| | 181 | Author: | Sedgwick
Catharine Maria
1789-1867 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Linwoods; Or, "sixty Years Since" in America  | | | | 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: | Some two or three years before our revolutionary
war, just at the close of day, two girls were seen
entering Broadway through a wicket garden-gate,
in the rear of a stately mansion which fronted on
Broad-street, that being then the court-end of the
city—the residence of unquestioned aristocracy—
(sic transit gloria mundi!) whence royal favour
and European fashions were diffused through the
province of New-York. “You must love me, or you could not endure my
stupid letters—you that can write so delightfully
about nothing, and have so much to write about,
while I can tell nothing but what I see, and I see
so little! The outward world does not much interest
me. It is what I feel that I think of and
ponder over; but I know how you detest what you
call sentimental letters, so I try to avoid all such
subjects. Compared with you I am a child—two
years at our age makes a great difference—I am
really very childish for a girl almost fourteen, and
yet, and yet, Isabella, I sometimes seem to myself
to have gone so far beyond childhood, that I have
almost forgotten that careless, light-hearted feeling
I used to have. I do not think I ever was so light-hearted
as some children, and yet I was not
serious—at least, not in the right way. Many a
time, before I was ten years old, I have sat up in
my own little room till twelve o'clock Saturday
night, reading, and then slept for an hour and a
half through the whole sermon the next morning.
I do believe it is the natural depravity of my
heart. I never read over twice a piece of heathen
poetry that moves me but I can repeat it—and
yet, I never could get past `what is effectual calling?'
in the Westminster Catechism; and I always
was in disgrace on Saturday, when parson Wilson
came to the school to hear us recite it:—oh dear,
the sight of his wig and three-cornered hat petrified
me!” “I have been enjoying a very pretty little episode
in my college life, passing the vacation at
Westbrook, with your old friends the Lees. A
month in a dull little country town would once
have seemed to me penance enough for my worst
sin, but now it is heaven to get anywhere beyond
the sound of college bells—beyond the reach of
automaton tutors—periodical recitations—chapel
prayers, and college rules. —Never say another word to
me of what you hinted in your last letter: indeed,
I am too young; and besides, I never should feel
easy or happy again with Jasper, if I admitted
such a thought. I have had but one opinion since
our visit to Effie; not that I believed in her—at
least, not much; but I have always known who
was first in his thoughts—heart—opinion; and besides,
it would be folly in me, knowing his opinions
about rank, &c. Mother thinks him very proud,
and somewhat vain; and she begins not to be
pleased with his frequent visits to Westbrook. She
thinks—no, fears, or rather she imagines, that Jasper
and I—no, that Jasper or I—no, that I—
it is quite too foolish to write, Isabella—mother
does not realize what a wide world there is between
us. I might possibly, sometimes, think he loved
(this last word was carefully effaced, and cared
substituted) cared for me, if he did not know you. “Thanks, dear Isabella, for your delightful letter
by Jasper—no longer Jasper, I assure you to his
face, but Mr. Meredith—oh, I often wish the time
back when I was a child, and might call him Jasper,
and feel the freedom of a child. I wonder if
I should dare to call you Belle now, or even Isabella?
