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21Author:  Judd Sylvester 1813-1853Requires cookie*
 Title:  Margaret  
 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: “Didymus Hart being summoned to this Committee, on the information of sundry witnesses, that the said Hart on the 27th day of this month, had violated the laws of the Continental and Provincial Congress, and done other acts contrary to the liberties of the country, appeared, and after due proof being made of said charge, the said Hart was pleased to make a full confession thereof, and in the most equivocal and insulting manner attempted to vindicate said conduct, to wit:— “Whereas I, the subscriber, have from the perverseness of my wicked heart maliciously and scandalously abused the character and proceedings of the Continental and Provincial Congress, Selectmen of this town, and the Committees of Safety in general, I do hereby declare, that at the time of my doing it, I knew the said abuses to be the most scandalous falsehoods, and that I did it for the sole purpose of abusing those bodies of men, and affronting my townsmen, and all the friends of liberty throughout the Continent. Being now fully sensible of my wickedness and notorious falsehoods, I humbly beg pardon of those worthy characters I have so scandalously abused, and voluntarily renouncing my former principles, do promise for the future to render my conduct unexceptionable to my countrymen, by strictly adhering to the measures of Congress, and desire this my confession may be printed in the Kidderminster Chronicle for three weeks successively.
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22Author:  Judd Sylvester 1813-1853Requires cookie*
 Title:  Margaret  
 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: My dear Anna:—You told me to write you every thing; but how shall I utter myself? How can I give shape or definition to what I am? Easy were it for me to tell you what I am not. Has a volcano burst within me? Has a tornado prostrated me? If you were to excavate the Herculaneum that I seem to myself to be, would you find only charred effigies of things, silent fountains of old emotions, deserted streets of a once busy and harmonious life, skeletons of hopes stricken down in the act of running from impending danger? With Rose, I would forget myself, that to which this writing recalls me. She says I can endure the prospect better than she. If this be so, it must be attributed to its possessing the merit of novelty. I am in ruins, and so are all things about me. Yet in the windfall some trees are new sprouting; invisible hands are rebuilding the shattered edifice. View me as you will, I think I am a doit improving. Do I begin existence wholly anew, or rise I up from the chaos of an earlier condition? What is the transition—from myself to myself, or from myself to another? What is the link between Molly Hart and Margaret Brückmann, can you tell? In which of the climacterics do I now exist? I am witheringly afflicted. Chilion is not! “Te sine, væ misero mihi! lilia nigra videntur, Palentesque rosæ, nec dulce rubens hyacinthus!” The vision of those days distracts me, the remembrance of my brother turns the voices of the birds into wailing, and the sun is pale at midday. In Scotland are Caves of Music, deep pits where unseen water keeps up a sort of midnight melody. I am such a cave. Chilion flows through me, a nethermost, mournfullest dirge. Then, too, Ma is so silent; her features are so rigidly distressed. She smokes and weaves, hour after hour; I fear she will never smile again. Pa has lost his glow of countenance; he has grown absolutely pale; and where he sits working, I see tears drip on his leathern apron. Hash is so sober, so soft, it frightens me. Nimrod comes down from the Ledge and does his best to enliven us, but his gayety has fled, and he knows not how to be mournful. Bull had one leg broke at the time of Chilion's trial, and hobbles out to Chilion's boat, where he sits by the hour. Rose is soothing and active, but she has a load at her own heart, which, in truth, I need help her bear. Isabel rides up almost every day, full of sympathy and generous love. Deacon Ramsdill, Master Elliman, Mrs. Bowker aud others, have made us kind visits. Sibyl Radney comes and milks the cow, and does some of my little chores. Yesterday, Rose and Isabel went with me to the burying-ground. Good old Philip Davis, the Sexton, so I have been told, had the courage and the kindness to go one night and cover Chilion's grave with green sod. It is by itself apart, in one corner of the grounds. Few persons have been near it, and the tall grass has grown rank about it. I threw myself upon it and dissolved in weeping. Murmur I could not; an inarticulate, ungovernable anguish was all I could feel. O my brother! I knew not I had such a brother; I knew not I loved such a brother!—We found a dandelion budding on it—when I was little, he taught me to love dandelions! Rose folded me in her arms, Isabel prayed for me. I thought of the blood-sweating agony of Him, the Divine Sufferer; it penetrated and subdued mine. Mrs. Bowker gave me a lady's slipper, taken from the plant Chilion sent her. There is a fancy that flowers die, when those who have tended them do. Will Chilion's flowers live? There are many of us who will fulfil his love towards them. I cannot forget you, I live in your approbation, I thrive VOL. II. 18 under your care. Many obligations for your kind note. I am externally more calm, my nerves are less susceptable, I sleep more soundly, and Margaret says there is some color in my cheeks. If we were composed of four concentric circles, I can say the three outer ones approximate a healthy and natural state. But the fourth, the innermost, the central core, what can I say of that? I dare not look in there, I dare not reflect upon myself. One thing, I have no real guilt to harass me; I only call to mind my follies. My ambition has ever centered upon a solitary acquisition, and for that alone have the energies of my being been spent, sympathy; an all-appreciating, tender, great, solemn sympathy. Beguiled by this desire, I mistook the demonstrations of a selfish passion for tokens of a noble heart. Betrayed beyond the bounds of strict propriety, I became an object of the censure of mankind. Too proud to confess, or too much confounded to explain my innocence, I suffered the penalties of positive infamy. It always seemed ot me that I was placid by nature, and moderate in my sensations. This opposition created in me a new nature; my calamities have imparted heat to my temper and acrimony to my judgment. I became impetuous, vehement, and, as it were, possessed. A new consciousness was revived, both of what I was and of what the world was. Up to that time I had floated on with tolerable serenity, trusting myself and others, and ever hoping for the best. Then commenced my contention and despair. I became all at once sensible of myself in a new way; as one does in whose bosom literal coals of fire are put. My heart swelled to enormous proportions; it became diseased, and dreadfully painful. It spread itself through my system, tyrannized over my thought, and fed upon the choicest strength of my being. My intellect was darkened, I became an atheist. Under these circumstances, which you already know something about, after having long kept it hidden, I declared myself to Margaret. She had sufficient penetration to understand me and magnanimity to love me; she awed me by her superior, uniform goodness. I availed myself of a moment when she was in tears to unfold the cause of my own. I rejoiced in her weakness, because I thought thereby I could find entrance to her greatness. The melancholy, to me most melancholy, events of her brother's death, I need not recapitulate. The end of my being is accomplished! The prophecy of my life is fulfilled! My dreams have gone out in realities! The Cross is erected on Mons Christi! Yesterday, the Anniversary of our National Independence, was the event consummated. The sacred emblem was made by Mr. Palmer, from a superb block, of the purest marble, out of his quarry, and is twenty feet high. We met near the Brook Kedron, on the Via Salutaris. There were all the members of Christ Church, the Masonic Corps, and a multitude of others. I was to lead the procession, supported by Mr. Evelyn; they had me seated on a milk-white horse, dressed in white, with a wreath of twin flower vines on my head. Then followed the Cross, borne on the shoulders of twenty-four young men; next came the Bishop and wife, the Deacons and their wives, Christ Church members, two-and-two, man and woman; these were succeeded by the Masons, and the line was closed by the people at large. On the Head was a band of Christ Church musicians, playing the Triumphs of Jesus, which we got from Germany. We came over the Brook Kedron, traversed what we have made the broad and ornamental Via Salutaris, and entered the Avenue of the Beautiful. At the foot of the hill I dismounted. By a winding gravel-walk I went up—with a trembling, joyous step I went—followed by the Cross-bearers. Reaching the summit, I wound the arms and head of the Cross about with evergreens; the young men raised it in its place, a solid granite plinth. Returning, we assembled under the Butternut, in the Avenue of the Beautiful, where Edward made a discourse to the people; some idea of which I would like to convey to you. “Livingston.—We have long kept silence about the VOL. II. 26 movements in this place; but the matter has become too public to excuse any further negligence. Over the Red Dragon of Infidelity they have drawn the skin of the Papal Beast, and tricked the Monster with the trappings of Harlotry! On the ruins of one of our Churches they have erected a Temple to Human Pride and Carnal Reasoning. The contamination is spreading far and wide; and unless something be attempted, the Kingdom of God in our midst must soon be surrendered to the arts of Satan. It is understood that the Rev. Mr. L—, of B—, has openly and repeatedly exchanged pulpits with the man who, having denied his Lord and Master, they have had the hardihood to invest with the robes of the Christian Office. Brethren, shall we sleep, while the enemy is sowing tares in our midst?
