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261Author:  Ware William 1797-1852Add
 Title:  Julian, or Scenes in Judea  
 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: Praise to the God of Abraham. The locusts are flown. The land which they found flourishing and verdant as a garden, they have changed to the barrenness of a desert. The cities and the villages, but now so full of people, are become the region of desolation and death. Even the very city and house of God are level with the dust, and the ploughshare has gone over them. And here, upon the hill of Olives, I sit, a living witness of the ruin. By reason of the wonderful compassions of God, which never fail, I am escaped as a bird from the net of the fowler. Yet I take little joy in this. For why should the days of one like me be lengthened out, when the mighty and excellent of the land are cut off? I rather rejoice in this, that the spoiler is gone; the armies of the alien have ceased to devour; and they who are fled, and hidden in caves and dens of the rocks, may come forth again to inhabit the land and build up the waste places. A multitude, which no man could number, have fallen before the edge of the sword, or by famine, and the air is full of the pestilential vapors that steam up from their rotting carcases. But a greater multitude remains; and it may well be that ere many years have passed, they shall fill the land as before, and gathered into one by him who, though long delaying, will come, pay back, and more, the measure they have received. That time will surely come. Even as the Assyrian could not finally destroy, but the hand of the Almighty was put forth, and the city and the temple grew again from their ruins to a greater glory than before, so shall it be now. The Roman triumph shall be short. Messiah shall yet appear; and Jerusalem clothed in her beautiful garments shall sit upon her hills, the joy and crown of the whole earth.
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262Author:  Whittier John Greenleaf 1807-1892Add
 Title:  Leaves from Margaret Smith's journal in the province of Massachusetts Bay, 1678-9  
 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: “Dear Friend: I salute thee with much love from this new Countrie, where the Lord hath spread a table for us in the Wilderness. Here is a goodlie companie of Friends, who doe seek to know the mind of Truth, and to live thereby, being held in favor and esteem by the Rulers of the Land, and soe left in Peace to worship God according to their consciences. The whole Countrie being covered with Snow, and the Weather being extreme cold, we can scarce say much of the natural gifts and advantages of our new Home; but it lyeth on a small River, and there be fertile Meadowes and old Cornfields of the Indians, and good Springs of Water, soe that I am told it is a desirable and pleasing place in the warm season. My soul is full of Thankfulness; and a sweet inward Peace is my portion. Hard things are made easie to me; this desert place, with its lonelie Woods and wintry Snows, is beautiful in mine eyes. For here we be no longer gazing-stocks of the rude Multitude, we are no longer haled from our Meetings, and rayled upon as Witches and possessed People. Oh! how often have we been called upon heretofore to repeat the prayer of one formerlie — `Let me not fall into the hands of man.' Sweet, beyond the power of words to express, hath been the change in this respect; and in view of the Mercies vouchsafed unto us, what can we do but repeat the language of David? — `Praise is comelie; yea, a joyful and pleasant thing it is to be thankful. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, to sing praises unto thy Name, O Most High! to show forth thy loving kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night.'
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263Author:  EDITED BY N. P. WILLIS.Add
 Title:  The legendary  
 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: `It is, I believe, or should be, a maxim of the true church, that confession of a sin is the first step towards its expiation. `When you receive this letter, your three sons will be no more. Frederic de Lancey is the bearer of it. He has done our dear Edward a signal service, and I have thought him trustworthy to convey to Alice the picture of my mother. My heart bleeds when I think of you, without one prop for your old age, save our innocent and helpless sister. We are all satisfied De Lancey would be a faithful son to you if you will permit him to be. In case of his death tomorrow—and the chances of war are alike to all—he has bequeathed to us all he is worth, and it is the earnest wish of my brothers as well as myself, that if he should be the only survivor, you would adopt him; and if he and sister Alice should fancy each other, that he may become a son in reality.
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264Author:  EDITED BY N. P. WILLIS.Add
 Title:  The legendary  
 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: `Have you ever read Undine, Tom? Did you conceive of a river of wondrous and perfect beauty? Was it fringed with all manner of stooping trees, and kissed to the very lip by clover? Did it wind constantly in and out, as if both banks were enamoured of its flow and enticed it from each other's bosoms? Was it hidden sometimes by thick masses of leaves meeting over it, and sometimes by the swelling of a velvet slope that sent it rippling away into shadow? and did it steal out again like a happy child from a hiding place, and flash up to your eye till you would have sworn it was living and intelligent? Did the banks lean away in a rich, deep verdure, and were the meadows sleeping beneath the light, like a bosom in a silk mantle? and when your ear had drank in the music of the running water, and the loveliness of color and form had unsettled the earthliness within you, did you believe in your heart that a strip of Eden had been left unmarred by the angel? `She who brings you this letter is my only child— all the treasure I possess in this world. Therefore, I trust her to you, relying on your honor. If the walls of Soleure fall, I shall be buried under their ruins; but if you grant your protection to my daughter, I shall have no more anxiety for her. Give me some token that you grant my petition, and you will receive your reward from that Being who watches over the innocent, and who knows our hearts.
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265Author:  Willis Nathaniel Parker 1806-1867Add
 Title:  Inklings of adventure  
 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 
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266Author:  Willis Nathaniel Parker 1806-1867Add
 Title:  Inklings of adventure  
 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 
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267Author:  Aldrich Thomas Bailey 1836-1907Add
 Title:  Père Antoine's date palm  
 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: Near the Levee, and not far from the old French Cathedral, in New Orleans, stands a fine date-palm, thirty feet in height, growing out in the open air as sturdily as if its sinuous roots were sucking strength from their native earth.
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268Author:  Jones J. B. (John Beauchamp) 1810-1866Add
 Title:  The Winkles, or, The merry monomaniacs  
 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: Babbleton was an ancient village near the city of Philadelphia. It had a wharf where the steamboats landed, and a depot where the locomotives whistled. Hence, although the principal mansions were situated on commodious lots, and in many instances separated from each other by broad yards and close fences, it is not to be inferred there was ever a monotonous deficiency of noise and excitement in the place. It had its proud and its miserable, its vanities and its humiliations, its bank and its bakers, its millionaires and its milliners; and was not unfrequently the scene of some of those entertaining comedies of life, which have been considered in all enlightened countries worthy of preservation in veracious and impartial history. Such a record we have attempted to produce; and although the direct manner of narration adopted may offend the taste of the fastidious critic, yet the less acutely discerning reader may possibly deem himself compensated for the labor of perusal, by the reliable assurance of the anthenticity of the story, and the interest attending the occurrences flitting before his mental vision. “My Dear Aunt:—It becomes my melancholy duty to announce a sad calamity—an unexpected suicide—which must affect you deeply. This morning poor Jocko was found suspended from the eve of the portico, and quite dead. That he did it himself, must be evident from the fact that no human being would be likely to climb down to the edge of the roof. It seems that he had driven a large nail into the wood through the last link of his chain, and then sprang over, either dislocuting. his neck, or producing suffocation. I could not hear his struggles, from the distant chamber I occupied, or you should not have been called upon to lament his untimely end. Poor Jocko! As the weather is very warm, I will have his body taken down and packed in ice. It will keep, dear aunt, until I receive your instructions, in regard to the disposition you would have made of it. Every thing shall be done according to your orders. You need not hasten your return to the city. I am quite comfortable here, and the house is kept very quiet from morning till night. My love to mother, sister, uncle, all. “If I see so plainly the imprudence of such disgraceful matches in others, you may suppose I shall be careful to avoid falling into the like silly practices myself. It is true I intend to marry. My nuptials will be celebrated some time during the present year. But the man of my choice will be a gentleman of distinction—a genius of celebrity. You know him, Walter—Mr. Pollen, the poet. If he is poor—if he has been sometimes, as you informed me, without a shirt—that is no disgrace. How was it with Chatterton, Defoe, and even Milton himself? And what lady in the world would not have been honored by being the wife of a Chatterton, a Defoe, a Milton? Shame upon the ladies who permitted them to languish in poverty! I will set an example for the wealthy ladies to follow hereafter. Genius is the very highest kind of aristocracy, because it cannot be conferred by mortal man, nor taken away even by the detracting tongue of women. Farewell. Present my adieus to your mother and Lucy. We will not meet again, unless it be accidentally, and then it is probable there will be no recognition on my part, and I desire there shall be none on yours. You may say to Mr. Lowe that a visit from him would be agreeable to me I believe him to be a gentleman, and would have no objections to his society, if he could answer one or two questions satisfactorily. You may say to him that although I am resolved to marry, I don't expect to feel what the silly girls call a romantic passion for any man. I don't believe in any such nonsense. I want a partner at whist as much as any thing else. “My Dear Niece:—I send my Edith for you, and I desire that you will return with her, by the evening mail. She is discreet, and no one knows her in Babbleton. By accompanying her, your persecutor will not be able to trace you to your asylum. Wear a thick veil, so that he may not recognize your features when you go to the cars. You may safely confide in Edith. She has been my confidant for many years, as your mother knows. She was personally acquainted with the Great Unknown—Sir Walter—and is familiar with the plots and stratagems of villains. She reads for me every night, and has a romantic and literary disposition. Since I received your dear pathetic letter, I have been going over the `Children of the Abbey' again, and find my eyes continually suffused with the miseries of poor Amanda. My dear child! You remind me of her so much, that I am painfully impatient to clasp you to my heart! Do not delay a moment. My love to sister Edith. Tell her not to insist on my Edith having any refreshments, for she never takes any. “Dear Sir: Excuse my bad writing, for you know I write with my left hand, and hold the paper down with my right stump. I saw Col. Oakdale to-day, and he said you would be home to-night, therefore I write. “Here is news from Babbleton,” said Lucy, and narrated in my dear mother's merry vein. Listen, aunt:—“Griselda still keeps my poor brother a close prisoner, while she dashes about in her coach and four. But she has cut all her poor acquaintances, and of course I am blotted out of her books. She passes without calling, and without knowing how heartily I laugh at the ridiculous figure she makes. But she patronized our minister, Mr. Amble, and that is a charitable expenditure, because the money will certainly reach the poor of the