Jasper, since his last visit at home, tells me
so much of your being `the mirror of fashion—
the observed of all observers' (these are his own
words—drawing-room terms that were never heard
in Westbrook but from his lips), that I feel a sort of
fearful shrinking. It is not envy—I am too happy
now to envy anybody in the wide world. Eliot is
at home, and Jasper is passing a week here. Is it
not strange they should be so intimate, when they
differ so widely on political topics? I suppose it
is because Jasper does not care much about the
matter; but this indifference sometimes provokes
Eliot. Jasper is very intimate with Pitcairn and
Lord Percy; and Eliot thinks they have more influence
with him than the honour and interest of
his country. Oh, they talk it over for hours and
hours, and end, as men always do with their arguments,
just where they began. Jasper insists that
as long as the quarrel can be made up it is much
wisest to stand aloof, and not, `like mad boys, to
rush foremost into the first fray;' besides, he says
he is tied by a promise to his uncle that he will
have nothing to do with these agitating disputes
till his education is finished. Mother says (she
does not always judge Jasper kindly) that it is very
easy and prudent to bind your hands with a promise
when you do not choose to lift them. —The world seems turned
upside down since I began this letter—war (war,
what an appalling sound) has begun—blood has
been spilt, and our dear, dear Eliot—but I must
tell you first how it all was. Eliot and Jasper were
out shooting some miles from Cambridge, when, on
coming to the road, they perceived an unusual commotion—old
men and young, and even boys, all
armed, in wagons, on horseback, and on foot, were
coming from all points, and all hurrying onward in
one direction. On inquiring into the hurly-burly,
they were told that Colonel Smith had marched to
Concord to destroy the military stores there; and
that our people were gathering from all quarters to
oppose his return. Eliot immediately joined them,
Jasper did not; but, dear Isabella, I that know
you so well, know, whatever others may think, that
tories may be true and noble. There was a fight
at Lexington. Our brave men had the best of it.
Eliot was the first to bring us the news. With
a severe wound in his arm, he came ten miles that
we need not be alarmed by any reports, knowing,
as he told mother, that she was no Spartan mother,
to be indifferent whether her son came home with
his shield or on his shield. Miss Linwood to Bessie Lee. —A week—a stormy, miserable
week has passed since I wrote the above, and it
has ended in Herbert's leaving us, and dishonouring
his father's name by taking a commission in the
rebel service. Papa has of course had a horrible
fit of the gout. He says he has for ever cast
Herbert out of his affections. Ah! I am not skilled
in metaphysics, but I know that we have no power
whatever over our affections. Mamma takes it all
patiently, and chiefly sorroweth for that Herbert
has lost caste by joining the insurgents, whom she
thinks little better than so many Jack Cades. “You say, my dear madam, that you have
heard `certain reports about me, which you are not
willing to believe, and yet cannot utterly discredit.'
You say, also, `that though you should revolt with
horror from sanctioning your son in those liaisons
that are advised by Lord Chesterfield, and others
of your friends, yet you see no harm in' loverlike
attentions `to young persons in inferior stations;
they serve' you add, `to keep alive and cultivate
that delicate finesse so essential to the success
of a man of the world, and, provided they
have no immoral purpose, are quite innocent,' as the
object of them must know there is an `impassable
gulf between her and her superiors in rank, and
is therefore responsible for her mistakes.' I have
been thus particular in echoing your words, that I
may assure you my conduct is in conformity to
their letter and spirit. Tranquillize yourself, my
dear madam. There is nothing, in any little fooleries
I may be indulging in, to disquiet you for a
moment. The person in question is a divine little
creature—quite a prodigy for this part of the
world, where she lives in a seclusion almost equal to
that of Prospero's isle; so that your humble servant,
being scarce more than the `third man that e'er
she saw,' it would not be to marvel at `if he
should be the first that e'er she loved'—and if I am,
it is my destiny—my conscience is quite easy—
I never have committed myself, nor ever shall:
time and absence will soon dissipate her illusions.
She is an unaspiring little person, quite aware of
the gulf, as you call it, between us. She believes
that even if I were lover and hero enough to play
the Leander and swim it, my destiny is fixed on
the other side. I have no distrust of myself, and I
beg you will have none; I am saved from all responsibility
as to involving the happiness of this
lily of the valley, by her very clear-sighted mother,
7*
and her sage of a brother, her natural guardians. “I have arrived thus far, my dear mother, on
my journey; and, according to my promise, am
beginning the correspondence which is to soften
our separation. “My sweet sister Bessie, nothing has afflicted
me so much in leaving home as parting from you.
