| | 301 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Minister's Black Veil  | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE sexton stood in the porch of Milford meeting-house, pulling
busily at
the bell-rope. The old people of the village came stooping along
the street.
Children, with bright faces, tripped merrily beside their parents,
or mimicked a graver gait, in the conscious dignity of their Sunday
clothes.
Spruce bachelors looked sidelong at the pretty maidens, and fancied
that
the Sabbath sunshine made them prettier than on week days. When the
throng had mostly streamed into the porch, the sexton began to toll
the
bell, keeping his eye on the Reverend Mr. Hooper's door. The first
glimpse of the clergyman's figure was the signal for the bell to
cease its
summons. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 302 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Mrs. Bullfrog | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IT makes me melancholy to see how like fools some very sensible
people
act in the matter of choosing wives. They perplex their judgments
by a
most undue attention to little niceties of personal appearance,
habits,
disposition, and other trifles which concern nobody but the lady
herself.
An unhappy gentleman, resolving to wed nothing short of perfection,
keeps his heart and hand till both get so old and withered that no
tolerable woman will accept them. Now this is the very height of
absurdity.
A kind Providence has so skilfully adapted sex to sex and the mass
of individuals to each other, that, with certain obvious
exceptions, any
male
and female may be moderately happy in the married state. The true
rule
is to ascertain that the match is fundamentally a good one, and
then to
take it for granted that all minor objections, should there be
such, will
vanish, if you let them alone. Only put yourself beyond hazard as
to the
real basis of matrimonial bliss, and it is scarcely to be imagined
what
miracles, in the way of recognizing smaller incongruities,
connubial love
will effect. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 304 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Procession of Life | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | LIFE figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession. All
of us have
our places, and are to move onward under the direction of the Chief
Marshal. The grand difficulty results from the invariably mistaken
principles
on which the deputy marshals seek to arrange this immense concourse
of
people, so much more numerous than those that train their
interminable
length through streets and highways in times of political
excitement.
Their scheme is ancient, far beyond the memory of man or even the
record of history, and has hitherto been very little modified by
the
innate
sense of something wrong, and the dim perception of better methods,
that
have disquieted all the ages through which the procession has taken
its
march. Its members are classified by the merest external
circumstances,
and thus are more certain to be thrown out of their true positions
than if
no principle of arrangement were attempted. In one part of the
procession
we see men of landed estate or moneyed capital gravely keeping each
other company, for the preposterous reason that they chance to have
a
similar standing in the tax-gatherer's book. Trades and professions
march
together with scarcely a more real bond of union. In this manner,
it cannot be denied, people are disentangled from the mass and
separated
into
various classes according to certain apparent relations; all have
some artificial badge which the world, and themselves among the
first,
learn to
consider as a genuine characteristic. Fixing our attention on such
outside
shows of similarity or difference, we lose sight of those realities
by which
nature, fortune, fate, or Providence has constituted for every man
a
brotherhood, wherein it is one great office of human wisdom to
classify
him. When the mind has once accustomed itself to a proper
arrangement
of the Procession of Life, or a true classification of society,
even though
merely speculative, there is thenceforth a satisfaction which
pretty well
suffices for itself without the aid of any actual reformation in
the order of
march. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 306 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Roger Malvin's Burial | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | ONE of the few incidents of Indian warfare naturally susceptible of
the
moonlight of romance was that expedition undertaken for the defence
of
the frontiers in the year 1725, which resulted in the
well-remembered
``Lovell's Fight.'' Imagination, by casting certain circumstances
judicially into the shade, may see much to admire in the heroism of
a
little band
who gave battle to twice their number in the heart of the enemy's
country. The open bravery displayed by both parties was in
accordance
with
civilized ideas of valor; and chivalry itself might not blush to
record the
deeds of one or two individuals. The battle, though so fatal to
those who
fought, was not unfortunate in its consequences to the country; for
it
broke the strength of a tribe and conduced to the peace which
subsisted
during several ensuing years. History and tradition are unusually
minute in their memorials of their affair; and the captain of a
scouting party
of frontier men has acquired as actual a military renown as many a
victorious leader of thousands. Some of the incidents contained in
the
following pages will be recognized, notwithstanding the
substitution
of fictitious names, by such as have heard, from old men's lips,
the fate
of the
few combatants who were in a condition to retreat after ``Lovell's
Fight.'' | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 307 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Shaker Bridal | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | ONE day, in the sick chamber of Father Ephraim, who had been forty
years the presiding elder over the Shaker settlement at Goshen,
there was
an assemblage of several of the chief men of the sect. Individuals
had come
from the rich establishment at Lebanon, from Canterbury, Harvard,
and
Alfred, and from all the other localities where this strange people
have
fertilized the rugged hills of New England by their systematic
industry.