parish. Mr. A. you know, has either nine or thirteen (I forget which) children of his own, and they must be provided for. I suppose it is because I could render no assistance, that he has not called on me lately—not, I believe, since my house was sold. Perhaps he did not hear I was the purchaser * * * Still I think Roland is love mad. But his passion is two-fold. He has laid regular siege to Virginia Oakdale, who is my guest, and opens his batteries once or twice every week, and then disappears most mysteriously. I presume he occupies his blue carriage on the alternate days. Virginia never refuses to see him; but the spirited girl laughs at his pretensions, and banters him in such a moeking manner that he must soon despair of making any progress. Why do you not treat him in the same way? Or why do you not marry him, and then have your revenge? It is so absurd to see men of fortune running after the girls, and vainly teasing them for a smile. Marry them, and they will run the other way. Walter is still at Washington, and has not yet received his appointment. I believe he has ceased writing to Virginia. What does it mean? More tomfoolery? Lowe has been absent some time—and I suppose you have seen him. Remember! * * * We had an exciting scene in the street the other day. Sergeant Blore, when stumping on his way to see me, was seized by Mrs. Edwards. She demanded his money—and he cried murder! He tripped her up with his wooden leg and made his escape. But it seems he sprained her ankle, and she has since threatened to bring “an haction” against him for “hassault” and battery! You see how husbands are served! Bill Dizzle gallants Patty O'Pan to church every Sunday. I wrote you how Patty mortally affronted the Arums and Crudles. She kept up till Bill and Susan beat a retreat. It has been a mystery to me how the impudent hussy obtained the means to perpetrate such an annoyance. Some of her finery must have cost a great deal of money, and no one ever supposed Lowe possessed a superabundance of it. By the way, I forgot to mention that Bell Arum has written home a precious budget of news, which her mother, as usual, has published to all her acquaintances. She says she saw you examining the register, and that you were in the habit of wandering about alone and unprotected. She says Mr. Lowe is likewise in the city; and if her ma would put that and that together, she would know as much as the writer, no doubt! And she says they have an invitation to the aristocratic Mrs. Laurel's parties, and that some of the British nobility of the highest rank are expected over this winter. But (she says) if L. W. and Mr. L. are to be met there, she is determined to expose them. “My impudent nephew Walter, who will persist in writing me, notwithstanding I have cast him off for sanctioning his uncle's marriage with that vulgar bonnet-maker (I forget her name), informs me that Mr. Pollen, the silly poet who abandoned my hospitality to borrow a few dirty dollars of the milliner, is now working himself to death in New York to earn a scanty living, which he might have had for nothing by remaining here and behaving himself. He is a fool—just like other poets who have genius, and therefore he ought not to be permitted to kill himself. Enclosed I send a check for a trifling sum payable to bearer, which, perhaps, with delicate management you may induce him to make use of for his own benefit. Perhaps he needs some new shirts. I have seen him twice without any—and I believe he has one of Walter's yet. Speaking of checks and of Walter, I gave my cast-off nephew one when he was on his way to that Babylonian rendezvous of demagogues, which, for some reason—or rather for the want of reason—he did not use. I suppose he gave it to some fool or other poorer than himself. But the cashier of the bank did not pay the money. There needed Walter's name on it, he said, written with his own hand, as it was drawn to his order, or something of the sort, which I did not understand, and did not choose to inquire about. Walter says Lucy is with you. Tell her I have five letters from Ralph Roland begging me to intercede for him. I believe him a knave—but if he writes me again I shall also believe him in earnest, and that the rascal is absolutely in love. It would be a better match than her uncle's, which she attended. “It must be for me,” said Walter. “Put it on the table. I will look at it when I have searched my pockets once more.” Not finding the check, he opened the letter and read as follows: “Misther Walther Wankle, Sir — I have sane Misthress Famble and mi busnes is faxd. She seed you at super and sez she wants to no you. She ses she liks yer lukes, and wud like to sarve you but ses Misther Famble is beging for a nother man. Don't be onasy she kin do mor in a dozzin husbins. Pleases anser this and lave at the barr for your obeydant sarvint “Would you deign to read the news here, if I promise not to be tedious? Well, I promise. The mortgage on our house and grounds has been paid. Will you facilitate me on that? You must not ask where the money came from, for that is a secret upon which to exercise your faculty of guessing. But that is not all. Colonel Oakdale's debt to Roland has been paid. That must be news for you. You would never guess who loaned him the money, and I will tell you, so that you may pour out your gratitude to him should your relations with the family of the senator—we have just heard of his election by the Legislature—ever become more intimate than they have been hitherto. It was John Dowly, whom every one supposed to be in indigent circumstances. Blessings on my old beau. Walter never slept more soundly, or enjoyed more pleasant dreams, than he did in prison. And he had an excellent appetite for breakfast, which was damaged, however, by the contents of the letters and papers brought in by his keeper.
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269Author:  McHenry James 1753-1816Add
 Title:  The wilderness, or, Braddock's times  
 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: Let melancholy spirits talk as they please concerning the degeneracy and increasing miseries of mankind, I will not believe them. They have been speaking ill of themselves, and predicting worse of their posterity, from time immemorial; and yet, in the present year, 1823, when, if the one hundreth part of their gloomy forebodings had been realized, the earth must have become a Pandemonium, and men something worse than devils, (for devils they have been long ago, in the opinion of these charitable denunciators,) I am free to assert, that we have as many honest men, pretty women, healthy children, cultivated fields, convenient houses, elegant kinds of furniture, and comfortable clothes, as any generation of our ancestors ever possessed. “I am glad you are come back so soon.— My sister—your wife—was cast down in your absence. But I could not blame her—for I remember when Shanalow, my husband, went first to hunt, after our marriage, I was disconsolate, and dreamed every night of evil till he returned. He is now gone to his fathers, and shall never more return. But he died of a breast-wound fighting the Otawas, and our whole tribe has praised him. The warning which Tonnaleuka had given Charles to be circumspect in regard to the enemy, was not lost upon him. He employed Paddy Frazier as a scout to hover round the French station at Le Bœuf in order to watch their motions and give him the earliest intelligence of their design. He also kept four or five of his men constantly employed in ranging on horseback, those quarters of the country from which he could be suddenly attacked, while the whole of the remainder were busily engaged in digging trenches, and preparing long pointed stakes to fix in the ground to form their stoccade fortification. From the friendly Indians he at first rceived considerable aid in forwarding his works; but in a few days he began to perceive their ardour in his behalf to diminish; and suspecting that they had imbided some unfriendly feeling towards him, he thought proper to visit king Shingiss, and expostulate with him on the subject. “My persuading you to submit, at this time, to a residence in a dark subterraneous cell, is a proof how anxious I am for your safety. You will, no doubt, feel your situation lonely and disagreeable; but I hope the necessity for it will not be of long continuance; and, in the meanwhile, in order to relieve its tediousness as much as possible, I shall send you a supply of such books as I possess, best suited for your entertainment. You may be also assured, that our family will let you want for nothing in their power to afford you comfort. “We, the officers of the Virginia regiment, are highly sensible of the particular mark of distinction with which you have honoured us in returning your thanks for our behaviour in the late action; and cannot help testifying our grateful acknowledgments for your “high sense” of what we shall always esteem a duty to our country and the best of kings. “Dear Sir—The progress we have made in the transaction, in which your son and my niece were to be the parties disposed of, had induced me to hope for a speedy and final settlement of the affair; but I am sorry to say, that owing to some misadventure on the part of your son, the bargain is likely to fail on your side. My niece, which was the part of the concern for which I stood engaged, is still substantial and ready for delivery, when the equivalent shall be forthcoming, and the demand made.
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270Author:  Morris George Pope 1802-1864Add
 Title:  The little Frenchman and his water lots, with other sketches of the times  
 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: How much real comfort every one might enjoy, if he would be contented with the lot in which heaven has cast him, and how much trouble would be avoided if people would only “let well alone.” A moderate independence, quietly and honestly procured, is certainly every way preferable even to immense possessions achieved by the wear and tear of mind and body so necessary to procure them. Yet there are very few individuals, let them be doing ever so well in the world, who are not always straining every nerve to do better; and this is one of the many causes why failures in business so frequently occur among us. The present generation seem unwilling to “realize” by slow and sure degrees; but choose rather to set their whole hopes upon a single cast, which either makes or mars them for ever!
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271Author:  Neal John 1793-1876Add
 Title:  The Down-easters, &c. &c. &c  
 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: We were on our way from Philadelphia to Baltimore, in the beautiful month of May, 1814; our boat crowded with passengers, the oddest collection you ever saw, and the British lying not far off in considerable force; and yet, so assured were we of our ability to escape, as not even to be kept awake by our dangerous neighborhood. The war, chess, politics, flirting, pushpin, tetotum, and jackstraws, (cards being prohibited,) newspapers and religious tracts, had all been tried, and all in vain to relieve the insipidity of a pleasant passage, and keep off the drowsiness that weighed upon our spirits like the rich overloaded atmosphere of a spice-island, breathing about a soft summer sea. Even the huge negroes felt and enjoyed the delicious warmth, as they lay stretched out, heads and points, over the piles of split wood, with their fat shiny faces turned up to the sky, and their broad feet stiffening in the shadow.
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272Author:  Neal John 1793-1876Add
 Title:  The Down-easters, &c. &c. &c  
 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: Such was the “terrible letter”! such the very words of a part which fell upon me, with a power which no language can describe. And yet, I do believe I showed no emotion before the girl who brought me the message of death—I mean what I say—the message of death; I believe too that I spoke in my usual voice, and I know that I did not shed a tear, and that I have not shed a tear since—I hope never to shed one while I breathe, for the perfidy of that woman. It was not—oh no!—it was not the losing a marriage with her, it was not even the losing of her heart, for I could have borne both, I believe, with a smile, if she had treated me as I deserve to be treated by those I love—no—no!—it was neither—it was the losing of my faith in her that I was ready to worship—and now I remember a passage in her letter which I had forgotten before—“I know that you love me,” said she. “This will be a terrible blow, for you had set up an image in your heart for worship”—and so I had! and she broke that image to pieces; and with it, every hope I had on earth, for every hope I had on earth was connected in some way or other with my belief in her exalted virtue, her generosity, and her truth.