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23Author:  Landon Melville D. (Melville De Lancey) 1839-1910Requires cookie*
 Title:  Saratoga in 1901  
 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: OFF FOR SARATOGA 628EAF. Page 001. In-line Illustration. Images of a steamship, a train, and a couple on horses. “My dear Mr. Perkins, Congress Hall— Many of my aristocratic guests are grieved at the reports which have gained credence relative to the young gentlemen holding the young ladies' hands, evenings, on the hotel balconies. They also say that it is a very common thing for them to be seen smiling, and that dancing is not an unknown amusement among them. I now invite you to come and investigate for yourself. I assign for the use of yourself and wife a suite of cheerful front rooms overlooking the Catholic church and the graveyard, from the windows of which you will be able to see everything going on in our hotel. “I notice the paragraph in the Commercial. It is to be hoped you will not use names. I am an old, gray-haired man. I have lived a life of usefulness, and have been long honored as a member of the open Board of Brokers in New York. If I have been indiscreet in a thoughtless moment, I beg of you not to ruin everything by using my name in connection with any developments which you propose to make. Come and see me. I will remain in my room all day. “As God is my witness, you have been wrongly informed if you have heard anything detrimental to my character. I have been a vestryman of Grace Church for fifteen years. I am incapable of any such actions; besides, I have a devoted wife, and we are very fond of each other. I gave $25,000 to the Dudley Observatory and $50,000 to Cornell University, and have been a subscriber to the Commercial for seventeen years. I am incapable of such indiscretion. Whatever other church-members do, I am as pure as a new-born babe. Come and see me or give us your company at dinner. I am almost always at church or on the balcony with my wife. I saw one paragraphe en ze journal, ze Commourshal, about ze grande scandale of which you have accuse me. I write this as a friend of yours. You have been deceived. Some of our people came down to Congress Hall, and told these scandalous things out of spite. Baron Flourins has been a little exclusive. We have kept him entirely in our clique. The rest are mad because we have not introduced him. He is a dear duck of a man, as harmless as he is handsome. My dear Son Eli:—Your St. Alban's High Church letter was read with a great deal of interest here in our home church, but it made us all feel very bad. We are sorry that you have gone to the wicked city, where you so soon forget the simple teaching of the old Church of your childhood, and go headlong into these false, new-fangled notions about Ritualism. You ask us to board up the windows of the old church, bar out the sunlight, and burn flickering tallow candles. You ask us to tear out the old galleries of the church, to dismiss the girls from the choir, and dress the farm boys up in night-gowns, as you do in the city. You ask us to do away with good old Dr. Watts and sing opera songs selected by the organist of St. Alban's and arranged for the boy singers by the middle fiddler of a German band. You ask me to tear up our charts and maps, and decorate the church with blue and gold “hallelujahs” and gilded crosses. O my son, we cannot do it! We prefer to go on in the good old way. If God will not save us because we do not burn candles—if He will not forgive our sins because we look straight up to Heaven, and confess them directly to Him, then I fear we must perish. My dear boy, does not the Bible say: `I said I would confess my sins unto the Lord, and so THOU forgavest the wickedness of my sin?' Then do not, I pray you, my son, depend upon any forgiveness of sin which men may grant. Eli, if you are bad, do not expect any man to forgive you, but go right straight to your Maker, the way your mother taught you in your childhood. Suppose you confess your sins to a priest? My dear Mother:—Your letter has caused me much anxiety. After sleeping with it under my pillow, I went up yesterday, as you requested, to the Church of “St. Mary the Virgin,” on West Forty-fifth street, near Seventh avenue. Since my conversion to the High Church Ritualistic faith, my dear mother, I have usually attended Dr. Ewer's church. I love Dr. Ewer. “This is our new idea. All the girls have agreed to it. We call it the honorable dodge, and we are bound to put through every flirting fellow in New York on it. The idea is—but I'll tell you how I practiced it last night and you'll understand it better. But you know it is a secret, and of course you are to be trusted. I wish to ask your sympathy and advice on a subject that has long been weighing on my mind, and that is—flirting.
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24Author:  Lanier Sidney 1842-1881Requires cookie*
 Title:  Tiger-lilies  
 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: “Would 'st thou an adventure? Follow the bearer. “Inclosed is a letter handed me to-day by a neighbor. He does not wish to be mixed up in the business and asks my advice. The writer of the letter is a connection of his. Of course, as a loyal citizen, I cannot leave this letter and its information to pass unnoticed, and therefore send it to you immediately. “To Mister Jeems Horniddy, My deer Cuzzin Jeems: hope you air well and these few lines will find you enjoinin the saim. I lef ole Tennessy some munths ago, I was brought from thar with mi hands tied as you mought say. The Cornscrip brought me. I was hid whare I thot the Devil hisself couldn find me, but ole man Sterlin he cum and showed whar I was and they took me and sent me to the rigiment. He foun out whare I was hid by a darn ongentlemunly trick, a-peirootin thu the bushes as he is always a-Dooin. An if I dont root him out for it I hoap I may go too hell damn him and I have deserted from the rigiment and cum down hear to smithfield whare thar aint no cornscrip. Thar is sum scouts down hear and ole Sterlins son is wun of thum, and so is brother Cain I thot he had moar sense and I am agwine to fule em to death i am agwine to make em put me across the river and then see em captivated every wun of thum brother Cain and all and what did thay drag me from hoam and fambly for? which I havent been married to her moar than a year and a rite young babi and they a starvin and me not thar.
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25Author:  Locke David Ross 1833-1888Requires cookie*
 Title:  The Nasby papers  
 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 now 15 niggers, men, wimin and childern, or ruther, mail, femail and yung, in Wingert's Corners, and yisterday another arrove. I am bekomin alarmed, fer ef they inkreese at this rate, in suthin over sixty yeres they'll hev a majority in the town, and may, ef they git mene enuff, tyrannize over us, even ez we air tyrannizin over them. The danger is imminent! Alreddy our poor white inhabitans is out uv employment to make room fer that nigger—even now our shops and factories is full uv that nigger, to the grate detriment uv a white inhabitant who hez a family 2 support, and our Poor Hows and Jail is full uv him.
