| | 1 | Author: | Cummins
Maria S.
(Maria Susanna)
1827-1866 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Haunted hearts  | | | | Published: | 2002 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Every circle has its centre. To describe a circle, one
must choose a given point, and radiate thence at equal
distances. The north-eastern corner of New Jersey is
that part of the earth's surface on which I propose to
describe a circle, and the centre of that circle is Stein's
Tavern. “Adieu! My sole pang in leaving New Jersey is the
thought that I shall never again see the fair friend,
`Whose heart was my home in an enemy's land.'
I flatter myself that the emotion is mutual. Continue,
I entreat you, to cherish tender recollections of your
devoted Josselyn. Our paths, like our lots in life, lie
apart. Had Heaven placed you, dear girl, in the sphere
you are so well fitted to adorn, who knows what we
might have been to each other? It grieves me that one
whose beauty and grace have cheered my exile should
be doomed to waste her sweetness upon a neighborhood
so contracted and vulgar as that of Stein's Plains; but
habit, I have no doubt, reconciles you to many things
which shock the sensibilities of a stranger; and, alas!
every station in life has its disadvantages. It may be a
consolation to you to be assured that you will not be
quite forgotten in those more aristocratic circles to which
my destiny leads me. I shall still carry your image in
my heart. Many a fair daughter of my own country
will suffer by a comparison with it; and when the toast
goes round I shall pique the curiosity of my brother
officers by giving them the `New Jersey belle.' | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 2 | Author: | Cary
Alice
1820-1871 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The adopted daughter | | | | Published: | 2002 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | BY ALICE CAREY,
AUTHOR OF “CLOVERNOOK,” “LYRA,” ETC. “Miss Pridore,—A conversation with your brother this
afternoon, in which my father's misfortunes were the subject of
ridicule, will make it necessary for me to forego the pleasure of
seeing you at his birth-night party. Your friend, | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 3 | Author: | Cary
Alice
1820-1871 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The bishop's son | | | | Published: | 2002 | | | | 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 sunshine was hot between the April showers,
and the rude, rickety door-stones (they could
hardly be called door-steps) of the old farmhouse
to which, they led, were wet and dry
almost at the same moment, happening at the
moment in which our story opens, to be dry; the fickle
clouds had scattered, and the sun was shining with pretty
nearly midsummer heat. It was about noon-day, and the
young girl who had been busy all the morning digging in
the flower-beds that lay on either side a straight path running
from the front door to the front gate, suddenly tossed
aside her bonnet, and flung herself down on the steps. She
was tired, and rather lay than sat; and a pleasant picture
she made, her flushed cheek on her arm, the cape, lately
tied at her throat, drawn carelessly to her lap, her tiny
naked feet sunken in the grass, and all her fair neck and
dimpled shoulders bare. “My sweet Sister Fairfax: When I was under your
hospitable roof, a day or two since,” (he had not been
under the roof at all, remember), “I had the rashness to
make a proposal to your little daughter which I have not
the courage to carry out without your permission. But to
come at once to the head and front of my offending, I proposed
to take her to see our unfortunate brother, Samuel
Dale, of whom, by the way, I hear sad accounts. It seemed
to me that it might gratify the childish fondness she appears
to feel for him, and do no harm, but you, of course, are the
best judge of this, and on second thoughts I have been led
to distrust my first impulse; but the little darling has a
strange power upon me, and I could not see her suffering
without at least seeking to relieve it. If you approve of
my suggestion I will report myself for duty in a day or two,
so soon as I shall be well enough, and, as I am in the skilful
hands of Dr. Allprice, I entertain the most sanguine hopes.
If you do not approve, pray forgive me, and believe me, in
the deepest penitence, “My sweet Kate: — To prove to you that your memory
has been fondly cherished all these years, I return to you a
little souvenir that is dearer to me than the `ruddy drops
that visit this sad heart.' Suffer no harm to come to it, but
let me have it back; I will hold it for a talisman, `and
call upon it in a storm, and save the ship from perishing
some time.' “I am off a little sooner than I expected, dear Sam,” he
said, “and cannot well spare the money to pay the note that
will be handed you with this; please arrange it for me and
add one more to my many obligations. I will be back at
farthest in six weeks, and then we will square up, once for
all, I hope. Everything looks bright for me as a May morning.
