another's. Adieu, Charles!—
for the last time, my Charles! God bless and protect
you! Dear, dear Charles — husband!—I resign you.
Farewell, forever! “My dearest Rebecca,”—so the note ran—“I am
thinking of you by day, dreaming of you at night, adoring
you always. I have much to tell you, sweet one, and
must see you to-day. Fail not to meet me, at the usual
hour, at our trysting-place, darling of my soul. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 185 | Author: | Smith
Seba
1792-1868 | Add | | | Title: | My thirty years out of the Senate | | | | Published: | 2001 | | | | 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 will be seen by the date above that I wrote this little
history of my life twenty odd years ago. It was the time the
Boston folks published a little vollum of my first Letters, and
the Life was writ to head the vollum with. But I've seen a
great deal more of the world since then, and have writ a
great many more Letters, and seen a great deal more of the
workings of American Politicians. And they'll all have to
come into my Thirty Years' View. But there'll be a kind of
gap near the close of Gineral Jackson's time, and for awhile
after, because a lot of my letters, written at that time, was
lost in a fire some years afterward, and I don't suppose I can
now find the papers they was published in. But I will bridge
over the gap as well as I can, and there'll be a pretty long
road to travel both sides of it. And this reminds me how
strange the parallel runs between me and Colonel Benton;
for he lost a lot of his letters and speeches and dockyments by
fire, and had a good deal of a hard job to go over the ground
again in getting up his work. But I and Colonel Benton are
hard to beat. We generally go ahead, let what will stand in
the way. Dear Cousin Ephraim:—I now take my pen in hand to let
you know that I am well, hoping these few lines will find you
enjoying the same blessing. When I come down to Portland
I didn't think o' staying more than three or four days, if I
could sell my load of ax handles, and mother's cheese, and
cousin Nabby's bundle of footings; but when I got here I
found Uncle Nat was gone a freighting down to Quoddy, and
aunt Sally said as how I shouldn't stir a step home till he come
back agin, which won't be this month. So here I am, loitering
about this great town, as lazy as an ox. Ax handles
don't fetch nothing; I couldn't hardly give 'em away. Tell
Cousin Nabby I sold her footings for nine-pence a pair,
and took it all in cotton cloth. Mother's cheese come to
seven-and-sixpence; I got her half a pound of shushon,
and two ounces of snuff, and the rest in sugar. When
Uncle Nat comes home I shall put my ax handles aboard
of him, and let him take 'em to Boston next time he goes;
I saw a feller tother day, that told me they'd fetch a good
price there. I've been here now a whole fortnight, and
if I could tell ye one half I've seen, I guess you'd stare worse
than if you'd seen a catamount. I've been to meeting, and to
the museum, and to both Legislaters, the one they call the
House, and the one they call the Sinnet. I spose Uncle
Joshua is in a great hurry to hear something about these
Legislaters; for you know he's always reading newspapers,
and talking politics, when he can get anybody to talk with
him. I've seen him when he had five tons of hay in the field
well made, and a heavy shower coming up, stand two hours
disputing with Squire W. about Adams and Jackson—one
calling Adams a tory and a fed, and the other saying Jackson
was a murderer and a fool; so they kept it up, till the rain
began to pour down, and about spoilt all his hay. GRAND CAUCUS AT DOWNINGVILLE—THE LONG AGONY OVER, AND THE
NOMINATION OUT. My Dear Old Friend:—I've jest got the Union, containing
the broadside you fired at me, and I'm amazingly struck up,
and my feelins is badly hurt, to see that you've got so bewildered
that you seemingly don't know me. It's a melancholy
sign when old folks get so bewildered that they mistake their
oldest and best friends, one for t'other. Why, your head is
turned right round. How could you say that I was “a fictitious
Major Jack Downing?” and that my last letter to you
was a “trashy forgery?” and that you would “strip the
mask from me?” I feel bad now about writing my last letter
to you, for I'm afraid you took it too hard. I beg of you now,
my dear friend, to let all drop right where 'tis; leave Mr.
Burke to do the burkin' and the fightin', and you go right out
into the country and put yourself under the “cold-water cure”
somewhere, and see if your head won't come right again. I
“fictitious,” and you going to “strip the mask from me!”
