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1Author:  Neal John 1793-1876Requires cookie*
 Title:  Seventy-six  
 Published:  1997 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: Yes, my children, I will no longer delay it. We are passing, one by one, from the place of contention, one after another, to the grave; and, in a little time, you may say—Our Fathers!—the men of the Revolution— where are they?..... Yes, I will go about it, in earnest: I will leave the record behind me, and when there is nothing else to remind you of your father, and your children's children, of their ancestor—nothing else, to call up his apparition before you, that you may see his aged and worn forehead—his white hair in the wind... you will have but to open the book, that I shall leave to you—and lay your right hand, devoutly, upon the page. It will have been written in blood and sweat, with prayer and weeping. But do that— no matter when it is, generations may have passed away—no matter where I am—my flesh and blood may have returned to their original element, or taken innumerable shapes of loveliness—my very soul may be standing in the presence of the Most High—Yet do ye this, and I will appear to you, instantly, in the deepest and dimmest solitude of your memory!— —Yes!—I will go about it, this very day... And I do pray you and them, as they shall be born successively of you, and yours, when all the family are about their sanctuary, their own fire side—the holy and comfortable place, to open the volume, and read it aloud. Let it be in the depth of winter, if it may be, when the labour of the year is over, and the heart is rejoicing in its home—and when you are alone:—not that I would frown upon the traveller, or blight the warm hospitality of your nature, by reproof—but there are some things, and some places, where the thought of the stranger is intrusion, the touch and hearing of the unknown man, little better than profanation. If you love each other, you will not go abroad for consolation: and if you are wise, you will preserve some hidden, fountains of your heart, unvisited but by one or two—the dearest and the best. This should be one of them—I will have it so. I would not have your feeling of holy, and solemn, and high enthusiasm, broken in upon, by the unprepared, just when you have been brought, perhaps, to travel in imagination, with your father, barefooted, over the frozen ground, leaving his blood at every step, as he went, desolate, famished, sick, naked, almost broken hearted, and almost alone, to fight the battles of your country.
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