An elder was likewise there, who had made a pilgrimage of a
thousand
miles from a village of the faithful in Kentucky, to visit his
spiritual kindred, the children of the sainted mother Ann. He had
partaken of
the
homely abundance of their tables, had quaffed the far-famed Shaker
cider, and had joined in the sacred dance, every step of which is
believed to
alienate the enthusiast from earth, and bear him onward to heavenly
purity and bliss. His brethren of the north had now courteously
invited him
to be present on an occasion, when the concurrence of every eminent
member of their community was peculiarly desirable. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 309 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Wakefield | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IN some old magazine or newspaper I recollect a story, told as
truth, of a
man—let us call him Wakefield—who absented himself for a long
time
from his wife. The fact, thus abstractedly stated, is not very
uncommon,
nor—without a proper distinction of circumstances—to be condemned
either as naughty or nonsensical. Howbeit, this, though far from
the most
aggravated, is perhaps the strangest, instance on record, of
marital delinquency; and, moreover, as remarkable a freak as may be
found in
the
whole list of human oddities. The wedded couple lived in London.
The
man, under pretence of going a journey, took lodgings in the next
street
to his own house, and there, unheard of by his wife or friends, and
without the shadow of a reason for such self-banishment, dwelt
upwards
of
twenty years. During that period, he beheld his home every day, and
frequently the forlorn Mrs. Wakefield. And after so great a gap in
his
matrimonial felicity—when his death was reckoned certain, his
estate
settled,
his name dismissed from memory, and his wife, long, long ago,
resigned to
her autumnal widowhood—he entered the door one evening, quietly,
as
from a day's absence, and became a loving spouse till death. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 310 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Wedding Knell | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THERE is a certain church in the city of New York which I have
always
regarded with peculiar interest, on account of a marriage there
solemnized, under very singular circumstances, in my grandmother's
girlhood.
That venerable lady chanced to be a spectator of the scene, and
ever after
made it her favorite narrative. Whether the edifice now standing on
the
same site be the identical one to which she referred, I am not
antiquarian
enough to know; nor would it be worth while to correct myself,
perhaps,
of an agreeable error, by reading the date of its erection on the
tablet over
the door. It is a stately church, surrounded by an inclosure of the
loveliest
green, within which appear urns, pillars, obelisks, and other forms
of
monumental marble, the tributes of private affection, or more
splendid
memorials of historic dust. With such a place, though the tumult of
the
city rolls beneath its tower, one would be willing to connect some
legendary interest. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 311 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Young Goodman Brown | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | YOUNG Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street at Salem
village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to
exchange a
parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly
named,
thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play
with the
pink ribbons of her cap while she called to Goodman Brown. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 316 | Author: | Ingersoll, Robert G. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Tolstoy and "The Kreutzer Sonata" | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | COUNT TOLSTOÏ is a man of genius. He is acquainted with
Russian life from the highest to the lowest—that is to say, from
the worst to the best. He knows the vices of the rich and the
virtues of the poor. He is a Christian, a real believer in the Old
and New Testaments, an honest follower of the Peasant of Palestine.
He denounces luxury and ease, art and music; he regards a flower
with suspicion, believing that beneath every blossom lies a coiled
serpent. He agrees with Lazarus and denounces Dives and the tax-gatherers. He is opposed, not only to doctors of divinity, but of
medicine. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 317 | Author: | James, William | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Varieties of Religious Experience | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IT is with no small amount of trepidation that I take my
place behind this desk, and face this learned audience.