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273Author:  Neal Joseph C. (Joseph Clay) 1807-1847Add
 Title:  Peter Ploddy, and other oddities  
 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: Let no one be unjust to Ploddy—to Peter Ploddy, once “young man” to Mr. Figgs, the grocer, and now junior partner of the flourishing firm of Figgs and Ploddy. Though addicted a little to complaint, and apt to institute comparisons unfavourable to himself, it would be a harsh judgment to set him down as ever having been envious, in the worst sense of the word. It is true, no doubt, that at the period of his life concerning which we are now called upon to speak, a certain degree of discontent with his own position occasionally embittered his reflections; but he had no wish to deprive others of the advantage they possessed, nor did he hate them on the score of their supposed superiority. It was not his inclination to drag men down, let them be situated as loftily as they might; and whatever of vexation or perplexity he experienced in contemplating their elevation, arose altogether from the fact that he could not clearly understand why he should not be up there too. It was not productive of pleasurable sensations to Ploddy, to see folks splashed who were more elegantly attired than himself. He never laughed from a window over the disastrous results of a sudden shower; nor could he find it in his heart to hope it would rain when his neighbours set gayly forth on a rural excursion. It is a question, indeed, whether it had been a source of satisfaction to him to see any one's name on a list of bankrupts. The sheriff's advertisements of property “seized and taken in execution,” were never conned over with delight by Peter Ploddy; and when the entertainments given in his section of the town were as splendid as luxury and profusion could make them, it was yet possible for Peter to turn in his bed at the sound of the music and of the merriment, without a snarl about “there you go,” and without a hint that there are headaches in store for the gentlemen, with a sufficient variety of coughs and colds for the ladies. He never said, because an invitation had not been addressed to Ploddy, that affairs of this sort make work for the doctors.
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274Author:  Smith Richard Penn 1799-1854Add
 Title:  The forsaken  
 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: More than half a century ago, there stood in Darby, a small village near Philadelphia, an humble inn, denominated “The Hive;” which name the house acquired in consequence of a rude sign, that yielding to every blast of wind, creaked in front of the building; although one who was not a connoisseur in painting, might have mistaken the hive for a hay-cock, and the bees for partridges, had not the ingenious artist, to prevent all mistakes of this nature, judiciously painted, in capital letters, the name of his design, which at once put an end to the illiberal cavilling of such critics as could decipher the alphabet. You may judge of the extent of my perplexities when I apply to you for pecuniary assistance. Were you in funds you would be the first I should apply to, but in your present circumstances you should be the last. But, as I do not know what fortune may have done for you since our last interview, I have ventured to make known my distresses to you. I have an insuperable objection to my father's becoming acquainted with the cause of my present embarrassment, and have therefore employed every means to extricate myself before a knowledge of the circumstance shall reach him. To change the subject, I feel that I should fight the battles of my king with better heart, if my earliest and best friend were still by my side. Reflect again upon the nature of the contest; reflect, I beseech you, until you view it in the light that it is viewed by “Meet me at the sign of the Crooked Billet, on the evening of the first of October, as I have something to communicate that concerns you nearly. Fail not to be punctual.
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275Author:  Tucker Beverley 1784-1851Add
 Title:  The partisan leader  
 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: The part I bore in the transactions which form the subject of the following narrative, is my voucher for its authenticity. My admiration of the gallant people, whose struggle for freedom I witnessed and partook; the cherished friendships contracted among them, at a time of life when the heart is warm, and under circumstances which called all its best feelings into action; and, above all, the connexion then formed, which has identified me with Virginia, and which, during the last five years, has been the source of all my happiness; are my inducements to dedicate this work to you. The approbation which, in acknowledging, more than rewarded my humble services, is my warrant for hoping, that this tribute of grateful veneration will be favorably received. Toward the latter end of the month of October, 1849, about the hour of noon, a horseman was seen ascending a narrow valley at the eastern foot of the Blue Ridge. His road nearly followed the course of a small stream, which, issuing from a deep gorge of the mountain, winds its way between lofty hills, and terminates its brief and brawling course in one of the larger tributaries of the Dan. A glance of the eye took in the whole of the little settlement that lined its banks, and measured the resources of its inhabitants. The different tenements were so near to each other as to allow but a small patch of arable land to each. Of manufactures there was no appearance, save only a rude shed at the entrance of the valley, on the door of which the oft repeated brand of the horse-shoe gave token of a smithy. There too the rivulet, increased by the innumerable springs which afforded to every habitation the unappreciated, but inappreciable luxury of water, cold, clear and sparkling, had gathered strength enough to turn a tiny mill. Of trade there could be none. The bleak and rugged barrier, which closed the scene on the west, and the narrow road, fading to a foot-path, gave assurance to the traveller that he had here reached the ne plus ultra of social life in that direction. “Mr. Baker begs leave to throw himself on the mercy of Miss Delia Trevor. He confesses his offence against her on Saturday last. He admits, with shame, that he did intend to wound her feelings, and that he has nothing to offer in extenuation of his offence. He does not even presume to ask a pardon, which he acknowledges to be unmerited, and respectfully tenders the only atonement in his power, by assuring Miss Trevor that he will never again, intentionally, offend her by his presence. My dear sir: I hasten to lay before you a piece of information which touches you nearly. Though I receive it at the hands of one who has the highest claims to my confidence, I yet trust it will prove to have originated in mistake. “My dear sir: Your letter has been received, and, to me, is entirely satisfactory. But I regret to inform you that, to those friends whom I feel myself bound to consult, it is not so. Such of them, indeed, as are acquainted with your high character, do not intimate a doubt that a full explanation of the affair would entirely justify your assurance that I have been misinformed. “Sir: I have just learned that charges of a serious nature have been made against Lieutenant Trevor, which, it seems, grow out of certain occurrences to which I am privy. I can have little doubt that the affair, to which I allude, has not been truly reported to you. Had it been, you would have seen that Lieutenant T. acted no otherwise than as became a soldier and a gentleman, in whose presence a lady, under his protection, had been insulted. The enclosed documents, to the authenticity of which I beg leave to testify, will place the transaction in its true light. Were Lieutenant T. at Washington, I should not lay these papers before you, without authority from him. As it is, I trust I do no more than my duty by him, and by your Excellency, in furnishing such evidences of the real facts of the case, as may aid you in deciding on the course to be pursued in regard to it. “Sir: I have it in command from his Excellency the President to say, that your letter of resignation has been received with surprise and regret. “I never performed a more painful duty in my life, my dear Trevor, than in putting the seal and superscription to the accompanying letter from the Secretary.
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276Author:  Tuckerman Henry T. (Henry Theodore) 1813-1871Add
 Title:  The Italian sketch book  
 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: There are countries of the globe which possess a permanent and peculiar interest in human estimation; an interest proportioned in each individual to his intelligence, culture and philanthropy. They are those where the most momentous historical events occurred, and civilization first dawned; and of which the past associations and present influences are, consequently, in a high degree exciting. The history of these lands affords one of our most attractive sources of philosophical truth, as the reminiscences they induce excite poetical sentiment; and, hence, we very naturally regard a visit to them as an event singularly interesting, not to say morally important.
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277Author:  Tuckerman Henry T. (Henry Theodore) 1813-1871Add
 Title:  Rambles and reveries  
 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 
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278Author:  Ware William 1797-1852Add
 Title:  Julian, or Scenes in Judea  
 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: Wakened from dreams in which I was losing myself, I saw that the reproof of the camel-driver was needed. We accordingly returned towards the path we had left, and moved on in the direction of the city.
