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UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 (33)
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University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875[X]
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1Author:  Holland J. G. (Josiah Gilbert) 1819-1881Add
 Title:  Arthur Bonnicastle  
 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: Life looks beautiful from both extremities. Prospect and retrospect shine alike in a light so divine as to suggest that the first catches some radiance from the gates, not yet closed, by which the soul has entered, and that the last is illuminated from the opening realm into which it is soon to pass. “I should like to see you here next Monday morning, in regard to some repairs about The Mansion. Come early, and if your little boy Arthur is well enough you may bring him. “I have lost my ball. I don't know where in the world it can be. It seemed to get away from me in a curious style. Mr. Bird is very kind, and I like him very much. I am sorry to say I have lost my Barlow knife too. Mr. Bird says a Barlow knife is a very good thing. I don't quite think I have lost the twenty-five cent piece. I have not seen it since yesterday morning, and I think I shall find it. Henry Hulm, who is my chum, and a very smart boy, I can tell you, thinks the money will be found. Mr. Bird says there must be a hole in the top of my pocket. I don't know what to do. I am afraid Aunt Sanderson will be cross about it. Mr. Bird thinks I ought to give my knife to the boy that will find the money, and the money to the boy that will find the knife, but I don't see as I should make much in that way, do you? I love Mrs. Bird very much. Miss Butler is the dearest young lady I ever knew. Mrs. Bird kisses us all when we go to bed, and it seems real good. I have put the testament in the bottom of my trunk, under all the things. I shall keep that if possible. If Mrs. Sanderson finds out that I have lost the things, I wish you would explain it and tell her the testament is safe. Miss Butler has dark eyebrows and wears a belt. Mr. Bird has killed another woodchuck. I wonder if you left the key of my trunk. It seems to be gone. We have real good times, playing ball and taking walks. I have walked out with Miss Butler. I wish mother could see her hair, and I am your son with ever so much love to you and mother and all, “Bring home your Attlus. “The Bell is a noble vessel.
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2Author:  Irving Washington 1783-1859Add
 Title:  Wolfert's roost  
 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 
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3Author:  Moulton Louise Chandler 1835-1908Add
 Title:  Juno Clifford  
 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: Juno Clifford stood before the mirror of her richly furnished breakfast parlor. The cloth had been spread for a half-hour—the silver coffee service was prettily arranged, and the delicate cups of Sèvres porcelain were scattered around the urn. But the mistress of the mansion had only just arisen. It was ten o'clock. Men, whose business hours had commenced, were hurrying to and fro in the street— the city was teeming with life and turbulent with noise, but the hum only stole through the heavily-curtained windows of that lofty house on Mount Vernon street, with a subdued cadence that was very pleasant. It was a lounging, indolent attitude, in which the lady stood. In her whole style of manner there was a kind of tropical languor, and it was easy to see that she was seldom roused from her habitual calmness. And yet there was something in the curving of her dainty lips, the full sweep of her arching brows, nay, in every motion of her hand, which told of a slumbering power; an energy, resistless in its intensity; a will that might have subjugated an empire. The indolence was habitual —the energy, native. “Dearest Brother:—It is not my turn to write, but I have been thinking of you so earnestly to-day, that I've resolved, at last, to make a thought-bridge of my little steel pen, and tell you about my reveries. In the first place, though, you ought to see where I am writing. Yes, you ought to see Mohawk Village now. The dear, blue river glides along so gently between its fringed banks, and the sweet green islets lie, like summer children, in such a peaceful sleep upon its breast. The willow trees, `always genteel,' are bending over its waves, bowing to their own shadows, and all the green things round look as if they were rejoicing in the fresh air and the sunshine. But I will tell you what is the prettiest sight which meets my eye. It is a gnarled old oak, very large, and very strong, round which climbs a perfect wealth of the beautiful ivy. They are living things, I know; and it takes all mamma's logic to persuade me that they cannot think and feel. They always seemed to me to have a history, nay more, a romance linked with their two lives. The oak looks like some veteran soldier. His life is not yet quite past its prime, but he has grown old among the crash of contending armies, and the fierce shocks of battles. He is scarred, and battered, and now round this glorious ruin the ivy clings, young, fresh, trusting, and so beautiful; laying her long green fingers on his seamed and furrowed front, hiding his roughness with the embrace of her tender arms. Looking from my window, summer and winter I see them, my beautiful emblems of strength and truth. I wish sometimes, in a large charity, that all the world could look upon them as I do, that they could teach every one the same lesson. “I will call you so this once more. God help us, for He has separated us. I have no strength to tell you now how tenderly I have loved you. You know it but too well. Every glance of your blue eyes, every thread of your golden hair was dearer to me than my own life. I would not look upon your face for worlds, now that it is lost to me for ever. My mother has tried to soothe the agony of this parting. She has whispered that a time might come, when I would be free to marry you, but I have no such hope. I dare not dwell on it; it would be unjust, cruel. I cannot ask you to love me, to think of me. Rather let me pray you to forget me; to seek in some other love the happiness I can never again taste. May he who shall win and wear you, be more worthy of your love; he cannot return it more truly. “There, forgive those words, I could not help them. When once more, after all this lapse of years, I wrote your name, I forgot for the time that you had been another's, that you had refused to be mine. I saw only the Grace of my love and my dreams, very young, very fair, and, better still, very loving and trustful. To me you are the same still. I cannot come to you to-night. I have received a message that Mabel, my own fair sister, is ill. She may be dying, but I will hope to find her better. I shall travel night and day until I reach New York. Pray for me, Grace. Think of me as your friend, your brother, if you will not let me be, as in other days—
