| | 141 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | The Mystery of Marie Roget  | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | There are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who
have not occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling
half-credence in the supernatural, by coincidences of so
seemingly marvellous a character that, as mere coincidences,
the intellect has been unable to receive them. Such sentiments —
for the half-credences of which I speak have never the full force of
thought — such sentiments are seldom thoroughly stifled unless by
reference to the doctrine of chance, or, as it is technically
termed, the Calculus of Probabilities. Now this Calculus is, in
its essence, purely mathematical; and thus we have the anomaly of
the most rigidly exact in science applied to the shadow and
spirituality of the most intangible in speculation. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 142 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | The Imp of the Perverse | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | In the consideration of the faculties and impulses — of the
prima mobilia of the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to
make room for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a
radical, primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally
overlooked by all the moralists who have preceded them. In the
pure arrogance of the reason, we have all overlooked it. We have
suffered its existence to escape our senses solely through want of
belief — of faith; — whether it be faith in Revelation, or faith in
the Kabbala. The idea of it has never occurred to us, simply
because of its supererogation. We saw no need of impulse — for
the propensity. We could not perceive its necessity. We could not
understand, that is to say, we could not have understood, had the
notion of this primum mobile ever obtruded itself; — we could
not have understood in what manner it might be made to further the
objects of humanity, either temporal or eternal. It cannot be
denied that phrenology and, in great measure, all metaphysicianism
have been concocted a priori. The intellectual or logical man,
rather than the understanding or observant man, set himself to
imagine designs — to dictate purposes to God. Having thus fathomed,
to his satisfaction, the intentions of Jehovah, out of these
intentions he built his innumerable systems of mind. In the matter
of phrenology, for example, we first determined, naturally enough,
that it was
the design of the Deity that man should eat. We then
assigned to man an organ of alimentiveness, and this organ is the
scourge with which the Deity compels man, will-I nill-I, into
eating. Secondly, having settled it to be God's will that man
should continue his species, we discovered an organ of amativeness,
forthwith. And so with combativeness, with ideality, with
causality, with constructiveness, — so, in short, with every organ,
whether representing a propensity, a moral sentiment, or a faculty
of the pure intellect. And in these arrangements of the
principia of human action, the Spurzheimites, whether right or
wrong, in part, or upon the whole, have but followed, in principle,
the footsteps of their predecessors; deducing and establishing
everything from the preconceived destiny of man, and upon the
ground of the objects of this Creator. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 143 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | The Purloined Letter | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of
18—, I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a
meerschaum, in company with my friend, C. Auguste Dupin, in his
little back library, or book-closet, au troisième, No. 33 Rue
Dunôt, Faubourg St. Germain. For one hour at least we had
maintained a profound silence; while each, to any casual
observer, might have seemed intently and exclusively occupied
with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of
the chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally discussing
certain topics which had formed matter for conversation between
us at an earlier period of the evening; I mean the affair of the
Rue Morgue, and the mystery attending the murder of Marie Rogêt.
I looked upon it, therefore, as something of a coincidence, when
the door of our apartment was thrown open
and admitted our old
acquaintance, Monsieur G—, the Prefect of the Parisian police. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 145 | Author: | Pullen, Clarence | Add | | | Title: | The Pueblo of Acoma | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | PERHAPS the most interesting people among the aborigines of
the American continent are the Pueblo (town) Indians of New Mexico
and Arizona, who have an ethnological affinity, if not a direct
kinship, with the succession of different migratory peoples,
beginning with the Toltecs and ending with the Aztecs, who, between
the seventh and the twelfth centuries, passed southward from the
unknown region, Aztlan, to colonize the Valley of Mexico and its
environing vales and plains. The substantial and permanent
character of the houses composing the pueblos of these tribes, each
tiny town being an independent community; the primitive
civilization that still prevails among their inhabitants, unchanged
in centuries; the adherence of the people to pastoral,
horticultural, and agricultural pursuits; their gentleness,
hospitality, industry, and thrift; their bravery in defence of home
and liberty; their chastity; and the isolation that each existing
pueblo has maintained in the midst of surrounding tribes and the
settlements of the whites — are all noteworthy characteristics; and
in their social relations within each city these Indians afford as
nearly as has ever been attained an example of rational and
successful communism. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 147 | Author: | Remington, Frederic | Add | | | Title: | The Art of War and Newspaper Men | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | LESS than two weeks ago I passed over the trail from
Rushville, Nebraska, to the Pine Ridge Agency behind Major-General
Nelson A. Miles. To-night the moon is shining as it did then, but
it will go down in the middle of the night, and I can see in my
mind's eye the Second Infantry and the Ninth Troopers, with their
trains of wagons, plodding along in the dark. The distance is
twenty-eight miles, and at four o'clock in the morning they will
arrive. When the Ogallalas view the pine-clad bluffs they will see
in the immediate foreground a large number of Sibley tents, and,
being warriors, they will know that each Sibley has eighteen men in
it. They will be much surprised. They will hold little impromptu
councils, and will probably seek for the motive of this