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26Author:  Melville Herman 1819-1891Requires cookie*
 Title:  Moby-Dick, or, The whale  
 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: Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
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27Author:  Melville Herman 1819-1891Requires cookie*
 Title:  The piazza tales  
 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: When I removed into the country, it was to occupy an old-fashioned farm-house, which had no piazza—a deficiency the more regretted, because not only did I like piazzas, as somehow combining the coziness of in-doors with the freedom of out-doors, and it is so pleasant to inspect your thermometer there, but the country round about was such a picture, that in berry time no boy climbs hill or crosses vale without coming upon easels planted in every nook, and sun-burnt painters painting there. A very paradise of painters. The circle of the stars cut by the circle of the mountains. At least, so looks it from the house; though, once upon the mountains, no circle of them can you see. Had the site been chosen five rods off, this charmed ring would not have been. The same day, and month, and year, His Honor, Doctor Juan Martinez de Rozas, Councilor of the Royal Audience of this Kingdom, and learned in the law of this Intendency, ordered the captain of the ship San Dominick, Don Benito Cereno, to appear; which he did in his litter, attended by the monk Infelez; of whom he received the oath, which he took by God, our Lord, and a sign of the Cross; under which he promised to tell the truth of whatever he should know and should be asked;—and being interrogated agreeably 11* to the tenor of the act commencing the process, he said, that on the twentieth of May last, he set sail with his ship from the port of Valparaiso, bound to that of Callao; loaded with the produce of the country beside thirty cases of hardware and one hundred and sixty blacks, of both sexes, mostly belonging to Don Alexandro Aranda, gentleman, of the city of Mendoza; that the crew of the ship consisted of thirty-six men, beside the persons who went as passengers; that the negroes were in part as follows: “Sir: I am the most unfortunate ill-treated gentleman that lives. I am a patriot, exiled from my country by the cruel hand of tyranny.
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28Author:  Moulton Louise Chandler 1835-1908Requires cookie*
 Title:  My third book  
 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: “`Mr. Grant,—I have not been a good man. I feel this now, lying here on my death-bed, and I confess it to you the more readily because I do not believe that at heart you are a one whit better one. I must speak plainly and bluntly, for I have no time for circumlocution. I have hardly strength enough left to dictate this to Richard Huntley, my attorney. I have made a brave effort to forgive every body; but it has been the hardest of all to forgive you; for your harshness, your sinful pride, killed my beautiful Margaret. You never loved as I loved her—I, her lover, her husband. There! you will start at that word, I foresee; you will start again at the marriage certificate enfolded in this letter. We were married secretly, as you will perceive, while I was in your very neighborhood. I bound Margaret, when I left her, by a solemn oath, not to make it known until she had my permission. She was a gentle crature, as no one knows better than you, and never thought of disputing the will of any one she loved. My father was dead. I was dependent for all my hopes of future fortune and support on my mother, a very proud, resolute woman. She had a grand match in contemplation for me at that time. I knew it would be no easy matter to reconcile her to its failure, and if she should know just then that I had married as she would have thought so far below me, much as she loved me she would have cast me off forever. This, to a true man, would have been no great matter compared with causing Margaret one hour of trouble, one agony of humiliation. But I was not a true man. I was helpless and imbecile, for I had never been brought up to depend on myself. But I must hasten, for my strength is failing me.
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29Author:  Sedgwick Catharine Maria 1789-1867Requires cookie*
 Title:  Married or single?  
 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: Two sisters were sitting, one evening, in their small private library, adjoining their sleeping apartment, in their step-mother's house, in a fashionable quarter of New York. It matters not in what year, for though this their history makes great pretension to veritableness, it pays no respect whatever to chronology. The youngest—the youngest of course takes precedence in our society—was not past eighteen, and, grown to her full stature, rather above the average height; Grace Herbert differing in most of the faculties, qualities, and circumstances of her being from the average of her sex. To a strictly classical eye she was too thin for her height, but of such exact proportions, so flexible and graceful, that the defect was insignificant. Her features were of the noble cast. Her complexion was neither fair nor brown, but exquisitely smooth and soft. Ordinarily she was pale, and her large dark eye lacked lustre; but a flash from her mind, a gust of passion, or even a gentle throb of affection, would brighten her cheek, light her eye, play over her lips, and even seem to radiate from the waving tresses of her dark hair. In that there was a notable peculiarity. It was dark, and yet so brilliant in certain lights, that in her little court of school-girl friends, where she was queen (by divine right), it was a standing dispute whether its color were golden, auburn, or brown. But it was not form or color that so much distinguished Grace Herbert, as a certain magnanimity in the expression of her face, figure, and movement. “I should have written you as I promised, if I had found any thing to write, but the town has been deuced dull. Now it's waking up; there is a splendid little actress here—one Mrs. Darley; our set patronize her. (`Patronize—audacity!' exclaimed Grace.) Fanny Dawson has come home—a splendid beauty! I and she rode out to Love Lane before breakfast yesterday; my new horse is fine under the saddle—Fanny is finer, but I shan't try my harness there; I am shy of reins; one can't tell who will hold them, so Miss Fanny will be left for my elder—if not my better—” “My letter has lain by a month, and now I have news. Smith, Jones and Co. have gone bankrupt, and poor Bill is on their paper well-nigh to the amount of his fortune; Luckily there's something left, and then there's the little widow's fortune. Well, I go for the children of this world, that are wise in their generation. Commend me to the Londoners in general.—Believe me, as ever, your's faithfully, “You may conceive, but I can not describe, how wretched I feel at our separation. You would hear from me much oftener if I followed the dictates of my heart, but my time is so absorbed that it is quite impossible to find a moment for my truest, darlingest, little friend. I write now to entreat you to match the feathers I send; aren't they loves? I have spent two days in attempting to do it here. New York is a paradise for shops, you know; in this horrid Quaker city there's no variety; at the same time, dearest love, will you look for a sash, the shade of the feathers? You may send me a sample, or you may send me several, if you feel uncertain about the match. It is really trying, the difficulty of matching. I sometimes walk up and down the streets of Philadelphia, hours and hours, to match a lace or a fringe, and so does my mamma. The Grays wear pink bonnets this winter. Mrs. Remson has come out in her old yellow brocade again—the third winter, mamma says—just think of it! Do they hold on to powder yet in New York? I dread its going out—'tis so becoming; It makes me quite wretched that you don't come on this winter, dear little pearl! My hair was superbly dressed at Mrs. Lee's ball; I paid dear for it, though, for Pardessus was engaged ten hours ahead, so I had mine done at three A.M. Of course I didn't feel over well the next day, and General Washington observed it, and said he did not like to see young ladies look pale. As it was the only time he ever spoke to me, he might have found something more pleasing to say; pale or not, I found partners for every dance, and refused nine! But, darling, I must cut short my epistle, and sign myself, your sincere and ever attached friend, “Having a few leisure moments, I sit down to have a little pleasant chat with you. I have still to acknowledge your letter, informing me of the decease of our dear old friend, Lady Hepsy; strange coincidence! that she should have been burned to death, so afraid of fire as she was all her life; but so it is—`Our days a transient period run!' “You will feel for me, dear sister, when I tell you the measles are all over our street. You may be sure I keep the children shut up. Two of them were terribly ill last night, and I sent for Dr. Lee. I was all of a nerve when he came, expecting he would tell me they had the symptoms, but to my inexpressible relief he said it was only the cranberry sauce and mince-pie, and almonds, and raisins, and so on, they had eaten plentifully of at