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4Author:  Moulton Louise Chandler 1835-1908Add
 Title:  Some women's hearts  
 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 Niece Elizabeth, — I believe myself to be about to die. I cannot tell why this belief has taken hold of me, but I am sure that I am not long for this world. And, before I go out of it, I have an act of restitution to perform. When your father, my dead and gone brother James, died, if you had received your due, you would have had six thousand dollars. But the business was embarrassed at the time, and I thought that to put so much money out of my hands just then would ruin me. I took the responsibility, therefore, of deciding not to do it. I managed, by means that were not strictly legitimate, to keep the whole in my own possession. I did not mean ill by you, either. Your memory will bear me witness that I dealt by you in every way as by my own children; nor do I think the interest of your six thousand dollars, in whatever way invested, could possibly have taken care of you so well as I did. Still, to have it to use in my business at that critical time, was worth much more than the cost of your maintenance to me. So, as I look at matters, you owe me no thanks for your upbringing, and I owe you no farther compensation for the use of your money during those years which you passed in my house. For the five years since then, I owe you interest; and I have added to your six thousand dollars two thousand more, to reimburse you for your loss during that time. “You were right, and I was wrong. I would not tempt you to be other than you are, — the purest as the fairest woman, in my eyes, whom God ever made. I am running away, because I have not just now the strength to stay here. You will not see me again for two weeks. When I come back, I will be able to meet you as I ought, and to prove myself worthy to be your friend. “Your child was born the 28th of June. I did not know of this which was to come when I left the shelter of your roof, or I should not have gone. The little one is very ill; and, feeling that she may not live, I think it right to give you the opportunity of seeing her, if you wish to, before she dies. Come, if you choose, to No. 50, Rue Jacob, and you will find her. “My Dear Husband, — Andrew, our little boy, is very ill. The doctor calls it scarlet fever. I thought that you would wish to see him. Your presence would be the greatest comfort. “Mr. Thorndike, — I have hesitated long before writing you this note. I should not venture to do so now were it not that I am emboldened by the license accorded to leap-year. To a different man I would not write it for worlds, but I am sure your character is of too high a tone for you to pursue a correspondence merely for amusement or adventure. If you think I am indelicate in addressing you at all, — if you do not desire my friendship, you will let the matter drop here, — you will never reply to me, or bestow a second thought on one who will, in that case, strive to think no more of you. But should you really value the regard of a girl who is fearless enough thus to disobey the recognized laws of society; honest enough to show you her heart as it is; good enough, at least, to feel your goodness in her inmost soul, — then you will write. Then, perhaps, we shall know each other better, and the friendship thus unconventionally begun may brighten both our lives. Remember I trust to your honor not to answer this letter if you disapprove of my course in sending it, — if by so doing I have forfeited your respect. Should you reply, let it be within three days, and address,
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5Author:  Moulton Louise Chandler 1835-1908Add
 Title:  This, that and the other  
 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: “Lionel: When your hand touches this sheet, I shall be far away. It is two hours since you left me, and I have been sitting here all the while, in a kind of stupor. I have loved you very fondly, Lionel, and there is no blame for you in my heart now, only sorrow, bitter, crushing sorrow. I will believe that you love me — that you did not mean to deceive me! I will even try to think that the fault, the misunderstanding, was all mine. My soul shall send back only prayers for you — my heart shall breathe only blessings. I love you, Lionel — O, how I love you! If I could coin my life-blood into a flood of blessing, and pour it on your head, I would do so gladly; if I might die for you, my soul would be blessed as the angels. I even have thought, — may God forgive me! — that I could give my soul to perdition for your sake; but I have no right to bring sorrow, and shame, and suffering, upon another. The lips that my little sister presses must be pure; the life consecrated by a dying mother's blessing must be unstained. “Blanche Leslie, — For something tells me you are Blanche Leslie yet — I have found you at last, after these weary years. Listen, and hear if it be not destiny. When you left me, Blanche, I was a heart-broken, miserable man. You did not know me, little darling, or you never would have gone. I did not know myself. I did not know how strong was the love I had for you. Blanche, believe me, for I swear it before heaven, I never would have asked you to make one sacrifice for my sake. You should have done nothing, been nothing, your own heart did not sanction. When I read your note, I awoke to the knowledge of my own soul. Then I knew that, without you, wealth, and fame, and honor, were worse than vanity, hollower than the apples of Sodom. I would have laid down everything I possessed on earth, to have called you wife. My soul cried out for you `with groanings that could not be uttered.' “No, no! Come not near me, Lionel Hunter! Disturb not the holy calm to which it has been the work of years to attain. I have wept much, suffered much, but I am stronger now. Talk no more to me of earthly love, now that my heart has grown old, and the beauty you used to praise has faded. Leave me, leave me! It is my prayer; it is all I ask. Over my night of sorrow dews have fallen, and stars have arisen; let