By the way, Kate is charmed with you; she comes
near making me jealous! Always and always your affectionate | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 4 | Author: | Cary
Alice
1820-1871 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Hagar | | | | Published: | 2002 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Fragments of clouds, leaden and black and ashen,
ran under and over each other along the sky, now
totally and now only in part obscuring the half
moon, whose white and chilly rays might not penetrate
the rustic bower within which sat two persons,
conversing in low and earnest tones. But, notwithstanding
the faintness of the moonlight, enough of
their dresses and features were discernible to mark
them male and female, for the dull skirts of night
had now scarcely overswept the golden borders of
twlight. The long and dense bar that lay across
the west, retained still some touch of its lately
crimson fires. “Dear Fren—This is Sunday, and deuced hot and uncomfortable.
I have been lying under a maple by the mill-stream—my
line thrown out a little way below, and a new
book in hand—one of those bewildering productions which are
making so much noise—of course you understand: that
strange combination, the latest of Warburton's works. I have
never forgotten that sermon—so full of eloquent warning to
the sinner—so luminous with hope, comforting to the afflicted:
the very words seemed leaning to the heart; and how well
I remember his saying, `Oh, she was good, and in her life
and her death alike beautiful! knowing her goodness, shall it
be to us a barren thing? shall we not also shape our lives
into beauty? shall we not wash and be clean?' But a truce
to sermonizing. My coat is threadbare, and my pockets
empty, but as soon as opportunity occurs I mean to do something.
When I left the house Nancy had her bonnet on to
go to church, but the discovery of a hole in her stocking
obliged her to wait, and as the children had used the darning
yarn for a ball, and she had dropped her thimble in the well,
I fear she must be disappointed. And William too—poor fellow!
I left him waiting patiently, and looking much as if he
had dressed himself forty years ago, and never undressed
since. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 6 | Author: | Cary
Alice
1820-1871 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Pictures of country life | | | | Published: | 2002 | | | | 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 rain had fallen slowly and continuously since midnight
—and it was now about noon, though a long controversy
among the hands had decided the time, finally to be three
o'clock; no one among the dozen of them had a watch, except
Lem Lyon, the most ill-natured, the least accommodating of
all the work-hands on the farm, and no man ventured to inquire
of him, for he was more than ordinarily unamiable to-day, and
lay on the barn-floor apart from his work-mates, with a bundle
of oat-straw for his pillow, and his hat pulled over his eyes,
taking no part in the discussion about the time, and affecting
to hear nothing of it. “I have so many things to say, and am so little used to
writing, that I don't know how to begin; but as I promised to
keep a sort of journal of every day's experience, I suppose I
may as well begin now, for this is the second night of my being
here. You can't imagine what a nice ride we had in the open
wagon, so much pleasanter than being shut up in a coach—it
was such a pleasure to see the stout horses pull us along, and
trotting or walking just as Uncle Wentworth directed: I say
uncle, because I like Mr. Wentworth, and wish all the time he
was some true relation. The straw in the wagon smelled so
sweet, sweeter than flowers, it seemed to me; and when we got
into the real country everything looked so beautiful, that I
laughed all the time, and Uncle Wentworth said folks would
think he had a crazy girl. I was very much ashamed of my
ignorance, for I thought all country people lived in holes in the
ground, or little huts made of sticks, and that cows and horses
and all lived together; but we saw all along the road such
pretty cottages and gardens, and some houses indeed as fine as
ours. I kept asking Uncle Wentworth what sort of place we
were going to, for I could not help fearing it was a very bad
place; but he only laughed, and told me to wait and see. A
good many men were at work in fields of hay—some cutting
and some tossing it about—and I kept wishing I was among
