| | 181 | Author: | Flint
Timothy
1780-1840 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Shoshonee Valley  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | The Shoshonee are a numerous and powerful
tribe of Indians, who dwell in a long and narrow vale
of unparalleled wildness and beauty of scenery, between
the two last western ridges of the Rocky Mountains,
on the south side of the Oregon, or as the inhabitants
of the United States choose to call it, the Columbia.
They are a tall, finely formed, and comparatively
fair haired race, more mild in manners, more
polished and advanced in civilization, and more conversant
with the arts of municipal life, than the contiguous
northern tribes. Vague accounts of them by
wandering savages, hunters, and coureurs du bois, have
been the sources, most probably, whence have been
formed the western fables, touching the existence of
a nation in this region, descended from the Welsh.
In fact many of the females, unexposed by their condition
to the sun and inclemencies of the seasons, are
almost as fair, as the whites. The contributions,
which the nation has often levied from their neighbors
the Spaniards, have introduced money and factitious
wants, and a consequent impulse to build after the
fashions, to dress in the clothes, and to live after the
modes of civilized people, among them. From them
they have obtained either by barter or war, cattle,
horses, mules, and the other domestic animals, in abundance.
Maize, squashes, melons and beans they supposed
they had received as direct gifts from the Wah-condah,
or Master of Life. The cultivation of these,
and their various exotic exuberant vegetables, they
had acquired from surveying the modes of Spanish
industry and subsistence. Other approximations to
civilization they had unconsciously adopted from numerous
Spanish captives, residing among them, in a
relation peculiar to the red people, and intermediate
between citizenship and slavery. But the creole
Spanish, from whom they had these incipient
germs of civilized life, were themselves a simple and
pastoral people, a century behind the Anglo Americans
in modern advancement. The Shoshonee were,
therefore, in a most interesting stage of existence, just
emerging from their own comparative advancements
to a new condition, modelled to the fashion of their
Spanish neighbors. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 182 | Author: | Foster
Hannah Webster
1759-1840 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The coquette, or, The history of Eliza Wharton : a novel, founded on fact | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | An unusual sensation possesses my
breast; a sensation, which I once thought
could never pervade it on any occasion whatever.
It is pleasure; pleasure, my dear Lucy,
on leaving my paternal roof! Could you have
believed that the darling child of an indulgent
and dearly beloved mother would feel a gleam
of joy at leaving her? but so it is. The melancholy,
the gloom, the condolence, which surrounded
me for a month after the death of
Mr. Haly, had depressed my spirits, and palled
every enjoyment of life. Mr. Haly was a man
of worth; a man of real and substantial merit.
He is therefore deeply, and justly regreted by
his friends; he was chosen to be a future guardian,
and companion for me, and was, therefore,
beloved by mine. As their choice; as a good
man, and a faithful friend, I esteemed him. But
no one acquainted with the disparity of our
tempers and dispositions, our views and designs,
can suppose my heart much engaged in
the alliance. Both nature and education had
instilled into my mind an implicit obedience to
the will and desires of my parents. To them,
of course, I sacrificed my fancy in this affair;
determined that my reason should coucur with
theirs; and on that to risk my future happiness.
I was the more encouraged, as I saw, from our
first acquaintance, his declining health; and
expected, that the event would prove as it has.
Think not, however, that I rejoice in his death.
No; far be it from me; for though I believe
that I never felt the passion of love for Mr.
Haly; yet a habit of conversing with him,
of hearing daily the most virtuous, tender,
and affectionate sentiments from his lips, inspired
emotions of the sincerest friendship, and
esteem. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 183 | Author: | Hale
Sarah Josepha Buell
1788-1879 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Keeping house and house keeping | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | “My dear,” said Mrs. Harley to her husband
one morning, “I have been thinking we
had better make a change in our domestic department.