Why, my dear friend, if you could only be up here five
minutes, and jest lift the mask off of my face one minute,
you'd know me jest as easy as the little boy knew his daddy.
Your head couldn't be so turned but what you'd know me; for
you'd see then the very same old friend that stood by you and
Gineral Jackson fifteen, sixteen, and eighteen years ago; the
same old friend that coaxed up Gineral Jackson, and made
him forgive you for calling him such hard names before he
was elected. It's very ungrateful for you to forget me now—
that is, if you was in your right mind. For I'm the same old
friend, the same Jack Downing that was born and brought up
in Downingville, away Down East, in the State of Maine, and
that drove down to Portland in Jinnerwary, 1830, with a load of
ax-handles and bean-poles, and found the Legislater in a dreadful
snarl, all tied and tangled, and see-sawin' up and down a
whole fortnight, and couldn't choose their officers. I found
my ax-handles and bean-poles wouldn't sell, so I took to polytix,
and went to writin' letters. The Legislater fout and fout
all winter; but I kept writin', and at last I got 'em straitened
out. I kept on writin' for a whole year, and got the polytix
of Maine pretty well settled. Then I see Gineral Jackson
was getting into trouble, and I footed it on to Washington to
give him a lift. And you know I always stuck by him afterward
as long as he lived. I helped him fight the battles with
Biddle's monster bank till we killed it off. I helped him put
down nullification, and showed exactly how it would work if it
got the upper hand, in my letter about carrying the raft of logs
across Sebago Pond, when Bill Johnson got mad and swore
he'd have his log all to himself, and so he cut the lashings
and paddled off on his log alone; and then his log begun to roll,
and he couldn't keep it steady, and he got ducked head over
heels half a dozen times, and come pesky near being drowned.
And that wasn't all I did to keep off nullification and help put
it down. I brought on my old company of Downingville
malitia to Washington, under the command of Cousin Sargent
Joel, and kept 'em there, with their guns all loaded, till the
danger was over. And I used to go up top of the Congress
House every day, and keep watch, and listen off toward South
Carolina, so as to be ready, the first moment nullification bust
up there, to order Sargent Joel to march and fire. The Gineral
always said the spunk I showed was what cowed nullification
down so quick, and he always felt very grateful to me for it.
Well, I stuck by the Gineral all weathers; and I kept writin'
letters from Washington to my old friend, the editor of the
Portland Courier, and kept old Hickory's popularity alive
among the people, and didn't let nobody meddle with his Administration
to hurt it. Well, then, you know, the Gineral,
in the summer of 1832, started off on his grand tower Down
East, and I went with him. You remember, when we got to
Philadelphy, the people swarmed round him so thick they almost
smothered him to death; and the Gineral got so tired
shakin' hands that he couldn't give another shake, and come
pretty near faintin' away; and then I put my hand round under
his arm, and shook for him half an hour longer, and so we
made out to get through. I sent the whole account of it to
my old friend of the Portland Courier. Well, then we jogged
along to New York; and there, you remember, we come pesky
near getting a ducking when the bridge broke down at
Castle Garden. I sent the whole account of it to my old
Portland friend. Well, the next day your “original” Major
Downing published his first original letter in a New York
paper, giving an account of the ducking at Castle Garden.