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279Author:  Willis Nathaniel Parker 1806-1867Add
 Title:  Dashes at life with a free pencil  
 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: “Has there been any mistake in the two-penny post delivery, that I have not received your article for this month? If so, please send me the rough draught by the bearer (who waits), and the compositors will try to make it out. “The tale of this month will be called—” “Dear Mr. Clay: From causes which you will probably understand, I have been induced to reconsider your proposal of marriage to my niece.—Imprudent as I must still consider your union, I find myself in such a situation that, should you persevere, I must decide in its favor, as the least of two evils. You will forgive my anxious care, however, if I exact of you, before taking any decided step, a full and fair statement of your pecuniary embarrassments (which I understand are considerable) and your present income and prospects. I think it proper to inform you that Miss Gore's expectations, beyond an annuity of £300 a year, are very distant, and that all your calculations should be confined to that amount. With this understanding, I should be pleased to see you at Ashurst to-morrow morning. “Your dark eye rests on this once familiar handwriting. If your pulse could articulate at this moment, it would murmur he loved me well! He who writes to you now, after years of silence, parted from you with your tears upon his lips—parted from you as the last shadow parts from the sun, with a darkness that must deepen till morn again. I begin boldly, but the usage of the world is based upon forgetfulness in absence, and I have not forgotten. Yet this is not to be a love-letter. “Dear Lady Fanny: If you have anything beside the ghost-room vacant at Freer Hall, I will run down to you. Should you, by chance, be alone ask up the curate for a week to keep Sir Harry off my hands; and, as you don't flirt, provide me with somebody more pretty than yourself for our mutual security. As my autograph sells for eighteen pence, you will excuse the brevity of “Sir: I am intrusted with a delicate commission, which I know not how to broach to you, except by simple proposal. Will you forgive my abrupt brevity, if I inform you, without further preface, that the Countess Nyschriem, a Polish lady of high birth and ample fortune, does you the honor to propose for your hand. If you are disengaged, and your affections are not irrevocably given to another, I can conceive no sufficient obstacle to your acceptance of this brilliant connexion. The countess is twenty-two, and not beautiful, it must in fairness be said; but she has high qualities of head and heart, and is worthy of any man's respect and affection. She has seen you, of course, and conceived a passion for you, of which this is the result. I am directed to add, that should you consent, the following conditions are imposed—that you marry her within four days, making no inquiry except as to her age, rank, and property, and that, without previous interview, she come veiled to the altar. “You will pardon me that I have taken two days to consider the extraordinary proposition made me in your letter. The subject, since it is to be entertained a moment, requires, perhaps, still further reflection— but my reply shall be definite, and as prompt as I can bring myself to be, in a matter so important. “Dear Fred: Nothing going on in town, except a little affair of my own, which I can't leave to go down to you. Dull even at Crocky's—nobody plays this hot weather. And now, as to your commissions. You will receive Dupree, the cook, by to-night's mail. Grisi won't come to you without her man—`'twasn't thus when we were boys!'—so I send you a figurante, and you must do tableaux. I was luckier in finding you a wit. S— will be with you to-morrow, though, by the way, it is only on condition of meeting Lady Midge Bellasys, for whom, if she is not with you, you must exert your inveiglements. This, by way only of shuttlecock and battledore, however, for they play at wit together—nothing more, on her part at least. Look out for this devilish fellow, my lord Fred!— and live thin till you see the last of him—for he'll laugh you into your second apoplexy with the dangerous ease of a hair-trigger. I could amuse you with a turn or two in my late adventures, but black and white are bad confidants, though very well as a business firm. And, mentioning them, I have drawn on you for a temporary £500, which please lump with my other loan, and oblige “Dear Sir Humphrey: Perhaps you will scarce remember Jane Jones, to whom you presented the brush of your first fox. This was thirty years ago. I was then at school in the little village near Tally-ho hall. Dear me! how well I remember it! On hearing of your marriage, I accepted an offer from my late husband, Mr. S—, and our union was blessed with one boy, who, I must say, is an angel of goodness. Out of his small income, my dear James furnished and rented this very genteel house, and he tells me I shall have it for life, and provides me one servant, and everything I could possibly want. Thrice a week he comes out to spend the day and dine with me, and, in short, he is the pattern of good sons. As this dear boy is going down to Warwickshire, I can not resist the desire I have that you should know him, and that he should bring me back an account of my lover in days gone by. Any attention to him, dear Sir Humphrey, will very much oblige one whom you once was happy to oblige, and still “Dear Sir: I remember Miss Jones very well, God bless me, I thought she had been dead many years. I am sure I shall be very happy to see her son. Will you come out and dine with us?—dinner at seven. “Dear Nuncle: It's hard on to six o'clock, and I'm engaged at seven to a junketing at the `Hen and chickens,' with Stuggins and the maids. If you intend to make me acquainted with your great lord, now is the time. If you don't, I shall walk in presently, and introduce myself; for I know how to make my own way, nuncle—ask Miss Bel's maid, and the other girls you introduced me to at Tally-ho hall! Be in a hurry, I'm just outside. “My dear Lord: In the belief that a frank communication would be best under the circumstances, I wish to make an inquiry, prefacing it with the assurance that my only hope of happiness has been for some time staked upon the successful issue of my suit for your daughter's hand. It is commonly understood, I believe, that the bulk of your lordship's fortune is separate from the entail, and may be disposed of at your pleasure. May I inquire its amount, or rather, may I ask what fortune goes with the hand of Lady Angelica. The Beauchief estates are unfortunately much embarrassed, and my own debts (I may frankly confess) are very considerable. You will at once see, my lord, that, in justice to your daughter, as well as to myself, I could not do otherwise than make this frank inquiry before pushing my suit to extremity. Begging your indulgence and an immediate answer, I remain, my dear lord, “Dear Lord Frederick: I trust you will not accuse me of a want of candor in declining a direct answer to your question. Though I freely own to a friendly wish for your success in your efforts to engage the affections of Lady Angelica, with a view to marriage, it can only be in the irrevocable process of a marriage settlement that her situation, as to the probable disposal of my fortune, can be disclosed. I may admit to you, however, that, upon the events of this day on which you have written (it so chances), may depend the question whether I should encourage you to pursue further your addresses to Lady Angelica. “My dear Angelica: I am happy to know that there are circumstances which will turn aside much of the poignancy of the communication I am about to make to you. If I am not mistaken at least, in believing a mutual attachment to exist between yourself and Count Pallardos, you will at once comprehend the ground of my mental relief, and perhaps, in a measure, anticipate what I am about to say. “Dear Count: You will wonder at receiving a friendly note from me after my refusal, two months since, to meet you over `pistols and coffee;' but reparation may not be too late, and this is to say, that you have your choice between two modes of settlement, viz:—to accept for your stable the hunter you stole from me (vide police report) and allow me to take a glass of wine with you at my own table and bury the hatchet, or, to shoot at me if you like, according to your original design. Manners and Beauchief hope you will select the latter, as they owe you a grudge for the possession of your incomparable bride and her fortune; but I trust you will prefer the horse, which (if I am rightly informed) bore you to the declaration of love at Chasteney. Reply to Crockford's. “My dear St. Leger: Enclosed you have the only surviving lock of my grizzled wig—sign and symbol that my disguises are over and my object attained. The wig burns at this instant in the grate, item my hand-ruffles, item sundry embroidered cravats a la vielle cour, item (this last not without some trouble at my heart) a solitary love-token from Constantia Hervey. One faded rose—given me at Pæstum, the day before I was driven disgraced from her presence by the interference of this insolent fool—one faded rose has crisped and faded into smoke with the rest. And so fled from the world the last hope of a warm and passionate heart, which never gave up its destiny till now—never felt that it was made in vain, guarded, refined, cherished in vain, till that long-loved flower lay in ashes. I am accustomed to strip emotion of its drapery—determined to feel nothing but what is real— yet this moment, turn it and strip it, and deny its illusions as I will, is anguish. `Self-inflicted,' you smile and say! “And now that we know each other again—now that I can call you by name, as in the past, and be sure that your inmost consciousness must reply— a new terror seizes me! Your soul comes back, youthfully and newly clad, while mine, though of unfading freshness and youthfulness within, shows to your eye the same outer garment, grown dull with mourning and faded with the wear of time. Am I grown distasteful? Is it with the sight only of this new body that you look upon me? Rodolph!—spirit that was my devoted and passionate admirer! soul that was sworn to me for ever!—am I—the same Margaret, refound and recognised, grown repulsive? Oh God! What a bitter answer would this be to my prayers for your return to me! “I have followed up to this hour, my fair cousin, in the path you have marked out for me. It has brought me back, in this chamber, to the point from which I started under your guidance, and if it had brought me back unchanged—if it restored me my energy, my hope, and my prospect of fame, I should pray Heaven that it would also give me back my love, and be content—more than content, if it gave me back also my poverty. The sight of my easel, and of the surroundings of my boyish dreams of glory, have made my heart bitter. They have given form and voice to a vague unhappiness, which has haunted me through all these absent years—years of degrading pursuits and wasted powers—and it now impels me from you, kind and lovely as you are, with an aversion I can not control. I can not forgive you. You have thwarted my destiny. You have extinguished with sordid cares a lamp within me that might, by this time, have shone through the world. And what am I, since your wishes are accomplished? Enriched in pocket, and bankrupt in happiness and self-respect. Dined with F—, the artist, at a trattoria. F— is a man of genius, very adventurous and imaginative in his art, but never caring to show the least touch of these qualities in his conversation. His pictures have given him great vogue and consideration at Rome, so that his daily experience furnishes staple enough for his evening's chit-chat, and he seems, of course, to be always talking of himself. He is very generally set down as an egotist. His impulse to talk, however, springs from no wish for self-glorification, but rather from an indolent aptness to lay hands on the readiest and most familiar topic, and that is a kind of egotism to which I have very little objection—particularly with the mind fatigued, as it commonly is in Rome, by a long day's study of works of art. “You will be surprised on glancing at the signature to this letter. You will be still more surprised when you are reminded that it is a reply to an unanswered one of your own—written years ago. That letter lies by me, expressed with all the diffidence of boyish feeling. And it seems as if its diffidence would encourage me in what I wish to say. Yet I write far more tremblingly than you could have done. “Where art thou, bridegroom of my soul? Thy Ione S— calls to thee from the aching void of her lonely spirit! What name bearest thou? What path walkest thou? How can I, glow-worm like, lift my wings and show thee