| | 21 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Ringwood the rover  | | | | Published: | 2006 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | The earliest dawning of a lovely summer day,
in the year 1659, was pouring its sweet light, unclouded
yet with that fierce heat which renders
almost insupportable the noontide hours, over the
forests which encircled, with a belt of ever-during
verdure, the Spanish city of St. Augustine. It
was already in those days a place of much importance,
with nunneries, and steepled churches,
and terraced dwellings, with white walls and jalousies
peeping from out the foliage of dark orange
groves, and all those beautiful peculiarities of
semi-Moorish taste, which lend so much of poetry
and of romance to the old towns of Spain. It had its
flanking walls, its ditches, and its palisades, presenting
their impregnable resistance to the fierce
and wily Indian, whom the relentless cruelty of
the white colonist, of whatsover nation, had at
length goaded into systematic and continual hostility;
in seaward bastions, with water-gate and
demilune, mounted with heavy cannon, and garrisoned
by old Castilians, under an officer who
bore the style of royal governor. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 22 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The village inn, or, The adventure of Bellechassaigne | | | | Published: | 2006 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | On the western outskirts of a little hamlet, situated on the verge
of a great forest, not many miles from Vitry, on the high-road
leading from Bar le Due to Paris, there stood in the summer of
1653, a large old-fashioned inn, which has long since yielded,
like all things earthly, to the consuming hand of time, but which
in its day possessed no limited or narrow reputation. So excellent
indeed was its accommodations, so celebrated its cuisine, and
so remarkable the courtesy of the aubergist, that the cerf blanc
of Lagny la Forêt, was known so well to all who journeyed in
that district, that travellers would often turn aside from the direct
line of their route in order to enjoy its far-famed hospitality. It
was a solitary building of considerable size, situated in a spot of
singular and romantic loveliness at the foot of three soft green
hills, which sloped down easily on every side except the south,
with two small glens between them, each watered by a bright and
sparkling rivulet, which meeting at their base, swept off in easy
curves through a rich level meadow, and joined a more considerable
stream at the distance of a quarter of a mile, or perhaps less,
to the southward. The summits of two of these green knolls,
for they were indeed little more—those to the north and west, were
crowned by the tall trees of the neighboring forest which covered
the whole face of the country for miles in that direction, and many
scattered oaks and ashes grew straggling down their sides, the
outposts as it were and sentinels of the vast verdant host. The
third or eastern hill, unlike its neighbors, was cleared almost entirely
of wood and very richly cultivated in meadow-land and pastures,
divided from each other by lines of thriving fruit-trees,
among which wound a narrow sandy road toward the village,
lying just out of sight beyond the summit—its tall and lance-like
spire standing out clear and sharp against the sky, above the
rounded brow. Just in the hollow where the streams blended
their bright waters, stood the old inn, a large irregular rambling
edifice, with steep projecting gables and latticed windows, no two
of them alike; of every shape and size that can be fancied, and a
huge oaken porch all overrun with jessamine and woodbine,
facing the yellow road. Four or five weeping-willows of vast
size grew on the margin of the stream, quite overarching the stone
bridge, which spanned it close to the western gable, and bathed
the old moss-grown roof with cool and grateful umhrage; while
a small strip of garden on either side the door, fenced by a rustic
paling and thickly set with sweet-briars and many-colored rose-bushes,
completed the attractions of the spot. The stables and
out-buildings were all behind the house, concealed from view by
the nature of the ground, nor were there any indications that the
house itself was one for public entertainment, unless it were an
antiquated sign representing the White, Stag whence the inn's
