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181Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Requires cookie*
 Title:  House and home papers  
 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: “MY dear, it 's so cheap!” “`Most Excellent Mr. Crowfield, — Your thoughts have lighted into our family-circle, and echoed from our fireside. We all feel the force of them, and are delighted with the felicity of your treatment of the topic you have chosen. You have taken hold of a subject that lies deep in our hearts, in a genial, temperate, and convincing spirit. All must acknowledge the power of your sentiments upon their imaginations; — if they could only trust to them in actual life! There is the rub.
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182Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Requires cookie*
 Title:  The minister's wooing  
 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: Mrs. Katy Scudder had invited Mrs. Brown, and Mrs. Jones, and Deacon Twitchel's wife to take tea with her on the afternoon of June second, A. D. 17 —. “I cannot leave you so. I have about two hundred things to say to you, and it's a shame I could not have had longer to see you; but blessed be ink and paper! I am writing and seeing to fifty things besides; so you mustn't wonder if my letter has rather a confused appearance. “As to the business, it gets on rather slowly L— and S— are away, and the coalition cannot be formed without them; they set out a week ago from Philadelphia, and are yet on the road. “My dear, — We are still in Newport, conjugating the verb s'ennuyer, which I, for one, have put through all the moods and tenses. Pour passer le temps, however, I have la belle Fran çaise and my sweet little Puritan. I visited there this morning. She lives with her mother, a little walk out toward the seaside, in a cottage quite prettily sequestered among blossoming apple-trees, and the great hierarch of modern theology, Dr. Hopkins, keeps guard over them. No chance here for any indiscretions, you see. “My dear, honored friend, — How can I sufficiently thank you for your faithfulness with me? All you say to me seems true and excellent; and yet, my dear Sir, permit me to try to express to you some of the many thoughts to which our conversation this evening has given rise. To love God because He is good to me you seem to think is not a right kind of love; and yet every moment of my life I have experienced His goodness. When recollection brings back the past, where can I look that I see not His goodness? What moment of my life presents not instances of merciful kindness to me, as well as to every creature, more and greater than I can express, than my mind is able to take in? How, then, can I help loving God because He is good to me? Were I not an object of God's mercy and goodness, I cannot have any conception what would be my feeling. Imagination never yet placed me in a situation not to experience the goodness of God in some way or other; and if I do love Him, how can it be but because He is good, and to me good? Do not God's children love Him because He first loved them? “I am longing to see you once more, and before long I shall be in Newport. Dear little Mary, I am sad, very sad; — the days seem all of them too long; and every morning I look out of my window and wonder why I was born. I am not so happy as I used to be, when I cared for nothing but to sing and smooth my feathers like the birds. That is the best kind of life for us women; — if we love anything better than our clothes, it is sure to bring us great sorrow. For all that, I can't help thinking it is very noble and beautiful to love; — love is very beautiful, but very, very sad. My poor dear little white cat, I should like to hold you a little while to my heart; — it is so cold all the time, and aches so, I wish I were dead; but then I am not good enough to die. The Abbé says, we must offer up our sorrow to God as a satisfaction for our sins. I have a good deal to offer, because my nature is strong and I can feel a great deal. “Dear —. Nous voici — once more in Philadelphia. Our schemes in Ohio prosper. Frontignac remains there to superintend. He answers our purpose passablement. On the whole, I don't see that we could do better than retain him; he is, besides, a gentlemanly, agreeable person, and wholly devoted to me, — a point certainly not to be overlooked. “You behold me, my charming Gabrielle, quite pastoral, recruiting from the dissipations of my Philadelphia life in a quiet cottage, with most worthy, excellent people, whom I have learned to love very much. They are good and true, as pious as the saints themselves, although they do not belong to the Church, — a thing which I am sorry for; but then let us hope, that, if the world is wide, heaven is wider, and that all worthy people will find room at last. This is Virginie's own little, pet, private heresy; and when I tell it to the Abbé, he only smiles, and so I think, somehow, that it is not so very bad as it might be. “I have lived through many wonderful scenes since I saw you last. My life has been so adventurous, that I scarcely know myself when I think of it. But it is not of that I am going now to write. I have written all that to mother, and she will show it to you. But since I parted from you, there has been another history going on within me; and that is what I wish to make you understand, if I can. “You wonder, I s'pose, why I haven't written you; but the fact is, I've been run just off my feet, and worked till the flesh aches so it seems as if it would drop off my bones, with this wedding of Mary Scudder's. And, after all, you'll be astonished to hear that she ha'n't married the Doctor, but that Jim Marvyn that I told you about. You see, he came home a week before the wedding was to be, and Mary, she was so conscientious she thought 'twa'n't right to break off with the Doctor, and so she was for going right on with it; and Mrs. Scudder, she was for going on more yet; and the poor young man, he couldn't get a word in edgeways, and there wouldn't anybody tell the Doctor a word about it, and there 'twas drifting along, and both on 'em feeling dreadful, and so I thought to myself, `I'll just take my life in my hand, like Queen Esther, and go in and tell the Doctor all about it.' And so I did. I'm scared to death always when I think of it. But that dear blessed man, he took it like a saint. He just gave her up as serene and calm as a psalm-book, and called Jim in and told him to take her.
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183Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Requires cookie*
 Title:  Sam Lawson's Oldtown fireside stories  
 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: COME, Sam, tell us a story,” said I, as Harry and I crept to his knees, in the glow of the bright evening firelight; while Aunt Lois was busily rattling the tea-things, and grandmamma, at the other end of the fireplace, was quietly setting the heel of a blue-mixed yarn stocking.
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184Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Requires cookie*
 Title:  Oldtown folks  
 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 has always been a favorite idea of mine, that there is so much of the human in every man, that the life of any one individual, however obscure, if really and vividly perceived in all its aspirations, struggles, failures, and successes, would command the interest of all others. This is my only apology for offering my life as an open page to the reading of the public. MY dear Brother: — Since I wrote you last, so strange a change has taken place in my life that even now I walk about as in a dream, and hardly know myself. The events of a few hours have made everything in the world seem to me as different from what it ever seemed before as death is from life. My dear Sister: — I have read your letter. Answer it justly and truly how can I? How little we know of each other in outside intimacy! but when we put our key into the door of the secret chamber, who does not tremble and draw back? — that is the true haunted chamber! “My dear Sister: — I am a Puritan, — the son, the grandson, the great-grandson of Puritans, — and I say to you, Plant the footsteps of your child on the ground of the old Cambridge Platform, and teach her as Winthrop and Dudley and the Mathers taught their children, — that she `is already a member in the Church of Christ, — that she is in covenant with God, and hath the seal thereof upon her, to wit, baptism; and so, if not regenerate, is yet in a more hopeful way of attaining regeneration and all spiritual blessings, both of the covenant and seal.'* * Cambridge Platform. Mather's Magnalia, page 227, article 7. By teaching the child this, you will place her mind in natural and healthful relations with God and religion. She will feel in her Father's house, and under her Father's care, and the long and weary years of a sense of disinheritance with which you struggled will be spared to her. “MY DEAR Brother: — I am in a complete embarras what to do with Tina. She is the very light of my eyes, — the sweetest, gayest, brightest, and best-meaning little mortal that ever was made; but somehow or other I fear I am not the one that ought to have undertaken to bring her up. “Sister Mehitable: — The thing has happened that I have foreseen. Send her up here; she shall board in the minister's family; and his daughter Esther, who is wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best, shall help keep her in order. “Here we are, dear Aunty, up in the skies, in the most beautiful place that you can possibly conceive of. We had such a good time coming! you 've no idea of the fun we had. You know I am going to be very sober, but I did n't think it was necessary to begin while we were travelling, and we kept Uncle Jacob laughing so that I really think he must have been tired. “I have had a dozen minds to write to you before now, having had good accounts of you from Mr. Davenport; but, to say truth, have been ashamed to write. I did not do right by your mother, nor by you and your sister, as I am now free to acknowledge. She was not of a family equal to ours, but she was too good for me. I left her in America, like a brute as I was, and God has judged me for it.