Nancy, I find, is getting quite impertinent;
she wants to go out one afternoon
every week, and that, in addition to her nightly
meetings, is quite too much. Shall I settle
with her to-day and dismiss her?” “My dear William—Your earthly treasures
(that is, little John and myself) are running
wild in these Elysian fields. Escaped
from the din and tumult of the ctiy, it is so reviving
to breathe the pure air of this healthful
region, that the principal part of my conversation
is to tell all the kind people whom I see
here how delighted I am with the change, and
how happy they must be who enjoy it all the
time; to which Aunt Ruth generally replies,
`Those who make the change are the people
who are alive to its benefits; while those who
always live amid such beauty become indifferent
spectators.' “Dear Husband—When I last wrote, the
full tide of happiness seemed flowing in upon
me on every side; but alas! the change. Johnny,
the day after I wrote you, was taken ill,
and has continued so ever since. His disease
the doctor pronounces to be the scarlet fever.
To-day he is a little better; and while he is
sleeping, I have taken my writing-desk to his
bedside, that I may be ready to note any alteration. “Afternoon “Dear Aunt—You very good-naturedly
ask me how I like the change from my former
mode of living. I will frankly tell you, that it
scarcely admits a comparison. I blush to recall
my former imbecility, and often wonder
at the long suffering of my friends, and of
William in particular—that he should chide so
little when he felt so much! | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 184 | Author: | Hale
Sarah Josepha Buell
1788-1879 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | "Boarding out" | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | “What ails you, my dear?” inquired Robert
Barclay of his wife, as she sat thoughtfully,
twirling her tea-cup. “You seem, of late, very
uninterested in my conversation. Has any
thing gone wrong with you to-day?” “Our plans are all arranged. Little did I
think, when we conversed together upon the
subject of my giving up housekeeping, I should
so soon carry into effect your plan. I call it
yours, for you first suggested to me the expedient
of ridding myself of domestic trials. Mr.
Barclay was at first wholly averse to hearing
a word about it; but, dear Fanny, I talked
hours, yes! days, until he yielded! Was he
not a kind husband? I never suggested to him
that you were prime mover, lest in future time,
if things should not turn out well, you might
be reproached. But, cousin, I am wholly unacquainted
with the process of `breaking up
housekeeping.' I thought we should never get
furnished when we moved here; and now I
feel as if we never should get things in order
for the sale, unless you come immediately and
help me. You will therefore stand by me for
at least three or four weeks; help me look out
a boarding-house, &c. Come in the four o'clock
omnibus this afternoon. Truly, “I was just at my writing-desk, dictating a
note to be sent to you, as your kind one arrived.
Do not think me, Cousin Hepsy, a
maniac, ranting in an untrue style, when I tell
you I had accepted an invitation to stand as
bridemaid to Madam Shortt the very day the
announcement of her marriage was made to
you! My partner (for I will tell the whole)
is Rev. Mr. Milnor, our former clergyman, now
of your city, who knew Colonel Bumblefoot
many years in England, and many since in
America; and, at his urgent request, has consented
to stand nearest him during the ceremony!
But your exclamations are not over
yet. I suppose, at no very distant day, your
cousin, Fanny Jones, may sign her name as
`Fanny Milnor!' You will please communicate
this to your good husband; and if I can
be of any service to you again in a chase for
a boarding-house, you are welcome to my services. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 185 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Dermot O'brien; Or, the Taking of Tredagh | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | The bright, warm sunshine of a July morning was pouring
its full stream of vivifying lustre over a wide expanse of wild,
open country, in one of the south-eastern counties of Ireland.