me walk in their light! Only in heaven will I rest, if it may be so, my head upon your breast. Then, when the angels shall name me by a new name, I will steal to your side, and, looking back to earth, over the bastions of the celestial city, you shall call me “`Heaven forgive and pity me, life of my life, that I should be writing you, the night before our bridal, only to say farewell. Our bridal; yes, it shall be so. To-morrow my soul shall marry your soul, though I am far away. I have been mad, for two weeks past, Maud! The ashes of the bottomless pit have been upon my head, and its hot breath has scorched my cheek. I would not tell you, my beloved, because I wished not to drag you down with me to perdition. O, Maud, my darling! Maud, my beloved! Can it be, I never more must draw your head to my heart — never more must look into your blue eyes, or watch the blushes stealing over your cheek? But I am raving. “Can it be that only one sun has set and risen since Stanley Grayson called me his, — since another and a dearer life grew into mine, with the knowledge that I was beloved? O, joy! great, unutterable joy, whose seeds were sown in grief, and watered by the hot tears which made the flowers grow upon my mother's grave! Who shall say, if I had not been thus desolate, I could have felt so deeply this wondrous bliss of love? “A week has passed — a long, sunny week of happiness! Stanley says we must be married in September — his birth-day, September fifth. Papa, dear, good papa, has given me carte blanche as to money. He says I never did cost him anything yet, and have only been a help to him, all my life; and now, when he 's going to lose me, he will give me all he can. Poor papa! I fear, though he likes Stanley, he is hardly reconciled to the idea of my leaving home; for, when he spoke of my going away, the tears came to his eyes, and he looked so regretfully at his easy-chair, and the little ottoman where I always sit beside him! It seemed so selfish in me to go and leave him, — him who has always been so kind to me, — and for one, too, whom I had never seen, a few short months ago! The tears came to my eyes, and for the moment I was half resolved to send Stanley away without me; but, O, I know that already my soul is married to his soul, and I cannot give him up. Lizzie will come home in July, and she can stay with papa. Do I love Stanley better than papa? Why do I not say Lizzie will do for Stanley? And why would she not — she, so good, so young, so very beautiful? “O, how dear, how much dearer than ever, my future husband is every day becoming to my heart! How long a time since I 've written here before! but then I 'm so busy, and so happy! “O, how it rains! — Such a perfect wail as the wind makes, hurrying by, as if its viewless feet were `swift to do evil!' Poor Lizzie! she is inside the stage, I suppose; she will have a long, uncomfortable ride! I don't know why it is, but my soul seems to go out toward her to-night more than ever. I have thought of Stanley so much lately, that I 've not had so much time to think of my poor child, and now my heart is reproaching me. Sweet Lizzie! She and Stanley have never met. How proud I am of them both! I am sure they must be pleased with each other. Stanley is in his room now. I sent him up to put on his black coat, and that new vest in which he looks so well. “Yes, it was dear Lizzie. Stanley heard the horn too, and hurried down stairs. I bade him go and meet Lizzie; for it was raining, and papa was n't half awake. I followed him to the door, and he received Lizzie in his arms. She thought it was papa, for, what with the night and the rain, it was quite dark; and she pressed her lips to his face again and again. But when he brought her into the pleasant, brightly-lighted parlor, and set her down, she pushed from her white shoulders her heavy cloak, and glanced around; that is, as soon as she could, for at first I held her to my heart so closely she could see nothing. When papa took her in his arms, and welcomed her, and bade God bless her, she glanced at his slippers and dressing-gown, and then at Stanley, who was looking at her with a shade of amusement at her perplexity, and yet with the most vivid admiration I ever saw portrayed on his fine features. At last he laughed out, merrily. “I am a little lonely, I 'm left so much alone now. The long rides over the hills continue, and of course I stay at home, for there is no horse for me to ride. Stanley comes and kisses me just before he goes off, and says, `You are always so busy, Katie!' but he says nothing of late about the reason I am so busy — nothing about our marriage. “Two days, and I am writing here again; but O, how changed! I have been struck by a thunderbolt. I have had a struggle, brief, but very fierce; and it is past. I was sailing in a fair ship, upon calm waters; there were only a few clouds in the sky. Sunlight rested on the waves, and in the distance I could see a floating pleasure-island, green and calm, made beautiful with tropic flowers, where gorgeous birds rested, and sang love-songs all the day. Merrily the bark dashed onward. Loved forms were by my side, and one dearer than all was at the helm; but from the clear sky a tempest-blast swept suddenly. It had sobbed no warning of the doom it was bringing us. “A month has passed since I wrote here last; I hardly know why, myself. It has been a long summer month. Days are so long in summer, and they have seemed like centuries of late. What a beautiful day it is! The sunshine smiles so pleasantly on the fields, and the bright-winged birds sing, and the insects hum lazily, or go to sleep upon the flowers. It seems to me I never saw such a scene of calm, quiet beauty; — as if Nature had on her holiday garments, decked newly for the sun, her lover. “Lizzie is married, and they have gone; surely no bride ever before looked so beautiful! Her long curls floated over her white robe like sunshine over snow; and her cheeks were fairer than ever, shaded so faintly by her rich veil. She trembled during the ceremony, and I could feel how firm and strong was the lover-like pressure with which Stanley clasped her waist. When we knelt in prayer, his arm was around her still; and I seemed quite to forget my own existence, so intently was I occupied in watching them, so fervent were my prayers for their happiness. It was the hardest when Stanley came back to me, after Lizzie had said good-by, and he had put her in the carriage. He took both my hands in his, and, looking into my eyes, whispered, Never mind Peepy, Mrs. Jellyby! Let the child cry, — let him fall down stairs, and break his