name, which swung from a cross-piece morticed into the trunk of
one of the great willows, and a long horse-trough supplied with
living water by a little aqueduct from a spring in the hill-side,
with a stone horseblock by its end. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 23 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Guarica, the charib bride | | | | Published: | 2006 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | The heavy dew of the tropics was yet
lying bright and unexhaled on every herb
and flower; myriads of which, in most
profuse variety of odor and bloom, strewed,
like one gorgeous carpet, the beautiful savannahs,
and wild forest glades of the fair
province of Cahay. The sun had not fairly
risen, although the warm and rosy light
which harbingered his coming, was tinging,
with its fairy dyes, the small and fleecy
clouds that floated, like the isles of some
enchanted sea, over the azure skies. The
faint sea-breeze, which murmured still
among the fresh green leaves, though it
was fast subsiding, was laden with perfumes
of such strange richness, that while
they gratified they almost cloyed the
senses; birds of the most superb and gorgeous
plumage were glancing, meteor-like,
among the boughs; but the innumerable
insect tribes, which almost rival
them in beauty, had not as yet been called
forth to their life of a day, by the young
sunbeams. The loveliness of those sequestered
haunts, which had but recently
been opened to the untiring and insatiate
avarice of the Europeans, exceeded the
most wild conceptions, the most voluptuous
dreams, of the romancer or the poet. The
solemn verdure of the mighty woods thick
set with trees, more graceful than the
shades of those ægean Isles, where the
Ionian muse was born to witch the world
for ages—the light and feathery mimosas,
the fan-like heads of the tall palms, towering
a hundred feet above their humbler, yet
still lofty brethren—the giant oaks, their
whole trunks overgrown with thousands of
bright parasites, and their vast branches
canopied with vines and creepers—masses
of tangled and impervious foliage—the natural
lawns, watered by rills of crystal—
the rocks, that reared themselves among
the forests, mantled not as the crags of the
cold northern climes, with dark and melancholy
ivy, but with festoons of fruits and
flowers that might have graced the gardens
of the fabulous Hesperides. It was
upon such a scene, as is but imperfectly
and feebly shadowed forth, in the most
glowing language, that the sweet dawn
was breaking, when, from a distance,
through the lovely woodlands, the mellow
notes of a horn, clearly and scientifically
winded, came floating on the gentle air;
again it pealed forth its wild cadences,
nearer and louder than before—and then
the deep and ringing bay of a full mouthed
hound succeeded. Scarcely had the first
echo of the woods replied to the unwonted
sounds, before a beautiful, slight hind, forcing
her way through a dense thicket of
briers, dashed with the speed of mortal terror
into the centre of a small savannah,
through which stole almost silently a broad
bright rivulet of very limpid water. Pausing
for a second's space upon the brink, the
delicate creature stood, with its swan-like
neck curved backward, its thin ear erect,
its full black eye dilated, and its expanded
nostrils snuffing the tainted breeze. It was
but for a second that she stood; for the next
moment a louder and more boisterous crash
arose from the direction whence she had
first appeared—the blended tongues of
several hounds running together on a hot
and recent trail. Tossing her head aloft,
she gathered her slight limbs under her,
sprung at one vigorous and elastic bound
over the rivulet, and was lost instantly to
view among the thickets of the further
side. A few minutes elapsed during which
the fierce baying of the hounds came quicker
and more sharply on the ear; and then,
from the same brake out of which the bind
had started, rushed, with his eyes glowing
lika coals of fire, his head high in the air,
and his long feathery tail lashing his tawny
sides, a formidable blood hound, of that savage
breed which was, in after times, so
brutally employed against the hapless Indians
by their Christian conquerors. Another,
and another, and a fourth succeeded,
making the vaulted woods to bellow with
the deep cadences of their continuous cry.