I am inclined to believe there can be no stronger
nor tenderer affection than that of brother and
sister; the sense of protection on one part, and
dependance on the other; the sweet recollections
of childhood; the unity of interest; and the communion
of memory and hope, blend their hearts
together into one existence. So it is with us—is
it not, my dear sister? With me, certainly; for
though, like most young men, I have had my
fancies, they have passed by like the summer
breeze, and left no trace of their passage. All the
love, liking (I cannot find a word to express the
essential volatility of the sentiment in my experience
of it) that I have ever felt for all my
favourites, brown and fair, does not amount to one
thousandth part of the immutable affection that I
bear you, my dear sister. I speak only of my
own experience, Bessie, and, as I well know,
against the faith of the world. I should be told
that my fraternal love would pale in the fires of
another passion, as does a lamp at the shining of
the sun; but I don't believe a word of it—do you,
Bessie? I am not, my dear sister, playing the
inquisitor with you, but fearfully and awkwardly
enough approaching a subject on which I thought
it would be easier to write than to speak; but I
find it cannot be easy to do that, in any mode,
which may pain you. —I arrived safely at
headquarters on the 22d. Colonel Ashley received
me with open arms. He applauded my
resolution to join the army, and bestowed his curses
liberally (as is his wont on whatever displeases him)
on the young men who linger at home, while the
gallant spirits of France and Poland are crossing
the ocean to volunteer in our cause. He rubbed
his hands exultingly when I told him that it was
your self-originating decision that I should leave
you. `The only son of your mother—that is, the
only one to speak of' (forgive him, Sam and Hal),
`and she a widow!' he exclaimed. `Let them talk
about their Spartan mothers, half men and demimonsters;
but look at our women-folks, as tender
and as timid of their broods as hens, and as bold
and self-sacrificing as martyrs! You come of a
good stock, my boy, and so I shall tell the gin'ral.
He's old Virginia, my lad; and looks well to blood
in man and horse.' —I write under the inspiration
of the agreeable consciousness that my letter may
pass under the sublime eye of your commander-in-chief,
or be scanned and sifted by his underlings.
I wish to Heaven that, without endangering your
bright orbs, I could infuse some retributive virtue
into my ink to strike them blind. But the deuse
take them. I defy their oversight. I am not discreet
enough to be trusted with military or political
secrets, and therefore, like Hotspur's Kate, I
can betray none. As to my own private affairs,
though I do not flatter myself I have attained a
moral eminence which I may challenge the world
to survey, yet I'll expose nothing to you, dear Belle,
whose opinion I care more for than that of king,
lords, and commons, which the whole world may
not know without your loving brother being dishonoured
thereby: so, on in my usual `streak o'
lightning style,' with facts and feelings. “No, no, my dear Belle, I cannot remove to the
city—it must not be; and I am sorry the question
is again mooted. `A woman, and naturally born
to fears,' I may be; but because I have that inconvenient
inheritance, I see no reason why I
should cherish and augment it. Your imagination,
which is rather an active agent, has magnified
the terrors of the times; and it seems just
now to be unduly excited by the monstrous tales
circulated in the city, of the atrocities the Yankees
have committed on the tories. I see in Rivington's
Gazette, which you wrapped around the
sugarplums that you sent the children (thank you),
various precious anecdotes of Yankee tigers and
tory lambs, forsooth! that are just about as true
as the tales of giants and ogres with which your
childhood was edified. The Yankees are a civilized
race, and never, God bless them! commit
gratuitous cruelties. If they still `see it to be
duty' (to quote their own Puritan phrase), they will
cling to this contest till they have driven the remnant
of your Israel, Belle, every tory and Englishman,
from the land; but they will commit no
episodical murders: it is only the ignorant man
that is unnecessarily cruel. They are an instructed,
kind-hearted, Christian people; and of this there
will be abundant proof while the present war is remembered.
Remember, Belle, these people have
unadulterated English blood in their veins, which
to you should be a prevailing argument in their favour;
and believe me, they have a fair portion of
the spirit of their freedom-loving and all-daring ancestors.