nose. What are a thousand Peepies now present, to the mighty schemes of our modern Borioboola-Gha, which will affect the destinies of myriads of Peepies yet to come? Can you fritter away your attention on one man, and his little troop of children, when that new lawgiver — that Moses — that Stephen Pearl Andrews — has told us, woman's chief duty is to be “true to herself, and not true to any man”? Thanks, Mr. Andrews! We, little girl that we are, did n't know our duty before. We 've found out, now. Never mind if there were tears in his eyes, when he whispered, “I can't live, if you change!” We know our duty now, and it 's not much matter what he suffers in so good a cause. “Miss Adams: Perhaps it may give you some satisfaction to learn that, in compliment to you, I returned from New York last night, instead of this morning, as I at first intended. I went over to Oakwood, and, in the natural indulgence of a lover's curiosity, was a witness of the pleasant scene in your favorite bower. I presume it will be an occasion of heartfelt rejoicing to you to know that you are quite free from all the ties which have bound you to No, no, nothing but that! She has never derived any additional importance from linking her name with yours, imperial man! — never grown angelized by a wife's thrice-drugged potion of care and sorrow. She lives alone, in a little, lonely house, — alone, with her black cat, and her memories of the past! “Edward Gray: Ellen Adair is ill — dying. She will die to-night. I do not say if you ever loved her, for I know you did, but, if you love her now, come to us directly. “`I am surprised, Mr. Harding, at the acuteness which enables you to divine my wishes so readily. I trust the attachment which can so easily relinquish its object will not be difficult to overcome. For your kindness in procuring me this casket, I am infinitely obliged; but you must, of necessity, excuse my accepting it, as it is a present of too great value for a lady to receive from any but her lover. Enclosed you will find your miniature and letters, and a certain emerald ring, the pledge of a tie now broken. You will excuse me from coming down, as I have a head-ache this morning. I wish you God-speed on your journey, long life and happiness, and remain your friend, “Many months have passed since last we met. Summers and winters have been braided into years, and still on my heart is your name written; not one hieroglyph that you traced there has been obliterated. Heart and soul I am, what I always have been, yours! I married Clara the day succeeding our last meeting, and I love her very much. Can you reconcile this with what I have just written? I am yours, as I said; you, even you, my Agnes, are more to me than all the rest of earth; but it is much to feel we can make another human being entirely happy.
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6Author:  Simms William Gilmore 1806-1870Add
 Title:  Eutaw  
 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 is surely an early hour for the whip-poor-will to begin her monotonous plainings, sitting on her accustomed hawthorn, just on the edge of the swamp. The sun has hardly dropped from sight behind the great pine-thickets. His crimson and orange robes still flaunt and flicker in the western heavens; gleams from his great red eyes still purple the tree-tops; and you may still see a cheerful light hanging in the brave, free atmosphere; while gray shapes, like so many half-hooded friars, glide away through the long pine-avenues, inviting you, as it would seem, to follow, while they steal away slowly from pursuit into the deeper thickets of the swamp. “My child, my dear Bertha: To you alone can I look for the rescue of your brother and myself. We are in the power of an enemy, who requires your hand in marriage for the safety of my own and my son's life. We have forfeited the security of British law. My own offences are such that, delivered to the commandant of Charleston, as I am threatened, my death — an ignominious death — must follow. Your brother is a captive also, charged with murdering the king's soldiers without a warrant. He is suffering in health by his unavoidable confinement. He can not long live in the condition in which he is kept; and his release and mine are made to depend entirely on you. Let me implore you, my child, to come to our succor, and to save us. Become the wife of Captain Inglehardt, and suffer us once more to see the light of heaven, and enjoy the freedom of earth. Come, my beloved child, to our rescue; and, in making the sacrifice of your choice, to my own, receive the blessings of your fond, but fettered father. [P. S.] You will readily conceive our exigency, when I tell you that my wrists and feet are even now in manacles of iron, and have been so from the first day of my captivity. For a time, indeed, your brother Henry was held in similar fetters.” “Sorry, my dear colonel, to cut short your roving commission; doubly sorry that it has not yet resulted as you could wish. But we can spare you from the main action of the drama no longer. We are now, I think, approaching the denouément, and require all our heroes on the stage. Stewart is in rapid march downward — a little too strong for us yet, particularly with the reinforcements which he will get from the lower posts. We hear of these in motion from several quarters, as many as a thousand or twelve hundred men. These, in addition to his estimated strength at present of twenty-three hundred, will give heavy odds against us, unless our mounted men come out much more numerously than usual. Greene is on the march, somewhat recruited, but very little strengthened. Congress has done nothing — can or will do nothing — not even give us arms and ammunition! Three hundred of our people are still without serviceable weapons of any kind, and seven hundred without jackets or breeches. It is really lucky that we have hot weather. We must make up in zeal what we lack in men and munitions, and only fight the harder from having but little means with which to fight at all! That, my dear Sinclair, is a new philosophy for the management of armies, but it is one that will not seem altogether silly in the estimation of the true patriot. At all events, it is about the best that I can give to you, who know how to fight so well on short commons; and it affords the only hope upon which I have fed (very like fasting) for a long season! Once more, then, my dear Sinclair, let me regret the necessity which requires that you rejoin your brigade, and defer, for a brief season, the painfully interesting personal enterprises upon which you are engaged.