dinner—poor little things! how much they have to suffer in this world!” “This day I am seventeen! and this day I am the happiest creature in the universe. You will guess why, and how, for you prophesied long ago that what has now happened would come to pass. Perhaps your prophecy has led to its fulfillment—certainly hastened it, that I will allow; for since we were at Madame B.'s school, and you talked so much of him, he has been the ideal of my life—every thing that I have imagined of noble and beautiful has been impersonated in Frank Silborn. O think of my felicity! He is mine, I am his; as the clock struck twelve last night we plighted vows, and exchanged rings! O what a bliss is life before me! And yet now I think I would be content to die, my spirit is so raised with a sense of joy ineffable. I can not believe it is but three weeks since Frank's return; my love for him seems to stretch through my whole being. “It is my sad duty to write to you the most sorrowful news—prepare yourself, my child, for it will greatly shock you. Yesterday afternoon—I can scarcely guide my pen— Silborn drove up to his door in a curricle, and insisted on taking the two little boys, who were just dressed for a walk, to ride. Sarah must have seen he was greatly excited—in no state to drive—for the nurse says `she refused decidedly to let the children go;' whereupon he snatched them both, and ran out of the house with them to the carriage. He drove furiously up the street, turned the corner short, ran afoul a loaded wagon, turned over the carriage—the boys, our dear little boys, were thrown against a curb-stone and killed, instantly—both Sarah's little boys— both, Emma—both! “I promised, when we parted, to resume our long-suspended correspondence. With what varied emotions of remorse and gratitude I survey this chasm. O! Emma, how differently life looks, prospectively or retrospectively. After it pleased God to restore my reason, I wasted years of responsible life in helpless misery, and profitless repining. “The rumor you heard (and heard before we did, so complete is our retirement from the world) is confirmed. Walter announced his engagement, in his own way, last evening. `Do you know,' he asked my mother, `whom Augustus Dawson married?' “My filial duty and my unlimited confidence in both your justice and generosity would have induced long since the communication I am about to make, but it was deferred by the griefs my sister's calamities brought upon you. I could not then add another bitter drop to your full cup. I must no longer delay. Six months since—” “I am going into court to-morrow to advocate, for the first time, a cause of importance, and to secure or lose for my clients real estate in the upper part of the city, likely to become of great value. I have explored titles a century back, when this property was a waste rocky field—now, a noble avenue bounds it. It was originally purchased by two gentlemen of the names of Herbert and Copley, and, singular enough, after various sales and transmissions, the controversy is now between descendants of the original purchasers, `Copley versus Herbert.' My clients, the Herberts, are an elderly gentleman, and two young ladies, who, though somewhat decayed in fortune, are yet of unquestioned aristocracy. Their progenitors belonged to the colonial gentry—there is still a remnant of that Israel. Mr. Herbert—Walter Herbert, Esq.—I have seen repeatedly. He is a fine old fellow, tall, still erect, and robust, with thick hair of silver sable, an eye like an eagle, and a heart of gold. The young ladies are his nieces; one, a bright particular star, I have seen once only; but, once seen, she is never to be forgotten. “Miss Alice requests me, you say, to describe my friend Esterly's wedding. Alas! I have no story to tell; business intervened, and took me out of town, and thus saved all parties from my blundering performance of the office of bridegroom.” “Pardon, my dear Mrs. Clifford, my blotted pages. I have been raining tears over this detail to you of my brief meeting with my father. God only knows how I loved him in life—how I honor him in death! Had I known his condition, I should have come home six months ago. I shall forever regret a gain to myself, at the expense of a loss to him. My step-mother, whose valuable qualities I do full justice to (when I do not come in contact with her), will maintain her housekeeping, and take three or four boarders, and so, `by hook or by crook,' they will live comfortably. I, by means of my own hard work and God's blessing, will start the boys in life, and thus acknowledge a debt to my dear father, which I can never fully pay. Letty is a little jewel, or rather, she is worth all the jewels in a king's crown, being more for use than decoration. Her cheerfulness is obscured just now, of course, for she dearly loved my father; but her pale cheek is, I think, but the livery of the country, which strikes me in painful contrast with the Hebe coloring in England. The dirge-like tone of her voice, too, is but the national note, not so much the voice of sadness as of `sickness.' `Every village has its song,' says Carlisle; I wish ours were a livelier one. “When I think that school-girls' friendships are, for the most part, mere accidents of propinquity, I rejoice that ours, like all true matches, was fore-ordained. I began with making you my pet, I believe you are five years my junior, and now you are my confidante—partly, because you are true as steel, and will not betray what I tell you, and partly that you will not advise me, or chide me; and you are unmarried —kind to kind, is natural. Perhaps you will divine that I am trying to silence my conscience that tells me my sister Eleanor should be my confidante; that a sister—and such a sister!—is the nearest friend, the friend Heaven bestowed; and truly Eleanor would be my elect friend from all the world, but that she is married. She has projected herself into another self, and, though two make one for themselves, they make two for the rest of us. “Thank you, my dear friend. Yes, I am getting into the old track famously. Some of my old clients have welcomed me cordially; and though I was cruelly knocked down from those `steeps so hard to climb' of my profession, yet I am in no wise discouraged. True, my competitors shot ahead of me, but I shall gain upon them. There is nothing like the whip and spur of necessity; in our land, the poor workingman is on vantage-ground, the general sympathy is with him, and if he be capable, and in earnest, he has plenty of work to do. I have delivered two Lectures, made up of my foreign observations, which were well received, and filled my pockets. I have had many requests to repeat them. I shall not. A man should not be diverted from his profession by `fancy work.' I have offers from booksellers and editors that will profitably fill my leisure hours, if I have them. Thus, you see, I can answer your inquiry satisfactorily. I do not `regret the obligations' I have assumed for my step-brothers. I have economical quarters, and by avoiding hotel-life, and all superfluous indulgence, I shall compass my great object—their education; and after that, Yankee boys can take care of themselves. * * * “He's a trump—take my word for it, Dates. He lectured at the Mercantile last evening. I went early, and got a seat directly in front of him. It seemed as if he could not keep his eyes off from me! The house was choke-full, and all attention. You might have heard a pin fall. He was posted up about every thing t'other side, and told us a lot about Greece and Athens, and Egypt and Thebes. There were a number of literary characters present, distinguished authors and authoresses that write in the Magazines. He got, they say, $400 by this Lecture alone! Don't he know how to coin money out of talents? He looks like a different individual—so genteel!—you can't think! “All other interests are superseded just now by the alarming illness of Eleanor's boy—her only boy. His illness has come suddenly. But yesterday, he seemed to stand on the hill-top of life, radiant with the rosy tints of morning, casting down into many hearts the hopes and promises of a long, bright day. “Thank you, for the list of scholars—fifteen in your school! These, with the promised five out of it, will supply the deficiencies in our income the next year; and thus, if we make a fortunate disposition of our house, my husband will be enabled to repair his strength by a year's travel in Europe, and rest from work. Thank you, too, for your assurance that I do not interfere with your accomplished musical professor, as my lower terms, according with my inferior ability, also accord with my pupils' smaller means. And thank you, more than all, for your gentle warning, lest, in my eagerness to afford my husband material aid, I lose sight of my first duty; that to my children and household. They are providentially cared for. An elderly cousin of my husband, Effie Lynn, has just lost her home. We are glad to give her the shelter of our's. She is a delicately strung, nervous little body, and will, in a way, increase my cares; but she will also immensely relieve them, as, being most kind, faithful, and fond of children, I can tranquilly leave my girls with her during my working hours.
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30Author:  Sedgwick Catharine Maria 1789-1867Requires cookie*
 Title:  Married or single?  
