| | 2 | Author: | Paulding
James Kirke
1778-1860 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Westward ho!  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | “O rare Ben Jonson!” said some one, and
O rare Beaumont and Fletcher say we; for in
honest sincerity we prefer this gentle pair to all
the old English dramatic writers except Shakspeare.
For playful wit, richness of fancy, exuberance
of invention, and, above all, for the
sweet magic of their language, where shall we
find their superiors among the British bards?
It is not for us obscure wights to put on the
critical nightcap, and, being notorious criminals
ourselves, set up as judges of others; but we
should hold ourselves base and ungrateful if
we did not seize this chance opportunity to
raise our voices in these remote regions of
the West, where, peradventure, they never
dreamed of one day possessing millions of
readers, in humble acknowledgment of the
many hours they have whiled away by the creations
of their sprightly fancy, arrayed in the
matchless melody of their tuneful verse. But
mankind must have an idol, one who monopolizes
their admiration and devotion. The name
of Shakspeare has swallowed up that of his
predecessors, contemporaries, and successors;
thousands, tens of thousands echo his name that
never heard of Marlow,—Marlow, to whom
Shakspeare himself condescended to be indebted,
and whose conception of the character of
Faust is precisely that of Goëthe;—of Webster,
Marston, Randolph, Cartwright, May, and all
that singular knot of dramatists, who unite the
greatest beauties with the greatest deformities,
and whose genius has sunk under the licentiousness
of the age in which it was their misfortune
to live. The names of Massinger, Ben
Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher are, it is true,
more familiar; but it is only their names and
one or two of their pieces that are generally
known. These last have been preserved, not
on the score of their superior beauties, but because
they afforded an opportunity for Garrick
and other great performers to reap laurels which
belonged to the poet, by the exhibition of some
striking character. Far be it from us to attempt
to detract from the fame of Shakspeare. Superior
he is, beyond doubt, to all his countrymen
who went before or came after him, in the peculiar
walk of his genius; but he is not so immeasurably
superior as to cast all others into
oblivion; and to us it seems almost a disgrace
to England that a large portion of her own
readers, and a still larger of foreigners, seem
ignorant that she ever produced more than one
dramatist. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 3 | Author: | Paulding
James Kirke
1778-1860 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The book of Saint Nicholas | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Everybody has heard of St. Nicholas, that
honest Dutch saint, whom I look upon as having
been one of the most liberal, good-natured little
fat fellows in the world. But, strange as it may
seem, though everybody has heard, nobody seems
to know anything about him. The place of his
birth, the history of his life, and the manner in
which he came to be the dispenser of Newyear
cakes, and the patron of good boys, are matters
that have hitherto not been investigated, as they
ought to have been long and long ago. I am about
to supply this deficiency, and pay a debt of honour
which is due to this illustrious and obscure tutelary
genius of the jolly Newyear. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 4 | Author: | Paulding
James Kirke
1778-1860 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The old Continental, or, The price of liberty | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | During the most gloomy and disastrous period of
our revolutionary war, there resided in the county of
Westchester a family of plain country people, who
had, in time long past, seen better days; but who
now had nothing to boast of, but a small farm, a good
name, and a good conscience. Though bred in the
city, they had lived so long in a retired part of the
country, that their habits, tastes, and manners, had become
altogether rural, and they had almost outlived
every vestige of former refinements, except in certain
modes of thinking, and acting, which had survived
in all changes of time and circumstances. Their residence
was an old stone-house, bearing the date of
1688, the figures of which were formed by Holland
bricks, incorporated with the walls. The roof
was green with mossy honours, and the entire edifice
bore testimony, not only to the lapse of time, but to
the downhill progress of its inmates. Though not in
ruins, it was much decayed; and, though with a good
rousing fire in the broad capacious chimney, it was
comfortable enough in winter, it afforded nothing
without to indicate anything but the possession of
those simple necessaries of life, which fall to the lot
of those who derive their means of happiness from
the labours of their hands, the bounties of the earth,
and the blessing of a quiet soul. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 5 | Author: | Paulding
James Kirke
1778-1860 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The old Continental, or, The price of liberty | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | The old sugar-house to which our hero and his companion
in misfortune were consigned, is still standing[1]
[1]It has since been pulled down.