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7Author:  Simms William Gilmore 1806-1870Add
 Title:  Southward ho!  
 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 was at New York in the opening of July. My trunks were packed, and I was drawing on my boots, making ready for departure. Everybody was leaving town, flying from the approaching dog-days in the city. I had every reason to depart also. I had certainly no motive to remain. New York was growing inconceivably dull with all her follies. Art wore only its stalest aspects, and lacked all attractions to one who had survived his own verdancy. Why should I linger?
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8Author:  Simms William Gilmore 1806-1870Add
 Title:  Vasconselos  
 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 is the province of romance, even more decidedly than history, to recall the deeds and adventures of the past. It is to fiction that we must chiefly look for those living and breathing creations which history quite too unfrequently deigns to summon to her service. The warm atmosphere of present emotions, and present purposes, belongs to the dramatis personœ of art; and she is never so well satisfied in showing us human performances, as when she betrays the passions and affections by which they were dictated and endured. It is in spells and possessions of this character, that she so commonly supersedes the sterner muse whose province she so frequently invades; and her offices are not the less legitimate, as regards the truthfulness of things in general, than are those of history, because she supplies those details which the latter, unwisely as we think, but too commonly, holds beneath her regard. In the work before us, however, it is our purpose to slight neither agency. We shall defer to each of them, in turn, as they may be made to serve a common purpose. They both appeal to our assistance, and equally spread their possessions beneath our eyes. We shall employ, without violating, the material resources of the Historian, while seeking to endow them with a vitality which fiction only can confer. It is in pursuit of this object that we entreat the reader to suppose the backward curtain withdrawn, unveiling, if only for a moment, the aspects of a period not so remote as to lie wholly beyond our sympathies. We propose to look back to that dawn of the sixteenth century; at all events, to such a portion of the historical landscape of that period, as to show us some of the first sunny gleams of European light upon the savage dominions of the Western Continent. To review this epoch is, in fact, to survey the small but impressive beginnings of a wondrous drama in which we, ourselves, are still living actors. The scene is almost within our grasp. The names of the persons of our narrative have not yet ceased from sounding in our ears; and the theatre of performance is one, the boards of which, even at this moment, are echoing beneath their mighty footsteps. Our curiosity and interest may well be awakened for awhile, to an action, the fruits of which, in some degree, are inuring to our present benefit.
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9Author:  Stoddard Elizabeth 1823-1902Add
 Title:  The Morgesons  
 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: “That child,” said my aunt Mercy, looking at me with indigo-colored eyes, “is possessed.”
