| 102 | Author: | Goldsmith, Oliver | Requires cookie* | | Title: | The Vicar of Wakefield | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | I WAS ever of opinion, that the honest man who married and
brought up a large family, did more service than he who continued single
and only talked of population. From this motive I had scarcely taken
orders a year, before I began to think seriously of matrimony, and
choose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, not for a fine glossy surf
ace, but such qualities as would wear well, To do her justice, she was a
good-natured, notable woman; and as for breeding, there were few
country ladies who could show more. She could read any English book
without much spelling; but for pickling, preserving, and cookery none
could excel her. She prided herself also upon being an excellent
contriver in housekeeping, though I never could find that we grew richer
with all her contrivances. | | Similar Items: | Find |
103 | Author: | Grahame, Kenneth | Requires cookie* | | Title: | Dream Days | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | IN the matter of general culture and attainments, we
youngsters stood on pretty level ground. True, it was always
happening that one of us would be singled out at any moment,
freakishly, and without regard to his own preferences, to wrestle
with the inflections of some idiotic language long rightly dead;
while another, from some fancied artistic tendency which always
failed to justify itself, might be told off without warning to
hammer out scales and exercises, and to bedew the senseless keys
with tears of weariness or of revolt. But in subjects common to
either sex, and held to be
necessary even for him whose ambition soared no higher than to
crack a whip in a circus-ring—in geography, for instance,
arithmetic, or the weary doings of kings and queens—each would
have scorned to excel. And, indeed, whatever our individual
gifts, a general dogged determination to shirk and to evade kept
us all at much the same dead level,—a level of ignorance
tempered by insubordination. | | Similar Items: | Find |
104 | Author: | Grahame, Kenneth | Requires cookie* | | Title: | The Golden Age | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | LOOKING back to those days of old, ere the
gate shut behind me, I can see now that to
children with a proper equipment of parents
these things would have worn a different
aspect. But to those whose nearest were
aunts and uncles, a special attitude of mind
may be allowed. They treated us, indeed,
with kindness enough as to the needs of the
flesh, but after that with indifference (an
indifference, as I recognise, the result of a
certain stupidity), and therewith the
commonplace conviction that your child is
merely animal. At a very early age I
remember realising in a quite impersonal and
kindly way the existence of that stupidity,
and its tremendous influence in the world;
while there grew up in me, as in the parallel
case of Caliban upon Setebos, a vague sense
of a ruling power, wilful and freakish, and
prone to the practice of vagaries—"just
choosing so"; as, for instance, the giving
of authority over us
to these hopeless and incapable creatures,
when it might far more reasonably have been
given to ourselves over them. These elders,
our betters by a trick of chance, commanded
no respect, but only a certain blend of
envy — of their good luck — and pity — for their
inability to make use of it. Indeed, it was
one of the most hopeless features in their
character (when we troubled ourselves to
waste a thought on them: which wasn't often)
that, having absolute licence to indulge in
the pleasures of life, they could get no good
of it. They might dabble in the pond all
day, hunt the chickens, climb trees in the
most uncompromising Sunday clothes; they were
free to issue forth and buy gunpowder in the
full eye of the sun — free to fire cannons and
explode mines on the lawn: yet they never did
any one of these things. No irresistible
Energy haled them to church o' Sundays; yet
they went there regularly of their own
accord, though they betrayed no greater
delight in the experience than ourselves. | | Similar Items: | Find |
105 | Author: | Grinnell, George Bird | Requires cookie* | | Title: | The Wild Indian | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | IF after a long period the Indian problem remains a problem still,
it is because we have no sufficient knowledge of the people we are
striving to teach. The solution of the problem is not to be reached until
the stronger race shall understand the weaker, and, in the light of that
understanding, shall deal with it wisely and well. I say this with the
more confidence because for many years I have lived with the plains
people in their homes, engaging in their pursuits, sharing their joys and
sorrows, standing toward them in all essentials as one of themselves. I
have thus learned to think and feel as an Indian thinks and feels, and to
see things as he sees them and from his point of view. | | Similar Items: | Find |
106 | Author: | Hagar, Albert D. | Requires cookie* | | Title: | Ancient Mining on the Shores of Lake Superior | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | IN the month of March, 1848, Samuel O. Knapp and J. B. Townsend
discovered, from tracks in the snow, that a hedgehog had taken up
his winter-quarters in a cavity of a ledge of rocks, about twelve
miles from Ontonagon, Lake Superior, in the neighborhood of the
Minnesota Copper Mine. In order to capture their game, they
procured a pick and shovel, and commenced an excavation by removing
the vegetable mould and rubbish that had accumulated about the
mouth of what proved to be a small cavern in the rock. At the
depth of a few feet they discovered numerous stone hammers or
mauls; and they saw that the cavern was not a natural one, but had
been worked out by human agency, and that the stone implements,
found in great profusion in and about it, were the tools used in
making the excavation. Further examination developed a well-defined vein of native copper running through the rock; and it was
evidently with a view of getting this metal that this extensive
opening had been made. | | Similar Items: | Find |
108 | Author: | Anonymous | Requires cookie* | | Title: | Three Noted Chiefs of the Sioux | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | THE delusion of the coming of the Messiah among the Indians of
the Northwest, with the resulting ceremony known as the ghost
dance, is indicative of greater danger of an Indian war in that
region than has existed since 1876. Never before have diverse
Indian tribes been so generally united upon a single idea. The
conspiracy of Pontiac and the arrayment of savage forces by
Tecumseh are insignificant by comparison. The conditions do not
exist that ordinarily have led to wars upon the Western frontier.