Nobody couldn't dispute but this was the true, ginuine, “original”
Downing document, although my “vile imitations” of it
had been going on and published almost every week for two
years. I say nobody couldn't dispute it, because 'twas proved
by Scripture and poetry both. For the Bible says, “The
first shall be last, and the last first;” and poetry says,
“Coming events cast their shadows before.” So the shadows,
the “vile imitations,” had been flying about the country for
more than two years before the original event got along. I
hope your head will get settled again, so that you can see
through these things and understand 'em, and know me jest
as you used to. I can't bear the idea of your not knowing
me, and thinking I'm “fictitious.” My Dear Old Friend:—I'm alive yet, though I've been
through showers of balls as thick as hailstones. I got
your paper containing my letter that I wrote on the road
to the war. The letters I wrote afterward, the guerrillas
12
and robbers are so thick, I think it's ten chances to one
if you got 'em. Some of Gineral Scott's letters is missing
just in the same way. Now we've got the city of Mexico
annexed, I think the Postmaster-General ought to have a more
regular line of stages running here, so our letters may go
safe. I wish you would touch the President and Mr. Johnson
up a little about this mail-stage business, so they may keep
all the coach makers at work, and see that the farmers raise
horses as fast as they can, for I don't think they have any idea
how long the roads is this way, nor how fast we are gaining
south. If we keep on annexin' as fast as we have done a year
or two past, it wouldn't take much more than half a dozen
years to get clear down to t'other end of South America, clear
to Cape Horn, which would be a very good stopping place;
for then, if our Government got into bad sledding in North
America, and found themselves in a dilemma that hadn't no
horn to suit 'em, they would have a horn in South America
that they might hold on to. Dear Sir:—I've done my best, according to your directions,
to get round Santa Anna, but it is all no use. He's as slippery
as an eel, and has as many lives as a cat. Trist and I
together can't hold him, and Scott and Taylor can't kill him
off. We get fast hold of him with our diplomatics, but he
slips through our fingers; and Scott and Taylor cuts his head
off in every town where they can catch him, but he always
comes to life in the next town, and shows as many heads as
if he had never lost one. I had a long talk with him in the
city, and pinned him right down to the bargain he made with
you when you let him into Vera Cruz, and asked him “why
he didn't stick to it.” He said he “did stick to it as far as
circumstances rendered it prudent.” My Dear Old Friends:—Gineral Scott and I find a good
deal of bother about getting our dispatches through to Vera
Cruz, or else you'd hear from me oftener. I do think the
President is too backward about clearing out this road from
here to Vera Cruz, and keeping it open, and introducing the
improvements into the country that we stand so much in need
of here. He and Mr. Ritchie pretends to have constitutional
scruples about it, and says the Constitution don't allow of
internal improvements; and Mr. Ritchie says the resolutions
of '98 is dead agin it, too; and, besides, Mr. Ritchie says these
internal improvements is a Federal doctrine, and he'd always
go agin 'em for that, if nothin' else. But 'tis strange to me
the President hasn't never found out yet that where there's a
will there's a way, Constitution or no Constitution. All he's
got to do is, to call all these roads round here in Mexico
“military roads,” and then he'd have the Constitution on his
side, for everbody knows the Constitution allows him to make
military roads. I know the President is very delicate about
fringing on the Constitution, so I don't blame him so much for
holding back about the internal improvements here in Mexico,
though I don't think there's any other part of the United
States where they are needed more. But there's no need of
splitting hairs about the roads; military roads isn't internal
improvements, and he's a right to make military roads as
much as he pleases. And as them is jest the kind of roads
we want here, and shall want for fifty years (for our armies
will have to keep marching about the country for fifty years
before they'll be able to tame these Mexicans, and turn 'em
into Americans), it is confounded strange to me that the
President is so behind-hand about this business. What's the
use of our going on and annexin' away down South here, if
he don't back us up and hold on to the slack? And there's
no way to hold on to it but to keep these military roads open
so our armies can go back and forth, and bring us in victuals,
and powder, and shot, and money. Dear Colonel:—Things is getting along here as well as
could be expected, considerin' the help we have, but we are all
together too weak-handed to work to profit. If you want us to
hurry along down South, we need a good deal more help and
more money. It wouldn't be no use to give that three millions
of dollars to Santa Anna now, for the people have got so out
with him that he couldn't make peace if he had six millions.