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10Author:  Stoddard Elizabeth 1823-1902Add
 Title:  Temple House  
 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: Early one autumn morning, on his forty-first birthday, Argus Gates walked down the old turfy lawn, and felt immortal in his human powers. The elms above him dropped warning leaves, the silver cobwebs in the grass vanished beneath his tread, and the sere grass rose not again; but Aurora was in the sky. The stalwart, willing earth dipped beneath her chariot wheels, to lave in the rays flooding from those eyes fixed in “The ever silent spaces of the East,” and Argus was one with the earth. “Dear Mother: You never saw such work; we lost the small trunk, which was not marked. Have you seen Virginia? Her society will make amends for my absence. I wish I was at home, but I like travelling. I saw somebody yesterday that looked exactly like Mary Sutcliffe. I had half a mind to ask her if the cat's kittens had yellow patches, or if they were black and white: Mary said the cat would have kittens by the time I got back. You can't think how fish seems to be prized at these hotels, while we care nothing for it. We stopped in Boston, and John bought me an Indian scarf. In New York he bought me a dark blue silk; he is very attentive, but he has a cold. I had it made, and it is trimmed with black lace. Mother, the lace was three dollars a yard. We are in Chicago now. The air has a flat taste to me; it is different from Kent air. Of course, Uncle Argus has worried about me; oh yes, I think he is pining away. There are no good preserves at any hotel; the noise at these great houses, would drive you wild, mother; you would never again wink your eyes at my slamming doors, could you stay in one awhile. Have those Drakes been to see you? I do not care for them; do you, mother? I shall visit them but very little. John asked me if I would go to housekeeping in warm weather. I said, “Er, em, em,” which ment “yes” to him; to me, “nary housekeeping.” Why should I wash dishes for him, and dust furniture, and learn not to suit him in cooking—let me see, four times a day. He is too particular about his food. Mother, I had rather eat your dry bread; I hate to see people imagining they would like to have this, and that, to eat. I shall be gone some weeks yet. I'll help you knit when I return. John has snatched this from the table, and I am mad, for he laughs loud at it, and says—“Give me a kiss?” but I won't. It is eleven o'clock; there is no lamp burning in Temple House; you are asleep.
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11Author:  Stoddard Elizabeth 1823-1902Add
 Title:  Two men  
 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: When Jason Auster married Sarah Parke he was twenty years old, and a house-carpenter. As he was not of age, he made some agreement with a hard father by which liberty was gained, and a year's wages lost. He left his native village filled with no adventurous spirit, but with a simple confidence that he should find the place where he could earn a living by his trade, and put in practice certain theories concerning the rights of men and property which had already made him a pest at home. The stage-coach which conveyed him thence, traversed a line of towns that made no impression from his point of view—the coach window; but when it stopped to change horses at Crest, a lively maritime town, and he alighted to stretch his cramped legs, he saluted Destiny. Its aspect, that spring day, pleased him; he heard the rain of blows from broad-axes in the ship-yards by the water's edge, and saw new roofs and chimneys rising along the irregular streets among the rows of ancient houses, and concluded to stay. He unstrapped a small trunk from the stage-rack, carried it into the tavern entry, and looked about him for some one to address. A man who had been eying the trunk advanced towards him with a resolutely closed mouth, and hands concealed in his pockets.
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12Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Add
 Title:  Dred  
 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: “Bills, Harry? — Yes. — Dear me, where are they? — There! — No. Here? — O, look! — What do you think of this scarf? Is n't it lovely?”
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13Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Add
 Title:  Dred  
 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: Our readers will perhaps feel an interest to turn back with us, and follow the singular wanderings of the mysterious personage, whose wild denunciations had so disturbed the minds of the worshippers at the camp-meeting. My dear Brother: I told you how comfortably we were living on our place — I and my children. Since then, everything has been changed. Mr. Tom Gordon came here and put in a suit for the estate, and attached me and my children as slaves. He is a dreadful man. The case has been tried and gone against us. The judge said that both deeds of emancipation — both the one executed in Ohio, and the one here — were of no effect; that my boy was a slave, and could no more hold property than a mule before a plough. I had some good friends here, and people pitied me very much; but nobody could help me. Tom Gordon is a bad man — a very bad man. I cannot tell you all that he said to me. I only tell you that I will kill myself and my children before we will be his slaves. Harry, I have been free, and I know what liberty is. My children have been brought up free, and if I can help it they never shall know what slavery is. I have got away, and am hiding with a colored family here in Natchez. I hope to get to Cincinnati, where I have friends. “It seems to me that I have felt a greater change in me within the last two months than in my whole life before. When I look back at what I was in New York, three months ago, actually I hardly know myself. It seems to me in those old days that life was only a frolic to me, as it is to the kitten. I don't really think that there was much harm in me, only the want of good. In those days, sometimes I used to have a sort of dim longing to be better, particularly when Livy Ray was at school. It seemed as if she woke up something that had been asleep in me; but she went away, and I fell asleep again, and life went on like a dream. Then I became acquainted with you, and you began to rouse me again, and for some time I thought I did n't like to wake; it was just as it is when one lies asleep in the morning — it 's so pleasant to sleep and dream, that one resists any one who tries to bring them back to life. I used to feel quite pettish when I first knew you, and sometimes wished you 'd let me alone, because I saw that you belonged to a different kind of sphere from what I 'd been living in. And I had a presentiment that, if I let you go on, life would have to be something more than a joke with me. But you would, like a very indiscreet man as you are, you would insist on being in sober earnest. “If I was so happy, my dearest one, as to be able to awaken that deeper and higher nature which I always knew was in you, I thank