The peril of the situation lies in the fanaticism which may carry
the superstitious and excitable Indian to the point of hostilities
in defiance of all hope of ultimate success; and the uncertainty of
this element baffles the judgment of the oldest frontiersman, in
the effort to determine the extent of the danger. A single spark
in the tinder of excited religious gatherings may precipitate an
Indian war more sanguinary than any similar war that has ever
occurred. The hope of peace lies in the judicious display of
force, united with conciliation, by the United States authorities,
helped by the coming of severely cold weather, which would make an
outbreak obviously hopeless, and allow time for the delusion to
dissipate. | | Similar Items: | Find |
109 | Author: | Anonymous | Requires cookie* | | Title: | Chief Joseph | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | SCULPTURE labors under the disadvantage of having in most
cases to carry out a subject or make a likeness at the bidding of
some one else besides the artist himself. In painting there is
more chance for an independent choice of topic, though the painted
portrait is usually undertaken under the same hampering bonds.
Luckily Mr. Olin I. Warner, while travelling in the West, happened
to be on the Cherokee Reservation when Chief Joseph, the famous
leader of the Nez Perces, was expected at army head-quarters. He
waited until the old chief arrived, and used such arguments that in
the course of several sittings he obtained the bass-relief
medallion which is here to be seen [illustration omitted]. It was
shown at the National Academy last spring, but hardly received the
place and the attention it deserved. The portrait is a true labor
of love on the part of the sculptor, and while it gives one of the
many types of our North-American Indians, is said to be an
excellent likeness of the warrior. | | Similar Items: | Find |
110 | Author: | Harvey, Charles M. | Requires cookie* | | Title: | The Red Man's Last Roll-Call | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | WHEN, on March 4, 1906, the tribal organization of the
Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, and Seminoles is
dissolved, and their members diffused in the mass of the country's
citizenship, the final chapter in the Indian's annals as a distinct
race will have been written. These are very far from comprising
all the red men in the country. They number a little over 86,000,
while the total Indian population of the United States, exclusive
of Alaska, is about 270,000. They do not even include the entire
Indian population of their own locality, the Indian Territory. In
the territory's northeast corner there are fragments of the
Peorias, Shawnees, Quapaws, Wyandottes, Senecas, Modocs, and
Ottawas, numbering in all about 1500. | | Similar Items: | Find |
111 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | Title: | The House of the Seven Gables | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | HALF-WAY down a by-street of one of our New England
towns, stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely
peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and
a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The street is Pyncheon
street; the house is the old Pyncheon-house; and an elm-tree, of
wide circumference, rooted before the door, is familiar to every
town-born child by the title of the Pyncheon-elm. On my occasional
visits to the town aforesaid, I seldom fail to turn down
Pyncheon-street, for the sake of passing through the shadow of
these two antiquities — the great elm-tree, and the weather-beaten
edifice. | | Similar Items: | Find |
112 | Author: | Henry, Patrick | Requires cookie* | | Title: | The War Inevitable (Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!) | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | They tell us, Sir, that we are weak — unable to cope with so
formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will
it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are
totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed
in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and
inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance
by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom
of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and
foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of
those means which the God of nature hath placed in our
power. | | Similar Items: | Find |
113 | Author: | Hodgson, Fannie E. | Requires cookie* | | Title: | One Day at Arle | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | ONE day at Arle — a tiny scattered fishing hamlet on the north-western English coast — there stood at the door of one of the
cottages near the shore a woman leaning against the lintel-post and
looking out: a woman who would have been apt to attract a
stranger's eye, too — a woman young and handsome. This was what a
first glance would have taken in; a second would have been apt to
teach more and leave a less pleasant impression. She was young
enough to have been girlish, but she was not girlish in the least.
Her tall, lithe, well-knit figure was braced against the door-post
with a tense sort of strength; her handsome face was just at this
time as dark and hard in expression as if she had been a woman with
years of bitter life behind her; her handsome brows were knit, her
lips were set; from head to foot she looked unyielding and stern of
purpose. | | Similar Items: | Find |
116 | Author: | James, Henry | Requires cookie* | | Title: | The Aspern Papers | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | I had taken Mrs. Prest into my confidence; in truth without
her I should have made but little advance, for the fruitful idea in
the whole business dropped from her friendly lips. It was she who
invented the short cut, who severed the Gordian knot. It is not
supposed to be the nature of women to rise as a general thing to
the largest and most liberal view — I mean of a practical scheme;
but it has struck me that they sometimes throw off a bold
conception — such as a man would not have risen to — with singular
serenity. "Simply ask them to take you in on the footing of a
lodger" — I don't think that unaided I should have risen to that.