to remind us of the sufferings of our fathers, and the
price they paid for liberty. To those who have never
seen the building, it may not be amiss to state that it
is a large, massive, gloomy pile of red-stone, with narrow
grated windows, which gives it the air of a prison;
standing at the northeast corner of the yard of the
Dutch church fronting on Liberty street, which, during
the occupation of the city by the British, was used as
a riding-school. The aspect of the structure is forbidding,
corresponding with the recollections which will
long accompany its contemplation, by the descendants
and countrymen of many nameless and humble patriots
that here became the martyrs to the oppression of
a haughty parent, and a petty tyrant whose infamous
name is forever associated with the recollection of
their fate. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 6 | Author: | Paulding
James Kirke
1778-1860 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Puritan and his daughter | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | In the reign of King Charles—courteously styled
the Martyr—there resided in an obscure corner of the
renowned kingdom of England, a certain obscure
country gentleman, claiming descent from a family
that flourished in great splendor under a Saxon monarch
whose name is forgotten. This ancient family,
like most others of great pretensions to antiquity, had
gone by as many names as certain persons who live in
the fear of the law, but finally settled down on that of
Habingdon, or Habingden, by which they were now
known. They were somewhat poor, but very proud,
and looked down with contempt on the posterity of the
upstart Normans who usurped the domains of their
ancestors. They had resided on the same spot for
more than eight hundred years, during which time,
not one of them had ever performed an act worthy of
being transmitted to posterity, with the single exception
of one Thurkill Habingdonne who flourished in
the reign of King John—of unblessed memory—and
who is recorded to have given one-third of a caracut of
land, and a wind-mill, to the priory of Monks Kirby,
“to the end,” as he expresses it, “that his obit should
be perpetually there observed, and his name written
in the Martyrologe.” It hath been a mooted point with that class of philosophical
inquirers, which so usefully occupies itself
with discussions that can never be brought to a conclusion,
whether the age gives the tone to literature,
or literature to the age. It is a knotty question, and
not being of the least consequence to any practical
purpose, it will be passed over with the single remark,
that it is quite useless for an author to write in good
taste if the public won't read, and equally idle for the
public to cherish a keen relish for polite literature, if
there are no authors to administer food to its appetite. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 7 | Author: | Pike
Albert
1809-1891 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Prose sketches and poems | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | The world of prairie which lies at a distance of more
than three hundred miles west of the inhabited portions of
the United States, and south of the river Arkansas and its
branches, has been rarely, and parts of it never, trodden
by the foot or beheld by the eye of an Anglo-American.
Rivers rise there in the broad level waste, of which, mighty
though they become in their course, the source is unexplored.
Deserts are there, too barren of grass to support
even the hardy buffalo; and in which water, except in
here and there a hole, is never found. Ranged over by
the Comanches, the Pawnees, the Caiwas, and other
equally wandering, savage and hostile tribes, its very
name is a mystery and a terror. The Pawnees have their
villages entirely north of this part of the country; and
their war parties—always on foot—are seldom to be met
with to the south of the Canadian, except close in upon
the edges of the white and civilized Indian settlements.
Extending on the south to the Rio del Norte, on the north
to a distance unknown, eastwardly to within three or four
hundred miles of the edge of Arkansas Territory, and
westwardly to the Rocky Mountains, is the range of the
Comanches. Abundantly supplied with good horses from
the immense herds of the prairie, they range, at different
times of the year, over the whole of this vast country.
Their war and hunting parties follow the buffalo continually.
In the winter they may be found in the south,
encamped along the Rio del Norte, and under the mountains;
and in the summer on the Canadian, and to the
north of it, and on the Pecos. Sometimes they haunt the
Canadian in the winter, but not so commonly as in the
summer. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 8 | Author: | Poe
Edgar Allan
1809-1849 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Of Nantucket | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | 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 name is Arthur Gordon Pym. My father was a respectable
trader in sea-stores at Nantucket, where I was
born. My maternal grandfather was an attorney in good
practice. He was fortunate in everything, and had speculated
very successfully in stocks of the Edgarton New-Bank,
as it was formerly called. By these and other
means he had managed to lay by a tolerable sum of money.