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185Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Requires cookie*
 Title:  The pearl of Orr's Island  
 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 road to the Kennebec, below the town of Bath, in the State of Maine, might have been seen, on a certain autumnal afternoon, a one-horse wagon, in which two persons were sitting. One is an old man, with the peculiarly hard but expressive physiognomy which characterizes the seafaring population of the New England shores. The next day Senor Don Guzman de Cardona arrived, and the whole house was in a commotion of excitement. There was to be no school, and everything was bustle and confusion. I passed my time in my own room in reflecting severely upon myself for the imprudent words by which I had thrown one more difficulty in the way of this poor harassed child.
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186Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Requires cookie*
 Title:  Pink and white tyranny  
 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: Dear Jo, or Miss Alcott, — We have all been reading “Little Women,” and we liked it so much I could not help wanting to write to you. We think you are perfectly splendid; I like you better every time I read it. We were all so disappointed about your not marrying Laurie; I cried over that part, — I could not help it. We all liked Laurie ever so much, and almost killed ourselves laughing over the funny things you and he said. Dear Miss Alcott, — We have just finished “Little Men,” and like it so much that we thought we would write and ask you to write another book sequel to “Little Men,” and have more about Laurie and Amy, as we like them the best. We are the Literary Club, and we got the idea from “Little Women.” We have a paper two sheets of foolscap and a half. There are four of us, two cousins and my sister and myself Our assumed names are: Horace Greeley, President; Susan B Anthony, Editor; Harriet B Stowe, Vice-President; and myself, Anna C. Ritchie, Secretary. We call our paper the “Saturday Night,” and we all write stories and have reports of sermons and of our meetings, and write about the queens of England. We did not know but you would like to hear this, as the idea sprang from your book; and we thought we would write, as we liked your book so much. And now, if it is not too much to ask of you, I wish you would answer this, as we are very impatient to know if you will write another book; and please answer soon, as Miss Anthony is going away, and she wishes very much to hear from you before she does. If you write, please direct to — Street, Brooklyn, N.Y. 706EAF. Page 001. In-line Illustration. Image of a girl in a pretty dress. She is carrying a parasol and her long hair is loose and wavy. “It is not her beauty merely that drew me to her, though she is the most beautiful human being I ever saw: it is the exquisite feminine softness and delicacy of her character, that sympathetic pliability by which she adapts herself to every varying feeling of the heart. You, my dear sister, are the noblest of women, and your place in my heart is still what it always was; but I feel that this dear little creature, while she fills a place no other has ever entered, will yet be a new bond to unite us. She will love us both; she will gradually come into all our ways and opinions, and be insensibly formed by us into a noble womanhood. Her extreme beauty, and the great admiration that has always followed her, have exposed her to many temptations, and caused most ungenerous things to be said of her. “Dear Grace, — You must pardon me this beginning, — in the old style of other days; for though many years have passed, in which I have been trying to walk in your ways, and keep all your commandments, I have never yet been able to do as you directed, and forget you: and here I am, beginning `Dear Grace,' — just where I left off on a certain evening long, long ago. I wonder if you remember it as plainly as I do. I am just the same fellow that I was then and there. If you remember, you admitted that, were it not for other duties, you might have considered my humble supplication. I gathered that it would not have been impossible per se, as metaphysicians say, to look with favor on your humble servant.
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187Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Requires cookie*
 Title:  The two altars, or, Two pictures in one  
 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: Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by John P. Jewett & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
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188Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Requires cookie*
 Title:  Uncle Sam's emancipation  
 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: BY AN ALABAMA MAN. Dear Sam—I am just on the eve of my departure for Pittsburg; I may not see you again for a long time, possibly never, and I leave this letter with your friends, Messrs. A. and B., for you, and herewith bid you an affectionate farewell. Let me give you some advice, which is, now that you are a free man, in a free State, be obedient as you were when a slave; perform all the duties that are required of you, and do all you can for your own future welfare and respectability. Let me assure you that I have the same good feeling towards you that you know I always had; and let me tell you further, that if ever you want a friend, call or write to me, and I will be that friend. Should you be sick, and not able to work, and want money to a small amount at different times, write to me, and I will always let you have it. I have not with me at present much money, though I will leave with my agent here, the Messrs. W., five dollars for you; you must give them a receipt for it. On my return from Pittsburg, I will call and see you if I have time; fail not to write to my father, for he made you a good master, and you should always treat him with respect, and cherish his memory so long as you live. Be good, industrious, and honourable, and if unfortunate in your undertakings, never forget that you have a friend in me. Farewell, and believe me your affectionate young master and friend.