He's skulking about the country, and has as much as he can
do to take care of himself. So I think you had better give up
the notion about peace altogether, it 'll be such a hard thing
to get, and send on the three millions here to help us along
in our annexin'. It's dangerous standin' still in this annexin'
business. It's like the old woman's soap—if it don't go ahead,
it goes back. It would be a great help to us in the way of
holdin' on to what we get, if you would carry out that
plan of giving the Mexican land to settlers from the United
States, as fast as we annex it. I've been very impatient to
see your proclamation offering the land to settlers to come
out here. You've no idea how much help it would be to us if
we only had a plenty of our folks out here, so that as fast as
we killed a Mexican, or drove him off from his farm, we could
put an American right on to it. If we could only plant as we
go, in this way, we should soon have a crop of settlers here
that could hold on to the slack themselves, and leave the
army free to go ahead, and keep on annexin'. I thought
when I left Washington, you was agoing to put out such a
proclamation right away. And I think you are putting it off
a good deal too long, for we've got land and farms enough
here now for two hundred thousand at least; and, if they
would only come on fast enough, I think we could make room
for twenty thousand a week for a year to come. But I'm afraid
you're too delicate about doing your duty in this business;
you are such a stickler for the Constitution. I'm afraid you're
waiting for Congress to meet, so as to let them have a finger
in the pie. But I wouldn't do it. From all I can hear, it
looks as if the Whigs was coming into power; and if they
should, it would be a terrible calamity, for they are too narrowminded
and too much behind the age to understand the rights
of this annexin' business, and it's ten chances to one if they
don't contrive some way to put a stop to it. GREAT BATTLE IN THE COURT-MARTIAL. Dear Colonel:—I've been stumping it round all over the
lot for two or three months, tight and tight, for our American
friend, Gineral Cass, and as I s'pose you are very anxious and
uneasy to know how it's coming out, I thought I would set
down and make out a private report, and send it on to you by
the telegraph wires, for they say they go like lightening, and
give you some of the premonitory symptons, so that when the
after-clap comes you may be a little prepared for it, and not
feel so bad. As I said afore, I've been all round the lot, sometimes
by the steamboats, and sometimes by the railroads, and
sometimes by the telegraph, and when there wasn't no other
WRITING BY TELEGRAPH.
688EAF. Page 310. In-line image. A man sits upon a telephone pole writing a telegraph on a piece of paper perched on top of his tophat.
way to go, I footed it. And I'm satisfied the jig is up with
us, and it's no use in my trying any longer; and Mr.
Buchanan's speech was all throwed away, too. I'm very sure
we shall get some of the States, but I'll be hanged if I can tell
which ones. There an't a single State that I should dare to
bet upon alone, but taking 'em all in the lump, I should still
stick out strong for half a dozen at least. I see where all the
difficulty is, as plain as day. You may depend upon it, we
should elect Gineral Cass easy enough if it wasn't for Gineral
Taylor; but he stands peskily in the way, jest as much as he
stood in the way of the Mexicans at Bony Vista. As for Mr.
Van Buren, if he stood agin us alone, we should tread him all
to atoms; he couldn't make no headway at all, especially
after we got the nomination at Baltimore. Jest between you
and me, I don't think much of Mr. Van Buren now. I don't
believe he ever was a Democrat. I think he only made believe
all the time; and I'd bet two to one he's only making believe
now. I wish the Old Gineral, dear Old Hickory, that's
dead and gone, could be here now to have the handling of
him for a little while; if he didn't bring him into the traces I
wouldn't guess agin. Dear Gineral:—I'm afraid you've thought strange of it
that I haint writ to you afore now, for so long time past; but
I couldn't, I've been so busy cruising round among the fishermen
down to New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, and the Gulf
of St. Lawrence, that I couldn't get no time to write, nor
couldn't find no Post-Office to send it. Ye see, Gineral, I didn't
accept your invitation to take a seat in your Cabinet, 'cause
I'm one of them sort that can't bear setting a great deal. I
can't stan' it without I'm up and knocking about pretty much
every day; and I understood the Cabinet had to set nigh
about half the time, so I told you I should a good deal rather
have some foreign appointment, where I could stir myself.
And you told me the foreign appointments was pretty much
all spoken for, twenty times over, but you would give me a
commission as Minister-Gineral, and I might go round and
look after the interests of the country wherever I thought
MAJOR DOWNING'S VISIT TO THE FISHING SMACKS.
688EAF. Illustration page. The Major is standing up in a rowboat, being addressed by a sailor who is standing on the deck of a larger fishing boat next to which the rowboat has drawn. The sailor points to the mast of the boat, and another sailor is bending over some ropes at the prow of the boat. In the background there are many more fishing boats. One bears an "S" on its mainsail.
best. Now that was jest what I liked; you couldn't a gin
me no appointment that would suit me better. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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