Our English mother, God bless her, too,
should have known better than to trammel, scold,
and try to whip her sons into obedience, when
they had come to man's estate, and were fit to
manage their own household. Thank Heaven, I
have outlived the prejudices against the people of
New-England which my father transmitted to his
children. `There they come,' he used to say,
when he saw these busy people driving into the
manor; `every snow brings them, and, d—n them,
every thaw too!' | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 182 | Author: | Sedgwick
Catharine Maria
1789-1867 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Linwoods; Or, "sixty Years Since" in America | | | | 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: | It is reasonable to suppose that the disclosures
which occurred in Sir Henry Clinton's library
would be immediately followed by their natural
sequences: that love declared by one party, and
betrayed by the other, would, according to the
common usages of society, soon issue in mutual
affiancing. But these were not the piping times
of peace, and the harmony of events was sadly
broken by the discords of the period. —I could have huged
you before we parted, I have been so pleased with
you from the beginin to the end of this biznes. I
felt for you in the loss of your hors, and I can't
bear the thots of your riden that sorry jade, that's
only been used to prouling about o' nights, on all
sorts of diviltry; so I've ordered Gurden to put
into your hands a likely oretur, that our fokes at
home has sent up to be sold to the ofisers in camp.
Take it, my boy, and don't feel beholden to me; for
when the war is at end, and it's conveneyent, we'll
settle for it. —I perceive by your letters of
the first, which, thanks to a kind Providence, have
duly come to hand, that it is now nearly three
months since you have heard from us. Much good
and much evil may befall in three months! Much
good have I truly to be grateful for: and chiefly
that your life and health have been thus precious
in the sight of the Lord, and that you have received
honour at the hand of man (of which our good Dr.
Wilson made suitable mention in his prayer last
Sabbath); and, as I humbly trust, approval from
Him who erreth not. “I have read your letters over and over again, till
they have fallen to pieces with the continual dropping
of my hot tears; but every syllable is imprinted
on my heart. You did not believe your
`sister would waste her sensibility, the precious
food of life, in moping melancholy.' Oh, Eliot,
how much better must I have appeared to you than
I was! I have been all my life a hypocrite. You
believed `my mind had a self-rectifying power,'
and I imposed this belief on you! I am ready,
now, to bow my head in the dust for it. `Love,'
said your letter, `can never be incurable when it is
a disease: that is to say, when its object is unworthy.'
Ah, my dear brother, there was your
fatal mistake. It was I that was unworthy—it
was your simple sister that, in her secret, unconfessed
thoughts, believed he loved her, knowing
all the while that his lot was cast with the high,
the gifted, the accomplished—with such as Isabella
Linwood, and not with one so humble in condition,
so little graced by art as I am. I do not blame
him. Heaven knows I do not. `Self-rectifying
power!' Eliot, talk to the reed, that has been uprooted
and borne away by the tides of the ocean,
of its `self-rectifying power!' ” Eliot's maliness was vanquished, and he wept
like a child over his sister's letter. He reproached
himself for having left home. He bitterly reproached
himself for not having foreseen the danger
of her long, exclusive, and confiding intercourse
with Meredith. He was almost maddened when
he thought of the perils to which she must have
been exposed, and of his utter inability to save her
from one of them. The only solacing thought that
occurred to him was the extreme improbability
that her fragile and exhausted frame could support
the fatigues she must encounter, and that even
now, while he wept over her letter (a fortnight had
elapsed since it was written), her gentle spirit
might have entered upon its eternal rest. —I have just chanced
to call at a poor blacksmith's, who, with his worthy
family, is at death's door with a protracted intermittent.
It seems to me that port, like that I
drank with you yesterday, might restore them.
As the man looks like too independent an American
to beg a favour, I have taken the liberty to give
him this order for a bottle or two, telling him, with
a poetic truth, that I had wine in your cellar. It is
your own fault if all your friends feel that they
have a property in your possessions. Adieu.” —Nathan Palmer, a lieutenant in the service
of your king, has been taken in my camp as a
spy, condemned as a spy, and will be hung as a spy. “I have received your note, Jasper; I do not
reply to it hastily; hours of watchfulness and reflection
at the bedside of my friend have given the
maturity of years to my present feeling. I have
loved you, I confess it now; not by a treacherous
blush, but calmly, deliberately, in my own handwriting,
without faltering or emotion of any sort.
