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161Author:  Harte Bret 1836-1902Requires cookie*
 Title:  Tales of the Argonauts, and other sketches  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: “Dear Steve, — I've been thinking over your proposition to buy Nichols's quarter-interest, and have concluded to go in. But I don't see how the thing will pay until you have more accommodation down there, and for the best class, — I mean my customers. What we want is an extension to the main building, and two or three cottages put up. I send down a builder to take hold of the job at once. He takes his sick wife with him; and you are to look after them as you would for one of us. “My dear Sir, — I do not know whether the bearer will suit you; but, unless the office of `devil' in your newspaper is a purely technical one, I think he has all the qualities required. He is very quick, active, and intelligent; understands English better than he speaks it; and makes up for any defect by his habits of observation and imitation. You have only to show him how to do a thing once, and he will repeat it, whether it is an offence or a virtue. But you certainly know him already. You are one of his godfathers; for is he not Wan Lee, the reputed son of Wang the conjurer, to whose performances I had the honor to introduce you? But perhaps you have forgotten it. “Be ready to meet your family at the new cottage on Heavytree Hill on Christmas Day. Invite what friends you choose. “O Frank! — Don't you remember what we agreed upon anent the baby? Well, consider me as dead for the next six months, or gone where cubs can't follow me, — East. I know you love the baby; but do you think, dear boy, — now, really, do you think you could be a father to it? Consider this well. You are young, thoughtless, well-meaning enough; but dare you take upon yourself the functions of guide, genius, or guardian to one so young and guileless? Could you be the Mentor to this Telemachus? Think of the temptations of a metropolis. Look at the question well, and let me know speedily; for I've got him as far as this place, and he's kicking up an awful row in the hotel-yard, and rattling his chain like a maniac. Let me know by telegraph at once.
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162Author:  Holmes Mary Jane 1825-1907Requires cookie*
 Title:  Cousin Maude ; And, Rosamond  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: “The doin's here is wonderful, and you'd hardly know the old place. Thar's a big dining-room run out to the South, with an expansion-table mighty nigh a rod long, and what's more, it's allus full, too, of city stuck-ups— and the way they do eat! I haint churned nary pound of butter since you went away. Why, bless yer soul, we has to buy. Do you mind that patch of land what the Doctor used to plant with corn? Well, the garden sass grows there now, and t'other garden raises nothin' but flowers and strabries, and thar's a man hired on purpose to tend 'em. He's writin' this for me. Thar's a tower run up in the North-east eend, and when it's complete, she's goin' to have a what you call 'em—somethin' that blows up the water—oh, a fountain. Thar's one in the yard, and, if you'll believe it, she's got one of Cary's rotary pumpin' things, that folks are runnin' crazy about, and every hot day she keeps John a turnin' the injin' to squirt the water all over the yard, and make it seem like a thunder-shower! Thar's a bath-room, and when them city folks is here some on 'em is a washin' in thar all the time. I don't do nothin' now but wash and iron, and if I have fifty towels I have one! But what pesters me most is the wide skirts I has to do up; Miss Canady wears a hoop bigger than an amberell. They say Miss Empress, who makes these things, lives in Paris, and I wish you'd put yourself out a little to see her, and ask her, for me, to quit sendin' over them fetched hoops. Thar aint no sense in it! We've got jiggers in every chamber where the water spirts out. Besides turnin' the injin, John drives the horses in the new carriage. Dr. Canady looks poorly, and yet madam purrs round him like a kitten, but I knows the claws is thar. She's about broke him of usin' them maxims of his, and your poor marm would enjoy it a spell seein' him paid off, but she'd pity him after a while. I do, and if things continners to grow wus, I shall just ask pra'rs for him in my meetin'. Elder Blossom is powerful at that. My health is considerable good, but I find I grow old.