For miles and miles over which the eye extended, not a sign
of a human habitation, or of man's handiwork, was visible;
unless these were to be found in the existence of a long range
of young oak woodland, which lay to the north-east, stretching
for several miles continuously along the low horizon in that
quarter, with something that might have been either a mist-wreath,
or a column of blue smoke floating lazily in the pure
atmosphere above it. The foreground of this desolate, but
lovely landscape, was formed by a wide, brawling stream,
which almost merited the name of a river, and which here
issuing from an abrupt, rocky cleft or chasm, in the round-headed
moorland hills, spread itself out over a broader bed,
flowing rapidly in bright whirls and eddies upon a bottom of
glittering pebbles, with here and there a great boulder heaving
its dark, mossy head above the surface, and hundreds of silver-sided,
yellow-finned trouts, flashing up like meteors from
the depths, and breaking the smooth ripples in pursuit of
their insect prey. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 187 | Author: | Smith
Seba
1792-1868 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | John Smith's Letters, with 'picters' to Match | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Dear Father—I take my pen in hand to let you
know that I'm as hearty as a bear, and hope these few lines will find you, and
mother, and grandfather, and cousin Debby, and
all the children, enjoying
the same blessing. We stood our march remarkable
well, and are all alive, and safe, and
sound as a whistle. And Sargent Johnson makes
a most capital officer. He's jest sich a man as is wanted down
here—there's no skeering him, I can tell you. He'd fight against
bears, and wild-cats, and the British, and thunder and lightnin', and any
thing else, that should set out to meddle with our disputed territory. And he's
taken a master-liking
to me, too, and says if he has any hard fighting
to do, although I'm the youngest in the company,
he shall always choose me first for his right-hand
man. He says I had more pluck at the drafting than any one in the whole
company, and he should rather have me by his side in battle, than any
three of the rest of'em. But maybe you'd like to hear something about our march
down here, and so on. Dear Father—Tell mother I ain't shot yet,
though we've had one pretty considerable of a brush, and expect every day to
have some more. Colonel Jarvis has took quite a liking to our little
Smithville detachment. He says we are the
smartest troops he's got, and as long as we stick by him, it isn't Sir John
Harvey, nor all New-Brumzick, nor even Queen
Victory herself can ever drive him off of Fitzherbert's farm. Perhaps you
mayn't remember much about this Fitzherbert's
farm, where we are. It is the very place where the British nabbed our Land
Agent, Mr. McIntire, when he was abed, and asleep, and couldn't help
himself, and carried him off to Frederiction
jail. Let 'em come and try to nab us, if they dare; if they wouldn't wish
their cake was dough again, I'm mistaken. We've got up pretty considerable
of a little kind of a fort here, and we keep it manned day and
night—we don't more than half of us sleep to once, and are determined
the British shall never ketch us with both eyes shet. Dear Father—We stick by here yet, takin' care
of our disputed territory and the logs; and while we stay here the British will
have to walk as
straight as a hair, you may depend. We ain't had
much fighting to do since my last letter; and some how or other, things
seem to be getting cooler down here a little, so that I'm afraid we ain't agoing
to have the real scratch, after all, that I wanted to have. A day or two
arter we took the logging camp and brought the men and oxen off here prisoners
of war, we was setting in the fort after dinner
and talking matters over, and Sargent Johnson
was a wondering what a plague was the reason
the British didn't come up to the scratch as they talked on. He said he
guessed they wasn't sich mighty fairce fellers for war as they pretended
to be, arter all. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 188 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Last of the Mohicans | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Leather-stocking tales | leather stocking tales | | | | Description: | It was a feature peculiar to the colonial wars of
North America, that the toils and dangers of the wilderness
were to be encountered, before the adverse
hosts could meet in murderous contact. A wide,
and, apparently, an impervious boundary of forests,
severed the possessions of the hostile provinces of
France and England. The hardy colonist, and the
trained European who fought at his side, frequently
expended months in struggling against the rapids of
the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the
mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit
their courage in a more martial conflict. But, emulating
the patience and self-denial of the practised
native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty;
and it would seem, that in time, there was
no recess of the woods so dark, nor any secret place
so lovely, that it might claim exemption from the inroads
of those who had pledged their blood to satiate
their vengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish
policy of the distant monarchs of Europe. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 189 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Last of the Mohicans | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Leather-stocking tales | leather stocking tales | | | | Description: | The bloody and inhuman scene which we have
rather incidentally mentioned than described, in the
close of the preceding volume, is conspicuous in the
pages of colonial history, by the merited title of
“The massacre of William Henry.” It so far deepened
the stain which a previous and very similar
event had left upon the reputation of the French
commander, that it was not entirely erased by his
early and glorious death. It is now becoming obscured
by time; and thousands, who know that Montcalm
died like a hero on the plains of Abraham, have
yet to learn how much he was deficient in that moral
courage, without which no man can be truly great.
Pages might be written to prove, from this illustrious
example, the defects of human excellence; to
show how easy it is for generous sentiments, high
courtesy, and chivalrous courage, to lose their influence
beneath the chilling ascendency of mistaken
selfishness, and to exhibit to the world a man who
was great in all the minor attributes of character,
but who was found wanting, when it became necessary
to prove how much principle is superior to policy.