Yes, I have loved you, if a sentiment springing
from a most attachable nature, originating in the
accidental intercourse of childhood, fostered by
pride, nurtured by flattery, and exaggerated by an
excited imagination, can be called love. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 183 | Author: | Sedgwick
Catharine Maria
1789-1867 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Live and Let Live, Or, Domestic Service Illustrated | | | | 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: | It was one of the coldest days felt in New-York,
during the winter of 182-, that a baker's cart made
its accustomed halt before a door in Church-street.
It was driven by Charles Lovett, the baker's son,
whose ruddy cheeks, quick movement, and beaming
eye bespoke health, industry, and a happy
temper. This latter attribute seemed somewhat
too severely tested by the tardiness of his customer,
for in vain had he whistled, clapped his
hands, stamped, and repeated his usual cry of
“Hurry! hurry!” He at last leaped from his cart
on to the broken step of the wretched dwelling,
when the upper half of the door was slowly opened,
and a thinly-clad girl appeared, who, in answer to
his prepared question, “Why, what ails you? are
you all asleep?” replied, “Mother does not wish
any bread this morning.” “After deliberating and advising with Mrs. Hyde,
who has been like the kindest of mothers to us,
we have come to a decision which only waits for
your approbation. The bakery is sold to Mr.
Werner, a German, who, when a stranger and quite
destitute, came to the Lovetts, as it seemed, accidentally.
Werner was honest and industrious; he
understood the business thoroughly, and introduced
some improvements. For the last two years he
has been a partner, and now he has bought out
Charles. His two sisters and their old parents
arrived a few weeks since, and a happier family
I never saw. How strange that such a train of
consequences should come from Werner just coming
in to breakfast with us one morning at Mr.
Lovett's. This is what Mrs. Hyde says we should
call providential. Our Father in heaven provides
the opportunity for doing good, and his faithful
children improve it. But to our own affairs: it is
not five years since Mr. Lovett went to Ohio, and
there are already four thousand inhabitants in the
village. The people, he says, are very anxious to
have the bakery going; the bakehouse is built on
the lot Mr. Lovett set off to Charles for his services
when he was apprentice to him. Our house
is nearly done, and large enough for us all. The
ladies in the village will have plenty of work for
the girls' millinery and dressmaking establishment,
and dear Jemmie will keep Charles's books, and
all of us will be in a way to earn an honourable
living; all but you, dear mother; the remainder of
your life must be rest. You shall be our queen-bee,
and we will be your workers. Mrs. Hyde wishes
you to consent to the wedding being here; she
says it will save time (as we must return here on
our way to Pittsburgh) and save the expense of
a journey to Massachusetts. Charles likes this
plan, and I want you to know our family before I
leave it. Mrs. Hyde says she will provide lodgings
for you all at a boarding-house near to us. Is
not this most kind? Oh, mother, you will like her so
much! She has such beautiful manners, not only
in the drawing-room and to ladies, but to all, down to
the man that sweeps off the flagging, and the poor
that beg at her door. She truly seems to see the
image of God in every human creature; it makes
people civil to speak to her; her manners inspire
them with self-respect. She never lowers herself,
but raises them. If some people looked as differently
as they act to those above and those below
them, they would sometimes appear like the “loathly
ladie” in the ballad. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 184 | Author: | Sedgwick
Catharine Maria
1789-1867 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Boy of Mount Rhigi | | | | 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: | There is a certain portion of the Tahconnick range
of mountains, in the western part of Massachusetts,
called Rhigi, said to have been thus named by
Swiss emigrants who settled there, and who probably
came from the neighborhood of Mount Rhigi, in Switzerland,
one of the beautiful resorts of that most beautiful
land.[1]
[1]There are other similar traces of Swiss settlement in this
neighborhood. Bash Bish, the lovely fall now becoming known
and celebrated, is a corruption of a very common Swiss name of
their minor falls. The love of the father-land is expressed by
the names the emigrant gives to the land of his adoption. The
Pilgrim bestowed on the New England settlements the names
of his old England home — Norfolk, Suffolk, Boston, Northampton,
Stockbridge, &c., and the New Englander repeats
them in his new home in the far west.