them, they seemed so merry, and the hay was so sweet. In
some places were great fields of corn, high as my head, with
grey tassels on the tops of it. I thought men were at work
there too, it shook so; but Uncle Wentworth said it was only
the wind. And back of the fields, and seeming like a great
green wall between the earth and the sky, stood the woods. I
mean to go into them before long, but I am a little afraid of
wild beasts yet; though uncle says I will find no worse thing
than myself there. We met a good many carriages, full of
gayly dressed people coming into town; and saw a number of
young ladies dressed in bright ginghams, tending the flowers in
front of the cottages, sometimes at work in the gardens, indeed,
so my dresses will be right in the fashion. In one place we
passed a white school-house, set right in the edge of the woods;
and when we were a little by, out came near forty children,
some girls as big as I, and a whole troop of little boys, all
laughing, and jumping, and frolicking, as I never heard children
laugh. I asked Uncle Wentworth if it were proper? and he
said it was their nature, and he supposed our wise Father had
made them right. Some of the boys ran and caught hold of
the tail of our wagon and held there, half swinging and half
riding, ever so long. Pretty soon uncle stopped the horses, and
asked a slim, pale-faced girl, who was studying her book as she
walked to ride; and thanking him as politely as anybody could
do, she climbed up, right behind the horses, and sat down by
me, and spoke the same as though she had been presented.
She had a sweet face under a blue bonnet, but was as white,
and looked as frail, as a lily. After she was seated, she looked
back so earnestly, that I looked too, and saw the schoolmaster
come out of the house and lock the door, and cross his hands
behind him as he turned into a lane that ran by, which seemed
to go up and up, green and shady as far as I could see. I
could only see that his cheeks were red, and that he had curls
under his straw hat. The girl kept looking the way he went;
but if it were he she thought of, he didn't turn to look at her.
Close by a stone-arched bridge, from under which a dozen birds
flew as we rattled over it, Uncle Wentworth stopped the horses,
and the young lady got out, and went through a gate at
the roadside; and I watched her walking in a narrow and deep-worn
path that was close by the bank of a run, till she turned
round a hill, and I could not see her any more; but I saw a
lively blue smoke, curling up over the hill-top, and in the hollow
behind, Uncle Wentworth said she lived. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 8 | Author: | De Forest
John William
1826-1906 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Wetherel affair | | | | Published: | 2002 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | YOUNG Mr. Edward Wetherel and his more mature friend Mr. Frank
Wolverton were on the after promenade deck of the steamer Elm City,
bound from New York to New Haven. “My dear, dear friend,” she began, “what shall I say to you? We must
wait, and you must have patience; can't you? I hope and believe that you
trust me, notwithstanding that you cannot see me. You may confide in me
thoroughly. I have thought this matter all over, and, my dear, dear friend, I
have prayed over it, and it seems to me that I have received some light upon
it. When I remember how we were allowed to meet, and to learn to believe
in each other, until it was too late to disbelieve, it seems to me that we were
led by a mighty hand, a hand reaching from the other world. I think so with
frequent trembling, and yet with prevailing cheerfulness. And so I shall keep
my promise to you, in spite of your good uncle's warning. My dear, dear
friend, the friend that has come nearest to my heart of any on earth, if you
have not been always a good man heretofore, you must be a good man henceforward
for my sake, as well as for far greater motives. I will not write any more,
for perhaps I ought not. But I could not help writing this. What I have to
ask you, then, is to have patience until we can hear from my father. Is it too
much? “Dear Coz,” it ran, “I am in durance vile. I regret to darken your mind
with my calamity; but school keeps not to-day, and Walter is in no set place;
a thousand boys would not find him. Some one who knows me must come to
the Tombs and swear that I am a harmless philosopher and no midnight villain.
