| | 281 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Add | | | Title: | The Procession of Life  | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | LIFE figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession. All
of us have
our places, and are to move onward under the direction of the Chief
Marshal. The grand difficulty results from the invariably mistaken
principles
on which the deputy marshals seek to arrange this immense concourse
of
people, so much more numerous than those that train their
interminable
length through streets and highways in times of political
excitement.
Their scheme is ancient, far beyond the memory of man or even the
record of history, and has hitherto been very little modified by
the
innate
sense of something wrong, and the dim perception of better methods,
that
have disquieted all the ages through which the procession has taken
its
march. Its members are classified by the merest external
circumstances,
and thus are more certain to be thrown out of their true positions
than if
no principle of arrangement were attempted. In one part of the
procession
we see men of landed estate or moneyed capital gravely keeping each
other company, for the preposterous reason that they chance to have
a
similar standing in the tax-gatherer's book. Trades and professions
march
together with scarcely a more real bond of union. In this manner,
it cannot be denied, people are disentangled from the mass and
separated
into
various classes according to certain apparent relations; all have
some artificial badge which the world, and themselves among the
first,
learn to
consider as a genuine characteristic. Fixing our attention on such
outside
shows of similarity or difference, we lose sight of those realities
by which
nature, fortune, fate, or Providence has constituted for every man
a
brotherhood, wherein it is one great office of human wisdom to
classify
him. When the mind has once accustomed itself to a proper
arrangement
of the Procession of Life, or a true classification of society,
even though
merely speculative, there is thenceforth a satisfaction which
pretty well
suffices for itself without the aid of any actual reformation in
the order of
march. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 283 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Add | | | Title: | Roger Malvin's Burial | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | ONE of the few incidents of Indian warfare naturally susceptible of
the
moonlight of romance was that expedition undertaken for the defence
of
the frontiers in the year 1725, which resulted in the
well-remembered
``Lovell's Fight.'' Imagination, by casting certain circumstances
judicially into the shade, may see much to admire in the heroism of
a
little band
who gave battle to twice their number in the heart of the enemy's
country. The open bravery displayed by both parties was in
accordance
with
civilized ideas of valor; and chivalry itself might not blush to
record the
deeds of one or two individuals. The battle, though so fatal to
those who
fought, was not unfortunate in its consequences to the country; for
it
broke the strength of a tribe and conduced to the peace which
subsisted
during several ensuing years. History and tradition are unusually
minute in their memorials of their affair; and the captain of a
scouting party
of frontier men has acquired as actual a military renown as many a
victorious leader of thousands. Some of the incidents contained in
the
following pages will be recognized, notwithstanding the
substitution
of fictitious names, by such as have heard, from old men's lips,
the fate
of the
few combatants who were in a condition to retreat after ``Lovell's
Fight.'' | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 284 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Add | | | Title: | The Shaker Bridal | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | ONE day, in the sick chamber of Father Ephraim, who had been forty
years the presiding elder over the Shaker settlement at Goshen,
there was
an assemblage of several of the chief men of the sect. Individuals
had come
from the rich establishment at Lebanon, from Canterbury, Harvard,
and
Alfred, and from all the other localities where this strange people
have
fertilized the rugged hills of New England by their systematic
industry.
An elder was likewise there, who had made a pilgrimage of a
thousand
miles from a village of the faithful in Kentucky, to visit his
spiritual kindred, the children of the sainted mother Ann. He had
partaken of
the
homely abundance of their tables, had quaffed the far-famed Shaker
cider, and had joined in the sacred dance, every step of which is
believed to
alienate the enthusiast from earth, and bear him onward to heavenly
purity and bliss. His brethren of the north had now courteously
invited him
to be present on an occasion, when the concurrence of every eminent
member of their community was peculiarly desirable. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 285 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Add | | | Title: | The Great Stone Face | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | ONE afternoon, when the sun was going down, a mother and her little
boy sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the Great Stone
Face.
They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be
seen,
though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 286 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Add | | | Title: | Wakefield | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IN some old magazine or newspaper I recollect a story, told as
truth, of a
man—let us call him Wakefield—who absented himself for a long
time
from his wife. The fact, thus abstractedly stated, is not very
uncommon,
nor—without a proper distinction of circumstances—to be condemned
either as naughty or nonsensical. Howbeit, this, though far from
the most
aggravated, is perhaps the strangest, instance on record, of
marital delinquency; and, moreover, as remarkable a freak as may be
found in
the
whole list of human oddities. The wedded couple lived in London.
The
man, under pretence of going a journey, took lodgings in the next
street
to his own house, and there, unheard of by his wife or friends, and
without the shadow of a reason for such self-banishment, dwelt
upwards
of
twenty years. During that period, he beheld his home every day, and
frequently the forlorn Mrs. Wakefield. And after so great a gap in
his
matrimonial felicity—when his death was reckoned certain, his
estate
settled,
his name dismissed from memory, and his wife, long, long ago,
resigned to
her autumnal widowhood—he entered the door one evening, quietly,
as
from a day's absence, and became a loving spouse till death. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 287 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Add | | | Title: | The Wedding Knell | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THERE is a certain church in the city of New York which I have
always
regarded with peculiar interest, on account of a marriage there
solemnized, under very singular circumstances, in my grandmother's
girlhood.