 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: Miss Herbert went in, on her way to her sister's, to Steinberg's music-shop. He was not there. The door was ajar that communicated with a little inner parlor; and while she was tossing over some sheets of music on the counter, she heard voices. One was cheerful, and familiar; the other low, and “full of tears.” “Accept my thanks for an offer, which of course I owe directly or indirectly to you. The appointment proposed neither comports with my sense of duty, my qualifications, or my inclinations. “Don't set it down against Frank, dear sister,” said the letter, “that his answer is a little crusty. You know how these bilious attacks of his turn all sweet juices to acid for the time. The harassing trials attending his resignation, followed too close upon our boy's death, and quite knocked him up. It seems to me that the afflictions God appoints are sanctifying, while those of men's infliction stir up the evil in our nature. Frank has suffered terribly from the uncharitable denunciations of some of his brethren. It is through their intervention that he has failed of his election to the presidency of — College. I rather rejoice in this failure, as giving my husband the opportunity for entire rest. Teach he will, for to this service he holds himself pledged by his clerical vow. “I have been passing the evening alone with my mother. I do that dutiful act now and then. My mother is regularly pious, straight-laced, but she discreetly avoids meddling with my affairs. I fancied she had her suspicions after Jessie's sudden demise, but she said nothing—wise in her generation is my mother. `Apropos des bottes,' I met that girl Jessy in the street not long ago—she is shockingly changed—gone like the rest of them. She stopped me, and spoke to me, and who of all the world do you think was with me!—G. H. By Jupiter, Sam, I thought my game was up —but bless these fine young ladies!—bless their voluntary and involuntary blindness! To return to my tête-à-tête with my mother. After a preliminary fidgeting she began: `I have long wished, my son, to speak to you on an interesting subject. The town, you know, Horace, is giving you to Miss Herbert.' I bowed and looked, I'll answer for it, as blank as white paper. `I have no objection to make,' she continued (that is, revered mother, you will not oppose a will you can't control) `I must confess I should have preferred another selection. Your dear father in his life-time tried hard to purchase the beautiful Carlton property next ours, and when I think of what I know to have been his wish, of course it seems to me a pity that you do not prefer Miss Anne Carlton, who is quite as handsome and as superior as Miss Herbert, and more—(I wondered what my mother stumbled at), and more—docile—more like to make a pliant wife. But of course it is for you to decide—it is nothing to me in a worldly point of view.'—Humbug, Sam, she would give her right hand to see me married to Anne— and her `beautiful property.' `It is a trial,' she continued, `when an only son comes to marry; daughters-in-law are not daughters, but mothers are always mothers.' She wiped her eyes, perhaps tears from them, for it is a tremendous struggle to ungrapple her hopes from the Carlton estate. I assured my venerable parent that I felt deeply grateful for her generosity, but I only nibbled at the bait;—it is too soon to pour my confidence into the maternal bosom. The balances are still quivering. They shall not turn against me. I know, Sam, you think me a fool for this dogged pursuit, when, as you say, there are scores of pretty women—Anne Carltons—that I might marry for the asking, or, better still, have without the cost, and risks, and tedium of marriage; or, I may enjoy the swing of youth, you tell me, and at forty, fifty, or sixty buy a pretty young wife. Wives have their price in our pure young republic, and if not quite as cheap as in a Turkish market, they are as surely to be bought. But, my boy, I can not give up the chase now. Like other men, perhaps I `prize the thing ungained more than it is.' Six years since I made a bet with you and recorded it, that I would marry Grace Herbert. When I was a boy, if I set my wishes on a particular apple, on a particular tree, I would break my neck but I got it. My temper is not yet changed! “After the melo-dramatic scene which we shared yesterday, I feel bound to make an appeal to you, not wholly to justify myself, but to state some extenuating circumstances. This is not a fitting subject to discuss with a young lady, but it is thrust upon me, and you must pardon me. A recurrence to the circumstances of my early life will perhaps distill from your kind heart some drops of pity for me. Remember, that I was left at nineteen, when the appetites are keenest, and the love of pleasure uncontrollable, heir of a large fortune, and master of myself. My father, it is too well known, had not been over-strict in his life. With his example, I inherited his constitution. Pardon me, Julia; you are a sensible woman, and will allow their due weight to the grounds of my defence. At nineteen, then, I began my career; I had intimates older than myself, who were deep in the world. I plunged in with them, and I have no great satisfaction in the retrospect of the two years that followed. “I came to town last evening, to be ready to take possession on Friday. I find it very uncomfortable at the Astor House with my children. If you can give me possession tomorrow, you will very much oblige me. As it is but one day in anticipation, and you move so little furniture, I imagine it can not much inconvenience you. Please return by bearer a favorable answer. “You will not be surprised to hear that H. C. and I have come to the end of our long and intricate journey. Shall we have a glad welcome from you, and a blessing from my brother? It began:—“She is dead!—my child, Elise is dead. God's curse has fallen on me—she is dead—gone from me forever and forever. “When I came to this house, I summoned Mrs. Tallis' maid, and inquired for her mistress. `Oh, Miss,' she said, `it would scare you to see her. The poor lady has not left the nursery since first the child was taken ill. You can go in, for she takes no notice who goes in or who comes out; she seems to know nothing but that the child is dead. She has swallowed nothing but a sip of tea or coffee; she has not had a brush through her hair, and only takes her bath, and slips on her dressing-gown, as if she grudges the minutes she's away from Miss Elise's side.' I stopped her prating, and went, as seemed to me best, directly to Mrs. Tallis. Oh, Eleanor, what a spectacle! The last time I saw Augusta Tallis was at Mrs. Seton's ball, splendidly arrayed, brilliantly beautiful! She was now colorless as the little blighted blossom she hung over. Her flesh has melted away; she looks ten years older; and yet, haggard as she is, her hair matted, her dress neglected, her exquisite beauty impressed me as it never did before. It is now instinct with spirit, though the spirit be in prison and in torment. She was kneeling, when I entered, beside her child's little couch, her head lying on her child's low pillow. I went to her and laid my hand on her head. She did not notice me. I stood hoping for some sigh or motion—there was none. I turned my eyes to the child—she looks like a sleeping cherub—so serene, so lovely! Thoughts of the salvation she had wrought for me, flooded my heart. I kissed the shining locks on her temples, and murmured something, I know not what, expressions of my debt to her. The mother started, as if from deep sleep and dreams, and said, `Who is it? what is it?' I sank down beside her, and put my arm around her quivering frame. `Dear friend,' I said, `I have come to thank you and to bless her—you and your child have saved me, Augusta. She inspired you to write that letter to me.' I shall never forget the instant change of her countenance—it was from death to life—from despair to hope. `I thought it was so,' she said; `she seemed to speak to me out of that death silence—to tell me the only thing left for me to do in this world—and I did it—and I shall see her again; shall I? Oh, tell me you believe I shall! that I am not a castaway!' I thought of your caution, Eleanor, and resisted my impulse to fold her to my bosom, and say nothing but the balmiest words I could think of. I spoke yours instead. `Surely I believe you will see your child again,' I said, `if you faithfully receive the admonition our heavenly Father sends to you through her.' `Oh, tell me what it is,' she said, `my head is so weak, so dizzy. Why, there is nothing left for me in this life to do—it is all empty and dark. My husband must hate me, must cast me off—our child has died by my neglect.' Now I soothed her, Eleanor; I begged her to be quiet, and to wait, and by-and-by she would see God's gracious purpose, if she would but look to him—his arms were always outstretched to the returning child. She seemed a little comforted and laid her head on my lap, and the tears flowed with less anguish. But she broke