my lamp of guiding love? Thus wing I these words to thy dwelling-place (for thou art, perhaps, a subscriber to the M—r). Go—truants! Rest not till ye meet his eye. “`Dear Miss Blidgims: Feeling quite indisposed myself, and being firmly persuaded that we are three cases of cholera, I have taken advantage of a return calesino to hurry on to Modena for medical advice. The vehicle I take, brought hither a sister of charity, who assures me she will wait on you, even in the most malignant stage of your disease. She is collecting funds for an hospital, and will receive compensation for her services in the form of a donation to this object. I shall send you a physician by express from Modena, where it is still possible we may meet. With prayers, &c., &c. “Sir: The faculty have decided to impose upon you the fine of ten dollars and damages, for painting the president's horse on sabbath night while grazing on the college green. They, moreover, have removed Freshman Wilding from your rooms, and appoint as your future chum the studious and exemplary bearer, Forbearance Smith, to whom you are desired to show a becoming respect. “Dear Philip: You will be surprised to hear that I am in the Lynn jail on a charge of theft and utterance of counterfeit money. I do not wait to tell you the particulars. Please come and identify, “Dear Tom: If your approaching nuptials are to be sufficiently public to admit of a groomsman, you will make me the happiest of friends by selecting me for that office. “Dear Phil: The devil must have informed you of a secret I supposed safe from all the world. Be assured I should have chosen no one but yourself to support me on the occasion; and however you have discovered my design upon your treasure, a thousand thanks for your generous consent. I expected no less from your noble nature. “Baron: Before taking the usual notice of the occurrence of this morning, I wish to rectify one or two points in which our position is false. I find myself, since last night, the accepted lover of Lady Imogen Ravelgold, and the master of estates and title as a count of the Russian empire. Under the etourdissement of such sudden changes in feelings and fortune, perhaps my forgetfulness of the lady, in whose cause you are so interested, admits of indulgence. At any rate, I am so newly in love with life, that I am willing to suppose for an hour that had you known these circumstances, you would have taken a different view of the offence in question. I shall remain at home till two, and it is in your power till then to make me the reparation necessary to my honor. “Dear Sir: My wife wishes me to write to you, and inform you of her marriage, which took place a week or two since, and of which she presumes you are not aware. She remarked to me, that you thought her looking unhappy last evening, when you chanced to see her at the play. As she seemed to regret not being able to answer your note herself, I may perhaps convey the proper apology by taking upon myself to mention to you, that, in consequence of eating an imprudent quantity of unripe fruit, she felt ill before going to the theatre, and was obliged to leave early. To day she seems seriously indisposed. I trust she will be well enough to see you in a day or two—and remain, THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, BY HIS FRIEND, Start fair, my sweet Violet! This letter will lie on your table when you arrive at Saratoga, and it is intended to prepare you for that critical campaign. You must know the ammunition with which you go into the field. I have seen service, as you know, and, from my retirement (on half-pay), can both devise strategy and reconnoitre the enemy's weakness, with discretion. Set your glass before you on the table, and let us hold a frank council of war. My dear widow: For the wear and tear of your bright eyes in writing me a letter you are duly credited. That for a real half-hour, as long as any ordinary half-hour, such well-contrived illuminations should have concentrated their mortal using on me only, is equal, I am well aware, to a private audience of any two stars in the firmament—eyelashes and petticoats (if not thrown in) turning the comparison a little in your favor. Thanks—of course—piled high as the porphyry pyramid of Papantla! My dear neph-ling: I congratulate you on the attainment of your degree as “Master of Arts.” In other words, I wish the sin of the Faculty well repented of, in having endorsed upon parchment such a barefaced fabrication. Put the document in your pocket, and come away! There will be no occasion to air it before doomsday, probably, and fortunately for you, it will then revert to the Faculty. Quiescat ad-huc—as I used to say of my tailor's bills till they came through a lawyer. Dear reader: A volume of poems goes from us in an extra of the Mirror this week, which leaves us with a feeling—we scarce know how to phrase it—a feeling of timidity and dread—like a parent's apprehensiveness, giving his child into the hands of a stranger. It is not Pliny's “quam sit magnum dare aliquid in manus hominum,” nor is it, what the habitual avoidance of grave themes looks like, sometimes—a preference “to let the serious part of life go by Like the neglected sand.” We are used to buttering curiosity with the ooze of our brains—careful more to be paid than praised— and we have a cellar, as well as many stories, in our giddy thought-house; and it is from this cave of privacy that we have, with reluctance, and consentings far between, drawn treasures of early feeling and impression, now bound and offered to you for the first time in one bundle. Oh, from the different stories of the mind—from the settled depths, and from the effervescent and giddy surface—how different looks the world! —of what different stuff and worth the link that binds us to it! In looking abroad from one window of the soul, we see sympathy, goodness, truth, desire for us and our secrets, that we may be more loved; from another, we see suspicion, coldness, mockery, and ill-will—the evil spirits of the world—lying in wait for us. At one moment—the spirits down, and the heart calm and trusting—we tear out the golden leaf nearest the well of life, and pass it forth to be read and wept over. At another, we bar shutter and blind upon prying malice, turn key carefully on all below, and, mounting to the summit, look abroad and jest at the very treasures we have concealed—wondering at our folly in even confessing to a heartless world that we had secrets, and would share them. We are not always alike. The world does not seem always the same. We believe it is all good sometimes. We believe sometimes, that it is but a place accursed, given to devils and their human scholars. Sometimes we are all kindness—sometimes aching only for an an tagonist, and an arena without barrier or law. And oh what a Procrustes's bed is human opinion—trying a man's actions and words, in whatever mood committed and said, by the same standard of rigor! How often must the angels hovering over us reverse the sentence of the judge—how oftener still the rebuke of the old maid and the Pharisee. Sir: A French writer wittily turns the paradox: “Il faut de l'argent même pour se passer d'argent”— (is it necessary to have money to be able to do without it)—and we please ourselves with suspecting that it is only amid the forgetful ease of possession that you can have made up your mind to forego us. If so, and your first se'ennight of unmirrored solitude prove heavier to bear than the aching three dollar void balanced against it—so! The pathos of this parting will have been superfluous. Ladies and gentlemen: In the eleven thousand shining sixpences which duly rise and dispense their silver light upon our way, we see of course the “Heaven of eternal change” toward whose “patines of bright gold” we have been long stretching with tiptoe expectation. We trust that, like the unpocketable troop whose indefatigable punctuality you emulate, there are still comers to your number unarrived, and that the “Lost Pleiad” (the single heavenly body upon whose discontinuance to rise we indited the foregoing epistle), will come round again in his erratic orbit, and take his place in the constellation he has deserted. We give notice here, however, that, at eleven thousand, we shall, like the nuns of St. Ursula, stop numbering. There have been virgins since the shelving of the bones of the “eleven thousand virgins of Cologne,” yet the oft-told number is still told, without increase, in the holy tradition. We believe with the sainted sisterhood that human credence can go no farther—that 'twixt millions and billions of virgins the disciple's mind would not be likely to discriminate. You will still permit us, therefore, to cast our horoscope upon this nominal number. As other starry sixpences fall into the chinks of boundless space, the perceptible increase of our brightness will alone tell the tale—but they will be marked and welcomed in the careful astronomy of our leger. You are feeding the news-hopper of your literary mill, my dear poet, and I am trying on the old trick of gayety at Saratoga. Which of us should write the other a letter? You, if you say so—though as I get older, I am beginning to think well of the town, even in August. You have your little solaces, my fast liver! Dear Willis: Your kind note to St. John, of the Knickerbocker, got me the state-room with the picture of “Glenmary” on the panel, and I slept under the protection of your household gods—famously, of course. The only fault I found with that magnificent boat, was the right of any “smutched villain” to walk through her. It is a frightful arrangement that can sell, to a beauty and a blackguard, for the same money, the right to promenade on the same carpet, and go to sleep with the same surroundings on the opposite sides of a pine partition! Give me a world where antipodes stay put! But what a right-royal, “slap-up” supper they give in the Knickerbocker! They'll make the means better than the end—travelling better than arriving—if they improve any more! I had a great mind to go back the next day, and come up again. “Dear Bel-Phœbe: I have been `twiddling my sunbeam' (you say my letters are `perfect sunshine') for some time, more or less, in a quandary as to what is now resolved upon as `Dear Bel-Phœbe'—the beginning of this (meant-to-be) faultless epistle. I chanced to wake critical this morning, and, `dear Phœbe,' as the beginning of this letter of mine, looked both vulgar and meaningless. I inked it out as you see. A reference to my etymological dictionary, however, restored my liking for that `dear' word. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon verb Der-ian, which means to do mischief. Hence dearth, which, by doing mischief, makes what remains more precious, and hence dear, meaning something made precious by having escaped hurting. `Dear Phœbe,' therefore (meaning unhurt Phœbe), struck me as pretty well—you being one of those delicious, late-loving women, destined to be `hurt' first at thirty. Still, the sacred word `Phœbe' was too abruptly come upon. It sounded familiar, and familiarity should be reserved for the postscript. I should have liked to write `dear Lady Phœbe,' or `dear Countess Phœbe'—but we are not permitted to `read our title clear,' in this hideously-simple country. Might I invent an appellative? We say char-woman and horse-man—why not put a descriptive word before a lady's name, by way of respectful distance. Phœbe Lorn is a belle—why not say Bel-Phœbe? Good! It sounds authentic. This letter, then, is to Phœbe, unhurt and beautiful (alias), `Dear Bel-Phœbe!' “Dear Madam: The undersigned, booksellers, publishers, and authors, of the city of New York, have long felt desirous of transmitting to you a memorial of the high and respectful admiration which they entertain for one to whose pen we are indebted for some of the purest and most imaginative productions in the wide range of English literature. As the authoress of `Thaddeus of Warsaw,' the `Scottish Chiefs,' &c., your name has spread over the length and breadth of our land, and the volumes of your delightful works may be found gracing alike the abodes of the wealthy, and the humble dwellings of the poor. And deservedly so—for if purity of sentiment, felicity of expression, and the constant inculcation of the noblest lessons of religion and morality, be any passport to literary fame, then will the name of Miss Porter rank high on the list of those whom the present age delights to honor, and for whom coming ages will entertain a deep feeling of reverential esteem. Dear Jack: Since my compulsory budding, flowering, and bearing fruit, have been accelerated to one season per diem, to feed a daily paper, you will easily understand that I found it necessary at first to work all my sap into something useful—omitting as it were, the gum deposite of superfluous correspondence. I accordingly left you off. Your last letter was slipped into the no-more-bother hole, without the