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163Author:  Jones J. B. (John Beauchamp) 1810-1866Requires cookie*
 Title:  The War-path  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: A dense fog hung over the placid surface of the Delaware River, and enveloped in its folds many of the ancient buildings of Burlington, then the capital of the colony of New Jersey. The stately mansion of the British governor, William Franklin, situated on the beautiful green bank so much admired at the present day, was wrapped in the vapour, and, as was often said of its occupant, seemed lost in a mist. Even the haunted tree in front of the governor's residence—the witches' sycamore—was reported by fearful pedestrians to have vanished, or at least to have become invisible. “Oh, my dear Julia! I have just learned, by a letter from Mr. Cameron, brought to my father by the dumb but faithful Skippie, that you have been seized by the Indians and carried a captive into the wilderness! But the letter says a great Indian-fighter, named Hugh McSwine, and a band of Scots, are in pursuit, and will certainly overtake your captors. This is startling intelligence, indeed, and distressing, though relieved somewhat by the comfortable assurance—which is sanctioned by the prophetic looks and decisive gestures of Skippie—that you will soon be restored to your friends. And Skippie, in two words, has told me to write this letter, making me understand, I scarcely know how, that it will certainly be delivered into your hands. He sets out on his return in the morning, and I am resolved to write all night!”
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164Author:  Trowbridge J. T. (John Townsend) 1827-1916Requires cookie*
 Title:  Martin Merrivale  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: 731EAF. Page 001. In-line Illustration. Image of a man and two children. Two other people in the background. “Dear brother Simeon: I don't think it advizble to trust the barer of this he is a wuthliss fellow I am nowin to the fact that he aint got a doler in the wrold I suppozed he would go rite to you to git bordid and so give him this letter to warn you aginst him I am well and hope you are injoin the same blessin. Your affectionate sister.
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165Author:  Trowbridge J. T. (John Townsend) 1827-1916Requires cookie*
 Title:  Neighbor Jackwood  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: In the kitchen door of an old, weather-worn farm-house stood Mr. Abimelech Jackwood, filling his pipe for an after-dinner smoke, and looking up at the sky with an air of contemplative wisdom.
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166Author:  Phelps Elizabeth Stuart 1844-1911Requires cookie*
 Title:  Hedged in  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: “HOUSES in streets are the places to live in”? Would Lamb ever have said it if he had spent, as I did, half a day in, and in the region of, No. 19 Thicket Street, South Atlas? “And how, if it were lawful, I could pray for greater trouble, for the greater comfort's sake.” John Bunyan provided you and me with a morning's discussion when he said that. Do you remember? Because I am writing to you, and because Nixy sits studying beside me, are reasons sufficient why I should recall the words on this particular occasion. I am crowded for time, but I write to tell you — for I would prefer that you should hear it from me — that we have at length identified and brought home Eunice's child. Whatever there is to tell you this time is the quiet close of a stormy epoch in our family history, — rich in wrecks, like all stormy things.
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167Author:  Warner Anna Bartlett 1824-1915Requires cookie*
 Title:  Dollars and cents  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: I WAS but a young thing, not yet “Standing with reluctant feet Where the brook and river meet, Womanhood and childhood fleet”— when there came a change in our outward circumstances. During my first years, we had enjoyed what some of our ancestors had toiled for; and my father after each day's soaring and diving into philosophy and science walked about our garden in silk stockings and with a rose in his mouth,— at that time I was a little thing that the rose-bushes looked down upon. And I looked up to them, with admiring eyes that often went higher still, and took in the straw hat that Mr. Howard wore of an afternoon: certainly that hat was a miracle for all purposes of shade and adornment.
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168Author:  Warner Anna Bartlett 1824-1915Requires cookie*
 Title:  My brother's keeper  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: It was a blustering December day,—no snow to lay the dust or to allay the cold with its bright reflections; and Winter himself seemed shivering, despoiled of his ermine cloak. “At a general court martial, whereof Colonel Thomas Parker was president, was tried Captain Charles Lewis, of the 29th regiment, on the following charge and specifications:
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169Author:  Evans Augusta J. (Augusta Jane) 1835-1909Requires cookie*
 Title:  Inez  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: “There is the bell for prayers, Florry; are you ready?” said Mary Irving, hastily entering her cousin's room at the large boarding-school of Madame —. “Santa Anna has crossed the Rio Grande with eight thousand men. I warn you of your danger. You can get horses now, for the Padre can not control your people. There are brave men in the Alamo, tell them of their danger. Again I say, fly quickly from San Antonio.