But the task would exceed our fanciful prerogatives;
and, as history, like love, is so apt to surround
her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary
brightness, it is probable that Louis de Saint Véran
will be viewed by posterity only as the gallant defender
of his country, while his cruel apathy on the
shores of the Oswego and of the Horican, will be
forgotten. Deeply regretting this weakness on the
part of our sister muse, we shall at once retire from
her sacred precincts, within the proper limits of our
own humbler vocation. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 190 | Author: | Hawthorne
Nathaniel
1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Mosses from an Old Manse | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Wiley and Putnam's library of American books | wiley and putnams library of american books | | | | Description: | In the latter part of the last century, there lived a man of science—
an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy—who,
not long before our story opens, had made experience of a spiritual:
affinity, more attractive than any chemical one. He had left his,
laboratory to the care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance
from the furnace-smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers,
and persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife. In those
days, when the comparatively recent discovery of electricity, and
other kindred mysteries of nature, seemed to open paths into the
region of miracle, it was not unusual for the love of science to rival
the love of woman, in its depth and absorbing energy. The higher
intellect, the imagination, the spirit, and even the heart, might all-find
their congenial aliment in pursuits which, as some of their
ardent votaries believed, would ascend from one step of powerful
intelligence to another, until the philosopher should lay his hand
on the secret of creative force, and perhaps make new worlds for
himself. We know not whether Aylmer possessed this degree of
faith in man's ultimate control over nature. He had devoted himself,
however, too unreservedly to scientific studies, ever to be weaned
from them by any second passion. His love for his young wife
might prove the stronger of the two; but it could only be by
intertwining itself with his love of science, and uniting the strength
of the latter to its own. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 191 | Author: | Hawthorne
Nathaniel
1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Mosses from an Old Manse | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Wiley and Putnam's library of American books | wiley and putnams library of american books | | | | Description: | We, who are born into the world's artificial system, can never
adequately know how little in our present state and circumstances
is natural, and how much is merely the interpolation of the perverted
mind and heart of man. Art has become a second and
stronger Nature; she is a step-mother, whose crafty tenderness
has taught us to despise the bountiful and wholesome ministrations
of our true parent. It is only through the medium of the
imagination that we can lessen those iron fetters, which we call
truth and reality, and make ourselves even partially sensible what
prisoners we are. For instance, let us conceive good Father
Miller's interpretation of the prophecies to have proved true. The
Day of Doom has burst upon the globe, and swept away the whole
rece of men. From cities and fields, sea-shore, and mid-land
mountain region, vast continents, and even the remotest islands of
the ocean—each living thing is gone. No breath of a created
being disturbs this earthly atmosphere. But the abodes of man,
and all that he has accomplished, the foot-prints of his wanderings,
and the results of his toil, the visible symbols of his intellectual
cultivation, and moral progress—in short, everything
physical that can give evidence of his present position—shall
remain untouched by the hand of destiny. Then, to inherit and
repeople this waste and deserted earth, we will suppose a new
Adam and a new Eve to have been created, in the full development
of mind and heart, but with no knowledge of their predecessors,
nor of the diseased circumstances that had become encrusted
around them. Such a pair would at once distinguish between
art and nature. Their instincts and intuitions would immediately
recognize the wisdom and simplicity of the latter, while the
former, with its elaborate perversities, would offer them a continual
succession of puzzles. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 192 | Author: | Hall
James
1793-1868 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The wilderness and the war path | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Wiley and Putnam's library of American books | wiley and putnams library of american books | | | | Description: | The life of the American Indian is not so destitute of the interest
created by variety of incident, as might be supposed by a
casual observation of the habits of this singular race. It is true
that the simple structure of their communities, and the sameness
of their occupations, limit the Savage within a narrow sphere of
thought and action. Without commerce, agriculture, learning, or
the arts, and confined to the employments of war and hunting,
the general tenour of his life must be monotonous. His journies
through the unpeopled wilderness, furnish him with no information
as to the modes of existence of other nations, nor any subjects
for reflection, but those which nature supplies, and with
which he has been familiar from childhood. Beyond his own
tribe, his intercourse extends only to savages as ignorant as himself,
and to traders but little elevated above his own moral standard. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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