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189Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Requires cookie*
 Title:  We and our neighbors, or, The records of an unfashionable street  
 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: “WHO can have taken the Ferguses' house, sister?” said a brisk little old lady, peeping through the window blinds. “It's taken! Just come here and look! There's a cart at the door.” MY Dear Belle: Well, here we are, Harry and I, all settled down to housekeeping quite like old folks. All is about done but the last things,—those little touches, and improvements, and alterations that go off into airy perspective. I believe it was Carlyle that talked about an “infinite shoe-black” whom all the world could not quite satisfy so but that there would always be a next thing in the distance. Well, perhaps it 's going to be so in housekeeping, and I shall turn out an infinite housekeeper; for I find this little, low-studded, unfashionable home of ours, far off in a tabooed street, has kept all my energies brisk and busy for a month past, and still there are more worlds to conquer. Visions of certain brackets and lambrequins that are to adorn my spare chamber visit my pillow nightly, while Harry is placidly sleeping the sleep of the just. I have been unable to attain to them because I have been so busy with my parlor ivies and my Ward's case of ferns, and some perfectly seraphic hanging baskets, gorgeous with flowering nasturtiums that are now blooming in my windows. There is a dear little Quaker dove of a woman living in the next house to ours who is a perfect witch at gardening—a good kind of witch, you understand, one who could make a broomstick bud and blossom if she undertook it —and she has been my teacher and exemplar in these matters. Her parlor is a perfect bower, a drab dove's nest wreathed round with vines and all a-bloom with geraniums; and mine is coming on to look just like it. So you see all this has kept me ever so busy. MY Dear Mother: Harry says I must do all the writing to you and keep you advised of all our affairs, because he is so driven with his editing and proof-reading that letter-writing is often the most fatiguing thing he can do. It is like trying to run after one has become quite out of breath. “You were right, my dear Eva, in saying, in our last interview, that it did not seem to you that I had the kind of character that was adapted to the profession I have chosen. I don't think I have. I am more certain of it from comparing myself from day to day with Ida, who certainly is born and made for it, if ever a woman was. My choice of it has been simply and only for the reason that I must choose something as a means of self-support, and more than that, as a refuge from morbid distresses of mind which made the still monotony of my New England country life intolerable to me. This course presented itself to me as something feasible. I thought it, too, a good and worthy career—one in which one might do one's share of good for the world. But, Eva, I can feel that there is one essential difference between Ida and myself: she is peculiarly self-sustained and sufficient to herself, and I am just the reverse. I am full of vague unrest; I am chased by seasons of high excitement, alternating with deadly languor. Ida has hard work to know what to do with me. You were right in supposing, as you intimate in your letter, that a certain common friend has something to do with this unrest, but you cannot, unless you know my whole history, know how much. There was a time when he and I were all the world to each other—when shall I ever forget that time! I was but seventeen; a young girl, so ignorant of life! I never had seen one like him; he was a whole new revelation to me; he woke up everything there was in me, never to go to sleep again; and then to think of having all this tide and current of feeling checked—frozen. My father overwhelmed him with accusations; every baseness was laid to his charge. I was woman enough to have stood for him against the world if he had come to me. I would have left all and gone to the ends of the earth with him if he had asked me, but he did not. There was only one farewell, self-accusing letter, and even that fell into my father's hands and never came to me till after his death. For years I thought myself wantonly trifled with by a man of whose attentions I ought to be ashamed. I was indignant at myself for the love that might have been my glory, for it is my solemn belief that if we had been let alone he would have been saved all those wretched falls, those blind struggles that have marred a life whose purpose is yet so noble. CONGRATULATE us, dear mother; we have had a success! Our first evening was all one could hope! Everybody came that we wanted, and, what is quite as good in such cases, everybody staid away that we didn't want. You know how it is; when you intend to produce real acquaintance, that shall ripen into intimacy, it is necessary that there should be no non-conductors to break the circle. There are people that shed around them coldness and constraint, as if they were made of ice, and it is a mercy when such people don't come to your parties. As it is, I have had the happiness to see our godly rector on most conversable terms with our heretic doctor, and each thinking better of the other. Oh! and, what was a greater triumph yet, I managed to introduce a Quaker preacheress to Mr. St. John, and had the satisfaction to see that he was completely charmed by her, as well he may be. The way it came about, you must know, is this:— I HAD not thought to obtrude myself needlessly on you ever again. Oppressed with the remembrance that I have been a blight on a life that might otherwise have been happy, I thought my only expiation was silence. But it had not then occurred to me that possibly you could feel and be pained by that silence. But of late I have been very intimate with Mrs. Henderson, whose mind is like those crystalline lakes we read of— a pebble upon the bottom is evident. She loves you so warmly and feels for you so sympathetically that, almost unconsciously, when you pour your feelings into her heart, they are revealed to me through the transparent medium of her nature. I confess that I am still so selfish as to feel a pleasure in the thought that you cannot forget me. I cannot forget you. I never have forgotten you, I believe, for a waking conscious hour since that time when your father shut the door of his house between you and me. I have demonstrated in my own experience that there may be a double consciousness all the while going on, in which the presence of one person should seem to pervade every scene of life. You have been with me, even in those mad fatal seasons when I have been swept from reason and conscience and hope —it has added bitterness to my humiliation in my weak hours; but it has been motive and courage to rise up again and again and renew the fight—the fight that must last as long as life lasts; for, Caroline, this is so. In some constitutions, with some hereditary predispositions, the indiscretions and ignorances of youth leave a fatal irremediable injury. Though the sin be in the first place one of inexperience and ignorance, it is one that nature never forgives. The evil once done can never be undone; no prayers, no entreaties, no resolutions, can change the consequences of violated law. The brain and nerve force, once vitiated by poisonous stimulants, become thereafter subtle tempters and traitors, forever lying in wait to deceive and urging to ruin; and he who is saved, is saved so as by fire. Since it is your unhappy fate to care so much for me, I owe to you the utmost frankness. I must tell you plainly that I am an unsafe man. I am like a ship with powder on board and a smouldering fire in the hold. I must warn my friends off, lest at any moment I carry ruin to them, and they be drawn down in my vortex. We can be friends, dear friends; but let me beg you, think as little of me as you can. Be a friend in a certain degree, after the manner of the world, rationally, and with a wise regard to your own best interests—you who are worth five hundred times what I am—you who have beauty, talent, energy—who have a career opening before you, and a most noble and true friend in Miss Ida; do not let your sympathies for a very worthless individual lead you to defraud yourself of all that you should gain in the opportunities now open to you. Command my services for you in the literary line when ever they may be of the slightest use. Remember that nothing in the world makes me so happy as an opportunity to serve you. Treat me as you would a loyal serf, whose only thought is to live and die for you; as the princess of the middle ages treated the knight of low degree, who devoted himself to her service. There is nothing you could ask me to do for you that would not be to me a pleasure; and all the more so, if it involved any labor or difficulty. In return, be assured, that merely by being the woman you are, merely by the love which you have given and still give to one so unworthy, you are a constant strength to me, an encouragement never to faint in a struggle which must last as long as this life lasts. For although we must not forget that life, in the best sense of the word, lasts forever, yet this first mortal phase of it is, thank God, but short. There is another and a higher life for those whose life has been a failure here. Those who die fighting—even though they fall, many times trodden under the hoof of the enemy—will find themselves there made more than conquerors through One who hath loved them. My Dear Friend: How can I thank you for the confidence you have shown me in your letter? You were K not mistaken in thinking that this long silence has been cruel to me. It is more cruel to a woman than it can possibly be to a man, because if to him silence be a pain, he yet is conscious all the time that he has the power to break it; he has the right to speak at any time, but a woman must die silent. Every fiber of her being says this. She cannot speak, she must suffer as the dumb animals suffer. MY Dear Mother: When I wrote you last we were quite prosperous, having just come through with our first evening as a great success; and everybody since has been saying most agreeable things to us about it. Last Thursday, we had our second, and it was even pleasanter than the last, because people had got acquainted, so that they really wanted to see each other again. There was a most charming atmosphere of ease and sociability. Bolton and Mr. St. John are getting quite intimate. Mr. St. John, too, develops quite a fine social talent, and has come out wonderfully. The side of a man that one sees in the church and the pulpit is after all only one side, as we have discovered. I find that he has quite a gift in conversation, when you fairly