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170Author:  Evans Augusta J. (Augusta Jane) 1835-1909Requires cookie*
 Title:  Vashti, or, "Until death us do part"  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: “I CAN hear the sullen, savage roar of the breakers, if I do not see them, and my pretty painted bark — expectation — is bearing down helplessly upon them. Perhaps the unwelcome will not come to-day. What then? I presume I should not care; and yet, I am curious to see him, — anxious to know what sort of person will henceforth rule the house, and go in and out here as master. Of course the pleasant, peaceful days are at an end, for men always make din and strife in a household, — at least my father did, and he is the only one I know much about. But, after all, why borrow trouble? — the interloper may never come.” “I congratulate you, my young friend, on the correctness of your French themes, which I leave in the drawer of the library-table. When I return I will examine those prepared during my absence; and, in the interim, remain, “Dr. Grey: For God's sake come as quick as possible. I am afraid my mother is dying. “Edith, — No lingering vestige of affection, no remorseful tenderness, prompted that mission from which I have recently returned, and only the savage scourgings of implacable duty could have driven me, like a galley-slave, to my hated task. The victim of a horrible and disfiguring disease which so completely changed his countenance that his own mother would scarcely have recognized him, — and the tenant of a charity hospital in the town of —, I found that man who has proved the Upas of your life and of mine. During his delirium I watched and nursed him — not lovingly (how could I?) but faithfully, kindly, pityingly. When all danger was safely passed, and his clouded intellect began to clear itself, I left him in careful hands, and provided an ample amount for his comfortable maintenance in coming years. I spared him the humiliation of recognizing in his nurse his injured and despised wife; and, as night after night I watched beside the pitiable wreck of a once handsome, fascinating, and idolized man, I fully and freely forgave Maurice Carlyle all the wrongs that so completely stranded my life. To-day he is well, and probably happy, while he finds himself possessed of means by which to gratify his extravagant tastes; but how long his naturally fine constitution can hold at bay the legion of ills that hunt like hungry wolves along the track of reckless dissipation, God only knows.
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171Author:  Winthrop Theodore 1828-1861Requires cookie*
 Title:  Cecil Dreeme  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: Home! “I am not well. I cannot see you this morning. I will write again, — perhaps to-day, perhaps to-morrow. “Robert, good-bye! I could not see you face to face again, — I that have almost betrayed you with my sin.
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172Author:  Winthrop Theodore 1828-1861Requires cookie*
 Title:  Edwin Brothertoft  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: “Colonel Billop,” wrote Mr. Skaats, his agent and executor, “has been removed by an all-wise Providence. Under the present circumstances, Mr. Brothertoft, I do not wish to disturb you. But I should be glad to take possession at the Manor at your earliest convenience.
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173Author:  Winthrop Theodore 1828-1861Requires cookie*
 Title:  John Brent  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: I write in the first person; but I shall not maunder about myself. I am in no sense the hero of this drama. Call me Chorus, if you please, — not Chorus merely observant and impassive; rather Chorus a sympathizing monitor and helper. Perhaps I gave a certain crude momentum to the movement of the play, when finer forces were ready to flag; but others bore the keen pangs, others took the great prizes, while I stood by to lift the maimed and cheer the victor. “We are hastening on. I can write you but one word. Our journey has been prosperous. Mr. Armstrong is very kind. My dear father, I fear, is shattered out of all steadiness. God guard him, and guide me! My undying love to your friend. “We sail at once for home. My father cannot be at peace until he is in Lancashire again. Don't forget me, dear friends. I go away sick at heart.
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174Author:  Winthrop Theodore 1828-1861Requires cookie*
 Title:  Life in the open air  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: MOUNT KATAHDIN. 754EAF. Illustration page. A view of the mountain from a lake. In the foreground are three figures in a small boat.
