| | 221 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Tom Sawyer Abroad / by Mark Twain.  | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | DO you reckon Tom Sawyer was satisfied after all
them adventures? I mean the adventures we had
down the river, and the time we set the darky Jim free
and Tom got shot in the leg. No, he wasn't. It only
just p'isoned him for more. That was all the effect it
had. You see, when we three came back up the river
in glory, as you may say, from that long travel, and
the village received us with a torchlight procession and
speeches, and everybody hurrah'd and shouted, it
made us heroes, and that was what Tom Sawyer had
always been hankering to be. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 224 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of
the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Boomerang,
and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression
of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance.
He roused up and gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had
commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion
of his boyhood named Leonidas W. Smiley — Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley
— a young minister of the Gospel, who he had heard was at one time
a resident of this village of Boomerang. I added that if Mr. Wheeler
could tell me any thing about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would
feel under many obligations to him. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 226 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Is Shakespeare Dead? | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | SCATTERED here and there through the stacks of unpublished
manuscript which constitute this formidable Autobiography
and Diary of mine, certain chapters will in some distant future be
found which deal with "Claimants"—claimants historically
notorious: Satan, Claimant; the Golden Calf, Claimant; the Veiled
Prophet of Khorassan, Claimant; Louis XVII., Claimant; William
Shakespeare, Claimant; Arthur Orton, Claimant; Mary Baker G.
Eddy, Claimant
—and the rest of them. Eminent Claimants,
successful Claimants, defeated Claimants, royal Claimants, pleb
Claimants, showy Claimants, shabby Claimants, revered Claimants,
despised Claimants, twinkle starlike here and there and yonder
through the mists of history and legend and tradition—and oh, all
the darling tribe are clothed in mystery and romance, and we read
about them with deep interest and discuss them with loving
sympathy or with rancorous resentment, according to which side
we hitch ourselves to. It has always been so with the human race.
There was never a Claimant that couldn't get a hearing, nor one
that couldn't accumulate a rapturous following, no matter how
flimsy and apparently unauthentic his claim might be. Arthur
Orton's claim that he was the lost Tichborne baronet come to life
again was as flimsy as Mrs.
Eddy's that she wrote Science and
Health from the direct dictation of the Deity; yet in England near
forty years ago Orton had a huge army of devotees and incorrigible
adherents, many of whom remained stubbornly unconvinced after
their fat god had been proven an impostor and jailed as a perjurer,
and to-day Mrs. Eddy's following is not only immense, but is daily
augmenting in numbers and enthusiasm. Orton had many fine and
educated minds among his adherents, Mrs. Eddy has had the like
among hers from the beginning. Her church is as well equipped in
those particulars as is any other church. Claimants can always
count upon a following, it doesn't matter who they are, nor what
they claim, nor whether they come with documents or without. It
was always so. Down out of the long-vanished past, across the
abyss of the ages, if you listen
you can still hear the believing
multitudes shouting for Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 231 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Innocents Abroad | | | | Published: | 1996 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | FOR months the great pleasure excursion
to Europe and the Holy Land was chatted about in the newspapers everywhere
in America and discussed at countless firesides. It was a novelty in the
way of excursions — its like had not been thought of before, and it
compelled that interest which attractive novelties always command. It was
to be a picnic on a gigantic scale. The participants in it, instead of
freighting an ungainly steam ferry-boat with youth and beauty and pies and
doughnuts, and paddling up some obscure creek to disembark upon a grassy
lawn and wear themselves out with a long summer day's laborious frolicking
under the impression that it was fun, were to sail away in a great
steamship with flags flying and cannon pealing, and take a royal holiday
beyond the broad ocean in many a strange clime and in many a land renowned
in history! They were to sail for months over the breezy Atlantic and the
sunny Mediterranean; they were to scamper about the decks by day, filling
the ship with shouts and laughter — or read novels and poetry in the shade
of the smokestacks, or watch for the jelly-fish and the nautilus over the
side, and the shark, the whale, and other strange monsters of the deep;
and at night they were to dance in the open air, on the upper deck, in the
midst of a ballroom that stretched from horizon to horizon, and was domed
by the bending heavens and lighted by no meaner lamps than the stars and
the magnificent moon-dance, and promenade, and smoke, and sing, and make
love, and search the skies for constellations that never associate with
the "Big Dipper" they
were so tired of; and they were to see the ships of twenty
navies — the customs and costumes of twenty curious
peoples — the great cities of half a world — they were to
hob-nob with nobility and hold friendly converse with kings and
princes, grand moguls, and the anointed lords of mighty empires! It
was a brave conception; it was the offspring of a most ingenious
brain. It was well advertised, but it hardly needed it: the bold
originality, the extraordinary character, the seductive nature, and
the vastness of the enterprise provoked comment everywhere and
advertised it in every household in the land. Who could read the
program of the excursion without longing to make one of the party? I
will insert it here. It is almost as good as a map. As a text for
this book, nothing could be better: | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 232 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Mysterious Stranger; A Romance by Mark Twain [pseud.] with
illustrations by N.C. Wyeth. | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IT WAS IN 1590—winter. Austria was far away from the world, and asleep;
it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever.
Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by the
mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in Austria. But
they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were
all proud of it. I remember it well, although I was only a boy; and I remember,
too, the pleasure it gave me. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 236 | Author: | Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Roughing It | | | | Published: | 1998 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | MY brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada
Territory—an office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself
the duties and dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of
State, and Acting Governor in the Governor's absence. A salary of
eighteen hundred dollars a year and the title of "Mr. Secretary,"
gave to the great position an air of wild and imposing grandeur. I
was young and ignorant, and I envied my brother. I coveted his
distinction and his financial splendor, but particularly and
especially the long, strange journey he was going to make, and the
curious new world he was going to explore. He was going to
travel! I never had been away from home, and that word "travel"
had a seductive charm for me. Pretty soon he would be hundreds
and hundreds of miles away on the great plains and deserts, and
among the mountains of the Far West, and would see buffaloes and
Indians, and prairie dogs, and antelopes, and have all kinds of
adventures, and may be get hanged or scalped, and have ever such
a fine time, and write home and tell us all about it, and be a hero.
And he would see the gold mines and the silver mines, and maybe
go about of an afternoon when his work was done, and pick up two
or three pailfuls of shining slugs, and nuggets of gold and silver on
the hillside. And by and by he would become very rich, and return
home by sea, and be able to talk as calmly about San Francisco and
the ocean, and "the isthmus" as if it was nothing of any
consequence to have seen those marvels face to face. What I
suffered in contemplating his happiness, pen cannot describe. And
so, when he offered me, in cold blood, the sublime position of
private secretary under him, it appeared to me that
the heavens and the earth passed away, and the firmament was
rolled together as a scroll! I had nothing more to desire. My
contentment was complete.
ENVIOUS CONTEMPLATIONS.
At the end of an hour or two I was ready for the journey. Not
much packing up was necessary, because we were going in the
overland stage from the Missouri frontier to Nevada, and
passengers were only allowed a small quantity of baggage apiece.
There was no Pacific railroad in those fine times of ten or twelve
years ago—not a single rail of it. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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