usual endorsement of “answered,” and I considered you like a trinket laid aside before a race—not to encumber me. I miss the writing of trumpery, however. I miss the sweeping out of the corners of my mind—full of things fit only for the dust-pan, but still very possibly hiding a silver-spoon. Dear Custom: Your friend is wrong, from the egg to the apple. Miss Lucy Jones has a mother, or father, guardian, or friend, at whose house she is to be married. The invitation should come from the person under whose protection she is given away—(sent, if you please, to Mr. Smith's friends, with Mr. Smith's card, but understood by Miss Lucy Jones's friends, without card or explanation). It is tampering with serious things, very dangerously, to circulate the three words, “and Mrs. John Smith,” one minute before the putting on of the irrevocable ring. The law which permits ladies (though not gentlemen) to change their minds up to the last minute before wed lock, exacts also that the privileged angels should not be coerced by the fear of seeing the escaped name afterward on a wedding card! Besides, such a card, so issued, would be received from Mrs. Smith before there was any such person. “Dear Sir: I am directed by the committee of the `Travellers' to inform you that they have great pleasure in admitting you as a visiter to the club for the ensuing month, and that they hope to be favored with your frequent attendance. “Sir: I am directed to inform you that the committee of the `Athenæum' have ordered your name to be placed on the list of distinguished foreigners residing in London, who are invited to the house of the club for three months, subject to the same regulations as the members are required to observe. “Mr. Editor: I observe that a `bachelor,' writing in the `American,' recommends to `invited' and `inviters,' to send invitations and answers, stamped, through the penny-post. This is a capital idea, and I shall adopt it for one. I perceive that a bachelor in another paper says, `it will suit him and his fellow-bachelors,' for reasons set forth, and that he will adopt the plan. Now, Mr. Editor, I am a housekeeper, and married, and my wife requires the use of all my servants, and can not spare them to be absent three or four days, going round the city, delivering notes, on the eve of a party. These notes could, by the plan suggested, be delivered in three hours, and insure a prompt answer. I can then know exactly who is coming and who is not—a very convenient point of knowledge! “Right Trusty and Right Well-beloved Cousin.—We greet you well. Whereas, the 1st day of March next (or thereabouts) is appointed for our coronation.—These are to will and command you (all excuses set apart) to make your personal attendance on us at the time above-mentioned, furnished and appointed as to your rank and quality appertaineth.— There to do and perform all such services as shall be required and belong to you.—Whereof you are not to fail.—And so we bid you heartily farewell. “Mr. Editor: One of the greatest treats you could give your country lady readers, would be to furnish them from time to time, with brief hints as to the actual style of fashions in the metropolis. We have, all along, depended for information on this important subject, upon the monthly magazines, all of which profess to give the fashions as worn, but we find out to our dismay, that they pick up their fashions from the Paris and London prints at random—some of them adopted by our city ladies, some not! It thus happens that we country people, who like to be in the fashion, are often subjected to great expense and mortification—relying too implicitly upon the magazine reports. We cause a bonnet or a dress to be made strictly in accordance with the style prescribed in the fashion plate of the magazine, and when we hie away to the city with our new finery, we discover that our costume is so outrè that every one laughs at us! Now, should there not be some remedy for this evil? “`Madam: There is a fund applicable, as vacancies may occur, to the grant of annual pensions of very limited amount, which usage has placed at the disposal of the lady of the first minister. On this fund there is a surplus of £20 per annum. Dear Fanny: Would your dark eyes vouchsafe to wonder how I come to write to you? Thus it befell:— Madame Pico's Concert.—We should guess that between two and three thousand persons were listeners in the vast hall of the Tabernacle at the concert. The five hundred regular opera-goers, who were apparently all there, were scattered among a mass of graver countenances, and Madame Pico saw combined her two bailiwicks of fashion and seriousness. She seems to be equally popular with both, and her “good-fellow” physiognomy never showed its honest beauty to more advantage. She wore a Greek cap of gold braid on the right-side organ of conscientiousness, and probably magnetized very powerfully the large gold tassel that fell from it over her cheek. The English song was the qui-vive-ity of the evening, however, and English, from a tongue cradled in a gondola, is certainly very peculiar! But, preserve us, Rossini-Bellini! After hearing exclusively Italian music from a songstress, the descent to Balfe is rather intolerable. A lark starting for its accustomed zenith with “chicken fixings” would represent our soul as it undertook to soar last night with Balfeathered Pico!—What should make that same song popular is beyond our divining. Most of its movement works directly in the joint between the comfortable parts of the voice, and nobody ever tilted through its see-saw transitions, in our hearing, without apparent distress. To a lady-friend in the country: I am up to the knees in newspapers, and write to you under the stare of nine pigeon-holes, stuffed with literary portent. Were there such a thing (in this world of everythings) as papyral magnetism, you would get a letter, not only typical in itself, but typical of a flood in which my identity is fast drowning. Oh, the drown of news, weighed unceasingly—little events and great ones— against little more than the trouble of snipping round with scissors! To a horrid death—to a miraculous preservation—to a heart-gush of poesy—to a marriage —to a crime—to the turn of a political crisis—to flashing wit and storied agonies—giving but the one invariable first thought—“Shall I cut it out?” Alas, dear beauty-monarch of all you survey!—your own obituary, were I to read it in a newspaper of to-morrow, would speak scarce quicker to my heart than to those scissors of undiscriminating circum-cision! With the knowledge that the sky above me was enriched, as Florence once was, by the return of its long-lost and best model of beauty, I should ask, with be-paragraphed grief—“will her death do for the Mirror?” My Dear Sir: To ask me for my idea of General Morris is like asking the left hand's opinion of the dexterity of the right. I have lived so long with the “brigadier,” known him so intimately, worked so constantly at the same rope, and thought so little of ever separating from him (except by precedence of ferriage over the Styx), that it is hard to shove him from me to the perspective distance—hard to shut my own partial eyes, and look at him through other people's. I will try, however, and as it is done with but one foot off from the treadmill of my ceaseless vocation, you will excuse both abruptness and brevity.
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280Author:  Willis Nathaniel Parker 1806-1867Add
 Title:  The complete works of N.P. Willis  
 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: This volume is sent forth, with a feeling somewhat akin to a parent's apprehensiveness, in giving his child into the hands of a stranger. We have a cellar, as well as many stories, in our giddy thought-house; and it is from this cave of privacy that we have, with reluctance, and consentings far between, drawn treasures of feeling and impression, now bound and offered to you for the first time in one bundle. Oh, from the different stories of the mind — from the settled depths, and from the effervescent and giddy surface — how different looks the world! — of what different stuff and worth the link that binds us to it! In looking abroad from one window of the soul, we see sympathy, goodness, truth, desire for us and our secrets, that we may be more loved; from another, we see suspicion, coldness, mockery, and ill will — the evil spirits of the world — lying in wait for us. At one moment — the spirits down, and the heart calm and trusting — we tear out the golden leaf nearest the well of life, and pass it forth to be read and wept over. At another, we bar shutter and blind upon prying malice, turn key carefully on all below, and, mounting to the summit, look abroad and jest at the very treasures we have concealed — wondering at our folly in even confessing to a heartless world that we had secrets, and would share them. We are not always alike. The world does not seem always the same. We believe it is all good sometimes. We believe sometimes, that it is but a place accursed, given to devils and their human scholars. Sometimes we are all kindness — sometimes aching only for an antagonist, and an arena without barrier or law. And oh what a Procrustes' bed is human opinion — trying a man's actions and words, in whatever mood committed and said, by the same standard of rigor! How often must the angels hovering over us reverse the sentence of the judge — how oftener still the rebuke of the old maid and the Pharisee. Sir: In selling you the dew and sunshine ordained to fall hereafter on this bright spot of earth — the waters on their way to this sparkling brook — the tints mixed for the flowers of that enamelled meadow, and the songs bidden to be sung in coming summers by the feathery builders in Glenmary, I know not whether to wonder more at the omnipotence of money, or at my own impertinent audacity toward Nature. How you can buy the right to exclude at will every other creature made in God's image from sitting by this brook, treading on that carpet of flowers, or lying listening to the birds in the shade of these glorious trees — how I can sell it you, is a mystery not understood by the Indian, and dark, I must say to me. “Has there been any mistake in the two-penny post delivery, that I have not received your article for this month? If so, please send me the rough draught by the bearer (who waits), and the compositors will try to make it out. “Dear Mr. Clay: From causes which you will probably understand, I have been induced to reconsider your proposal of marriage to my niece. — Imprudent as I must still consider your union, I find myself in such a situation that, should you persevere, I must decide in its favor, as the least of two evils. You will forgive my anxious care, however, if I exact of you, before taking any decided step, a full and fair statement of your pecuniary embarrassments (which I understand are considerable) and your present income and prospects. I think it proper to inform you that Miss Gore's expectations, beyond an annuity of £300 a year, are very distant, and that all your calculations should be confined to that amount. With this understanding, I should be pleased to see you at Ashurst to-morrow morning. “Your dark eye rests on this once familiar handwriting. If your pulse could articulate at this moment, it would murmur he loved me well! He who writes to you now, after years of silence, parted from you with your tears upon his lips — parted from you as the last shadow parts from the sun, with a darkness that must deepen till morn again. I begin boldly, but the usage of the world is based upon forgetfulness in absence, and I have not forgotten. Yet this is not to be a love-letter. “Dear Lady Fanny: If you have anything beside the ghost-room vacant at Freer Hall, I will run down to you. Should you, by chance, be alone, ask up the curate for a week to keep Sir Harry off my hands; and, as you don't flirt, provide me with somebody more pretty than yourself for our mutual security. As my autograph sells for eighteen pence, you will excuse the brevity of “Sir: I am intrusted with a delicate commission, which I know not how to broach to you, except by simple proposal. Will you forgive my abrupt brevity, if I inform you, without further preface, that the Countess Nyschriem, a Polish lady of high birth and ample fortune, does you the honor to propose for your hand. If you are disengaged, and your affections are not irrevocably given to another, I can conceive no sufficient obstacle to your acceptance of this brilliant connexion. The countess is twenty-two, and not beautiful, it must in fairness be said; but she has high qualities of head and heart, and is worthy of any man's respect and affection. She has seen you, of course, and conceived a passion for you, of which this is the result. I am directed to add, that should you consent, the following conditions are imposed — that you marry her within four days, making no inquiry except