Hard on the blood hounds, crashing through
the tangled branches with reckless and impetuous
ardor, a solitary huntsman followed
splendidly mounted on a fiery Andalusian
charger, of a deep chestnut color, with four
white legs, and a white blaze down his
face, whose long thin mane, and the large
cord-like veins that might be seen meandering
over his muscular, sleek limbs, attested,
as surely as the longest pedigree,
the purity of his blood. The rider was a
young man of some four or five-and-twenty
years, well, and rather powerfully made
than otherwise, though not above the middle
stature; his long dark hair, black eye,
and swarthy skin told of a slight admixture
of the Moorish blood; while the expression
of his features, though now excited somewhat
by the exhilaration of the chase,
grave, dignified and noble, bespoke him
without a doubt a polished cavalier of
Spain. His dress, adapted to the occupation
which he so gallantly pursued, was a
green doublet belted close about his waist
by a girdle of Cordovan leather, from which
swung, clinking at every stride of his
horse, against the stirrup, a long and basket-hilted
bilboa blade, in a steel scabbard,
which was the only weapon that he wore,
except a short two-edged stiletto, thrust
into the belt at the left side. A broad
sombrero hat, with a drooping feather,
breeches and gloves of chamois leather,
laced down the seams with silver, and russet
buskins drawn up to the knee, completed
his attire. He sat his horse gracefully
and firmly; and the ease with which
he supported him, and wheeled him to and
fro among the fallen trees and rocks, notwithstanding
the fiery speed at which he
rode, bespoke him no less skillful than intrepid
as a horseman. The chase continued
for above an hour, during which
every species of scenery that the level portions
of the isle contained was traversed by
the hunter; the open forest, the dense
swampy brake, the wide luxuriant savannah—and
each at such hot speed, that
though he turned aside neither for bush,
nor bank, though he plunged headlong
down the steepest crags, and dashed his
charger, without hesitation, over every fallen
tree that barred his progress, and every
brook or gulley that opposed him, still it
was with no little difficulty that he contrived
to keep the hounds in hearing. And
now the hapless hind, worn out by the sustained
exertions which had at first outstripped
the utmost pace of her pursuers,
but which availed her nothing to escape
from foes against whose most sagacious instinct
and unerring scent she had but fleetness
to oppose—was sinking fast, and must,
as the rider judged by the redoubled speed
and shriller baying of his hounds, soon turn
to bay, or be run down without resistance.
Her graceful head was bowed low toward
the earth; big tears streamed down her
hairy cheeks; her arid tongue lolled from
her frothing jaws; her coat, of late so
sleek and glossy, was all embossed with
sweat and foam, and wounded at more
points than one by the sharp thorns and
prickly underwood through which she had
toiled so fruitlessly. Still she strove on,
staggering and panting in a manner pitiful
to witness, when the deep bay of the blood
hounds was changed suddenly into a series
of sharp and savage yells, as they caught
view of their destined prey. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 26 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | My shooting box | | | | Published: | 2006 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | It wanted scarce an hour of sunset, on a calm,
bright October evening—that season of unrivalled glory
in the wide woodlands of America, wherein the dying
year appears to deck herself, as it is told of the expiring
dolphin, with such a gorgeousness of short-lived
hues as she had never shown in her full flush of summer
life and beauty—it wanted, as I have said, scarce
an hour of sunset, and all the near and mountainous
horizon was veiled as it were by a fine gauze-like
drapery of filmy yellow mist, while every where the
level sunbeams were checkering the scenery with lines
of long rich light and cool blue shadow, when a small
four-wheeled wagon with something sportsmanlike and
rakish in its build, might have been seen whirling at a
rapid rate over one of the picturesque uneven roads,
that run from the banks of the Hudson, skirting the
lovely range of the Western Highlands, through one—
the fairest—of the river counties of New York. This
little vehicle, which was drawn by an exceedingly
clever, though somewhat cross-made, chesnut cob, with
a blaze on his face, and three white legs, contained two
persons, with a quantity of luggage, among which a
couple of gun-cases were the most conspicuous, and a
brace of beautiful and high-bred English pointers. The
driver was a smart natty lad, dressed in a dark gray
frock, with livery buttons, and a narrow silver cord for
a hat-band; and, while he handled the ribbons with
the quick finger and cool head of an experienced whip,