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175Author:  Woolson Constance Fenimore 1840-1894Requires cookie*
 Title:  Castle nowhere  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: NOT many years ago the shore bordering the head of Lake Michigan, the northern curve of that silver sea, was a wilderness unexplored. It is a wilderness still, showing even now on the school-maps nothing save an empty waste of colored paper, generally a pale, cold yellow suitable to the climate, all the way from Point St. Ignace to the iron ports on the Little Bay de Noquet, or Badderknock in lake phraseology, a hundred miles of nothing, according to the map-makers, who, knowing nothing of the region, set it down accordingly, withholding even those long-legged letters, “Chip-pe-was,” “Ric-ca-rees,” that stretch accommodatingly across so much townless territory farther west. This northern curve is and always has been off the route to anywhere; and mortals, even Indians, prefer as a general rule, when once started, to go somewhere. The earliest Jesuit explorers and the captains of yesterday's schooners had this in common, that they could not, being human, resist a crosscut; and thus, whether bark canoes of two centuries ago or the high, narrow propellers of to-day, one and all, coming and going, they veer to the southeast or west, and sail gayly out of sight, leaving this northern curve of ours unvisited and alone. A wilderness still, but not unexplored; for that railroad of the future which is to make of British America a garden of roses, and turn the wild trappers of the Hudson's Bay Company into gently smiling congressmen, has it not sent its missionaries thither, to the astonishment and joy of the beasts that dwell therein? According to tradition, these men surveyed the territory, and then crossed over (those of them at least whom the beasts had spared) to the lower peninsula, where, the pleasing variety of swamps being added to the labyrinth of pines and sand-hills, they soon lost themselves, and to this day have never found what they lost. As the gleam of a camp-fire is occasionally seen, and now and then a distant shout heard by the hunter passing along the outskirts, it is supposed that they are in there somewhere, surveying still. “Respected Sir, — I must see you, you air in danger. Please come to the Grotter this afternoon at three and I remain yours respectful, “Mr. Solomon Bangs: My cousin Theodora Wentworth and myself have accepted the hospitality of your house for the night. Will you be so good as to send tidings of our safety to the Community, and oblige, “E. Stuart: The woman Dorcas Bangs died this day. She will be put away by the side of her husband, Solomon Bangs. She left the enclosed picture, which we hereby send, and which please acknowledge by return of mail.
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176Author:  unknownRequires cookie*
 Title:  The arrow of gold, or, The shell gatherer  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: “A young man, about eighteen years of age, five feet ten inches high, with brown complexion, dark hazel eyes very bright, and black curling hair, left the Arrow Inn on the morning of the 27th, to go to St. James's Palace. He was an entire stranger in London; and, as he has not returned, and had considerable money in his purse, it is feared he has met with foul play, or is lost. He wore a snuff-colored Lincolnshire frock, blue kersey trowsers, and a brown seal-skin cap with a visor. He has a proud air, and is gentle-spoken. “Dear Dame Cresset: I lost my way—I was pressed in a man-of-war—I am now a prisoner. This man, Bolton, says he will give you this, if he escapes free. Take care of my things! I do not know the name of the ship—but I hope yet to escape, sooner or later. Farewell.
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177Author:  Eggleston Edward 1837-1902Requires cookie*
 Title:  The Hoosier school-master  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: “WANT to be a school-master, do you? You? Well, what would you do in Flat Crick deestrick, I'd like to know? Why, the boys have driv off the last two, and licked the one afore them like blazes. You might teach a summer school, when nothin' but children come. But I 'low it takes a right smart man to be school-master in Flat Crick in the winter. They'd pitch you out of doors, sonny, neck and heels, afore Christmas.” “Dear Sir: Anybody who can do so good a thing as you did for our Shocky, can not be bad. I hope you will forgive me. All the appearances in the world, and all that anybody says, can not make me think you anything else but a good man. I hope God will reward you. You must not answer this, and you hadn't better see me again, or think any more of what you spoke about the other night. I shall be a slave for three years more, and then I must work for my mother and Shocky; but I felt so bad to think that I had spoken so hard to you, that I could not help writing this. Respectfully, “i Put in my best licks, taint no use. Run fer yore life. A plans on foot to tar an fether or wuss to-night. Go rite off. Things is awful juberous. “This is what I have always been afraid of. I warned you faithfully the last time I saw you. My skirts are clear of your blood. I can not consent for your uncle to appear as your counsel or to go your bail. You know how much it would injure him in the county, and he has no right to suffer for your evil acts. O my dear nephew! for the sake of your poor, dead mother—”
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178Author:  Eggleston Edward 1837-1902Requires cookie*