He was more attached to myself, I believe, than
to any other person in the world, and I expected to inherit
the most of his property at his death. He sent me,
at six years of age, to the school of old Mr. Ricketts, a
gentleman with only one arm, and of eccentric manners
—he is well known to almost every person who has
visited New Bedford. I stayed at his school until I was
sixteen, when I left him for Mr. E. Ronald's academy
on the hill. Here I became intimate with the son of
Mr. Barnard, a sea captain, who generally sailed in the
employ of Lloyd and Vredenburgh—Mr. Barnard is also
very well known in New Bedford, and has many relations,
I am certain, in Edgarton. His son was named
Augustus, and he was nearly two years older than myself.
He had been on a whaling voyage with his father
in the John Donaldson, and was always talking to me of
his adventures in the South Pacific Ocean. I used frequently
to go home with him, and remain all day, and
sometimes all night. We occupied the same bed, and
he would be sure to keep me awake until almost light,
telling me stories of the natives of the Island of Tinian,
and other places he had visited in his travels. At last I
could not help being interested in what he said, and by
degrees I felt the greatest desire to go to sea. I owned
a sail-boat called the Ariel, and worth about seventy-five
dollars. She had a half-deck or cuddy, and was rigged
sloop-fashion—I forget her tonnage, but she would hold
ten persons without much crowding. In this boat we
were in the habit of going on some of the maddest freaks
in the world; and, when I now think of them, it appears
to me a thousand wonders that I am alive to-day. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 10 | Author: | Fay
Theodore S.
(Theodore Sedgwick)
1807-1898 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Hoboken | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | “Where are Frank and Harry?” asked Mr. Lennox, as
the family assembled at breakfast. “I haven't done anything wrong that I know of; but while
I labour under the imputation I will not accept assistance,
except it is offered because they think me incapable of a
dishonourable action. I seize this occasion to apologize for
my rudeness to Mr. Lennox, once my noble friend and benefactor;
you and all your family have my thanks and best
wishes. I respectfully thank you for your interest in me;
but don't fear, I shall get along somehow, and don't intend
to knock under yet. “Glendenning,” said White, when they were alone,
“you are in an extremely awkward position, and so am
I. I bore your message last evening to Lieutenant
Breckenbridge. He declined receiving it on the plea
that you are not a gentleman.” “Your last, most gratifying favour reached us in due
course of mail. Need I say how the spirit which inspired it
delighted me, and how much we are all charmed with the
friendship which has risen from such a strange cause? We
have left Rose Hill at last. Harry has gone to Europe, and
Mr. Lennox's business requires his presence in New-York.
We all thought and talked of you yesterday, and drank
health and happiness to you, at Mr. Lennox's suggestion, in
Champagne. I added water to mine, but it did not diminish
the ardour of my wishes for your continued prosperity,
or of my prayers that you will receive strength from above
to follow to the end the noble path of reformation you have
adopted. You will have long since learned that all the reasonings
and inferences which seem to militate against the
truth of religion are erroneous, and, though they may tend
to excite doubts, are not sufficient to create unbelief. “Circumstances not necessary to be explained render me
apprehensive that the affair which took place between you
and myself has not been quite properly arranged. The
meeting must be renewed. When acquainted with my
opinion, I feel certain you will require no other inducement
to afford me the satisfaction I have not yet received, and to
name a friend who will immediately make the necessary arrangements. “Circumstances have obliged me to put off the dinner
to-day; I shall not, therefore, have the pleasure of seeing
you. “Come home and share our sorrows. Come home and
lessen our unhappiness—” “Your beloved mother will have informed you of the fine
doings we have had here, or, at least, of some of them. But
don't mind; we'll manage matters yet, only now I must depend
a little more on you. As I have no doubt these
agreeable epistles will bring you home double quick time, I
shall not enter into any particulars, especially as my doctor
pretends that I must yet be careful of my eyes. Keep up
your spirits, and let us see you here when you can conveniently
manage it. We are beginning to feel your absence,
really. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 11 | Author: | Flint
Timothy
1780-1840 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The life and adventures of Arthur Clenning, in two volumes | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Here would be the place to transcribe some of
the incidents of that period, well known by the
cant but significant name, “honey-moon.” Theocritus
must lend his pastoral pencil, and St. Pierre
his unrivalled powers of singing the rural life of
love in the shades of such a retirement, to do ordinary
justice to the history of their enjoyments. In
days of enjoyment like theirs, the youthful imagination
peoples all that surrounds them, with beings
who sympathize with them in their felicity. It is
true, though they were in the midst of a nature no
less pleasant than formerly, they saw it not with
the same eyes; for they were more intently occupied
with each other. The want of the society of
others of their kind was hardly perceived by them,
who possessed in each other
Whatever fancy forms of good and fair,
Or lavish hearts could wish.