God. But, if I ever was in any respect your teacher, you have passed beyond my teachings now. Your childlike simplicity of nature makes you a better scholar than I in that school where the first step is to forget all our worldly wisdom, and become a little child. We men have much more to contend with, in the pride of our nature, in our habits of worldly reasoning. It takes us long to learn the lesson that faith is the highest wisdom. Don't trouble your head, dear Nina, with Aunt Nesbit or Mr. Titmarsh. What you feel is faith. They define it, and you feel it. And there 's all the difference between the definition and the feeling, that there is between the husk and the corn. “You say you may to-day be called to do something which you think right, but which will lose you many friends; which will destroy your popularity, which may alter all your prospects in life; and you ask if I can love you yet. I say, in answer, that it was not your friends that I loved, nor your popularity, nor your prospects, but you. I can love and honor a man who is not afraid nor ashamed to do what he thinks to be right; and therefore I hope ever to remain yours, “We are all in affliction here, my dear friend. Poor Uncle John died this morning of the cholera. I had been to E— to see a doctor and provide medicines. When I came back I thought I would call a few moments at the house, and I found a perfect scene of horror. Poor uncle died, and there are a great many sick on the place now; and while I was thinking that I would stay and help aunt, a messenger came in all haste, saying that the disease had broken out on our place at home. “Mr. Clayton: I am now an outcast. I cannot show my face in the world, I cannot go abroad by daylight; for no crime, as I can see, except resisting oppression. Mr. Clayton, if it were proper for your fathers to fight and shed blood for the oppression that came upon them, why is n't it right for us? They had not half the provocation that we have. Their wives and families were never touched. They were not bought, and sold, and traded, like cattle in the market, as we are. In fact, when I was reading that history, I could hardly understand what provocation they did have. They had everything easy and comfortable about them. They were able to support their families, even in luxury. And yet they were willing to plunge into war, and shed blood. I have studied the Declaration of Independence. The things mentioned there were bad and uncomfortable, to be sure; but, after all, look at the laws which are put over us! Now, if they had forbidden them to teach their children to read, — if they had divided them all out among masters, and declared them incapable of holding property as the mule before the plough, — there would have been some sense in that revolution. “I have received your letter. I need not say that I am sorry for all that has taken place — sorry for your sake, and for the sake of one very dear both to me and to you. Harry, I freely admit that you live in a state of society which exercises a great injustice. I admit your right, and that of all men, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I admit the right of an oppressed people to change their form of government, if they can. I admit that your people suffer under greater oppression than ever our fathers suffered. And, if I believed that they were capable of obtaining and supporting a government, I should believe in their right to take the same means to gain it. But I do not, at present; and I think, if you will reflect on the subject, you will agree with me. I do not think that, should they make an effort, they would succeed. They would only embitter the white race against them, and destroy that sympathy which many are beginning to feel for their oppressed condition. I know it seems a very unfeeling thing for a man who is at ease to tell one, who is oppressed and suffering, to be patient; and yet I must even say it. It is my place, and our place, to seek repeal of the unjust laws which oppress you. I see no reason why the relation of master and servants may not be continued through our states, and the servants yet be free men. I am satisfied that it would be for the best interests of master as well as slave. If this is the truth, time will make it apparent, and the change will come. With regard to you, the best counsel I can give is, that you try to escape to some of the northern states; and I will furnish you with means to begin life there under better auspices. I am very sorry that I have to tell you something very painful about your sister. She was sold to a trading-house in Alexandria, and, in desperation, has killed both her children! For this she is now in prison, awaiting her trial! I have been to see her, and offered every assistance in my power. She declines all. She does not wish to live, and has already avowed the fact; making no defence, and wishing none to be made for her. Another of the bitter fruits of this most unrighteous system! She desired her love and kind wishes to you. Whatever more is to be known, I will tell you at some future time. “Whereas, complaint upon oath hath this day been made to us, two of the Justices of the Peace for the said county and state aforesaid, by Thomas Gordon, that a certain male slave belonging to him, named Harry, a carpenter by trade, about thirty-five years old, five feet four inches high, or thereabouts; dark complexion, stout built, blue eyes, deep sunk in his head, forehead very square, tolerably loud voice; hath absented himself from his master's service, and is supposed to be lurking about in the swamp, committing acts of felony or other misdeeds. These are, therefore, in the name of the state aforesaid, to command said slave forthwith to surrender himself, and return home to his said master. And we do hereby, by virtue of the act of assembly, in such case made and provided, intimate and declare that, if the said slave Harry doth not surrender himself, and return home immediately after the publication of these presents, that any person or persons may kill and destroy the said slave by such means as he or they may think fit, without accusation or impeachment of any crime or offence for so doing, and without incurring any penalty or forfeiture thereby. Given under our hands and seal, “I, James Rochelle, Clerk of the County Court of Southampton, in the State of Virginia, do hereby certify, that Jeremiah Cobb, Thomas Pretlow, James W. Parker, Carr Bowers, Samuel B. Hines, and Orris A. Browne, Esqrs., are acting justices of the peace in and for the county aforesaid; and were members of the court which convened at Jerusalem, on Saturday, the fifth day of November, 1831, for the trial of Nat, alias Nat Turner, a negro slave, late the property of Putnam Moore, deceased, who was tried II. 29* and convicted, as an insurgent in the late insurrection in the County of Southampton aforesaid, and that full faith and credit are due and ought to be given to their acts as justices of the peace aforesaid. “`I see that Castleman, who lately had a trial for whipping a slave to death in Virginia, was “triumphantly acquitted,” — as many expected. There are three persons in this