get him at it. Then, his voice for singing comes into play, and he and Angie and Dr. Campbell and Alice make up a quartette quite magnificent for non-professionals. Angie has a fine soprano, and Alice takes the contralto, and the Doctor, with his great broad shoulders and deep chest, makes a splendid bass. Mr. St. John's tenor is really very beautiful. It is one of those penetrating, sympathetic voices that indicate both feeling and refinement, and they are all of them surprised and delighted to find how well they go together. Thursday evening they went on from thing to thing, and found that they could sing this and that and the other, till the evening took a good deal the form of a musical. But never mind, it brought them acquainted with each other and made them look forward to the next reunion as something agreeable. Ever since, the doctor goes round humming tunes, and says he wants St. John to try the tenor of this and that, and really has quite lost sight of his being anything else but a musical brother. So here is the common ground I wanted to find between them. “Dear Mrs. Henderson: You have tried hard to save me; but it's no use. I am only a trouble to mother, and I disgrace you. So I am going, and don't try to find me. May God bless you and mother. “Dear Little Wifie: I have caught Selby, and we can have him at dinner to-night; and as I know there's nothing like you for emergencies, I secured him, and took the liberty of calling in on Alice and Angie, and telling them to come. I shall ask St. John, and Jim, and Bolton, and Campbell—you know, the more the merrier, and, when you are about it, it's no more trouble to have six or seven than one; and now you have Maggie, one may as well spread a little. DEAR Mother: I have kept you well informed of all our prosperities in undertaking and doing: how everything we have set our hand to has turned out beautifully; how “our evenings” have been a triumphant success; and how we and our neighbors are all coming into the spirit of love and unity, getting acquainted, mingling and melting into each other's sympathy and knowledge. I have had the most delightful run of compliments about my house, as so bright, so cheerful, so social and cosy, and about my skill in managing to always have every thing so nice, and in entertaining with so little parade and trouble, that I really began to plume myself on something very uncommon in the way of what Aunt Prissy Diamond calls “faculty.” Well, you know, next in course after the Palace Beautiful comes the Valley of Humiliation—whence my letter is dated—where I am at this present writing. Honest old John Bunyan says that, although people do not descend into this place with a very good grace, but with many a sore bruise and tumble, yet the air thereof is mild and refreshing, and many sweet flowers grow here that are not found in more exalted regions. MY Dear Mother: I sit down to write to you with a heart full of the strangest feelings and expeririences. I feel as if I had been out in some other world and been brought back again; and now I hardly know myself or where I am. You know I wrote you all about Maggie, and her leaving us, and poor Mary's trouble about her, and how she had been since seen in a very bad neighborhood: I promised Mary faithfully that I would go after her; and so, after all our Christmas labors were over, Harry and I went on a midnight excursion with Mr. James, the Methodist minister, who has started the mission there. “My Dear Sir: Ever since that most sad evening when I went with you in your work of mercy to those unhappy people, I have been thinking of what I saw, and wishing I could do something to help you. You say that you do not solicit aid except from the dear Father who is ever near to those that are trying to do such work as this; yet, as long as he is ever near to Christian hearts, he will inspire them with desires to help in a cause so wholly Christ-like. I send you this ornament, which was bought in days when I thought little of its sacred meaning. Sell it, and let the avails go towards enlarging your Home for those poor people who find no place for repentance in the world. I would rather you would tell nobody from whom it comes. It is something wholly my own; it is a relief to offer it, to help a little in so good a work, and I certainly shall not forget to pray for your success. DEAR Mother: You've no idea how things have gone on within a short time. I have been so excited and so busy, and kept in such a state of constant consultation, for this past week, that I have had no time to keep up my bulletins to you.
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190Author:  Taylor Bayard 1825-1878Requires cookie*
 Title:  Beauty and the beast  
 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: “Dear Friend,—I will not say that your letter was entirely unexpected, either to Helmine or myself. I should, perhaps, have less faith in the sincerity of your attachment if you had not already involuntarily betrayed it. When I say that although I detected the inclination of your heart some weeks ago, and that I also saw it was becoming evident to my sister, yet I refrained from mentioning the subject at all until she came to me last evening with your letter in her hand,—when I say this, you will understand that I have acted towards you with the respect and sympathy which I profoundly feel. Helmine fully shares this feeling, and her poor heart is too painfully moved to allow her to reply. Do I not say, in saying this, what her reply must be? But, though her heart cannot respond to your love, she hopes you will always believe her a friend to whom your proffered devotion was an honor, and will be—if you will subdue it to her deserts—a grateful thing to remember. We shall remain in Warsaw a fortnight longer, as I think yourself will agree that it is better we should not immediately return to the castle. Jean, who must carry a fresh order already, will bring you this, and we hope to have good news of Henri. I send back the papers, which were unnecessary; we never doubted you, and we shall of course keep your secret so long as you choose to wear it. MR. EDITOR,—If you ever read the “Burroak Banner” (which you will find among your exchanges, as the editor publishes your prospectus for six weeks every year, and sends no bill to you) my name will not be that of a stranger. Let me throw aside all affectation of humility, and say that I hope it is already and not unfavorably familiar to you. I am informed by those who claim to know that the manuscripts of obscure writers are passed over by you editors without examination—in short, that I must first have a name, if I hope to make one. The fact that an article of three hundred and seventy-five pages, which I sent, successively, to the “North American Review,” the “Catholic World,” and the “Radical,” was in each case returned to me with my knot on the tape by which it was tied, convinces me that such is indeed the case. A few years ago I should not have meekly submitted to treatment like this; but late experiences have taught me the vanity of many womanly dreams.
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191Author:  Taylor Bayard 1825-1878Requires cookie*
 Title:  Hannah Thurston  
 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: Never before had the little society of Ptolemy known so animated a season. For an inland town, the place could not at any time be called dull, and, indeed, impressed the stranger with a character of exuberant life, on being compared with other towns in the neighborhood. Mulligansville on the east, Anacreon on the north, and Atauga City on the west, all fierce rivals of nearly equal size, groaned over the ungodly cheerfulness of its population, and held up their hands whenever its name was mentioned. But, at the particular time whereof we write—November, 1852—the ordinarily mild flow of life in Ptolemy was unusually quickened by the formation of the great Sewing-Union. This was a new social phenomenon, which many persons looked upon as a long stride in the direction of the Millennium. If, however, you should desire an opposite view, you have but to mention the subject to any Mulligansvillain, any Anacreontic, or any Atauga citizen. The simple fact is, that the various sewing-circles of Ptolemy—three in number, and working for very different ends—had agreed to hold their meetings at the same time and place, and labor in company. It was a social arrangement which substituted one large gathering, all the more lively and interesting from its mixed constitution, in place of three small and somewhat monotonous circles. The plan was a very sensible one, and it must be said, to the credit of Ptolemy, that there are very few communities of equal size in the country where it could have been carried into effect. “Be ye not weak of vision to perceive the coming triumph of Truth. Even though she creep like a tortoise in the race, while Error leaps like a hare, yet shall she first reach the goal. 6 The light from the spirit-world is only beginning to dawn upon the night of Earth. When the sun shall rise, only the owls and bats among men will be blind to its rays. Then the perfect day of Liberty shall fill the sky, and even the spheres of spirits be gladdened by reflections from the realm of mortals! “I will not say that my mind dwelt too strongly on the symbols by which Faith is expressed, for through symbols the Truth was made clear to me. There are many paths, but they all have the same ending.” “Dear Miss Thurston:—I know how much I have asked of you in begging permission to write, for your eye, the story which follows. Therefore I have not allowed myself to stand shivering on the brink of a plunge which I have determined to make, or to postpone it, from the fear that the venture of confidence which I now send out will come to shipwreck. Since I have learned to appreciate the truth and nobleness of your nature—since I have dared to hope that you honor me with a friendly regard—most of all, since I find that the feelings which I recognize as the most intimate and sacred portion of myself seek expression in your presence, I am forced to make you a participant in the knowledge of my life. Whether it be that melancholy knowledge which a tender human charity takes under its protecting wing and which thenceforward sleeps calmly in some shadowy corner of memory, or that evil knowledge which torments because it cannot be forgotten, I am not able to foresee. I will say nothing, in advance, to secure a single feeling of sympathy or consideration which your own nature would not spontaneously prompt you to give. I know that in this step I may not be acting the part of a friend; but, whatever consequences may follow it, I entreat you to believe that there is no trouble which I would not voluntarily take upon myself, rather than inflict upon you a moment's unnecessary pain.