The poor birds fluttered, shook their wings, and
sung, and croaked with the joy of welcome, when
they came forth, as formerly. But their fair mistress,
though she saw them fed, as formerly, had
almost forgotten to caress them. The lessons of
Rescue came to a dead pause for a while, though
she showed great shrewdness and penetration, using
her eyes and senses to the utmost advantage. She
often surprised them with proofs of her native
sagacity, and self-taught proficiency. She saw
the two happy beings, with whom she lived, at first,
it may be, with some natural sensations of envy.
But she never failed to evince, that from the first,
she had felt all the ties and obligations of gratitude.
Daily conversant with two beings, as amiable as
they were happy, she soon added the ties of daily
intercourse and affection to her first obligations.
She appeared to love them with the earnest and
simple affection of a child. Their will was a law,
and their thoughts the measure of what was right.
She saw them obliging, kind, and affectionate, in
every word, look, and action; and this view will
more readily inspire homage in the bosom of a
person in a condition like hers, than to see the
parties possessing and exercising the power of life
and death. Each day brought to each of the
three a new succession of pleasures. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 12 | Author: | Foster
Hannah Webster
1759-1840 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The boarding school, or, Lessons of a preceptress to her pupils ; consisting of information, instruction, and advice, calculated to improve the manners, and form the character of young ladies ; to which is added, a collection of letters, written by the pupils, to their instructor, their friends, and each other | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 13 | Author: | Hale
Sarah Josepha Buell
1788-1879 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Sketches of American character | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Travellers, who have made the tour of
Europe, always dwell with peculiar delight on
the sunny skies of Italy; and a host of domestic
writers, never, perhaps, in the whole course
of their existence, beyond that seeming boundary
where their eyes first beheld the horizon
apparently closing around them, join their
voices in the chorus of the sunny skies of
Italy! | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 16 | Author: | Hall
Baynard Rush
1798-1863 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The new purchase, or, Seven and a half years in the far West | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | “A knowledge of your character, derived from mutual
friends, from the opinion of all your acquaintances, and also
from a somewhat intimate personal acquaintance, induces
me to believe that such a lady would fill the vacancy in my
domestic establishment most perfectly and delightfully:—
although I am not vain enough to suppose Miss Smythe
will necessarily feel herself flattered by such a preference
on the part of the writer. As, however, Miss S. on better
acquaintance, might become interested in him—more so at
least than he fears she is at present—he very respectfully,
yet most carnestly, craves permission to pay his addresses
in person. “In a playful conversation on a subject so common when
unmarried persons meet, your daughter, Miss Brown, in a
jesting manner, remarked, that she always referred gentlemen
to her father—as his choice would always be hers.
