| | 181 | Author: | Flint
Timothy
1780-1840 | Add | | | Title: | George Mason, the young backwoodsman, or, 'Don't give up the ship"  | | | | 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: | Widow, who weepest sore in the night, and whose
tears are on thy cheeks, because thy young children are
fatherless, and the husband of thy bosom and thy youth
in the dust, dry thy tears. Remember Him, who hath
promised to be the husband of the widow, and take
courage. Orphan, who hast seen thy venerated father
taken from thee by the rude hand of death, and whose
thought is, that in the wide world, there is none to love,
pity, or protect thee, forget not the gracious Being, who
has promised to be a father to the orphan, and remember,
that thy business in life is, not to give up to weak
and enervating despondence, and waste thy strength in
sorrow and tears. Life is neither an anthem nor a
funeral hymn, but an assigned task of discipline and
struggle, and thou hast to gird thyself, and go to thy
duty in the strength of God. I write for the young,
the poor, and the desolate; and the moral and the maxim
which I wish to inculcate is, that we ought never to
despond, either in our religious or our temporal trials.
To parents I would say, inculcate the spirit, the duties,
and the hopes of religion upon your children in the
morning and the evening, in the house and by the way.
Instil decision and moral courage into their young bosoms.
Teach them incessantly the grand maxim—self-respect.
It will go farther to gain them respect, and
render them deserving of it, than the bequeathed stores
of hoarded coffers. A child, deeply imbued with self-respect,
will never disgrace his parents. The inculcation
of this single point includes, in my view, the best
scope of education. If my powers corresponded to my
wishes, I would impress these thoughts in the following
brief and unpretending story. The reader will see, if
he knows the country, where it is laid, as I do, that it
is true to nature. He will comprehend my motive for
not being more explicit on many points; and he will not
turn away with indifference from the short and simple
annals of the poor, for he will remember, that nine in
ten of our brethren of the human race are of that class.
He will not dare to despise the lowly tenants of the valley,
where the Almighty, in his wisdom, has seen fit to
place the great mass of our race. It has been for ages
the wicked, and unfeeling, and stupid habit of writers,
in selecting their scenery and their examples, to act as
if they supposed that the rich, the titled, and the distinguished,
who dwell in mansions, and fare sumptuously
every day, were the only persons, who could display
noble thinking and acting; that they were the only characters,
whose loves, hopes, fortunes, sufferings, and
deeds had any thing in them, worthy of interest, or
sympathy. Who, in reading about these favorites of
fortune, remembers that they constitute but one in ten
thousand of the species? Even those of humble name
and fortunes have finally caught the debasing and enslaving
prejudice themselves, and exult in the actions,
and shed tears of sympathy over the sorrows of the
titled and the great, which, had they been recorded of
1*
those in their own walk of life, would have been viewed
either with indifference or disgust. I well know that
the poor can act as nobly, and suffer as bitterly and
keenly as the rich. There is as much strength and
force and truth of affection in cottages as in palaces.
I am a man, and as such, am affected with the noble
actions, the joys and sorrows, the love and death of the
obscure, as much as of the great. If there be any difference,
the deeds, affections, fortunes, and sufferings of
the former have more interest; for they are unprompted
by vanity, unblazoned by fame, unobscured by affectation,
unalloyed by pride and avarice. The actings of
the heart are sincere, simple, single. God alone has
touched the pendulum with his finger, and the vibrations
are invariably true to the purpose of Him who
made the movement. If, therefore, reader, you feel
with me, you will not turn away with indifference from
this, my tale, because you are forewarned, that none of
the personages are rich or distinguished. You will believe,
that a noble heart can swell in a bosom clad in
the meanest habiliments. You will admit the truth as
well as the beauty of the poet's declaration, respecting
the gems of the sea, and the roses that “waste their
sweetness on the desert air;” and you will believe,
that incidents, full of tender and solemn interest, have
occurred in a log cabin in the forests of the Mississippi. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 182 | Author: | Flint
Timothy
1780-1840 | Add | | | 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 |
| 183 | Author: | Foster
Hannah Webster
1759-1840 | Add | | | 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 |
| 184 | Author: | Hale
Sarah Josepha Buell
1788-1879 | Add | | | 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 |
| 185 | Author: | Hale
Sarah Josepha Buell
1788-1879 | Add | | | 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 |
| 186 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Add | | | Title: | The Prairie | | | | 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: | Much was said and written, at the time, concerning
the policy of adding the vast regions of Louisiana, to
the, already, immense and but half-tenanted territories
of the United States. As the warmth of controversy,
however, subsided, and personal considerations
gave place to more liberal views, the wisdom of the
measure began to be, generally, conceded. It soon
became apparent to the meanest capacity, that, while
nature had placed a barrier of desert to the extension
of our population in the west, the measure had made
us the masters of a belt of fertile country, which, in
the revolutions of the day, might have become the
property of a rival nation. It gave us the sole command
of the great thoroughfare of the interior, and
placed the countless tribes of savages, who lay along
our borders, entirely, within our control; it reconciled
conflicting rights, and quieted national distrusts;
it opened a thousand avenues to the inland trade, and
to the waters of the Pacific; and, if ever time or necessity
should require a peaceful division of this vast
empire, it assures us of a neighbour that would possess
our language, our religion, our institutions, and
it is also to be hoped, our sense of political justice. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 187 | Author: | Hawthorne
Nathaniel
1804-1864 | Add | | | Title: | The Scarlet Letter | | | | 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: | A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments
and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women,
some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was
assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of
which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with
iron spikes. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 188 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Add | | | 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 | Add | | | 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 | Add | | | 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 | Add | | | 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 | Add | | | 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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