“Firstly, I enclose the two dollars
you gave me for travelling expenses. I met
Mr. Lyman on board the steamboat, and he gave me
five dollars, which he said he owed me for my aid in
the drawings he made for the New York architect.
Fine! After the wet time of parting was over, I was
in luck. Mr. Porter would not take any thing for
bringing me to the boat, — thirty good miles, — because
I helped him pick up apples one day after Jesse Porter
broke his arm. I was pretty hungry; but hearing they
charged half a dollar for supper, I bought some
crackers and cheese before I went on board. So I
came to the city for fifty cents. Such bustle and
confusion as there was on the wharf where we landed!
I made my way through it as well as I could, and
inquired the way to Chambers Street, not far, No. —,
where Mrs. Dawson lives. I saw the windows were
all closed, and so I sat my box of clothes down, and
sat on it. I began to feel both lonesome and hungry;
nothing seemed like morning — the fresh, beautiful
morning of the country. The sun shining on
chimneys and brick walls, instead of hill-tops and
sparkling waters; not a solitary bird singing; not
even a cock crowing. After a while, milkmen began
to appear. There was a different one for almost every
house, and each made a horrid outcry; and, after
a while, a woman came out of a cellar, and took a
measure of milk. Though they live in great houses,
this seems poverty to me. By and by, there came a
lively little driver with baskets full of bread. I remembered
Dr. Franklin's account of his buying a loaf
of bread and eating it as he walked through the
streets of Philadelphia, when first he went there;
and, though I do not expect to eat bread in kings'
houses, as he afterwards did, I thought there would
be no harm in following his example; so I bought a
sixpenny loaf of bread, and, with a draught of milk
from a milkman, I made a good breakfast. You see,
mother, I am determined to make my money last, if
possible, till I can earn more, and not call on you or
trouble our kind friend Mrs. Dawson. As soon as
her blinds were opened, I rung. The man who opened
the door smiled when I asked for Mrs. Dawson, and
said she would rise in about two hours. How long
those two hours were! But when they were over,
and I was summoned to her, she was as kind as ever.
She told me she had procured for me an excellent
place in a retail shop in Broadway, where, if I did as
well as my employer expected from her account of
me, I should receive enough, even the first year, to
pay my board. Before going there, she advised me to
secure a boarding-place; she had made inquiries for
this, and gave me references, and off I set. I went
from one to another. At one there was a multitude
of clerks, and a coarse, slatternly housekeeper; at
another there was a set of low traders. I went in
while they were at dinner, and a very slight observation
13
of their vulgar manners and conversation convinced
me they were not associates that I should
relish or you would approve. The next was full,
and the last was too filthy for any thing. As I
came off the steps quite discouraged, there was a
little fat lady walking before me in a gray silk
gown, and a white shawl, looking as neat as a new
pin. Two dirty shavers of boys had filled a squirt-gun
in the gutter, and had taken aim at the lady's
nice gown. I sprang upon them just in time,
wrenched the squirt-gun from their hands, and sent
it off out of sight. They began kicking and bawling;
and she, turning round, learned the mischief
they had intended. She was very thankful to me,
very good natured, and talkative. She told me the
gown was new, just come home, and she had put it
on for a wedding-visit, — a visit to her niece's husband's
first cousin; it was her best gown, too; she
had heard of the boys playing such tricks; boys
would be boys, &c., &c. O, mother dear! her
tongue goes by machinery. (Not father's!) She had
such a friendly way, and did not seem a very great
lady, and asked me so many questions, — my name,
where I came from, &c., — that I thought I would tell
her what I was in search of. This silenced her
for a moment; then she said, “Come home with me,
and we'll see what can be done. I'll talk to Plenty,
— Plenty is my sister, — and perhaps — but I won't
raise expectations yet. We live in Mercer Street,
retired and central too.” “It seems to me, dear mother, that I have lived a
year in the last fortnight. On the very Monday that
I sent you an account of the upshot at Holson's, Mr.