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192Author:  Taylor Bayard 1825-1878Requires cookie*
 Title:  Joseph and his friend  
 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: Rachel Miller was not a little surprised when her nephew Joseph came to the supper-table, not from the direction of the barn and through the kitchen, as usual, but from the back room up stairs, where he slept. His work-day dress had disappeared; he wore his best Sunday suit, put on with unusual care, and there were faint pomatum odors in the air when he sat down to the table. My dear Asten:—Do you remember that curious whirling, falling sensation, when the car pitched over the edge of the embankment? I felt a return of it on reading your letter; for you have surprised me beyond measure. Not by your request, for that is just what I should have expected of you; and as well now, as if we had known each other for twenty years; so the apology is the only thing objectionable— But I am tangling my sentences; I want to say how heartily I return the feeling which prompted you to ask me, and yet how embarrassed I am that I cannot unconditionally say, “Yes, with all my heart!” My great, astounding surprise is, to find you about to be married to Miss Julia Blessing,—a young lady whom I once knew. And the embarrassment is this: I knew her under circumstances (in which she was not personally concerned, however) which might possibly render my presence now, as your groomsman, unwelcome to the family: at least, it is my duty—and yours, if you still desire me to stand beside you—to let Miss Blessing and her family decide the question. The circumstances to which I refer concern them rather than myself. I think your best plan will be simply to inform them of your request and my reply, and add that I am entirely ready to accept whatever course they may prefer. Since I wrote to you from Prescott, dear Philip, three months have passed, and I have had no certain means of sending you another letter. There was, first, Mr. Wilder's interest at —, the place hard to reach, and the business difficult to investigate. It was not so easy, even with the help of your notes, to connect the geology of books with the geology of nature; these rough hills don't at all resemble the clean drawings of strata. However, I have learned all the more rapidly by not assuming to know much, and the report I sent contained a great deal more than my own personal experience. The duty was irksome enough, at times; I have been tempted by the evil spirits of ignorance, indolence, and weariness, and I verily believe that the fear of failing to make good your guaranty for my capacity was the spur which kept me from giving way. Now, habit is beginning to help me, and, moreover, my own ambition has something to stand on. When Madeline hung a wreath of holly around your photograph this morning, I said to it as I say now: “A merry Christmas, Joseph, wherever you are!” It is a calm sunny day, and my view, as you know, reaches much further through the leafless trees; but only the meadow on the right is green. You, on the contrary, are enjoying something as near to Paradise in color, and atmosphere, and temperature (if you are, as I guess, in Southern California), as you will ever be likely to see. Philip, Philip, I have found your valley! Dear Sir:—“Fay's Geography for Schools” has been added to the list of books furnished to the schools under the control of the Board of Education.
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193Author:  Taylor Bayard 1825-1878Requires cookie*
 Title:  The story of Kennett  
 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: At noon, on the first Saturday of March, 1796, there was an unusual stir at the old Barton farm-house, just across the creek to the eastward, as you leave Kennett Square by the Philadelphia stage-road. Any gathering of the people at Barton's was a most rare occurrence; yet, on that day and at that hour, whoever stood upon the porch of the corner house, in the village, could see horsemen approaching by all the four roads which there met. Some five or six had already dismounted at the Unicorn Tavern, and were refreshing themselves with stout glasses of “Old Rye,” while their horses, tethered side by side to the pegs in the long hitching-bar, pawed and stamped impatiently. An eye familiar with the ways of the neighborhood might have surmised the nature of the occasion which called so many together, from the appearance and equipment of these horses. They were not heavy animals, with the marks of plough-collars on their broad shoulders, or the hair worn off their rumps by huge breech-straps; but light and clean-limbed, one or two of them showing signs of good blood, and all more carefully groomed than usual. “Sir: Yr respd favour of ye1 1 This form of the article, though in general disuse at the time, was still frequently employed in epistolary writing, in that part of Pennsylvania. 11th came duly to hand, and ye proposition wh it contains has been submitted to Mr. Jones, ye present houlder of ye mortgage. He wishes me to inform you that he did not anticipate ye payment before ye first day of April, 1797, wh was ye term agreed upon at ye payment of ye first note; nevertheless, being required to accept full and lawful payment, whensoever tendered, he hath impowered me to receive ye moneys at yr convenience, providing ye settlement be full and compleat, as aforesaid, and not merely ye payment of a part or portion thereof.
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194Author:  Thomas Frederick William 1806-1866Requires cookie*
 Title:  John Randolph, of Roanoke, and other sketches of character, including William Wirt  
 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 remember some years since to have seen John Randolph in Baltimore. I had frequently read and heard descriptions of him; and one day, as I was standing in Market, now Baltimore Street, I remarked a tall, thin, unique-looking being hurrying towards me with a quick impatient step, evidently much annoyed by a crowd of boys who were following close at his heels; not in the obstreperous mirth with which they would have followed a crazy or a drunken man, or an organ-grinder and his monkey, but in the silent, curious wonder with which they would have haunted a Chinese, bedecked in full costume. I instantly knew the individual to be Randolph, from the descriptions. I therefore advanced towards him, that I might take a full observation of his person without violating the rules of courtesy in stopping to gaze at him. As he approached, he occasionally turned towards the boys with an angry glance, but without saying anything, and then hurried on as if to outstrip them; but it would not do. They followed close behind the orator, each one observing him so intently that he said nothing to his companions. Just before I met him, he stopped a Mr. C—, a cashier of one of the banks, said to be as odd a fish as John himself. I loitered into a store close by, and, unnoticed, remarked the Roanoke orator for a considerable time; and really, he was the strangest-looking being I ever beheld. Gentlemen: It is a matter of deep regret to me, that I did not receive your kind letter of the 9th of August till a very late day. I was in the mountains of New Hampshire, taking a breath of my native air, and it was the last of August before I returned. I know not whether, if I had received your communication sooner, it would have been in my power to attend the meeting to which I was invited, but I should have been able to have given a more timely answer.
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195Author:  Thompson Daniel P. (Daniel Pierce) 1795-1868Requires cookie*
 Title:  Centeola  
 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: “To all good Deacons, church folks and others, who can honestly say they are without the sin of abetting what they must have known to be, if anything at all was to be made out of it, nothing more or less than a scheme for passing counterfeit money — let them cast the first stone.