Such is the charge against me, that I am a midnight villain. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 9 | Author: | Cary
Alice
1820-1871 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Clovernook, or, Recollections of our neighborhood in
the West | | | | Published: | 2002 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Change is the order of nature; the old makes way for the
new; over the perished growth of the last year brighten the blossoms
of this. What changes are to be counted, even in a little
noiseless life like mine! How many graves have grown green;
how many locks have grown gray; how many, lately young,
and strong in hope and courage, are faltering and fainting; how
many hands that reached eagerly for the roses are drawn back
bleeding and full of thorns; and, saddest of all, how many
hearts are broken! I remember when I had no sad memory,
when I first made room in my bosom for the consciousness of
death. How—like striking out from a wilderness of dew-wet
blossoms where the shimmer of the light is lovely as the wings
of a thousand bees, into an open plain where the clear day
strips things to their natural truth—we go from young visions
to the realities of life! “Dearest Annie,—I am sitting in a pleasant little room in
the Academy; for, you must know, I am become a student.
Before me is a table, covered with books, papers, and manuscripts,
finished and unfinished. The fire is burning brightly in
the grate, and I am content—almost happy. But to whom am
I indebted for all this happiness? Ah, Annie! that little package
you gave me at parting! How shall I ever repay you?
I will not trouble you now by relating my hard experience for
two months after leaving you; for, during that time, I did not
unseal the package, which I looked at daily, wondering what it
could contain, and pleasing myself with various conjectures.
At last, one night, I opened it, and, to my joy and sorrow, discovered
its contents to be what only the most adverse fortune
could have compelled me to avail myself of. But, with a
sense of humiliation, I did make use of your self-sacrificing
generosity. Dear Annie! what do I not owe to you? I still
keep the envelope; and, when I return, I intend to bring you
the precise amount, as a bridal present, which you have so
kindly, so considerately bestowed on me. Close application,
this session, will enable me to teach for a part of the time; so
that hereafter I shall be able to rely on myself. I have some
glorious plans for the future, but none, Annie, disconnected
with you. Every exertion that is made, shall be with reference
to the future that must be ours. And do you think of me
often? or ever? Ah, I will not wrong you by the inquiry!
I know you do. Well, hope on. Time, faith, and energy, will
do for us every thing. And is Mary the same merry-hearted
girl? I hope so. For my sake, tell her she must love you
very kindly. And Samuel—does he miss me, or ever speak
of me? He will find some memento, I think, that may serve
to remind him of me, in that cabinet of curiosities, the cider-mill.
As for Mr. Joseph Heaton, I have no doubt but that he
has `kept out of jail.' Forgive me, Annie, that there are persons
whose wrongs I can not quite forget. I was greatly edified
last Sabbath by a discourse on forgiveness. The clergyman,
young and handsome—Mary, I think, would have fallen in love
with him—spoke with an earnestness indicating a conviction of
the truth of his doctrine, which was, that we are no where in
the Scriptures required to forgive our enemies. Even Christ,
he said, only prayed for his enemies, inasmuch as they were
ignorant: `Forgive them, for they know not what they do.'
This idea was curious, and to me new; and I suffered my mind
to be relieved, without inquiring very deeply into the theology.
Forgive this little episode. I did not intend it, but know that I
shall not feel myself bound to forgive you in this world or the
next, if you forget to love me. It is night—late—and I must
close—not to save candles, Annie, but that some sleep is necessary.
I shall perhaps dream of you.” Dear Sir: In compliance with a resolution of the Board of Trustees of
the Lancaster School Society, of this city, we have examined, with as much
care as the time allowed would permit us to bestow, the series of Grammatic
Readers (Nos. I., II., and III.), of Mr. Edward Hazen; and, from
such examination, are enabled to say, that the series is well adapted to attain
the object Mr. Hazen has had in view in its preparation, viz.: that of
enabling the scholar to understand the English language while learning to
read it. Dear Sir: We have briefly examined Hazen's Grammatic Readers
(Nos. I. and II.), which you kindly presented to us, and believe that they
are well calculated for the object which the author has in view. There can
be no doubt that children will learn more rapidly a correct pronunciation
of words, arranged according to this system, than they will in many of the
books which we have in our schools. And there can be no reason why the
first principles of grammar may not be taught at the same time that the
scholar is learning to read. In short, we think the work worthy of the notice
of the friends of popular education. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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