he showed his complete acquaintance with the way, by
the readiness and almost instinctive decision with which
he selected the right hand or the left of several acute
and intricate turns and crossings of the road. The
other was a young gentleman of some five or six and
twenty years, finely and powerfully made, though not
above the middle height, with curly light-brown hair
and a fair bright complexion, indicative of his English
blood. Rattling along the limestone road, which followed
the course of a large rapid trout stream, that
would in Europe have been termed a river, crossing it
now and then on rustic wooden bridges, as it wound
in broad devious curves hither and thither through the
rich meadow-land, they reached a pretty village, embosomed
in tall groves and pleasant orchards, crowning
a little knoll with its white cottages and rival steeples;
but, making no pause, though a neat tavern might well
have tempted the most fastidious traveller, they swept
onward, keeping the stream on their right hand, until,
as they came to the foot of a small steep ascent, the
driver touched his hat, saying—“We have got through
our journey now, sir; the house lies just beyond the
hill.” He scarce had finished speaking, before they
topped the hillock, and turning short to the right hand
pulled up before a neat white gate in a tall fence, that
separated the road from a large piece of woodland,
arrayed in all the gorgeous colors wrought by the first
sharp frost of autumn. The well-kept winding lane,
to which the gate gave access, brought them, within a
quarter of a mile, to a steep rocky bank feathered with
junipers, and here and there a hickory or maple
shadowing the dense undergrowth of rhododendrons,
kalmias and azalias that sprung in rich luxuriance from
every rift and cranny of the gray limestone ledges.
Down this the road dived, by two rapid zig-zags, to
the margin of the little river, which foamed along its
base, where it was spanned by a single arch, framed
picturesquely of gnarled unbarked timber; and then
swept in an easy curve up a small lawn, lying fair to
the southern sun, to the door of a pretty cottage, which
lay midway the northern slope of the valley, its rear
sheltered by the hanging woodlands, which clothed the
hills behind it to their very summit. A brilliant light
was shining from the windows to the right of the door,
as if of a merry fire and several candles mingled; and,
in a minute or two after the wheels of the wagon rattled
upon the wooden bridge, it was evident that the
door was thrown open; for a long stream of mellow
light burst out on the fast darkening twilight, and the
next moment a tall figure, clearly defined against the
bright background, was seen upon the threshold. A
minute more and the chesnut cob was pulled up in
front of the neat portico, and the young Englishman
leaped out and darted up the steps. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 27 | Author: | Herbert
Henry William
1807-1858 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The miller of Martigne | | | | Published: | 2006 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Upon a pleasant knoll or hillock, not very far from Rennes, in
that most beautiful department of France, which takes its name
from the Vilaine, on the post-road from Chateaubriant to La
Guerche, the traveller passes through the little hamlet of Martignè.
It is but a small place, even now, and in the times of which
I write—the dark and bloody days of Mazarin—it was little more
than a cluster of white washed cottages, grouped round an old
gray church, the spire of which rose sharp and slender, above the
foliage of the dense forest, that lay stretched for many a mile
around it. About two miles to the northward of the village, the
causeway, having scaled a steep and rocky hill, descends almost
precipitously toward a strong copious brook, too large to be termed
a rivulet, and, at the same time, too small to aspire to the name of
river; across which it is carried at the height of two hundred feet
above the water, upon a one-arched bridge of Roman brick, the
work of those world-conquerors of old. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 29 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The ways of the hour | | | | Published: | 2006 | | | | 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: | In one respect, there is a visible improvement in the goodly
town of Manhattan, and that is in its architecture. Of its
growth, there has never been any question, while many have
disputed its pretension to improvement. A vast expansion of
mediocrity, though useful and imposing, rarely satisfies either
the judgment or the taste; those who possess these qualities,
requiring a nearer approach to what is excellent, than can ever
be found beneath the term just mentioned. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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