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196Author:  Thompson Daniel P. (Daniel Pierce) 1795-1868Requires cookie*
 Title:  The doomed chief, or, Two hundred years ago  
 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 an anxious, as well as a stirring day with the colonists at New Plymouth. The public mind, for the last few months, had been laboring under a very unusual, and a constantly increasing excitement. Among all classes of men there evidently existed a deep, though unacknowledged consciousness, that the calculations of selfishness, craft, and fraud, instead of obedience to the simple dictates of justice and honesty, had latterly characterized their intercourse with the Indians. This, as in most other cases of conscious wrong doing, had made them, especially the leading men of the colony, peculiarly sensitive respecting the relations in which they stood with the red men, filling them with jealousies, suspicions, and apprehensions, lest the latter, impressed doubtless with the same or livelier convictions of their wrongs, should be secretly nourishing thoughts and schemes of redress and retribution. The colonists were also fully conscious that the injured race were now no longer the comparatively harmless and contemptible foes they were in times past, when bows and arrows and war-clubs were their most formidable weapons, whole scores of which were scarcely good against a single musket in battle; but that they had, at this period, almost universally supplied themselves with fire arms, in the fatal use of which, when occasion required, they had no superiors, even among the most expert sharp-shooters of the old world. And especially and painfully conscious were likewise the leading colonists, that in addition to the advantages thus possessed by their apprehended foes, there had now sprung up among them a Master Spirit who was believed to be fully capable of combining, and giving direction to all the various elements of their disaffection with fearful effect. That Master Spirit was Metacom, the King Philip of subsequent historic renown. And it was not without reason they feared that he, insulted, fined, and dragooned as he had been into hollow treaties of peace, would not long remain inactive or forego—unless prompt and decided measures were taken to prevent the execution of what was believed to be his bold and settled design—a war of extermination against the colonists of New England. “As soon as Captain Willis is able to travel, which I trust is now, his late captor, or prisoner, or nurse in the woods, would be gratified to see him at Providence. Enquire of Governor Williams for
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197Author:  Thompson Daniel P. (Daniel Pierce) 1795-1868Requires cookie*
 Title:  Gaut Gurley, or, The trappers of Umbagog  
 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: So wrote the charming Cowper, giving us to understand, by the drift of the context, that he intended the remark as having a moral as well as a physical application; since, as he there intimates, in “gain-devoted cities,” whither naturally flow “the dregs and feculence of every land,” and where “foul example in most minds begets its likeness,” the vices will ever find their favorite haunts; while the virtues, on the contrary, will always most abound in the country. So far as regards the virtues, if we are to take them untested, this is doubtless true. And so far, also, as regards the mere vices, or actual transgressions of morality, we need, perhaps, to have no hesitation in yielding our assent to the position of the poet. But, if he intends to include in the category those flagrant crimes which stand first in the gradation of human offences, we must be permitted to dissent from that part of the view; and not only dissent, but claim that truth will generally require the very reversal of the picture, for of such crimes we believe it will be found, on examination, that the country ever furnishes the greatest proportion. In cities, the frequent intercourse of men with their fellow-men, the constant interchange of the ordinary civilities of life, and the thousand amusements and calls on their attention that are daily occurring, have almost necessarily a tendency to soften or turn away the edge of malice and hatred, to divert the mind from the dark workings of revenge, and prevent it from settling into any of those fatal purposes which result in the wilful destruction of life, or some other gross outrage on humanity. But in the country, where, it will be remembered, the first blood ever spilled by the hand of a murderer cried up to Heaven from the ground, and where the meliorating circumstances we have named as incident to congregated life are almost wholly wanting, man is left to brood in solitude over his real or fancied wrongs, till all the fierce and stormy passions of his nature become aroused, and hurry him unchecked along to the fatal outbreak. In the city, the strong and bad passions of hate, envy, jealousy, and revenge, softened in action, as we have said, on finding a readier vent in some of the conditions of urban society, generally prove comparatively harmless. In the country, finding no such softening influences, and no such vent, and left to their own workings, they often become dangerously concentrated, and, growing more and more intensified as their self-fed fires are permitted to burn on, at length burst through every barrier of restraint, and set all law and reason alike at defiance. “Thinking something unusual to be brewing overhead, we are off for the lake about 10 A. M. “Dear Claud, — You do not know, you cannot know, what the effort costs me to write this. You do not know, you cannot know, what I have felt, what I have suffered since I became fully apprised of the painful circumstances under which your late expedition was brought to a close; and especially since I became apprised of the lamentable scenes that occurred in the court, growing out of that unfortunate — O how unfortunate, expedition! Before that court was held, and during the doubtful days which intervened between it and your escape from the terrible perils that attended your return, the hope that all would, all must turn out right, in some measure relieved my harrowing fears and anxieties; though even then the latter was to the former as days of cloud to minutes of sunshine. But, when I heard what occurred at the trial, — the bitter crimination and recrimination, the open rupture, the menaces exchanged, and the angry parting, — and, more alarming than all, when I saw my father return in that fearful mood, from which he still refuses to be diverted, the last gleam of hope faded, and all became cloud, all gloom, — dark, impenetrable, and forbidding. My nights, when sleep at length comes to close my weeping eyes, are passed in troubled dreams; my days in more troubled thoughts, which I would fain believe were dreams also. O, why need this be? I have done nothing, — you have done nothing; and I have no doubt of your faith and honor for performing all I shall ever require at your hands. But, Claud, I love you, and all `Know love is woman's happiness;' and all know, likewise, that the ties of love are but gossamer threads, which a word may rupture, a breath shake, and even the power of unpleasant associations destroy. Still, is there not one hope, — the hope that this thread, hitherto so blissfully uniting our hearts, subtle and attenuated as it is, may yet be preserved unbroken, if we suffer no opinion, no word, no syllable to escape our lips, respecting the unfortunate affair that is embroiling our parents; if we wholly deny ourselves the pleasure of that social intercourse which, to me, at least, has thus far made this wilderness an Eden of delight? But can it be thus preserved, if we keep up that intercourse, as in the sunshine of our love, — those pleasant, fleeting, rosy months, when I was so happy, O so very happy, in the feelings of the present and the prospects of the future? No, no, it is not possible, it is not possible for you to come here, and encounter my father in such a mood, and then return and receive the upbraidings of your own, that you are joining or upholding the house of his foes. It is not possible for you to do this, and your heart receive no jar, and mine no fears or suspicions of its continued fealty. I dare not risk it. Then do not, dearest Claud, O do not come here, at least for the present. Perhaps my dark forebodings, that our connection is not to be blessed for our future happiness, may be groundless. Perhaps the storm that now so darkly hangs over us may pass harmlessly away. Perhaps this painful and perplexing misunderstanding — as I trust in Heaven's mercy it only is — may yet be placed in a light which will admit of a full reconciliation between our respective families. But, till then, let our relations to each other stand, if you feel disposed to let them, precisely as we left them at our last mournfully happy parting; for, till then, though it break my heart, I could never, never consent to a renewal of our intercourse. Have I said enough, and not too much? I could not, under the almost insupportable weight of grief, fear, and anxiety, that is distracting my brain, and crushing my poor heart, — I could not say less, I dare not say more. O Claud, Claud, why has this dreadful cloud come over us? O, pray that it may be speedily removed, and once more let in, on our pained and perplexed hearts, the sunshine of their former happiness. Dearest Claud, good-by; don't come, but don't forget “Mrs. Elwood, my Friend, — Our Mr. Phillips has been