Nevis obtained the promise of an excellent situation
for me with Messrs. James Bent & Co., where his
son, my friend, already is. Mr. Bent is respected as
a man of strict integrity, and every part of his establishment
is well conducted; and I am to have a salary
of $150. Only imagine how rich I shall be! `It
never rains, but it pours!' Coming out of Mr. Bent's,
who should I meet but Mr. Lyman! He has more
work on hand than he can do, — making plans and
drawings for the first architect in the city, — and he
wanted me to help him. Never was any thing more
opportune. The place I am to have at Mr. Bent's
will not be vacant till next month, and now I can be
earning something; and, to tell the truth, mother, I do
need a little fitting up for summer.” “Your present, my dear son, was very acceptable,
as a proof of your abiding and ever-thoughtful love;
but do not send me any thing more at present.
Keep your earnings for your summer's outfit. We
want for nothing. Thanks to a kind Providence, my
health is good, and Annie's. There is never lack
of work for willing hands; and our wants, except
for your afflicted father, are small. His cough is
severe, and he declines daily, so that the doctor says
he should not be surprised if he dropped away at
any minute. His appetite continues remarkably. I
might find it difficult to satisfy it, but our kind
neighbors send in daily of their best. We have
plenty of fresh. To-day, dear old Mrs. Allen sent a
quarter of a roaster, and your father ate nearly the
whole of it. You know he was always remarkably
fond of pig. Our neighbors never let him be out of
custards, pies, and preserves. You know, Harry, I
never liked to call on my neighbors for watchers in
sickness, and think that, in most cases, it's much
better doing without them; but father feels different.
He likes company, he says, when he is awake, and I
am no talker. He is able yet to engage his own
watchers. He borrows the sheriff's old horse, and
jogs round after them. I don't oppose, though I
sometimes fear he will die on the road; but it serves
to divert him. “My dear cousin, — I am proud to call you so, —
Harry Davis, your visit to me has done me, as I
humbly hope, great good. I had lived here ten years,
within a stone's throw of this jail, and never seen
the inside of it. I call myself a Christian. I am
a professor. I pray daily in my family for those
who are in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity,
and yet I have never, till you came here, lifted
one of my fingers to loosen these bonds. I pray that
missionaries, preaching the good news of salvation,
may be sent to the whole human family. I subscribe
to charitable societies, — and so I should, as God has
prospered me, — and yet I have not done the duty
nearest to me. If I had, or if my Christian neighbors
had, the scenes of filth, idleness, and iniquity in that
jail would never have existed to witness against us.
I have taken measures to have that rascally jailer
removed. They talk of a disinfecting fluid. There
should be a moral disinfection in the character of the
man who has the care of the tenants of a jail — morally
diseased creatures. It is now three months since
I have been with Mr. Bent; and, excepting
my poor father's death, life has been all smooth sailing
with me. You have been getting on so nicely!
Clapham Hale giving such complete satisfaction to
Mr. Norton, and you and Annie — as appears by
your last letter — surprised with his improved appearance
and manly bearing. Does he not seem like one
of us? | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 185 | Author: | Simms
William Gilmore
1806-1870 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Martin Faber | | | | 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: | “This is a fearful precipice, but I dare
look upon it. What, indeed, may I not
dare—what have I not dared! I look before
me, and the prospect, to most men full
of terrors, has few or none for me. Without
adopting too greatly the spirit of cant
which makes it a familiar phrase in the
mouths of the many, death to me will prove
a release from many strifes and terrors. I do
not fear death. I look behind me, and though
I may regret my crimes, they give me no
compunctious apprehensions. They were
among the occurrences known to, and a necessary
sequence in the progress of time and
the world's circumstance. They might have
been committed by another as well as by myself.