 Title:  The mystery of Metropolisville  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: METROPOLISVILLE is nothing but a memory now. If Jonah's gourd had not been a little too much used already, it would serve an excellent turn just here in the way of an apt figure of speech illustrating the growth, the wilting, and the withering of Metropolisville. The last time I saw the place the grass grew green where once stood the City Hall, the corn-stalks waved their banners on the very site of the old store—I ask pardon, the “Emporium”—of Jackson, Jones & Co., and what had been the square, staring white court-house—not a Temple but a Barn of Justice—had long since fallen to base uses. The walls which had echoed with forensic grandiloquence were now forced to hear only the bleating of silly sheep. The church, the school-house, and the City Hotel had been moved away bodily. The village grew, as hundreds of other frontier villages had grown, in the flush times; it died, as so many others died, of the financial crash which was the inevitable sequel and retribution of speculative madness. Its history resembles the history of other Western towns of the sort so strongly, that I should not take the trouble to write about it, nor ask you to take the trouble to read about it, if the history of the town did not involve also the history of certain human lives—of a tragedy that touched deeply more than one soul. And what is history worth but for its human interest? The history of Athens is not of value on account of its temples and statues, but on account of its men and women. And though the “Main street” of Metropolisville is now a country road where the dog-fennel blooms almost undisturbed by comers and goers, though the plowshare remorselessly turns over the earth in places where corner lots were once sold for a hundred dollars the front foot, and though the lot once sacredly set apart (on the map) as “Depot Ground” is now nothing but a potato-patch, yet there are hearts on which the brief history of Metropolisville has left traces ineffaceable by sunshine or storm, in time or eternity. “I should have come to see you and told you about my trip to Metropolisville, but I am obliged to go out of town again. I send this by Mr. Canton, and also a request to the warden to pass this and your answer without the customary inspection of contents. I saw your mother and your step-father and your friend Miss Marlay. Your mother is failing very fast, and I do not think it would be a kindness for me to conceal from you my belief that she can not live many weeks. I talked with her and prayed with her as you requested, but she seems to have some intolerable mental burden. Miss Marlay is evidently a great comfort to her, and, indeed, I never saw a more faithful person than she in my life, or a more remarkable exemplification of the beauty of a Christian life. She takes every burden off your mother except that unseen load which seems to trouble her spirit, and she believes absolutely in your innocence. By the way, why did you never explain to her or to me or to any of your friends the real history of the case? There must at least have been extenuating circumstances, and we might be able to help you. “Dear Sir: You have acted very honorably in writing me as you have, and I admire you now more than ever. You fulfill my ideal of a Christian. I never had the slightest claim or the slightest purpose to establish any claim on Isabel Marlay, for I was so blinded by self-conceit, that I did not appreciate her until it was too late. And now! What have I to offer to any woman? The love of a convicted felon! A name tarnished forever! No! I shall never share that with Isa Marlay. She is, indeed, the best and most sensible of women. She is the only woman worthy of such a man as you. You are the only man I ever saw good enough for Isabel. I love you both. God bless you! “Dear Sir: Your poor mother died yesterday. She suffered little in body, and her mind was much more peaceful after her last interview with Mr. Lurton, which resulted in her making a frank statement of the circumstances of the land-warrant affair. She afterward had it written down, and signed it, that it might be used to set you free. She also asked me to tell Miss Minorkey, and I shall send her a letter by this mail. I am so glad that your innocence is to be proved at last. I have said nothing about the statement your mother made to any one except Miss Minorkey, because I am unwilling to use it without your consent. You have great reason to be grateful to Mr. Lurton. He has shown himself your friend, indeed. I think him an excellent man. He comforted your mother a great deal. You had better let me put the writing your mother left, into his hands. I am sure he will secure your freedom for you. “My Dear, Good Friend: The death of my mother has given me a great deal of sorrow, though it did not surprise me. I remember now how many times of late years I have given her needless trouble. For whatever mistakes her personal peculiarities led her into, she was certainly a most affectionate mother. I can now see, and the reflection causes me much bitterness, that I might have been more thoughtful of her happiness without compromising my opinions. How much trouble my self-conceit must have given her! Your rebuke on this subject has been very fresh in mind since I heard of her death. And I am feeling lonely, too. Mother and Katy have gone, and more distant relatives will not care to know an outlaw. “My Dear Miss Marlay: I find that I can not even visit you without causing remarks to be made, which reflect on you. I can not stay here without wishing to enjoy your society, and you can not receive the visits of a `jail-bird,' as they call me, without disgrace. I owe everything to you, and it would be ungrateful, indeed, in me to be a source of affliction and dishonor to you. I never regretted my disgrace so much as since I talked with you last night. If I could shake that off, I might hope for a great happiness, perhaps.