here, and told us all that has happened in your settlement. Mrs. Elwood, I am greatly troubled at the loss your family suffer, with the rest of the hunters, but still more troubled and fearful for your husband and your noble son, about what may grow out of the quarrel with that dark man. My father knew him, time long past, and said there would be mischief done the company, when we heard he was going with them. I hope Mr. Elwood will keep out of his way; and I hope, Claud, — O, I cannot write the thought. Mrs. Elwood, I am very unhappy. I sometimes wish your brave and noble son had suffered me to go down and be lost in the dark, wild waters of those fearful rapids. By the goodness of my white father, whom I am proud 22 to hope you may some time see with me in your settlement, I have all the comforts and indulgences that a heart at ease could desire; warm, carpeted rooms, dress, books, company, smooth flatterers, who mean little, it may be, together with real friends, who mean much, and prove it by actions, which do not, like words, ever deceive. And yet, Mrs. Elwood, they are all now without any charms for me. My heart is in your settlement. The grand old forest, and the bright lake, were always things of beauty for me, before I saw him; but now, when associated with him, — O, Mrs. Elwood, if I did not know you had something of what I meant should forever be kept secret from all but the Great Eye, in your keeping, and if you had not made me feel you would be my discreet friend, and keep it as safe from all as an unspoken thought, I would not for worlds write what I have, and what I every moment find my pen on the point of writing more fully. O, how I wish I could make you understand, without words, what I feel, — how I grieve over what I almost know must be vain hopes, and vainer visions of happiness! You have sometimes had, it may be, very bright, delightful dreams, which seemed to bring you all your heart desired; and then you suddenly awoke, and found all had vanished, leaving you dark and sad with disappointment and regret. If you have, you may fancy what my thoughts are undergoing every hour of the day. O, how my heart is drawn away towards you! I often feel that I must fly up, like a bird, to be there. I should come now, but for what might be thought. I shall certainly be there in early spring. I can't stay away, though I may come only to see what I could bear less easy than these haunting, troubled fancies. Mrs. Elwood, adieu. You won't show this, or breathe a word about it, — I know you won't; you could not be so cruel as that. Mrs. Elwood, may I not sign myself your friend? “To Claud Elwood:— My career is ended, at last. Well, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I have been nobody's fool nor nobody's tool. Early perceiving that nine out of ten were only the stupid instruments of the tenth man, the world over, I resolved to go into the system, and did, and improved on it so as to make nineteen out of twenty tools to me, — that is all. I have no great fault to find with men generally, though I always despised the whole herd; for I knew that, if they used me well, it was only because they dared not do otherwise. I don't write this, however, to preach upon that, but to let you know another thing, to chew upon.
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198Author:  Thompson Daniel P. (Daniel Pierce) 1795-1868Requires cookie*
 Title:  The rangers, or, The Tory's daughter  
 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: Towards night, on the twelfth of March, 1775, a richly-equipped double sleigh, filled with a goodly company of well-dressed persons of the different sexes, was seen descending from the eastern side of the Green Mountains, along what may now be considered the principal thoroughfare leading from the upper navigable portions of the Hudson to those of the Connecticut River. The progress of the travellers was not only slow, but extremely toilsome, as was plainly evinced by the appearance of the reeking and jaded horses, as they labored and floundered along the sloppy and slumping snow paths of the winter road, which was obviously now fast resolving itself into the element of which it was composed. Up to the previous evening, the dreary reign of winter had continued wholly uninterrupted by the advent of his more gentle successor in the changing rounds of the seasons; and the snowy waste which enveloped the earth would, that morning, have apparently withstood the rains and suns of months before yielding entirely to their influences. But during the night there had occurred one of those great and sudden transitions from cold to heat, which can only be experienced in northern climes, and which can be accounted for only on the supposition, that the earth, at stated intervals, rapidly gives out large quantities of its internal heats, or that the air becomes suddenly rarefied by some essential change or modification in the state of the electric fluid. The morning had been cloudless; and the rising sun, with rays no longer dimly struggling through the dense, obstructing medium of the dark months gone by, but, with the restored beams of his natural brightness, fell upon the smoking earth with the genial warmth of summer. A new atmosphere, indeed, seemed to have been suddenly created, so warm and bland was the whole air; while, occasionally, a breeze came over the face of the traveller, which seemed like the breath of a heated oven. As the day advanced, the sky gradually became overcast — a strong south wind sprung up, before whose warm puffs the drifted snow-banks seemed literally to be cut down, like grass before the scythe of the mower; and, at length, from the thickening mass of cloud above, the rain began to descend in torrents to the mutely recipient earth. All this, for a while, however, produced no very visible effects on the general face of nature; for the melting snow was many hours in becoming saturated with its own and water from above. Nor had our travellers, for the greater part of the day, been much incommoded by the rain, or the thaw, that was in silent, but rapid progress around and beneath them; as their vehicle was a covered one, and as the hard-trodden paths of the road were the last to be affected. But, during the last hour, a great change in the face of the landscape had become apparent; and the evidence of what had been going on unseen, through the day, was now growing every moment more and more palpable. The snow along the bottom of every valley was marked by a long, dark streak, indicating the presence of the fast-collecting waters beneath. The stifled sounds of rushing streams were heard issuing from the hidden beds of every natural rill; while the larger brooks were beginning to burst through their wintry coverings, and throw up and push on before them the rending ice and snow that obstructed their courses to the rivers below, to which they were hurrying with increasing speed, and with seemingly growing impatience at every obstacle they met in their way. The road had also become so soft, that the horses sunk nearly to the flank at almost every step, and the plunging sleigh drove heavily along the plashy path. The whole mass of the now saturated and dissolving snow, indeed, though lying, that morning, more than three feet deep on a level, seemed to quiver and move, as if on the point of flowing away in a body to the nearest channels. Vermont was ushered into political existence midst storm and tempest. We speak both metaphorically and literally; for it is a curious historical fact, that her constitution, the result of the first regular movement ever made by her people towards an independent civil government, was adopted during the darkest period of the revolution, at an hour of commotion and alarm, when the tempest of war was actually bursting over her borders and threatening her entire subversion. And, as if to make the event the more remarkable, the adoption took place amidst a memorable thunder-storm, but for the happening of which, at that particular juncture, as will soon appear, that important political measure must have been postponed to a future period, and a period, too, when the measure, probably, would have been defeated, and the blessings of an independent government forever lost, owing to the dissensions, which, as soon as the common danger was over, New York and New Hampshire combined to scatter among her people. The whole history of the settlement and organization of the state, indeed, exhibits a striking anomaly, when viewed with that of any other state in the Union. She may emphatically be called the offspring of war and controversy. The long and fierce dispute for her territory between the colonies above named had sown her soil with dragon teeth, which at length sprang up in a crop of hardy, determined, and liberty-loving men, who, instead of joining either of the contending parties, soon resolved to take a stand for themselves against both. And that stand, when taken, they maintained with a spirit and success, to which, considering the discouragements, difficulties, and dangers they were constantly compelled to encounter, history furnishes but few parallels. But although every step of her progress, from the felling of the first tree in her dark wilderness to her final reception into the sisterhood of the states, was marked by the severest trials, yet the summer of 1777 — the period to which the remainder of our tale refers — was, for her, far the most gloomy and portentous. And still it was a period in which she filled the brightest page of her history, and, at the same time, did more than in any other year towards insuring her subsequent happy destiny. “You are hereby appointed by the Council of Safety to go through this and the neighboring towns, bordering on the British line of march; to spy out the resorts of the tories; to mark and identify all inimical persons; to gain all the information that can be obtained respecting the movements of the enemy at large; and make report, from time to time, to this council or some field officer of our line.