concentration of troops. And some man will say: "Well, the
soldiers are here, and if your people don't keep quiet— Well, you
know what soldiers are for." The Ogallalas will understand why the
soldiers are there without any further explanation. There may be
and probably will be some white friend of the Indians who can tell
them something they do not know. A little thing has happened since
the Ogallalas laid their arms down, and that is that the bluecoats
in the Second Infantry can put a bullet into the anatomy of an
Ogallala at one thousand yards' range with almost absolute
certainty if the light is fair and the wind not too strong. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 148 | Author: | Richardson, James | Add | | | Title: | Our Patent-System, and What We Owe to It | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | We are a nation of inventors, and every invention is patented;
yet, curiously, there is no subject quite so void of interest to the
average gentle reader," as patents and patent-rights. Why, it is
hard to say; for there is no factor of modern civilization that
comes home to every one more constantly or more closely. Indeed, in
their ubiquity and unresting action, patents have been aptly likened
to the taxes which Sydney Smith described as following the overtaxed
Englishmen of his day from the cradle to the grave. Does the
comparison hold as well, as some assert, in respect to
burdensomeness? | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 149 | Author: | Schwatka, Frederick | Add | | | Title: | The Sun-Dance of the Sioux | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | A FEW years ago it was the good fortune of the writer to witness,
at the Spotted Tail Indian Agency, on Beaver Creek, Nebraska, the
ceremony of the great sun-dance of the Sioux. Perhaps eight
thousand Brule Sioux were quartered at the agency at that time, and
about forty miles to the west, near the head of the White River,
there was another reservation of Sioux, numbering probably a
thousand or fifteen hundred less Ordinarily each tribe or
reservation has its own celebration of the sun-dance; but owing to
the nearness of these two
agencies it was this year thought
best to join forces and celebrate the savage rites with unwonted
splendor and barbarity. Nearly half way between the reservations
the two forks of the Chadron (or Shadron) creek form a wide plain,
which was chosen as the site of the great sun-dance. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 153 | Author: | Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, 1797-1851 | Add | | | Title: | Frankenstein | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an
enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here
yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and
increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 154 | Author: | Smith, Gertrude | Add | | | Title: | A Theft Condoned | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | ONE of the seven houses in Pawnee faced toward the south. It
was the house where Mrs. Dyer lived. The other houses faced the
west. The railroad track was across the street from these houses,
with a broad plank walk and a little unpainted box of a station. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 156 | Author: | Steinmetz, Andrew | Add | | | Title: | The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims,
In All Times and Countries, especially in England and in France | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | A VERY apt allegory has been imagined as the origin of Gaming.
It is said that the Goddess of Fortune, once sporting near the shady pool
of Olympus, was met by the gay and captivating God of War, who soon
allured her to his arms. They were united; but the matrimony was not
holy, and the result of the union was a misfeatured child named Gaming.
From the moment of her birth this wayward thing could only be pleased
by cards, dice, or counters. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 157 | Author: | Stewart, Elinore Pruitt | Add | | | Title: | Letters of a Woman Homesteader | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Are you thinking I am lost, like the Babes
in the Wood? Well, I am not and I'm sure
the robins would have the time of their lives
getting leaves to cover me out here. I am
'way up close to the Forest Reserve of Utah,
within half a mile of the line, sixty miles
from the railroad. I was twenty-four hours
on the train and two days on the stage, and
oh, those two days! The snow was just be-ginning to melt and the mud was about the
worst I ever heard of. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 158 | Author: | Stevenson, Robert Louis, 1850-1894 | Add | | | Title: | The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was
never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in
discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and
yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was
to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye;
something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but
which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner
face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was
austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a
taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theater, had not
crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved
tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at
the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in
any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. "I incline
to Cain's heresy," he used to say quaintly: "I let my brother go
to the devil in his own way." In this character, it was
frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and
the last good influence in the lives of downgoing men. And to
such as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never
marked a shade of change in his demeanour. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 160 | Author: | Torrey, Bradford | Add | | | Title: | On Foot in the Yosemite | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | WHEN flocks of wild geese light in the Yosemite, Mr. Muir
tells us, they have hard work to find their way out again.
Whatever direction they take, they are soon stopped by the wall,
the height of which they seem to have an insuperable difficulty in
gauging. There is something mysterious about it, they must think.
The rock looks to be only about so high, but when they should be
flying far over its top, northward or southward as the season may
be, here they are once more beating against its stony face; and
only when, in their bewilderment, they happen to follow the
downward course of the river, do they hit upon an exit. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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