forth again, and wrung her hands and said, `Oh, she was not like any other child! she was so sweet! so bright! such a merry laugh— did you ever hear her laugh? Oh, my heavens, I shall never laugh again! And she could be so quiet. When I had my nervous head-aches she would lie by me for an hour with her little cool hand on my forehead, and if I but sighed she would kiss me; but she will never kiss me again, never, never!' By degrees I soothed away this paroxysm, and she permitted me to lay her on the sofa, and bathe her head, and while I stroked her temples, she fell asleep, and slept naturally for an hour, the first time, her woman avers, since the child became ill; but that can hardly be. Ignorant people are apt to express their sympathy by exaggerating the demonstrations of suffering. When Augusta awoke, she took, without resistance, the nourishment I offered. And what was more important, she seemed comforted by my presence, and ready to open her heart to me. She returned to her child's low couch, and after having sat by her a long time in thoughtful and tearless silence—`Oh, Grace,' she said, `I begin to comprehend what you said to me—that God's dealing with me was supremely wise and loving; was not that what you said? My head has been so confused— it is getting clearer now.' “Have you, reader, ever experienced a great sorrow? and if so, have you not seen afterward how it discloses heights and depths in your spiritual nature which you had never known, and resources upon which you had never drawn; how it produces susceptibilities which you had never before felt; how it induces a tenderness of mind that makes it ductile almost as the clay, and ready to receive the stamp of the divine image; how little animosities and hatreds are banished and forgotten, while the heart has new yearnings toward all that live, and especially toward all that suffer; how the soul sickens at mere shows and appearances, and demands realities, while it hungers after the good and the true; how this world recedes less, while the world of immortality comes on as if now first revealed, and incloses you in its light, just as when the glare of the day is withdrawn and the darkness moves over us, we gaze on a new sky, and bathe in the starry splendors of the milky way?” She wrote:—“Mr. Bates, please send an express to Mr. Archibald Lisle, requesting him to return to New York without delay, on important business of my brother's. “Dear Nelly, you'll not care for these speculations when you are longing to hear of your husband; but you will forgive them, knowing I have always been addicted to what Shakspeare courteously calls `maiden meditation.' I am coming to you on Saturday, with Frank's last words and kisses for you and the children. He went off cheered by a promise I made (and will explain to you), that I will put my shoulder to your obstructed wheel. “Uncle Walter came home yesterday; for home, my house is to be to him henceforth, unless you steal him from me. The children were in transports at seeing him. `You shall never go away from us again!' cried May, sitting on one of his knees, while Nel stuck, like a burr, to the other. `I never will, May,' he replied, `if your mother can find a place in her little box for me; be it in attic or closet.' `A place for you, Uncle Walter, I guess she can—and if mother can't, I can; you can double up and sleep with me in my trundle-bed!' Nel put in her claim, `You can double up double, Uncle Watty,' she said, `and sleep in my tib.' Uncle Walter laughed; Nel brushed a tear from his cheek, saying, `How funny you are, Uncle Watty! to laugh and cry too!' `I have a room ready for dear Uncle Walter, girls!' I said, whereupon May shouted, `Oh, I know, mother, I know it's for Uncle Walter you have been fixing the dining-room; you might have told me, mother, when I asked you what you got the new paper and paint for; and the new bedstead and book-case, and easy chair, and every thing. It was not fair, mother, not to tell me!' `I only waited, May, till Uncle Walter consented to the arrangement—let him come and see if he can manage in our narrow quarters.' Uncle Walter, the girls at his heels, followed me. I confess, that as I opened the door, I thought the room looked pleasant with its pretty new carpet, fresh chintz curtains and covers, and the little decorations with which I had endeavored to set off the few comforts I had been able to stow in a space fifteen by twelve. After looking round with the sweetest satisfaction, Uncle Walter seized a vase of fresh flowers, and on pretence of smelling them, with childlike guile, hid his tears; he need not. The soft emotions become his robust, manly face. I remember your once telling him that his ever-ready smiles and tears denoted his latent youth, and became him, as blossoms do a rugged old tree. His countenance changed, `But Eleanor,' he said, `this was your dining-room?' `It was, Uncle Walter, and I am getting, in the place of a mere convenience, a living, loving soul.' `I accept it, my child,' he said, `as freely as you give it, and we won't quarrel as to which has the best of the bargain, the giver or the receiver. My spirit will have rest with you, and in this “fifteen by twelve,” space for its freest breath. It has been starved, pinched, and chilled long enough in those big Bond-street rooms, where downy beds did not rest me, nor cushioned chairs give me ease. I hated the place from the moment Grace left the house; and to return to it—pah! it would be the wilderness without the manna!' “I have often remarked to you that the affairs of this life never turn out according to our short-sighted expectations. L'homme propose, et Dieu dispose. Who could have expected that Mrs. Tallis' rash interference with your prospects would have led to Anne's gain. But so it is. (Then followed a deal of twaddle; `she trusted that Anne would not be dazzled with her brilliant future, and that she herself should “continue humble, and occupied with her duties,'” etc., etc.) The letter concluded, “As I have often remarked, every thing is mixed in this world, and truly, my dear Grace, my happiness is alloyed by the thought of your disappointment. (Thus began the doctor's epistle.)
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31Author:  Billings Josh 1818-1885Requires cookie*
 Title:  Josh Billings, hiz sayings  
 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 mule is haf hoss, and haf Jackass, and then kums tu a full stop, natur diskovering her mistake. Tha weigh more, akordin tu their heft, than enny other kreetur, except a crowbar. Tha kant hear enny quicker, nor further than the hoss, yet their ears are big enuff for snow shoes. You kan trust them with enny one whose life aint worth enny more than the mules. The only wa tu keep them into a paster, is tu turn them into a medder jineing, and let them jump out. Tha are reddy for use, just as soon as they will du tu abuse. Tha haint got enny friends, and will live on huckel berry brush, with an ockasional chanse at Kanada thissels. Tha are a modern invenshun, i dont think the Bible deludes tu them at tall. Tha sel for more money than enny other domestik animile. Yu kant tell their age by looking into their mouth, enny more than you kould a Mexican cannons. Tha never hav no dissease that a good club wont heal. If tha ever die tha must kum rite tu life agin, for i never herd nobody sa “ded mule.” Tha are like sum men, very korrupt at harte; ive known them tu be good mules for 6 months, just tu git a good chanse to kick sumbody. I never owned one, nor never mean to, unless there is a United Staits law passed, requiring it. The only reason why tha are pashunt, is bekause tha are ashamed ov themselfs. I have seen eddikated mules in a sirkus. Tha kould kick, and bite, tremenjis. I would not sa what I am forced tu sa again the mule, if his birth want an outrage, and man want tu blame for it. Enny man who is willing tu drive a mule, ought to be exempt by law from running for the legislatur. Tha are the strongest creeturs on earth, and heaviest, ackording tu their sise; I herd tell ov one who fell oph from the tow path, on the Eri kanawl, and sunk as soon as he touched bottom, but he kept rite on towing the boat tu the nex stashun, breathing thru his ears, which stuck out ov the water about 2 feet 6 inches; i did'nt see this did, but an auctioneer told me ov it, and i never knew an auctioneer tu lie unless it was absolutely convenient. “Dear Augustus Sidney Bloodgood: Having a fu spare time tew devote terestial things, i take mi pen in hand tew rite yu a fu lines. I am well, and hope theze fu lines will find yu enjoying the same blessin. I hav jist returned from the gardin ov Eden whare i hav bin with Dave Sturgiss, who was killed at the battell ov Gettisburg bi gitting choked with a pease ov hard tacks. The weather iz fine, and there iz evry prospeck ov krops; I never see the potaters look finer. Dri goods is cheap here, yu can buy good factory cottin cloth, yard wide, for eleven cents a yard and hav thred thrown in. I see the Widder Bostwick yesterday, she looks as starched up as ever.