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179Author:  English Thomas Dunn 1819-1902Requires cookie*
 Title:  Ambrose Fecit, or, The peer and the printer  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: I must have been about eighteen years old, or thereabouts, when, on a holiday in June, I walked out, and strolled by the high road to the country beyond Puttenham. The highway led me to a common over which it crossed; and there, musing over the commonplace events of the week, I wandered over the knolls of gravelly soil, and among the furze-bushes, watching the donkies as they cropped the scanty blades of grass, and indulged occasionally in a tit-bit, in the way of a juicy thistle. Tired at length, I sat me down to rest under a thorn-bush by the road-side, and was thus seated when I heard the sound of voices. Looking up, I saw a man approach, who was leading by the hand a little girl who appeared to be about ten years of age. I was struck with the appearance of the couple, and so scanned them closely. “My dear young friend—A letter, received as you left us last night, called me direct to London, without an opportunity to bid you more than this farewell, or to express, as I ought, my sense of your kindness. Zara sends her love to you, and the enclosed souvenir. May God have you in his holy keeping. “Herewith you have a copy of my portrait of little Zara, whose untimely fate in being whisked away by a grim, grey-bearded ogre, you have so much lamented. I think that I have not only caught the features, but the whole spirit of her extraordinary face. I should like your criticism on that point, for you were so fond of her that her expression must be firmly fixed on your mind. “My dear Ambrose:—Read this letter as carefully as you like, and then—burn it. “My dear Ambrose:—You have been nearly four years absent from England, and I have done my best to send and keep you away. Now, I write to you to urge you to come back.
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180Author:  unknownRequires cookie*
 Title:  Good company for every day in the year  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: I CONFESS it, I am keenly sensitive to “skyey influences.” I profess no indifference to the movements of that capricious old gentleman known as the clerk of the weather. I cannot conceal my interest in the behavior of that patriarchal bird whose wooden similitude gyrates on the church spire. Winter proper is well enough. Let the thermometer go to zero if it will; so much the better, if thereby the very winds are frozen and unable to flap their stiff wings. Sounds of bells in the keen air, clear, musical, heart-inspiring; quick tripping of fair moccasoned feet on glittering ice-pavements; bright eyes glancing above the uplifted muff like a sultana's behind the folds of her yashmack; school-boys coasting down street like mad Greenlanders; the cold brilliance of oblique sunbeams flashing back from wide surfaces of glittering snow or blazing upon ice-jewelry of tree and roof. There is nothing in all this to complain of. A storm of summer has its redeeming sublimities, — its slow, upheaving mountains of cloud glooming in the western horizon like new-created volcanoes, veined with fire, shattered by exploding thunders. Even the wild gales of the equinox have their varieties, — sounds of wind-shaken woods, and waters, creak and clatter of sign and casement, hurricane puffs and down-rushing rain-spouts. But this dull, dark autumn day of thaw and rain, when the very clouds seem too spiritless and languid to storm outright or take themselves out of the way of fair weather; wet beneath and above, reminding one of that rayless atmosphere of Dante's Third Circle, where the infernal Priessnitz administers his hydropathic torment, — “A heavy, cursed, and relentless drench, — The land it soaks is putrid”; — or rather, as everything, animate and inanimate, is seething in warm mist, suggesting the idea that Nature, grown old and rheumatic, is trying the efficacy of a Thompsonian steam-box on a grand scale; no sounds save the heavy plash of muddy feet on the pavements; the monotonous, melancholy drip from trees and roofs; the distressful gurgling of water-ducts, swallowing the dirty amalgam of the gutters; a dim, leaden-colored horizon of only a few yards in diameter, shutting down about one, beyond which nothing is visible save in faint line or dark projection; the ghost of a church spire or the eidolon of a chimney-pot. He who can extract pleasurable emotions from the alembic of such a day has a trick of alchemy with which I am wholly unacquainted. Whereas Charles Stuart, King of England, is and standeth convicted, attainted and condemned of High Treason and other high Crimes; and