What was jest with her, with me would have become very
solemn earnest, had I had then to offer any thing beyond
my hand and my heart, to induce such a girl to leave such
a home. Happily, circumstances are now favourably altered;
and willingly now would I ask that father for his
daughter could I flatter myself the daughter could be induced
to gladden and adorn a hearth, which, however
warm in one sense, must be yet cold and cheerless without
the love of a bosom friend. And such a friend would Miss
Brown prove:—and, dear sir, if you think such a match
suitable for your lovely daughter, I sincerely entreat the
communication of your favourable opinion to her in my behalf—hoping
that the daughter's choice then may be as the
father's. “The other morning I went out a hunting with father's
duck-gun what he brung out from Kentucky; but as I
had no luck, I allowed I might as well put off for home;
and so I turn about and goes towards home. As I come to
the edge of our clearin, what should I see away off on the
top of a dead walnut, but a black crow! And so I makes
up my mind to try and hit him. The critter was more nor
three hundred yards from me; but I insinuates myself along
as near as two hundred yards to the feller; when he begins
a showing signs of flittin: and so I trees where I was in a
minute. Well, I determines to try him there, although
'twas near as good as desperut to try a black crow that
distance with a shot-gun; although father's duck-gun's
the most powerful shot-gun in the Purchis. Howsomdever,
I wanted the load out; and I thought I might as
well fire that a way as any other—and so up I draws the
piece very careful, and begins a takin aim, thinking all the
while I shouldn't hit him: still I tuk the most exactest aim,
as if I should; when just then he hops about two foot
nearer my way, as if to get a look round my tree, where he
smelt powder—and then, thinking all the time, as I said, I
shouldn't hit him, as the distance was so most powerful
fur, I blazed away!—and sure enough, as I'm alive—I
didn't hit him!” * * * * * * and the inclosed
from my daughter, to whom was handed your late communication,
contains, I presume, the most satisfactory answer,
* * * * and * * * “I honour you for honesty, as I am satisfied you assign
true reasons for not taking one to share your home; although
the reasons themselves can never seem satisfactory where
one was willing to share another's heart. For, like most
girls in their days of romance, that one cared to find only a
heart when she married. As my own home is sufficiently
comfortable, there can be no inducement to wish another,
however comfortable, in the New Purchase; and where its
owner seems to think `altered circumstances' are important
in winning a woman's love. But to show that kindness is
estimated that would spare my delicacy, by leading my dear
father to think all our conversation had been sportive, I do
hereby most cordially—(here John looked! oh! I tell you
what!)—invite you to our Christmas festivities, when the
writer changes her name from Mary Brown to Mary Burleigh.” | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 17 | Author: | Hall
Baynard Rush
1798-1863 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Something for every body | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | 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 Charles,—You insist that I am an incorrigible
skeptic, and seem inclined to deliver me over to the secular
arm. “What!” say you, “shall we disbelieve the evidence
of the senses, and the testimony of reputable citizens?”
“What,” you triumphantly ask, “can be more satisfactory
than experiments, such as the citizens of Somewhersburg
have lately witnessed?—men, and even young women (!) rendered
incapable of speaking! and a very mercurial dancing
master arrested at the mere will of the mesmerist, and
made to stand as if petrified, in the act of cutting a pigeon-wing!” | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 18 | Author: | Hall
James
1793-1868 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Harpe's head | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | At the close of a pleasant day, in the spring of the year
17—, a solitary horseman might have been seen slowly
winding his way along a narrow road, in that part of
Virginia which is now called the Valley. It was nearly
forty years ago, and the district lying between the Blue
Ridge and the Allegheny mountains was but thinly populated,
while the country lying to the west, embracing an
immense Alpine region, was a savage wilderness, which
extended to the new and distant settlements of Kentucky.
Our traveller's route led along the foot of the mountains,
sometimes crossing the spurs, or lateral ridges, which
push out their huge promontories from the great chain;
and at others winding through deep ravines, or skirting
along broad valleys. The Ancient Dominion was never
celebrated for the goodness of its highways, and the one
whose mazes he was now endeavoring to unravel, was
among the worst, being a mere path, worn by the feet
of horses, and marked by faint traces of wheels, which
showed that the experiment of driving a carriage over
its uneven surface had been successfully tried, but not
generally practised. The country was fertile, though
wild and broken. The season was that in which the
foliage is most luxuriant and splendid to the eye, the
leaves being fully expanded, while the rich blossoms
decked the scene with a variety of brilliant hues; and
our traveller, as he passed ridge after ridge, paused in
delight on their elevated summits, to gaze at the beautiful
glens that lay between them, and the gorgeous vegetation
that climbed even to the tops of the steepest acclivities.