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32Author:  Shillaber B. P. (Benjamin Penhallow) 1814-1890Requires cookie*
 Title:  Knitting-work  
 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: Gentlemen: It has suddenly occurred to me that a preface is altogether unnecessary, and, therefore, I positively decline writing one, inasmuch as I have commenced five already, and been compelled to abandon them all, from sheer inability to complete them. Prefaces have always seemed to me like drummers for a show, calling upon people to “come up and see the elephant,” with a slight exaggeration of the merit of the animal to be exhibited; and though, in the present case, such enlargement of the fact would not be necessary, still those disposed to be captious might read our promises with incredulity. Mrs. Partington, no less than the Roman dame, should be above suspicion; therefore, this heralding should be avoided, and her name left with only its olden reputation resting about it, like the halo of cobweb and dust about an ancient vintage of port. Her coädjutors, Dr. Spooner, Old Roger, and Wideswarth, representing the profound, the jolly, and the sentimental, need no endorsement among the enlightened many who will buy this book; and we can safely leave them, as lawyers sometimes do their cases when they have nothing to say, without argument. Again, all will see for themselves the acid and sugar, and spirit and water, comprised in the contents of the volume, — forming the components of a sort of intellectual punch, of which they can partake to any extent, without headache or heartache, as the sedate therein forms a judicious corrective of the eccentric and gay which might intoxicate. The illustrations, by Hoppin, tell their own story, and need no further commendation than their great excellence. The local meaning of many of the sayings and doings of the book will, of course, be readily understood, without explanation or apology; and the new matter will be distinguished from the old, by the quality of novelty that generally attaches to that with which we are not familiar. I thought somewhat of giving the name beneath each individual represented in our frontispiece; but the idea was dispelled in a moment, by the reflection that Mrs. Partington — the central sun of our social system — could not be misinterpreted; while Dr. Spooner, Prof. Wideswarth, Old Roger, and Ike, were equally well defined; and the skill of the artist in depicting them needed no aid. Therefore, all things considered, I think we had better let the book slip from its dock quietly, and drift out into the tide of publication, to be borne by this or that eddy of feeling to such success as it may deserve, without the formality of prefatory bottle-breaking. I leave the matter, then, as a settled thing, that we will not have a preface. When Mrs. Partington first moved from Beanville, and the young scion of the Partington stock was exposed to the temptations of city life and city associations, it was thought advisable to appoint a “guardeen” over him. Ike was not a bad boy, in the wicked sense of the word bad; but he had a constant proclivity for tormenting every one that he came in contact with; a resistless tendency for having a hand in everything that was going on; a mischievous bent, that led him into continual trouble, that brought on him reproaches from all sides, and secured for him a reputation that made him answerable for everything of a wrong character that was done in the neighborhood. A barber's pole could not be removed from the barber's door and placed beside the broker's, but it must be imputed to “that plaguy Ike;” all clandestine pulls at door-bells in the evenings were done by “that plaguy Ike;” if a ball or an arrow made a mistake and dashed through a window, the ball or the arrow belonged to “that plaguy Ike;” if on April Fool's day a piece of paper were found pasted on a door-step, putting grave housekeepers to the trouble and mortification of trying to pick up an imagined letter, the blame was laid to “that plaguy Ike;” and if a voice was heard from round the corner crying “April Fool!” or “sold,” those who heard it said, at once, it was “that plaguy Ike's.” Many a thing he had thus to answer for that he did n't do, as well as many that he did, until Mrs. Partington became convinced of the necessity of securing some one to look after him besides herself. “Miss Parkinson: Your boy has been and tied a culinary utensile to the caudle appendidge of a canine favorite of ourn, an indignity that wee shall never submit to. He is a reproach to the neighborhood, and you must punish him severally. Daring Outrage. — Last evening a burglarious attempt was made to enter the house of Mr. T. Speed, in — street; but the burglar threw down a bust of Shakespeare in the attempt, which attracted the attention of Mr. Muggins, passing at the time, who pursued the ruffian over a shed, and boldly attacked him in Marsh alley, when the villain drew a pistol and threatened to shoot his assailant, who persistingly stuck to him until a blow from the butt of the pistol knocked him down, and the rascal escaped, leaving his hat on the premises, in which was the name O. Hush. Mr. Muggins treated him very severely, and it is believed the atrocious wretch may be detected by the injury he received. The police are upon his track. “Mr. Milling: Be wary of Upshur. A pitcher that goes too often to the well may come back broken. “Mr. Milling. — Sir: You may deem me a scoundrel; but I am to be pitied. I have been led into the temptation of speculation, have compromised our firm in its prosecution, and have fled, like Cain, with the brand of disgrace on my name. But, while thus leaving like a thief, I solemnly promise that my future shall be devoted to a reparation of the trouble I have caused. You shall not hear from me until I am able to wipe the stain from the name of yours, most ungratefully, “My dear Madam: I am a man of few words — a friend of your late husband — with means sufficient to carry out what I propose. I wish to return a portion of the benefit he conferred upon me, a poor boy. I am aware of your family circumstances, and would relieve a portion of your burden. Your youngest daughter should receive an education. I have the ability to secure it, and would deem it a favor to be allowed to incur the expense attending it. The only condition I propose is that no sense of obligation may be allowed to overpower you, and no effort be made to discover the writer. “Dear Partelot: Please excuse me to the family. I am suddenly called to Mulberry-street. My sister has arrived from the country. My regards to Mrs. M., and Misses Matilda and Lily.
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33Author:  Shillaber B. P. (Benjamin Penhallow) 1814-1890Requires cookie*
 Title:  Life and sayings of Mrs. Partington and others of the family  
 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: 677EAF. Page 013. In-line Illustration. Image of a gun, a sword, a framed profile of a man. “Perfigis retch: — your our is cum... Mete me to-morrar outside the Inglish lines, and Ile giv yu Jessy. Yours respectively, “Dear Mother, — It grieves me to bid you farewell, but longer sufferance from father's tyrannical usage is impossible. I go to seek my fortune, and when we meet again may it be when he and I shall have learned a lesson from our separation, and the alienation of father and child may be forgotten in the renewed intercourse of man and man. Farewell, mother, and may you be more happy than I should have been able to make you had I lived with you a thousand years. Farewell. Remember sometimes your poor boy,
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34Author:  Simms William Gilmore 1806-1870Requires cookie*
 Title:  As good as a comedy, or, The Tennesseean's story  
 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: Let us start fairly, and not on an empty stomach. Reader, we begin with a Georgia breakfast. We are at one of those plain, unpretending, but substantial farm-houses, which, in the interior of Georgia, and other Southern States, distinguished more especially the older inhabitants; those who, from time immemorial, have appeared pretty much as we find them now. These all date back beyond the Revolution; the usual epoch, in our country, at which an ancient family may be permitted to begin. The region is one of those lovely spots among the barrens of middle Georgia, in which, surveyed from the proper point of view, there is nothing barren. You are not to suppose the settlement an old one, by any means, for it is not more than twenty or twenty-five years since all the contiguous territory within a space of sixty miles was rescued from the savages. But our family is an old one; inheriting all the pride, the tastes, and the feelings which belonged to the old Southern “Continentaler.” This will be apparent as we proceed; as it is apparent, in fact, to the eye which contrasts the exterior of its dwelling with that of the neighboring settlements among which it harbors. The spot, though undistinguished by surprising scenery, is a very lovely one, and not unfrequent in the middle country of the Atlantic Southern States. It presents a pleasing prospect under a single glance of the eye, of smooth lawn, and gentle acclivity, and lofty forest growth. A streamlet, or branch, as it is here called, winds along, murmuring as it goes, at the foot of a gentle eminence which is crowned with a luxuriant wealth of pine and cedar. Looking up from this spot while your steed drinks, you behold, perched on another gentle swell of ground, as snug and handsome an edifice as our forest country usually affords; none of your overgrown ambitious establishments, but a trim tidy dwelling, consisting of a single story of wood upon a brick basement, and surrounded on three sides by a most glorious piazza. The lawn slopes away, for several hundred yards, an even and very gradual descent even to the road; a broad tract, well sprinkled with noble trees, oaks, oranges, and cedars, with here and there a clump of towering pines, under which steeds are grazing, in whose slender and symmetrical forms, clean legs, and glossy skins, you may discern instant signs of those superior foreign