That venerable lady chanced to be a spectator of the scene, and
ever after
made it her favorite narrative. Whether the edifice now standing on
the
same site be the identical one to which she referred, I am not
antiquarian
enough to know; nor would it be worth while to correct myself,
perhaps,
of an agreeable error, by reading the date of its erection on the
tablet over
the door. It is a stately church, surrounded by an inclosure of the
loveliest
green, within which appear urns, pillars, obelisks, and other forms
of
monumental marble, the tributes of private affection, or more
splendid
memorials of historic dust. With such a place, though the tumult of
the
city rolls beneath its tower, one would be willing to connect some
legendary interest. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 288 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Add | | | Title: | Young Goodman Brown | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | YOUNG Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street at Salem
village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to
exchange a
parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly
named,
thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play
with the
pink ribbons of her cap while she called to Goodman Brown. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 293 | Author: | Ingersoll, Robert G. | Add | | | Title: | Tolstoy and "The Kreutzer Sonata" | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | COUNT TOLSTOÏ is a man of genius. He is acquainted with
Russian life from the highest to the lowest—that is to say, from
the worst to the best. He knows the vices of the rich and the
virtues of the poor. He is a Christian, a real believer in the Old
and New Testaments, an honest follower of the Peasant of Palestine.
He denounces luxury and ease, art and music; he regards a flower
with suspicion, believing that beneath every blossom lies a coiled
serpent. He agrees with Lazarus and denounces Dives and the tax-gatherers. He is opposed, not only to doctors of divinity, but of
medicine. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 294 | Author: | James, William | Add | | | Title: | The Varieties of Religious Experience | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IT is with no small amount of trepidation that I take my
place behind this desk, and face this learned audience.
To us Americans, the experience of receiving instruction
from the living voice, as well as from the books, of European
scholars, is very familiar. At my own University of
Harvard, not a winter passes without its harvest, large or
small, of lectures from Scottish, English, French, or German
representatives of the science or literature of their respective
countries whom we have either induced to cross the ocean
to address us, or captured on the wing as they were visiting
our land. It seems the natural thing for us to listen whilst
the Europeans talk. The contrary habit, of talking whilst
the Europeans listen, we have not yet acquired; and in him
who first makes the adventure it begets a certain sense of
apology being due for so presumptuous an act. Particularly
must this be the case on a soil as sacred to the American
imagination as that of Edinburgh. The glories of the philosophic
chair of this university were deeply impressed on my
imagination in boyhood. Professor Fraser's Essays in Philosophy,
then just published, was the first philosophic book I
ever looked into, and I well remember the awestruck feeling
I received from the account of Sir William Hamilton's classroom
therein contained. Hamilton's own lectures were the
first philosophic writings I ever forced myself to study, and
after that I was immersed in Dugald Stewart and Thomas
Brown. Such juvenile emotions of reverence never get outgrown;
and I confess that to find my humble self promoted
from my native wilderness to bc actually for the time an official
here, and transmuted into a colleague of these illustrious
names, carries with it a sense of dreamland quite as
much as of reality. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 295 | Author: | Jewett, Sarah Orne | Add | | | Title: | The Passing of Sister Barsett | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | MRS. MERCY CRANE was of such firm persuasion that a house is
meant to be lived in, that during many years she was never known
to leave her own neat two-storied dwelling place on the Ridge road.
Yet she was very fond of company, and in pleasant weather often
sat in the side doorway looking out on her green yard, where the
grass grew short and thick and was undisfigured even by a path
toward the steps. All her faded green blinds were securely tied
together and knotted on the inside by pieces of white tape; but now
and then, when the sun was not too hot for her carpets, she opened
one window at a time for a few hours, having pronounced views
upon the necessity of light and air. Although Mrs. Crane was
acknowledged by her best friends to be a peculiar person and very
set in her ways, she was much respected, and one acquaintance vied
with another in making up for her melancholy seclusion by bringing
her all the news they could gather. She had been left alone many
years before by the sudden death of her husband from sunstroke,
and though she was by no means poor, she had, as someone said,
"such a pretty way of taking a little present that you couldn't help
being pleased when you gave her anything." | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 296 | Author: | Jewett, Sarah Orne | Add | | | Title: | The Queen's Twin | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE coast of Maine was in former years brought so near to
foreign shores by its busy fleet of ships that among the older men
and women one still finds a surprising proportion of travelers.