city, with whom I am acquainted, who staid at Castleman's the same night in which this awful tragedy was enacted. They heard the dreadful lashing, and the heartrending screams and entreaties of the sufferer. They implored the only white man they could find on the premises, not engaged in the bloody work, to interpose, but for a long time he refused, on the ground that he was a dependant, and was afraid to give offence; and that, moreover, they had been drinking, and he was in fear for his own life, should he say a word that would be displeasing to them. He did, however, venture, and returned and reported the cruel manner in which the slaves were chained, and lashed, and secured in a blacksmith's vice. In the morning, when they ascertained that one of the slaves was dead, they were so shocked and indignant that they refused to eat in the house, and reproached Castleman with his cruelty. He expressed his regret that the slave had died, and especially as he had ascertained that he was innocent of the accusation for which he had suffered. The idea was that he had fainted from exhaustion; and, the chain being round his neck, he was strangled. The persons I refer to are themselves slaveholders; but their feelings were so harrowed and lacerated that they could not sleep (two of them are ladies), and for many nights afterwards their rest was disturbed, and their dreams made frightful, by the appalling recollection. “`State of North Carolina, Lenoir County. — Whereas complaint hath been this day made to us, two of the justices of the peace for the said county, by William D. Cobb, of Jones County, that two negro slaves belonging to him, named Ben (commonly known by the name of Ben Fox) and Rigdon, have absented themselves from their said master's service, and are lurking about in the Counties of Lenoir and Jones, committing acts of felony; these are, in the name of the state, to command the said slaves forthwith to surrender themselves, and turn home to their said master. And we do hereby also require the sheriff of said County of Lenoir to make diligent search and pursuit after the above-mentioned slaves.... And we do hereby, by virtue of an act of assembly of this state concerning servants and slaves, intimate and declare, if the said slaves do not surrender themselves and return home to their master immediately after the publication of these presents, that any person may kill or destroy said slaves by such means as he or they think fit, without accusation or impeachment of any crime or offence for so doing, or without incurring any penalty of forfeiture thereby. “`$200 Reward. — Ran away from the subscriber, about three years ago, a certain negro man, named Ben, commonly known by the name of Ben Fox; also one other negro, by the name of Rigdon, who ran away on the eighth of this month. “`State of North Carolina, New Hanover County. — Whereas complaint, upon oath, hath this day been made to us, two of the justices of the peace for the said state and county aforesaid, by Guilford Horn, of Edgecombe County, that a certain male slave belonging to him, named Harry, a carpenter by trade, about forty years old, five feet five inches high, or thereabouts; yellow complexion; stout built; with a scar on his left leg (from the cut of an axe); has very thick lips; eyes deep sunk in his head; forehead very square; tolerably loud voice; has lost one or two of his upper teeth; and has a very dark spot on his jaw, supposed to be a mark, — hath absented himself from his master's service, and is supposed to be lurking about in this county, committing acts of felony or other misdeeds; these are, therefore, in the name of state aforesaid, to command the said slave forthwith to surrender himself and return home to his said master; and we do hereby, by virtue of the act of assembly in such cases made and provided, intimate and declare that if the said slave Harry doth not surrender himself and return home immediately after the publication of these presents, that any person or persons may KILL and DESTROY the said slave by such means as he or they may think fit, without accusation or impeachment of any crime or offence in so doing, and without incurring any penalty or forfeiture thereby. “`One Hundred and Twenty-five Dollars Reward will be paid for the delivery of the said Harry to me at Tosnott Depot, Edgecombe County, or for his confinement in any jail in the state, so that I can get him; or One Hundred and Fifty Dollars will be given for his head. “If the plan of separation gives us the pastoral care of you, it remains to inquire whether we have done anything, as a conference, or as men, to forfeit your confidence and affection. We are not advised that even in the great excitement which has distressed you for some months past, any one has impeached our moral conduct, or charged us with unsoundness in doctrine, or corruption or tyranny in the administration of discipline. But we learn that the simple cause of the unhappy excitement among you is, that some suspect us, or affect to suspect us, of being abolitionists. Yet no particular act of the Conference, or any particular member thereof, is adduced as the ground of the erroneous and injurious suspicion. We would ask you, brethren, whether the conduct of our ministry among you for sixty years past ought not to be sufficient to protect us from this charge. Whether the question we have been accustomed, for a few years past, to put to candidates for admission among us, namely, Are you an abolitionist? and, without each one answered in the negative, he was not received, ought not to protect us from the charge. Whether the action of the last Conference on this particular matter ought not to satisfy any fair and candid mind that we are not, and do not desire to be, abolitionists. * * * * We cannot see how we can be regarded as abolitionists, without the ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church South being considered in the same light. * * *
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14Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Add
 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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15Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Add
 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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16Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Add
 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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17Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Add
 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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18Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Add
 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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19Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Add
 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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20Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Add
 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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