breeds which the Southern planter so much affects. The house, neatly painted white, with green blinds and shutters, is kept in admirable trim; and, from the agreeable arrangement of trees and shrubbery, it would seem that the place had been laid out and was tenanted by those who brought good taste and a becoming sense of the beautiful to the task. There was no great exercise of art, it is true. That is not pretended. But nature was not suffered to have her own way entirely, was not suffered to overrun the face of the land with her luxuriance; nor was man so savage as to strip her utterly of all her graceful decorations— a crime which we are too frequently called upon to deplore and to denounce, when we contemplate the habitations even of the wealthy among our people, particularly in the South, despoiled, by barbarity, of all their shade-trees, and denuded of all the grace and softness which these necessarily confer upon the landscape. Here, the glance seemed to rest satisfied with what it beheld, and to want for nothing. There might be bigger houses, and loftier structures, of more ambitious design and more commanding proportion; but this was certainly very neat, and very much in its place. Its white outlines caught your eye, glinting through openings of the forest, approaching by the road on either hand, for some distance before you drew nigh, and with such an air of peace and sweetness, that you were insensibly prepared to regard its inmates as very good and well-bred people. Nor are we wrong in these conjectures. But of this hereafter. At this moment, you may see a very splendid iron-gray charger, saddled, and fastened in the shade, some twenty steps from the dwelling. Lift your eye to the piazza, and you behold the owner. A finer-looking fellow lives not in the country. Tall, well made, and muscular, he treads the piazza like a prince. The freedom of carriage which belongs to the gentlemen in our forest country is inimitable, is not to be acquired by art, and is due to the fact that they suffer from no laborious occupation, undergo no drudgery, and are subject to no confinement, which, in childhood, contract the shoulders into a stoop, depress the spirits, enfeeble the energies, and wofully impair the freedom and elegance of the deportment. Constant exercise on foot and horseback, the fox hunt and the chase; these, with other sylvan sports, do wonders for the physique, the grace and the bearing of the country gentleman of the South. The person before us is one of the noblest specimens of his class. A frank and handsome countenance, with a skin clear and inclining to the florid; a bright, martial blue eye; a full chin; thick, massive locks of dark brown hair, and lips that express a rare sweetness, and only do not smile, sufficiently distinguish his peculiarities of face. His dress is simple, after an ordinary fashion of the country, but is surprisingly neat and becoming. A loose blouse, rather more after the Choctaw than the Parisian pattern, does not lessen the symmetry of his shape. His trousers are not so loose as to conceal the fine muscular developments of his lower limbs; nor does his loose negligée neckcloth, simply folded about the neck, prevent the display of a column which admirably sustains the intellectual and massive head which crowns it, and which we now behold uncovered. Booted and spurred, he appears ready for a journey, walks the piazza with something of impatience in his manner, and frequently stops to shade his eyes from the glare, as he strains them in exploring the distant highway. You see that he is young, scarcely twenty-two; eager in his impulses, restive under restraint, and better able to endure and struggle with the conflict than to wait for its slow approaches. Suddenly he starts. He turns to a call from within, and a matron lady appears at the entrance of the dwelling, and joins him in the piazza. He turns to her with respect and fondness. She is his mother; a stately dame, with features like his own; a manner at once easy and dignified; an eye grave, but benevolent; and a voice whose slow, subdued accents possess a rare sweetness not unmingled with command.
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35Author:  Spofford Harriet Elizabeth Prescott 1835-1921Requires cookie*
 Title:  New-England legends  
 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 islands about the harbors of all our New England rivers are so wild, and would seem to have offered so many advantages, that they have always been supposed, by the ruder population, to be the hiding-place of piratical treasures, and particularly of Captain Kidd's; and the secretion, among rocks and sands, of chests of jewels stripped from noble Spanish ladies who have walked the awful plank, with shotbags full of diamonds, and ingots of pure gold, is one of the tenets of the vulgar faith. This belief has ranged up and down the whole shore with more freedom than the pirates ever did, and the legends on the subject are legion —from the old Frenchman of Passamaquoddy Bay to the wild stories of the Jersey and Carolina sandbars too countless for memory, the Fireship off Newport, the Shrieking Woman of Marblehead, and the Lynn Mariner who, while burying his treasure in a cave, was sealed up alive by a thunderbolt that cleft the rock, and whom some one, under spiritual inspiration, spent lately a dozen years in vain endeavor to unearth. The parties that have equipped themselves with hazel-rods and spades, and proceeded, at the dead of night, in search of these riches, without turning their heads or uttering the Divine Name, and, digging till they struck metal, have met with all manner of ghostly appearances, from the little naked negro sitting and crying on the edge of the hogshead of doubloons, to the ball of fire sailing straight up the creek, till it hangs trembling on the tide just opposite the excavation into which it shoots with the speed of lightning, so terrifying and bewildering the treasure-seekers that when all is over they fail to find again the place of their late labor—the parties that have met with these adventures would, perhaps, cease to waste much more of their time in such pursuits in this part of the country if they knew that Captain Kidd had never landed north of Block Island until, with fatal temerity, he brought his vessel into Boston, and that every penny of his gains was known and was accounted for, while as to Bradish, Tew, and the rest of that genry, they wasted everything as they went in riotous living, and could never have had a dollar to hide, and no disposition to hide it if they had; and whatever they did possess they took with them when, quietly abandoning their ships to the officers of the law, they went up the creeks and rivers in boats, and dispersed themselves throughout the country. “Received of Bishop Fenwick, the sum of seventy-nine dollars and twenty cents, the same being taxes assessed by the Assessors of the town of Charlestown, upon the land and buildings of the late Convent of Mount Benedict, for the year 1834, and which were this day demanded by Solomon Hovey, Jr., Collector, agreeably to instructions received by him from the Assessors, to that effect, although said buildings had been destroyed by a mob in August last. “Honor Governor my friend You my friend. I desire your worship and your power, because I hope you can do some great matters—this one. I am poor and naked and I have no men at my place because I afraid allways Mohogs he will kill me every day and night. If your worship when please pray help me you no let Mohogs kill me at my place at Malamake Rever called Panukkog and Natukkog, I will submit your worship and your power. — And now I want pouder and such alminishun, shatt and guns, because I have forth at my home and I plant theare. “Now this day I com your house, I want se you, and I bring my hand at before you I want shake hand to you if your worship when please then you receive my hand then shake your hand and my hand. You my friend because I remember at old time when live my grant father and grant mother then Englishmen com this country, then my grant father and Englishmen they make a good govenant, they friend allwayes, my grant father leving at place called Malamake Rever, other name chef Natukkog and Panukkog, that one rever great many names, and I bring you this few skins at this first time I will give you my friend. This all Indian hand. “Please your Worship—I will intreat you matther, you my friend now; this, if my Indian he do you long, pray you no put your law, because som my Indians fooll, some men much love drunk then he no know what he do, maybe he do mischif when he drunk, if so pray you must let me know what he done because I will ponis him what have done, you, you my friend, if you desire my business then sent me I will help you if I can. “Mr. Mason — Pray I want speake you a few words if your worship when please, because I com parfas. I will speake this governor but he go away so he say at last night, and so far I understand this governor his power that your power now, so he speak his own mouth. Pray if you take what I want pray come to me because I want go hom at this day. “Honorable Sir—The Governor and Council having this day received a letter from Major Hinchman, of Chelmsford, that some Indians are come into them, who report that there is a gathering of Indians in or about Pennacook, with design of mischief to the English. Among the said Indians one Hawkins is said to be a principal designer, and that they have a particular design against yourself and Mr. Peter Coffin, which the Council thought it necessary presently to dispatch advice thereof, to give you notice, that you take care of your own safeguard, they intending to endeavor to betray you on a pretension of trade.
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36Author:  Stowe Harriet Beecher 1811-1896Requires cookie*
 Title:  Agnes of Sorrento  
 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 setting sunbeams slant over the antique gateway of Sorrento, fusing into a golden bronze the brown freestone vestments of old Saint Antonio, who with his heavy stone mitre and upraised hands has for centuries kept watch thereupon.
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