as to her age, rank, and property, and that, without previous interview, she come veiled to the altar. “You will pardon me that I have taken two days to consider the extraordinary proposition made me in your letter. The subject, since it is to be entertained a moment, requires, perhaps, still further reflection — but my reply shall be definite, and as prompt as I can bring myself to be, in a matter so important. “Dear Fred: Nothing going on in town, except a little affair of my own, which I can't leave to go down to you. Dull even at Crocky's — nobody plays this hot weather. And now, as to your commissions. You will receive Dupree, the cook, by to-night's mail. Grisi won't come to you without her man — `'twasn't thus when we were boys!' — so I send you a figurante, and you must do tableaux. I was luckier in finding you a wit. S — will be with you to-morrow, though, by the way, it is only on condition of meeting Lady Midge Bellasys, for whom, if she is not with you, you must exert your inveiglements. This, by way only of shuttlecock and battledore, however, for they play at wit together — nothing more, on her part at least. Look out for this devilish fellow, my lord Fred! — and live thin till you see the last of him — for he'll laugh you into your second apoplexy with the dangerous ease of a hair-trigger. I could amuse you with a turn or two in my late adventures, but black and white are bad confidants, though very well as a business firm. And, mentioning them, I have drawn on you for a temporary £500, which please lump with my other loan, and oblige “Dear Sir Humphrey: Perhaps you will scarce remember Jane Jones, to whom you presented the brush of your first fox. This was thirty years ago. I was then at school in the little village near Tally-ho hall. Dear me! how well I remember it! On hearing of your marriage, I accepted an offer from my late husband, Mr. S — , and our union was blessed with one boy, who, I must say, is an angel of goodness. Out of his small income, my dear James furnished and rented this very genteel house, and he tells me I shall have it for life, and provides me one servant, and everything I could possibly want. Thrice a week he comes out to spend the day and dine with me, and, in short, he is the pattern of good sons. As this dear boy is going down to Warwickshire, I can not resist the desire I have that you should know him, and that he should bring me back an account of my lover in days gone by. Any attention to him, dear Sir Humphrey, will very much oblige one whom you once was happy to oblige, and still “Dear Sir: I remember Miss Jones very well, God bless me, I thought she had been dead many years. I am sure I shall be very happy to see her son. Will you come out and dine with us? — dinner at seven. “Dear Nuncle: It's hard on to six o'clock, and I'm engaged at seven to a junketing at the `Hen and chickens,' with Stuggins and the maids. If you intend to make me acquainted with your great lord, now is the time. If you don't, I shall walk in presently, and introduce myself; for I know how to make my own way, nucle — ask Miss Bel's maid, and the other girls you introduced me to at Tally-ho hall! Be in a hurry, I'm just outside. “My dear Lord: In the belief that a frank communication would be best under the circumstances, I wish to make an inquiry, prefacing it with the assurance that my only hope of happiness has been for some time staked upon the successful issue of my suit for your daughter's hand. It is commonly understood, I believe, that the bulk of your lordship's fortune is separate from the entail, and may be disposed of at your pleasure. May I inquire its amount, or rather, may I ask what fortune goes with the hand of Lady Angelica. The Beauchief estates are unfortunately much embarrassed, and my own debts (I may frankly confess) are very considerable. You will at once see, my lord, that, in justice to your daughter, as well as to myself, I could not do otherwise than make this frank inquiry before pushing my suit to extremity. Begging your indulgence and an immediate answer, I remain, my dear lord, “Dear Lord Frederick: I trust you will not accuse me of a want of candor in declining a direct answer to your question. Though I freely own to a friendly wish for your success in your efforts to engage the affections of Lady Angelica, with a view to marriage, it can only be in the irrevocable process of a marriage settlement that her situation, as to the probable disposal of my fortune, can be disclosed. I may admit to you, however, that, upon the events of this day on which you have written (it so chances), may depend the question whether I should encourage you to pursue further your addresses to Lady Angelica. “My dear Angelica: I am happy to know that there are circumstances which will turn aside much of the piognancy of the communication I am about to make to you. If I am not mistaken at least, in believing a mutual attachment to exist between yourself and Count Pallardos, you will at once comprehend the ground of my mental relief, and perhaps, in a measure, anticipate what I am about to say. “Dear Count: You will wonder at receiving a friendly note from me after my refusal, two months since, to meet you over `pistols and coffee;' but reparation may not be too late, and this is to say, that you have your choice between two modes of settlement, viz: — to accept for your stable the hunter you stole from me (vide police report) and allow me to take a glass of wine with you at my own table and bury the hatchet, or, to shoot at me if you like, according to your original design. Manners and Beauchief hope you will select the latter, as they owe you a grudge for the possession of your incomparable bride and her fortune; but I trust you will prefer the horse, which (if I am rightly informed) bore you to the declaration of love at Chasteney. Reply to Crockford's. “My dear St. Leger: Enclosed you have the only surviving lock of my grizzled wig — sign and symbol that my disguises are over and my object attained. The wig burns at this instant in the grate, item my hand-ruffles, item sundry embroidered cravats a la vielle cour, item (this last not without some trouble at my heart) a solitary love-token from Constantia Hervey. One faded rose — given me at Pæstum, the day before I was driven disgraced from her presence by the interference of this insolent fool — one faded rose has crisped and faded into smoke with the rest. And so fled from the world the last hope of a warm and passionate heart, which never gave up its destiny till now — never felt that it was made in vain, guarded, refined, cherished in vain, till that long-loved flower lay in ashes. I am accustomed to strip emotion of its drapery — determined to feel nothing but what is real — yet this moment, turn it and strip it, and deny its illusions as I will, is anguish. `Self-inflicted,' you smile and say! “I have followed up to this hour, my fair cousin, in the path you have marked out for me. It has brought me back, in this chamber, to the point from which I started under your guidance, and if it had brought me back unchanged — if it restored me my energy, my hope, and my prospect of fame, I should pray Heaven that it would also give me back my love, and be content — more than content, if it gave me back also my poverty. The sight of my easel, and of the surroundings of my boyish dreams of glory, have made my heart bitter. They have given form and voice to a vague unhappiness, which has haunted me through all these absent years — years of degrading pursuits and wasted powers — and it now impels me from you, kind and lovely as you are, with an aversion I can not control. I can not forgive you. You have thwarted my destiny. You have extinguished with sordid cares a lamp within me that might, by this time, have shone through the world. And what am I, since your wishes are accomplished? Enriched in pocket, and bankrupt in happiness and self-respect. “Where art thou, bridegroom of my soul? Thy Ione S — calls to thee from the aching void of her lonely spirit! What name bearest thou? What path walkest thou? How can I, glow-worm like, lift my wings and show thee my lamp of guiding love? Thus wing I these words to thy dwelling-place (for thou art, perhaps, a subscriber to the M — r). Go — truants! Rest not till ye meet his eye. “`Dear Miss Blidgims: Feeling quite indisposed myself, and being firmly persuaded that we are three cases of cholera, I have taken advantage of a return calesino to hurry on to Modena for medical advice. The vehicle I take, brought hither a sister of charity, who assures me she will wait on you, even in the most malignant stage of your disease. She is collecting funds for an hospital, and will receive compensation for her services in the form of a donation to this object. I shall send you a physician by express from Modena, where it is still possible we may meet. With prayers, &c., &c. “Sir: The faculty have decided to impose upon you the fine of ten dollars and damages, for painting the president's horse on sabbath night while grazing on the college green. They, moreover, have removed Freshman Wilding from your rooms, and appoint as your future chum the studious and exemplary bearer, Forbearance Smith, to whom you are desired to show a becoming respect. “Dear Philip: You will be surprised to hear that I am in the Lynn jail on a charge of theft and utterance of counterfeit money. I do not wait to tell you the particulars. Please come and identify, “Dear Tom: If your approaching nuptials are to be sufficiently public to admit of a groomsman, you will make me the happiest of friends by selecting me for that office. “Dear Phil: The devil must have informed you of a secret I supposed safe from all the world. Be assured I should have chosen no one but yourself to support me on the occasion; and however you have discovered my design upon your treasure, a thousand thanks for your generous consent. I expected no less from your noble nature. “Baron: Before taking the usual notice of the occurrence of this morning, I wish to rectify one or two points in which our position is false. I find myself, since last night, the accepted lover of Lady Imogen Ravelgold, and the master of estates and title as a count of the Russian empire. Under the etourdissement of such sudden changes in feelings and fortune, perhaps my forgetfulness of the lady, in whose cause you are so interested, admits of indulgence. At any rate, I am so newly in love with life, that I am willing to suppose for an hour that had you known these circumstances, you would have taken a different view of the offence in question. I shall remain at home till two, and it is in your power till then to make me the reparation necessary to my honor. “Dear Sir: My wife wishes me to write to you, and inform you of her marriage, which took place a week or two since, and of which she presumes you are not aware. She remarked to me, that you thought her looking unhappy last evening, when you chanced to see her at the play. As she seemed to regret not being able to answer your note herself, I may perhaps convey the proper apology by taking upon myself to mention to you, that, in consequence of eating an imprudent quantity of unripe fruit, she felt ill before going to the theatre, and was obliged to leave early. To day she seems seriously indisposed. I trust she will be well enough to see you in a day or two — and remain, Start fair, my sweet Violet! This letter will lie on your table when you arrive at Saratoga, and it is intended to prepare you for that critical campaign. You must know the ammunition with which you go into the field. I have seen service, as you know, and, from my retirement (on half-pay), can both devise strategy and reconnoitre the enemy's weakness, with discretion. Set your glass before you on the table, and let us hold a frank council of war. My dear widow: For the wear and tear of your bright eyes in writing me a letter you are duly credited. That for a real half-hour, as long as any ordinary half-hour, such well-contrived illuminations should have concentrated their mortal using on me only, is equal, I am well aware, to a private audience of any two stars in the firmament — eyelashes and petticoats (if not thrown in) turning the comparison a little in your favor. Thanks — of course — piled high as the porphyry pyramid of Papantla! My dear neph-ling: I congratulate you on the attainment of your degree as “Master of Arts.” In other words, I wish the sin of the Faculty well repented of, in having endorsed upon parchment such a barefaced fabrication. Put the document in your pocket, and come away! There will be no occasion to air it before doomsday, probably, and fortunately for you, it will then revert to the Faculty. Quiescat ad-huc — as I used to say of my tailor's bills till they came through a lawyer. Dear reader: A volume of poems goes from us in an extra of the Mirror this week, which leaves us with a feeling — we scarce know how to phrase it — a feeling of