The day, however, which had been unusually sultry for
the season, was drawing to a close, and both horse and
rider began to feel the effects of hunger and fatigue; the
former, though strong and spirited, drooped his head,
and the latter became wearied with these lonesome
though picturesque scenes. During the whole day he
had not seen the dwelling of a human being; the clattering
of his horse's hoofs upon the rock, the singing of
the birds, so numerous in this region, the roaring of the
mountain stream, or the crash of timber occasioned by
the fall of some great tree, were the only sounds that
had met his ear. He was glad, therefore, to find his
path descending, at last, into a broad valley, interspersed
with farms. He seemed to have surmounted the last
hill, and before him was a rich continuous forest, resembling,
as he overlooked it from the high ground, a solid
plane of verdure. The transition from rocky steeps and
precipices, to the smooth soil and sloping surface of the
valley, was refreshing; and not less so were the coolness
and fragrance of the air, and the deep and varied hues
of the forest, occasioned by the rank luxuriance of its
vegetation. “My father was a native of England, who came to
Virginia when he was quite a young man. He was of
a good family, and well educated; if my mother be
considered a competent witness in such a case, he was
even more,—highly accomplished, and remarkably interesting
in person and manners. He brought letters of
introduction, and was well received; and as soon as it
was understood that his extreme indigence was such as
to render it necessary that he should embark in some
employment, to earn a support, he was readily received
as private tutor in the family of a gentleman, residing
not far from Mr. Heyward, the father of the late Major
Heyward, whose melancholy death I have described to
you. Mr. Heyward also employed him to give lessons
in drawing, and the French language, to his only
daughter, then a girl of about sixteen. A mutual
attachment ensued between my father and this young
lady, which was carefully concealed, because the Heywards,
though generous and hospitable, were proud and
aspiring. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 19 | Author: | Hall
James
1793-1868 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The soldier's bride and other tales | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | A few years ago, that part of the state of New
York which lies along the main route from the
Hudson to the western lakes, presented an agreeable,
but eccentric, diversity of scenic beauty,
combining the wildest traits of nature with the
cheerful indications of enlightened civility and rural
comfort. The desert smiled—but it smiled in its
native beauty. The foot of science had not yet
wandered thither; nor had the ample coffers of a
state been opened, to diffuse, with unexampled
munificence, over a widely spread domain the
blessings of industry and commerce. The beautiful
villages scattered throughout this extensive region,
exhibited a neatness, taste, and order, which would
have been honourable to older communities. Between
these little towns lay extensive tracts of
wilderness, still tenanted by the deer, and enlivened
by the notes of the feathered tribes. Farms, newly
opened, were thinly dispersed at convenient distances.
The traveller, as he held his solitary way
among the shadows of the forest, acknowledged the
sovereignty of the sylvan deities, whose sway seemed
undisputed; but from these silent shades he emerged
at once into the light and life of civilised society.
Such were the effects produced by an industrious
and somewhat refined population, thrown among
the romantic lakes, the fertile vallies, and the boundless
forests of the West. “That agreeable woman, Mrs. B. who has paid
us so many kind attentions, has just sent for me.
She is very ill, and fancies that no one can nurse
her so well as myself. Of course, I can not refuse,
and only regret, that I must part with my dear
Charles for a few hours. Good night. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 20 | Author: | Hall
James
1793-1868 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Tales of the border | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | 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 travelling a few years ago, in the northern
part of Illinois, where the settlements, now
thinly scattered, were but just commenced. A
few hardy men, chiefly hunters, had pushed themselves
forward in advance of the main body of
emigrants, who were rapidly but quietly taking
possession of the fertile plains of that beautiful
state; and their cabins were so thinly scattered
along the wide frontier, that the traveller rode
many miles, and often a whole day together, without
seeing the habitation of a human being. I had
passed beyond the boundaries of social and civil
subordination, and was no longer within the precincts
of any organized country. I saw the camp
of the Indian, or met the solitary hunter, wandering
about with his rifle and his dog, in the full
enjoyment of that independence, and freedom from
all restraints, so highly prized by this class of our
countrymen. Sometimes I came to a single log
hut, standing alone in the wilderness, far removed
from the habitations of other white men, on a delightful
spot, surrounded by so many attractive
and resplendent beauties of landscape, that a prince
might have selected it as his residence; and again
I found a little settlement, where a few families,
far from all other civilised communities, enjoyed
some of the comforts of society among themselves,
and lived in a state approaching that of the social
condition. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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