Sentence upon Saturday last was pronounced against him by this Court, To be put to death by the severing of his head from his body; of which Sentence execution yet remaineth to be done: “It begins: — `Dear Uncle,' (I had always instructed the child so to call me, rather than father, seeing we can have but one father, while we may be blessed with numerous uncles) `I suppose you will wonder how I came to be at St. Louis, and it is just my being here that I write to explain. You know how my husband felt about Nelly's death, but you cannot know how I felt; for, even in my very great sorrow, I hoped all the time, that by her death, John might be led to a love of religion. He was very unhappy, but he would not show it, only that he took even more tender care of me than before. I have always been his darling and pride; he never let me work, because he said it spoiled my hands; but after Nelly died, he was hardly willing I should breathe; and though he never spoke of her, or seemed to feel her loss, yet I have heard him whisper her name in his sleep, and every morning his hair and pillow were damp with crying; but he never knew I saw it. After a few months, there came a Mormon preacher into our neighborhood, a man of a great deal of talent and earnestness, and a firm believer in the revelation to Joseph Smith. At first my husband did not take any notice of him, and then he laughed at him for being a believer in what seemed like nonsense; but one night he was persuaded to go and hear Brother Marvin preach in the school-house, and he came home with a very sober face. I said nothing, but when I found there was to be a meeting the next night, I asked to go with him, and, to my surprise, I heard a most powerful and exciting discourse, not wanting in either sense or feeling, though rather poor as to argument; but I was not surprised that John wanted to hear more, nor that, in the course of a few weeks, he avowed himself a Mormon, and was received publicly into the sect. Dear Uncle, you will be shocked, I know, and you will wonder why I did not use my influence over my husband, to keep him from this delusion; but you do not know how much I have longed and prayed for his conversion to a religious life; until any religion, even one full of errors, seemed to me better than the hardened and listless state of his mind. “`My first wife, Adeline Frazer Henderson, departed this life on the sixth of July, at my house in the city of Great Salt Lake. Shortly before dying she called upon me, in the presence of two sisters, and one of the Saints, to deliver into your hands the enclosed packet, and tell you of her death. According to her wish, I send the papers by mail; and, hoping you may yet be called to be a partaker in the faith of the saints below, I remain your afflicted, yet rejoicing friend, “To-day I begged John to write, and ask you to come here. I could not write you since I came here but that once, though your letters have been my great comfort, and I added a few words of entreaty to his, because I am dying, and it seems as if I must see you before I die; yet I fear the letter may not reach you, or you may be sick: and for that reason I write now, to tell you how terrible a necessity urged me to persuade you to such a journey. I can write but little at a time, my side is so painful; they call it slow-consumption here, but I know better; the heart within me is turned to stone, I felt it then — Ah! you see my mind wandered in that last line; it still will return to the old theme, like a fugue tune, such as we had in the Plainfield singing-school. I remember one that went, `The Lord is just, is just, is just.' — Is He? Dear Uncle, I must begin at the beginning, or you never will know. I wrote you from St. Louis, did I not? I meant to. From there, we had a dreary journey, not so bad to Fort Leavenworth, but after that inexpressibly dreary, and set with tokens of the dead, who perished before us. A long reach of prairie, day after day, and night after night; grass, and sky, and graves; grass, and sky, and graves; till I hardly knew whether the life I dragged along was life or death, as the thirsty, feverish days wore on into the awful and breathless nights, when every creature was dead asleep, and the very stars in heaven grew dim in the hot, sleepy air — dreadful days! I was too glad to see that bitter inland sea, blue as the fresh lakes, with its gray islands of bare rock, and sparkling sand shores, still more rejoiced to come upon the City itself, the rows of quaint, bare houses, and such cool water-sources, and, over all, near enough to rest both eyes and heart, the sunlit mountains, `the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.'
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