Each seaward stretching headland with its high-set houses, each
island of a single farm, has sent its spies to view many a land of
Eshcol. One may see plain, contented old faces at the windows,
whose eyes have looked at far-away ports, and known the splendors
of the Eastern world. They shame the easy voyager of the North
Atlantic and the Mediterranean; they have rounded the Cape of Good
Hope and braved the angry seas of Cape Horn in small wooden ships;
they have brought up their hardy boys and girls on narrow decks;
they were among the last of the Northmen's children to go
adventuring to unknown shores. More than this one cannot give to
a young state for its enlightenment. The sea captains and the
captains' wives of Maine knew something of the wide world, and
never mistook their native parishes for the whole instead of a part
thereof; they knew not only Thomaston and Castine and Portland, but
London and Bristol and Bordeaux, and the strange-mannered harbors
of the China Sea. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 297 | Author: | Johnston, Charles | Add | | | Title: | Count Tolstoy at Home | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | WHILE I was reading "What is Art?" it occurred to me that it would
be a very interesting thing if one could get a sense of Tolstoy's
personality, and his surroundings,—something comparable in
vividness and truth to the innumerable portraits in his own books.
The study of a work so sincere, so full of power, so overburdened
even with moral earnestness, and representing, as its author says,
the work and the best thought of fifteen years, brings with it an
almost irresistible curiosity to look through the page to the man
behind it. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 299 | Author: | Kin, Yamei | Add | | | Title: | The Pride of His House: A Story of Honolulu's Chinatown | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IN one corner of the picturesque city of Honolulu may be found a home
like so many other Chinese homes of men who have gone abroad to seek
a livelihood. Over the general merchandise and drygoods store of Li
Sing Hing is a suite of apartments reached by a flight of steep stairs,
scarcely more than a ladder. The first room at the head of the stairs is
quite large, and used for a reception room or parlor, and furnished
according to the taste and means of the master. One side was occupied
with an old-fashioned set of three straight chairs and a capacious sofa, all
upholstered in green reps. A grandfather's clock stood in the corner,
slowly ticking the time away. Various chromos such as Wide Awake,
Fast Asleep, Christ Before Pilate and other specimens of European art
adorned the walls, for Ah Sing had a fair knowledge of the English
language, and was considered one of the most enterprising merchants.
Several bright colored carpet rugs were spread over the cool, light
matting. But on the other side of the room Ah Sing had let his soul down
from the mazes of Western civilization which he was earnestly trying to
master by hanging up a couple of scroll pictures in the usual style of
Chinese water-color painting. The landscape scenes reminded him of the
hills around the village from which he had come, and where he hoped
some day his bones might repose beside those of his ancestors. Under
these scrolls stood a pair of beautifully carved teak wood Chinese chairs,
with a small square tea table to match between. The most highly prized
article was a long panel, on which was written a sentence from the
ancient classics. The firm yet graceful lines of the characters made
almost a picture in themselves, and showed a master's scholarly hand.
Every time Ah Sing read the sentiment, "The superior man preserves
harmony," he recalled the face of his old teacher as he amplified the terse
statements of the ancients, and with much note and comment revealed the
full extent of wisdom inclosed; how he had emphasized the duties a man
owed to his ancestors and the obligation to leave a posterity, which
should perform the same duties, so that the spirits of the departed should
not wander homeless and hungry without a son to offer sacrifices to
them. This was to be remembered in the midst of striving for the calm
and dignity that belonged to the superior man. But it was so easy to for-[illustration omitted] get in the new life he was surrounded with,
just as the old green rep sofa was the most natural thing to drop into on
entering the room, rather than the stately carved Chinese chairs. Sundry
pieces of bric-a-brac stood on brackets and what-nots around the room.
Pink and blue Dresden shepherdesses jostled mandarins in full official
costume. A group of the Eight Immortals smiled benignly at terra cotta
figures of dancing girls and a Dutch flute player. But the special article
of pride was a great glass chandelier hung in the middle of the room, full
of many sparkling pendants. These failed to relieve altogether the cold
whiteness which reminded one too forcibly of a funeral; hence, several
little red baskets filled with gay artificial flowers and with red and green
tassels attached, and in addition three or four [illustration omitted] rows
of pink flowered globes off a job lot of hand-lamps that he had bought at
an auction, so that when the chandelier was lighted up the bits of color
made it truly Oriental in effect. Under the chandelier stood a round,
inlaid table also handsomely carved, for the master had prospered in his
business and could afford much more display than he ordinarily made.
The windows overlooked a small back yard filled with rows of pot plants
and a few shrubs, but mostly boxes and things out of the store occupied
the available space. To the left a door ajar showed a kitchen with an
array of brass and copper sauce-pans and an earthen range with its big
hole for the rice pot, and smaller holes for the other things. Wood
chopped fine was piled up ready to stick into the spaces under the holes
to furnish heat to cook with. This was an improved range and had a hood
connected with the chimney in the back, so that no smoke could escape
to blacken the room, as with many of the common ranges. The pictures
of the kitchen god and goddess were pasted up as usual over a small
shelf, bearing an offering of rice and wine and lighted tapers floated in a
cup of nut oil. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 300 | Author: | Levick, Milne B. | Add | | | Title: | Frank Norris | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | FRANK NORRIS has been dead over two years. The rush of faddists, of
readers of new books only, has passed. Norris has been honored with a
limited, and, alas! complete edition. But his books are still in
demand, and if, as he thought, in the end the people are always right,
Norris will not soon be forgotten. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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