timidity and dread — like a parent's apprehensiveness, giving his child into the hands of a stranger. It is not Pliny's “quam sit magnum dare aliquid in manus hominum,” nor is it, what the habitual avoidance of grave themes looks like, sometimes — a preference “to let the serious part of life go by Like the neglected sand.” We are used to buttering curiosity with the ooze of our brains — careful more to be paid than praised — and we have a cellar, as well as many stories, in our giddy thought-house; and it is from this cave of privacy that we have, with reluctance, and consentings far between, drawn treasures of early feeling and impression, now bound and offered to you for the first time in one bundle. Oh, from the different stories of the mind — from the settled depths, and from the effervescent and giddy surface — how different looks the world! — of what different stuff and worth the link that binds us to it! In looking abroad from one window of the soul, we see sympathy, goodness, truth, desire for us and our secrets, that we may be more loved; from another, we see suspicion, coldness, mockery, and ill-will — the evil spirits of the world — lying in wait for us. At one moment — the spirits down, and the heart calm and trusting — we tear out the golden leaf nearest the well of life, and pass it forth to be read and wept over. At another, we bar shutter and blind upon prying malice, turn key carefully on all below, and, mounting to the summit, look abroad and jest at the very treasures we have concealed — wondering at our folly in even confessing to a heartless world that we had secrets, and would share them. We are not always alike. The world does not seem always the same. We believe it is all good sometimes. We believe sometimes, that it is but a place accursed, given to devils and their human scholars. Sometimes we are all kindness — sometimes aching only for an an tagonist, and an arena without barrier or law. And oh what a Procrustes's bed is human opinion — trying a man's actions and words, in whatever mood committed and said, by the same standard of rigor! How often must the angels hovering over us reverse the sentence of the judge — how oftener still the rebuke of the old maid and the Pharisee. You are feeding the news-hopper of your literary mill, my dear poet, and I am trying on the old trick of gayety at Saratoga. Which of us should write the other a letter? You, if you say so — though as I get older, I am beginning to think well of the town, even in August. You have your little solaces, my fast liver! Dear Willis: Your kind note to St. John, of the Knickerbocker, got me the state-room with the picture of “Glenmary” on the panel, and I slept under the protection of your household gods — famously, of course. The only fault I found with that magnificent boat, was the right of any “smutched villain” to walk through her. It is a frightful arrangement that can sell, to a beauty and a blackguard, for the same money, the right to promenade on the same carpet, and go to sleep with the same surroundings on the opposite sides of a pine partition! Give me a world where antipodes stay put! But what a right-royal, “slap-up” supper they give in the Knickerbocker! They'll make the means better than the end — travelling better than arriving — if they improve any more! I had a great mind to go back the next day, and come up again. “Dear Willis: You frightened me to-day, terribly, in the hint you threw out in the course of conversation with the `brigadier,' to wit: `Shall we make it into a monthly?' “Dear Bel-Phœbe: I have been `twiddling my sunbeam' (you say my letters are `perfect sunshine') for some time, more or less, in a quandary as to what is now resolved upon as `Dear Bel-Phœbe' — the beginning of this (meant-to-be) faultless epistle. I chanced to wake critical this morning, and, `dear Phœbe,' as the beginning of this letter of mine, looked both vulgar and meaningless. I inked it out as you see. A reference to my etymological dictionary, however, restored my liking for that `dear' word. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon verb Der-ian, which means to do mischief. Hence dearth, which, by doing mischief, makes what remains more precious, and hence dear, meaning something made precious by having escaped hurting. `Dear Phœbe,' therefore (meaning unhurt Phœbe), struck me as pretty well — you being one of those delicious, late-loving women, destined to be `hurt' first at thirty. Still, the sacred word `Phœbe' was too abruptly come upon. It sounded familiar, and familiarity should be reserved for the postscript. I should have liked to write `dear Lady Phœbe,' or `dear Countess Phœbe' — but we are not permitted to `read our title clear,' in this hideously-simple country. Might I invent an appellative? We say char-woman and horse-man — why not put a descriptive word before a lady's name, by way of respectful distance. Phœbe Lorn is a belle — why not say Bel-Phœbe? Good! It sounds authentic. This letter, then, is to Phœbe, unhurt and beautiful (alias), `Dear Bel-Phœbe!' “Dear Madam: The undersigned, booksellers, publishers, and authors, of the city of New York, have long felt desirous of transmitting to you a memorial of the high and respectful admiration which they entertain for one to whose pen we are indebted for some of the purest and most imaginative productions in the wide range of English literature. As the authoress of `Thaddeus of Warsaw,' the `Scottish Chiefs,' &c., your name has spread over the length and breadth of our land, and the volumes of your delightful works may be found gracing alike the abodes of the wealthy, and the humble dwellings of the poor. And deservedly so — for if purity of sentiment, felicity of expression, and the constant inculcation of the noblest lessons of religion and morality, be any passport to literary fame, then will the name of Miss Porter rank high on the list of those whom the present age delights to honor, and for whom coming ages will entertain a deep feeling of reverential esteem. Dear Jack: Since my compulsory budding, flowering, and bearing fruit, have been accelerated to one season per diem, to feed a daily paper, you will easily understand that I found it necessary at first to work all my sap into something useful — omitting as it were, the gum deposite of superfluous correspondence. I accordingly left you off. Your last letter was slipped into the no-more-bother hole, without the usual endorsement of “answered,” and I considered you like a trinket laid aside before a race — not to encumber me. I miss the writing of trumpery, however. I miss the sweeping out of the corners of my mind — full of things fit only for the dust-pan, but still very possibly hiding a silver-spoon. Messrs. Editors: My friend John Smith is to be married to Lucy Jones. She issues a card of invitation like this: — Dear Custom: Your friend is wrong, from the egg to the apple. Miss Lucy Jones has a mother, or father, guardian, or friend, at whose house she is to be married. The invitation should come from the person under whose protection she is given away — (sent, if you please, to Mr. Smith's friends, with Mr. Smith's card, but understood by Miss Lucy Jones's friends, without card or explanation). It is tampering with serious things, very dangerously, to circulate the three words, “and Mrs. John Smith,” one minute before the putting on of the irrevocable ring. The law which permits ladies (though not gentlemen) to change their minds up to the last minute before wed lock, exacts also that the privileged angels should not be coerced by the fear of seeing the escaped name afterward on a wedding card! Besides, such a card, so issued, would be received from Mrs. Smith before there was any such person. “Dear Sir: I am directed by the committee of the `Travellers' to inform you that they have great pleasure in admitting you as a visiter to the club for the ensuing month, and that they hope to be favored with your frequent attendance. “Sir: I am directed to inform you that the committee of the `Athenæum' have ordered your name to be placed on the list of distinguished foreigners residing in London, who are invited to the house of the club for three months, subject to the same regulations as the members are required to observe. “Je suis vraiment desolée de ne pouvoir aller ce soir chez Lady Morgan. Je dine chez le Prince Esterhazy ou je dois passer la soirée. Demain au soir, j'ai un concert pour M. Laporte, le reste de la semaine je suis libre et tout à vos ordres. Si vous croyez de combiner quelque-choze avec Lady Morgan, comptez sur moi! Demain je passerai chez Lady Morgan pour faire mes excuses en personne. “Mr. Editor: I observe that a `bachelor,' writing in the `American,' recommends to `invited' and `inviters,' to send invitations and answers, stamped, through the penny-post. This is a capital idea, and I shall adopt it for one. I perceive that a bachelor in another paper says, `it will suit him and his fellow-bachelors,' for reasons set forth, and that he will adopt the plan. Now, Mr. Editor, I am a housekeeper, and married, and my wife requires the use of all my servants, and can not spare them to be absent three or four days, going round the city, delivering notes, on the eve of a party. These notes could, by the plan suggested, be delivered in three hours, and insure a prompt answer. I can then know exactly who is coming and who is not — a very convenient point of knowledge! “Right Trusty and Right Well-beloved Cousin. — We greet you well. Whereas, the 1st day of March next (or thereabouts) is appointed for our coronation. — These are to will and command you (all excuses set apart) to make your personal attendance on us at the time above-mentioned, furnished and appointed as to your rank and quality appertaineth. — There to do and perform all such services as shall be required and belong to you. — Whereof you are not to fail. — And so we bid you heartily farewell. “Mr. Editor: One of the greatest treats you could give your country lady readers, would be to furnish them from time to time, with brief hints as to the actual style of fashions in the metropolis. We have, all along, depended for information on this important subject, upon the monthly magazines, all of which profess to give the fashions as worn, but we find out to our dismay, that they pick up their fashions from the Paris and London prints at random — some of them adopted by our city ladies, some not! It thus happens that we country people, who like to be in the fashion, are often subjected to great expense and mortification — relying too implicitly upon the magazine reports. We cause a bonnet or a dress to be made strictly in accordance with the style prescribed in the fashion plate of the magazine, and when we hie away to the city with our new finery, we discover that our costume is so outrè that every one laughs at us! Now, should there not be some remedy for this evil? “`Madam: There is a fund applicable, as vacancies may occur, to the grant of annual pensions of very limited amount, which usage has placed at the disposal of the lady of the first minister. On this fund there is a surplus of £20 per annum. To a lady-friend in the country: I am up to the knees in newspapers, and write to you under the stare of nine pigeon-holes, stuffed with literary portent. Were there such a thing (in this world of everythings) as papyral magnetism, you would get a letter, not only typical in itself, but typical of a flood in which my identity is fast drowning. Oh, the drown of news, weighed unceasingly — little events and great ones — against little more than the trouble of snipping round with scissors! To a horrid death — to a marriage preservation — to a heart-gush of poesy — to a marriage — to a crime — to the turn of a political crisis — to flashing wit and storied agonies — giving but the one 50 invariable first thought — “Shall I cut it out?” Alas, dear beauty-monarch of all you survey! — your own obituary, were I to read it in a newspaper of to-morrow, would speak scarce quicker to my heart than to those scissors of undiscriminating circum-cision! With the knowledge that the sky above me was enriched, as Florence once was, by the return of its long-lost and best model of beauty, I should ask, with be-paragraphed grief — “will her death do for the Mirror?” My Dear Sir: To ask me for my idea of General Morris is like asking the left hand's opinion of the dexterity of the right. I have lived so long with the “brigadier,” known him so intimately, worked so constantly at the same rope, and thought so little of ever separating from him (except by precedence of ferriage over the Styx), that it is hard to shove him from me to the perspective distance — hard to shut my own partial eyes, and look at him through other people's. I will try, however, and as it is done with but one foot off from the treadmill of my ceaseless vocation, you will excuse both abruptness and brevity.
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