They must have been committed! I
was but an instrument in the hands of a power
with which I could not contend. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 188 | Author: | Hall
James
1793-1868 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The wilderness and the war path | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Wiley and Putnam's library of American books | wiley and putnams library of american books | | | | Description: | The life of the American Indian is not so destitute of the interest
created by variety of incident, as might be supposed by a
casual observation of the habits of this singular race. It is true
that the simple structure of their communities, and the sameness
of their occupations, limit the Savage within a narrow sphere of
thought and action. Without commerce, agriculture, learning, or
the arts, and confined to the employments of war and hunting,
the general tenour of his life must be monotonous. His journies
through the unpeopled wilderness, furnish him with no information
as to the modes of existence of other nations, nor any subjects
for reflection, but those which nature supplies, and with
which he has been familiar from childhood. Beyond his own
tribe, his intercourse extends only to savages as ignorant as himself,
and to traders but little elevated above his own moral standard. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 189 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Last of the Mohicans | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Leather-stocking tales | leather stocking tales | | | | Description: | 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 |
| 190 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Last of the Mohicans | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Leather-stocking tales | leather stocking tales | | | | Description: | The bloody and inhuman scene which we have
rather incidentally mentioned than described, in the
close of the preceding volume, is conspicuous in the
pages of colonial history, by the merited title of
“The massacre of William Henry.” It so far deepened
the stain which a previous and very similar
event had left upon the reputation of the French
commander, that it was not entirely erased by his
early and glorious death. It is now becoming obscured
by time; and thousands, who know that Montcalm
died like a hero on the plains of Abraham, have
yet to learn how much he was deficient in that moral
courage, without which no man can be truly great.
Pages might be written to prove, from this illustrious
example, the defects of human excellence; to
show how easy it is for generous sentiments, high
courtesy, and chivalrous courage, to lose their influence
beneath the chilling ascendency of mistaken
selfishness, and to exhibit to the world a man who
was great in all the minor attributes of character,
but who was found wanting, when it became necessary
to prove how much principle is superior to policy.
But the task would exceed our fanciful prerogatives;
and, as history, like love, is so apt to surround
her heroes with an atmosphere of imaginary
brightness, it is probable that Louis de Saint Véran
will be viewed by posterity only as the gallant defender
of his country, while his cruel apathy on the
shores of the Oswego and of the Horican, will be
forgotten. Deeply regretting this weakness on the
part of our sister muse, we shall at once retire from
her sacred precincts, within the proper limits of our
own humbler vocation. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 191 | Author: | Hawthorne
Nathaniel
1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Mosses from an Old Manse | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Wiley and Putnam's library of American books | wiley and putnams library of american books | | | | Description: | 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 |
| 192 | Author: | Hawthorne
Nathaniel
1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Mosses from an Old Manse | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | Wiley and Putnam's library of American books | wiley and putnams library of american books | | | | Description: | We, who are born into the world's artificial system, can never
adequately know how little in our present state and circumstances
is natural, and how much is merely the interpolation of the perverted
mind and heart of man. Art has become a second and
stronger Nature; she is a step-mother, whose crafty tenderness
has taught us to despise the bountiful and wholesome ministrations
of our true parent. It is only through the medium of the
imagination that we can lessen those iron fetters, which we call
truth and reality, and make ourselves even partially sensible what
prisoners we are. For instance, let us conceive good Father
Miller's interpretation of the prophecies to have proved true. The
Day of Doom has burst upon the globe, and swept away the whole
rece of men. From cities and fields, sea-shore, and mid-land
mountain region, vast continents, and even the remotest islands of
the ocean—each living thing is gone. No breath of a created
being disturbs this earthly atmosphere. But the abodes of man,
and all that he has accomplished, the foot-prints of his wanderings,
and the results of his toil, the visible symbols of his intellectual
cultivation, and moral progress—in short, everything
physical that can give evidence of his present position—shall
remain untouched by the hand of destiny. Then, to inherit and
repeople this waste and deserted earth, we will suppose a new
Adam and a new Eve to have been created, in the full development
of mind and heart, but with no knowledge of their predecessors,
nor of the diseased circumstances that had become encrusted
around them. Such a pair would at once distinguish between
art and nature. Their instincts and intuitions would immediately
recognize the wisdom and simplicity of the latter, while the
former, with its elaborate perversities, would offer them a continual
succession of puzzles. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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