* * Those who may doubt the probability that such a commission would be issued by this body, would do well to consult that part of the journal of their proceedings, at this period, which has been preserved and published, in which will be found several similar ones, to serve as specimens of the many contained in the part that was lost, and to show how searching were the operations of these vigilant guardians of the cause of liberty in Vermont, and how various the instruments they made use of to effect their objects. “You remember your promise, Sabrey, to visit me the first opportunity. That opportunity now occurs. Captain Jones and other friends have presented your father's name at head-quarters for promotion; and he has now, I am informed, received an appointment. If he accepts, as I am sure he will, I hope you will accompany him, and remain with me. I have just received one of those letters so precious to me: he says the army will probably move on to Fort Edward next week, the obstructions in the road being now mostly removed; so that, by the time you arrive, I shall probably be enabled to introduce you to the beautiful and accomplished ladies of whom he has so much to say, — such as the Countess of Reidesel, Lady Harriet Ackland, and others, who accompany their husbands in the campaign. But you will perhaps say that he is interested in praising these ladies for the love and heroism which prompt them to brave such fatigues and dangers for the sake of their lords, since he is warmly urging me to consent to an immediate union, that I may follow their example. He says, in his last letter, — and I think truly, — that I cannot long remain where I am, in a section which, he evidently anticipates, will soon become a frightful scene of strife and bloodshed; and that I must therefore go away with my friends, and leave him, perhaps forever, or put myself under his protection in the army. And he seems hurt that I hesitate in a choice of the alternatives. On the other hand, my connections and friends here think it would be little short of madness in me to yield to my lover's proposal. The people about here are greatly alarmed at the expected approach of the British army, which is known to be accompanied by a large body of Indians. Many are already removing, and nearly all preparing to go. The crisis hastens, and yet I am undecided. Prudence points one way, love the other. What shall I do? O Sabrey, what shall I do? Should you come on with your father, I think I should feel a confidence in going with you to the British encampment. Come then, my friend, come quickly; for I feel as if I could not go without friends, and especially a female friend, to accompany me; while, at the same time, I feel as if some irresistible destiny would compel me to the attempt. And yet why should I hesitate to take any step which he advises? Why refuse to share with him any dangers which he may encounter? And why should my anticipations of the future, which have ever, till recently, during my happy intimacy with Mr. Jones, been so bright and blissful, be clouded now? I know not; I know not why it should be so; but lately my bosom has become disturbed by strange misgivings, and my mind perplexed by dark and undefined apprehensions. I must not, however, indulge them; and your presence, I know, would entirely dissipate them. I repeat, therefore, come, and that quickly. Adieu. “I am at the British head-quarters — not exactly a prisoner, but evidently a closely-watched personage, having reached here, with my captors, after a forced and fatiguing journey, which, however, was not made unpleasant by any disrespectful treatment. 9 * Although the party, to whom I became a prisoner, have been frightened back or recalled, and the expedition, of which they were the advance, given up, yet I think it my duty to say, that another, and much more formidable one, is in agitation against Bennington. I hope our people will be prepared for it, and show these haughty Britons that they do not deserve the name of the undisciplined rabble of poltroons and cowards by which I here daily hear them branded. “This is a work I can cheerfully recommend, for in my estimation it is the best collection of Hymn Tunes that has appeared for several years, and one of the best ever published in this country. In style, the Music is very chaste and pleasing, and in its arangement excellent. Being generally plain and easy of performance, it is admirably adapted to the wants of Country Choirs. I shall be glad to see the work more extensively used, and shall take much pleasure in introducing it in my Schools.
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199Author:  Thompson Maurice 1844-1901Requires cookie*
 Title:  Hoosier mosaics  
 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: No matter what business or what pleasure took me, I once, not long ago, went to Colfax. Whisper it not to each other that I was seeking a foreign appointment through the influence of my fellow Hoosier, the late Vice-President of the United States. O no, I didn't go to the Hon. Schuyler Colfax at all; but I went to Colfax, simply, which is a little dingy town, in Clinton County, that was formerly called Midway, because it is half way between Lafayette and Indianapolis. It was and is a place of some three hundred inhabitants, eking out an aguish subsistence, maintaining a swampy, malarious aspect, keeping up a bilious, nay, an atra-bilious color, the year round, by sucking like an attenuated leech at the junction, or, rather, the crossing of the I. C. & L., and the L. C. & S. W. railroads. It lay mouldering, like something lost and forgotten, slowly rotting in the swamp. “Come to see us, even if you won't stay but one day. Come right off, if you're a Christian girl. Zach Jones is dying of consumption and is begging to see you night and day. He says he's got something on his mind he wants to say to you, and when he says it he can die happy. The poor fellow is monstrous bad off, and I think you ought to be sure and come. We're all well. Your loving uncle, Mr. Editor—Sir: This, for two reasons, is my last article for your journal. Firstly: My time and the exigencies of my profession will not permit me to further pursue a discussion which, on your part, has degenerated into the merest twaddle. Secondly: It only needs, at my hands, an exposition of the false and fraudulent claims you make to classical attainments, to entirely annihilate your unsubstantial and wholly underserved popularity in this community, and to send you back to peddling your bass wood hams and maple nutmegs. In order to put on a false show of erudition, you lug into your last article a familiar Latin sentence. Now, sir, if you had sensibly foregone any attempt at translation, you might, possibly, have made some one think you knew a shade more than a horse; but “whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.” “Editor of the Star—Dear Sir: In answer to your letter requesting me to decide between yourself and Mr. Blodgett as to the correct English rendering of the Latin sentence “De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” allow me to say that your free translation is a good one, if not very literal or elegant. As to Mr. Blodgett's, if the man is sincere, he is certainly crazy or wofully illiterate; no doubt the latter.
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200Author:  Trowbridge J. T. (John Townsend) 1827-1916Requires cookie*
 Title:  Lucy Arlyn  
 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 a proud day for Archy Brandle and his mother when Lucy Arlyn came out to their house to make a friendly visit and to drink tea. “You promised to grant me a favor. This is what I am directed to require of you. Find yourself at Dr. Biddikin's to-morrow at three, P.M. There you will meet a disagreeable little old woman, with yellow hair and a sour temper, named “Miss Lucy Arlyn. Respected Madam, — The reason you saw the undersigned a-fishing to-day, and which you may have seen him on previous occasions passing with rod and line by the brook which meandures beyond the house which has the honor of being your residence (viz., Jehiel Hedge's), the undersigned might explain, and would astonish you, if you would but grant an interview which he has sought in this way in order to get a word with you; not venturing to call openly, fear of offence: though he has in his possession facts of the most utmost importance to you, whom I fear have been wronged by a man I have long served faithfully, and blinded my eyes to his misdeeds, but whom I now suspect is a villain of the darkest calibre” — “I can no longer be of use to you, and I go; having already staid a day too long. My spiritual gift — for which alone you valued me — went before. I lost it when I lost myself. It will return to me only when my tranquillity returns; which can never be with you. I loved you, Guy Bannington. There, take my heart; tread it beneath your proud feet. I neither hate nor love you now. I am ice. The universe wails around me; but I hear it with dull ears. Farewell! I am weary, and wish to sleep.”
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