I was beating about the bush, trying to be ingenious, wondering by
what combination of arts I might become an acquaintance, when she
offered this happy suggestion that the way to become an
acquaintance was first to become an inmate. Her actual knowledge
of the Misses Bordereau was scarcely larger than mine, and indeed
I had brought with me from England some definite facts which were
new to her. Their name had been mixed up ages before with one of
the greatest names
of the century, and they lived now in Venice in
obscurity, on very small means, unvisited, unapproachable, in a
dilapidated old palace on an out-of-the-way canal: this was the
substance of my friend's impression of them. She herself had been
established in Venice for fifteen years and had done a great deal
of good there; but the circle of her benevolence did not include
the two shy, mysterious and, as it was somehow supposed, scarcely
respectable Americans (they were believed to have lost in their
long exile all national quality, besides having had, as their name
implied, some French strain in their origin), who asked no favors
and desired no attention. In the early years of her residence she
had made an attempt to see them, but this had been successful only
as regards the little one, as Mrs. Prest called the niece; though
in reality as I afterward learned she was considerably the bigger
of the two. She had heard Miss Bordereau was ill and had a
suspicion that she was in want; and she had gone to the house to
offer assistance, so that if there were suffering (and American
suffering), she should at least not have it on her conscience. The
"little one" received her in the great cold, tarnished Venetian
sala, the central hall of the house, paved with marble and roofed
with dim crossbeams, and did not even ask her to sit down. This
was not encouraging for me, who wished to sit so fast, and I
remarked as much to Mrs. Prest. She however replied with
profundity, "Ah, but there's all the difference: I went to confer
a favor and you will go to ask one. If they are proud you will be
on the right side." And she offered to show me their house to
begin with — to row me thither in her gondola. I let her know that
I had already been to
look at it half a dozen times; but I accepted
her invitation, for it charmed me to hover about the place. I had
made my way to it the day after my arrival in Venice (it had been
described to me in advance by the friend in England to whom I owed
definite information as to their possession of the papers), and I
had besieged it with my eyes while I considered my plan of
campaign. Jeffrey Aspern had never been in it that I knew of; but
some note of his voice seemed to abide there by a roundabout
implication, a faint reverberation. | | Similar Items: | Find |
117 | Author: | Jewett, Sarah Orne | Requires cookie* | | Title: | The Landscape Chamber | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | I was tired of ordinary journeys, which involved either the
loneliness and discomfort of fashionable hotels, or the
responsibilities of a guest in busy houses. One is always doing
the same things over and over; I now promised myself that I would
go in search of new people and new scenes, until I was again ready
to turn with delight to my familiar occupations. So I mounted my
horse one morning, without any definite plan of my journey, and
rode eastward, with a business-like haversack strapped behind the
saddle. I only wished that the first day's well-known length of
road had been already put behind me. One drawback to a woman's
enjoyment of an excursion of this sort is the fact that when she is
out of the saddle she is uncomfortably dressed. But I compromised
matters as nearly as possible by wearing a short corduroy habit,
light both in color and weight, and putting a linen blouse and belt
into my pack, to replace the stiff habit-waist. The wallet on the
saddle held a flat drinking-cup, a bit of chocolate, and a few hard
biscuit, for provision against improbable famine. Autumn would be
the best time for such a journey, if the evenings need not be so
often spent in stuffy rooms, with kerosene lamps for company. This
was early summer, and I had long days in which to amuse myself.
For a book I took a much-beloved small copy of The Sentimental
Journey. | | Similar Items: | Find |
118 | Author: | Jewett, Sarah Orne | Requires cookie* | | Title: | Going to Shrewsbury | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | THE train stopped at a way station with apparent
unwillingness, and there was barely time for one elderly passenger
to be hurried on board before a sudden jerk threw her almost off
her unsteady old feet and we moved on. At my first glance I saw
only a perturbed old country woman, laden with a large basket and
a heavy bundle tied up in an old-fashioned bundle-handkerchief;
then I discovered that she was a friend of mine, Mrs. Peet, who
lived on a small farm, several miles from the village. She used to
be renowned for good butter and fresh eggs and the earliest cowslip
greens; in fact, she always made the most of her farm's slender
resources; but it was some time since I had seen her drive by from
market in her ancient thorough-braced wagon. | | Similar Items: | Find |
119 | Author: | Jewett, Sarah Orne | Requires cookie* | | Title: | Tom's Husband | | | Published: | 1994 | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | Description: | I SHALL not dwell long upon the circumstances that led to the
marriage of my hero and heroine; though their courtship was, to
them, the only one that has ever noticeably approached the ideal, it
had many aspects in which it was entirely commonplace in other
people's eyes. While the world in general smiles at lovers with kindly
approval and sympathy, it refuses to be aware of the unprecedented
delight which is amazing to the lovers themselves. | | Similar Items: | Find |
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