To us Americans, the experience of receiving instruction
from the living voice, as well as from the books, of European
scholars, is very familiar. At my own University of
Harvard, not a winter passes without its harvest, large or
small, of lectures from Scottish, English, French, or German
representatives of the science or literature of their respective
countries whom we have either induced to cross the ocean
to address us, or captured on the wing as they were visiting
our land. It seems the natural thing for us to listen whilst
the Europeans talk. The contrary habit, of talking whilst
the Europeans listen, we have not yet acquired; and in him
who first makes the adventure it begets a certain sense of
apology being due for so presumptuous an act. Particularly
must this be the case on a soil as sacred to the American
imagination as that of Edinburgh. The glories of the philosophic
chair of this university were deeply impressed on my
imagination in boyhood. Professor Fraser's Essays in Philosophy,
then just published, was the first philosophic book I
ever looked into, and I well remember the awestruck feeling
I received from the account of Sir William Hamilton's classroom
therein contained. Hamilton's own lectures were the
first philosophic writings I ever forced myself to study, and
after that I was immersed in Dugald Stewart and Thomas
Brown. Such juvenile emotions of reverence never get outgrown;
and I confess that to find my humble self promoted
from my native wilderness to bc actually for the time an official
here, and transmuted into a colleague of these illustrious
names, carries with it a sense of dreamland quite as
much as of reality. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 318 | Author: | Jewett, Sarah Orne | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Passing of Sister Barsett | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | MRS. MERCY CRANE was of such firm persuasion that a house is
meant to be lived in, that during many years she was never known
to leave her own neat two-storied dwelling place on the Ridge road.
Yet she was very fond of company, and in pleasant weather often
sat in the side doorway looking out on her green yard, where the
grass grew short and thick and was undisfigured even by a path
toward the steps. All her faded green blinds were securely tied
together and knotted on the inside by pieces of white tape; but now
and then, when the sun was not too hot for her carpets, she opened
one window at a time for a few hours, having pronounced views
upon the necessity of light and air. Although Mrs. Crane was
acknowledged by her best friends to be a peculiar person and very
set in her ways, she was much respected, and one acquaintance vied
with another in making up for her melancholy seclusion by bringing
her all the news they could gather. She had been left alone many
years before by the sudden death of her husband from sunstroke,
and though she was by no means poor, she had, as someone said,
"such a pretty way of taking a little present that you couldn't help
being pleased when you gave her anything." | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 319 | Author: | Jewett, Sarah Orne | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Queen's Twin | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE coast of Maine was in former years brought so near to
foreign shores by its busy fleet of ships that among the older men
and women one still finds a surprising proportion of travelers.
Each seaward stretching headland with its high-set houses, each
island of a single farm, has sent its spies to view many a land of
Eshcol. One may see plain, contented old faces at the windows,
whose eyes have looked at far-away ports, and known the splendors
of the Eastern world. They shame the easy voyager of the North
Atlantic and the Mediterranean; they have rounded the Cape of Good
Hope and braved the angry seas of Cape Horn in small wooden ships;
they have brought up their hardy boys and girls on narrow decks;
they were among the last of the Northmen's children to go
adventuring to unknown shores. More than this one cannot give to
a young state for its enlightenment. The sea captains and the
captains' wives of Maine knew something of the wide world, and
never mistook their native parishes for the whole instead of a part
thereof; they knew not only Thomaston and Castine and Portland, but
London and Bristol and Bordeaux, and the strange-mannered harbors
of the China Sea. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 320 | Author: | Johnston, Charles | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Count Tolstoy at Home | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | WHILE I was reading "What is Art?" it occurred to me that it would
be a very interesting thing if one could get a sense of Tolstoy's
personality, and his surroundings,—something comparable in
vividness and truth to the innumerable portraits in his own books.
The study of a work so sincere, so full of power, so overburdened
even with moral earnestness, and representing, as its author says,
the work and the best thought of fifteen years, brings with it an
almost irresistible curiosity to look through the page to the man
behind it. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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