| | 181 | Author: | Stowe
Harriet Beecher
1811-1896 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | House and home papers  | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | “MY dear, it 's so cheap!” “`Most Excellent Mr. Crowfield, — Your
thoughts have lighted into our family-circle, and
echoed from our fireside. We all feel the force of
them, and are delighted with the felicity of your treatment
of the topic you have chosen. You have taken
hold of a subject that lies deep in our hearts, in a
genial, temperate, and convincing spirit. All must
acknowledge the power of your sentiments upon their
imaginations; — if they could only trust to them in
actual life! There is the rub. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 182 | Author: | Stowe
Harriet Beecher
1811-1896 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The minister's wooing | | | | 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: | Mrs. Katy Scudder had invited Mrs. Brown, and
Mrs. Jones, and Deacon Twitchel's wife to take tea
with her on the afternoon of June second, A. D. 17 —. “I cannot leave you so. I have about two hundred
things to say to you, and it's a shame I could
not have had longer to see you; but blessed be ink
and paper! I am writing and seeing to fifty things
besides; so you mustn't wonder if my letter has
rather a confused appearance. “As to the business, it gets on rather slowly
L— and S— are away, and the coalition
cannot be formed without them; they set out a
week ago from Philadelphia, and are yet on the
road. “My dear, — We are still in Newport, conjugating
the verb s'ennuyer, which I, for one, have
put through all the moods and tenses. Pour
passer le temps, however, I have la belle Fran
çaise and my sweet little Puritan. I visited there
this morning. She lives with her mother, a little
walk out toward the seaside, in a cottage quite
prettily sequestered among blossoming apple-trees,
and the great hierarch of modern theology, Dr.
Hopkins, keeps guard over them. No chance here
for any indiscretions, you see. “My dear, honored friend, — How can I sufficiently
thank you for your faithfulness with me?
All you say to me seems true and excellent; and
yet, my dear Sir, permit me to try to express to
you some of the many thoughts to which our conversation
this evening has given rise. To love
God because He is good to me you seem to think
is not a right kind of love; and yet every moment
of my life I have experienced His goodness.
When recollection brings back the past, where can
I look that I see not His goodness? What moment
of my life presents not instances of merciful
kindness to me, as well as to every creature, more
and greater than I can express, than my mind is
able to take in? How, then, can I help loving
God because He is good to me? Were I not an
object of God's mercy and goodness, I cannot
have any conception what would be my feeling.
Imagination never yet placed me in a situation not
to experience the goodness of God in some way or
other; and if I do love Him, how can it be but because
He is good, and to me good? Do not God's
children love Him because He first loved them? “I am longing to see you once more, and before
long I shall be in Newport. Dear little Mary,
I am sad, very sad; — the days seem all of them
too long; and every morning I look out of my
window and wonder why I was born. I am not
so happy as I used to be, when I cared for nothing
but to sing and smooth my feathers like the
birds. That is the best kind of life for us women;
— if we love anything better than our clothes, it
is sure to bring us great sorrow. For all that, I
can't help thinking it is very noble and beautiful
to love; — love is very beautiful, but very, very sad.
My poor dear little white cat, I should like to hold
you a little while to my heart; — it is so cold all
the time, and aches so, I wish I were dead; but
then I am not good enough to die. The Abbé
says, we must offer up our sorrow to God as a
satisfaction for our sins. I have a good deal to
offer, because my nature is strong and I can feel
a great deal. “Dear —. Nous voici — once more in Philadelphia.
Our schemes in Ohio prosper. Frontignac
remains there to superintend. He answers
our purpose passablement. On the whole, I don't
see that we could do better than retain him; he
is, besides, a gentlemanly, agreeable person, and
wholly devoted to me, — a point certainly not to
be overlooked. “You behold me, my charming Gabrielle, quite
pastoral, recruiting from the dissipations of my
Philadelphia life in a quiet cottage, with most
worthy, excellent people, whom I have learned to
love very much. They are good and true, as pious
as the saints themselves, although they do not belong
to the Church, — a thing which I am sorry
for; but then let us hope, that, if the world is
wide, heaven is wider, and that all worthy people
will find room at last. This is Virginie's own
little, pet, private heresy; and when I tell it to the
Abbé, he only smiles, and so I think, somehow,
that it is not so very bad as it might be. “I have lived through many wonderful scenes
since I saw you last. My life has been so adventurous,
that I scarcely know myself when I
think of it. But it is not of that I am going
now to write. I have written all that to mother,
and she will show it to you. But since I parted
from you, there has been another history going on
within me; and that is what I wish to make you
understand, if I can. “You wonder, I s'pose, why I haven't written
you; but the fact is, I've been run just off my
feet, and worked till the flesh aches so it seems
as if it would drop off my bones, with this wedding
of Mary Scudder's. And, after all, you'll be
astonished to hear that she ha'n't married the
Doctor, but that Jim Marvyn that I told you
about. You see, he came home a week before
the wedding was to be, and Mary, she was so
conscientious she thought 'twa'n't right to break
off with the Doctor, and so she was for going
right on with it; and Mrs. Scudder, she was for
going on more yet; and the poor young man, he
couldn't get a word in edgeways, and there
wouldn't anybody tell the Doctor a word about it,
and there 'twas drifting along, and both on 'em
feeling dreadful, and so I thought to myself, `I'll
just take my life in my hand, like Queen Esther,
and go in and tell the Doctor all about it.' And
so I did. I'm scared to death always when I
think of it. But that dear blessed man, he took
it like a saint. He just gave her up as serene
and calm as a psalm-book, and called Jim in and
told him to take her. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 183 | Author: | Stowe
Harriet Beecher
1811-1896 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Sam Lawson's Oldtown fireside stories | | | | 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: | COME, Sam, tell us a
story,” said I, as Harry
and I crept to his
knees, in the glow
of the bright evening
firelight; while Aunt
Lois was busily rattling
the tea-things,
and grandmamma, at
the other end of the fireplace, was quietly setting the
heel of a blue-mixed yarn stocking. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 184 | Author: | Stowe
Harriet Beecher
1811-1896 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Oldtown folks | | | | 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: | IT has always been a favorite idea of mine, that there is so much
of the human in every man, that the life of any one individual,
however obscure, if really and vividly perceived in all its aspirations,
struggles, failures, and successes, would command the
interest of all others. This is my only apology for offering my
life as an open page to the reading of the public. MY dear Brother: — Since I wrote you last, so strange
a change has taken place in my life that even now I
walk about as in a dream, and hardly know myself. The events
of a few hours have made everything in the world seem to me
as different from what it ever seemed before as death is from
life. My dear Sister: — I have read your letter. Answer it
justly and truly how can I? How little we know of each other
in outside intimacy! but when we put our key into the door of
the secret chamber, who does not tremble and draw back? —
that is the true haunted chamber! “My dear Sister: — I am a Puritan, — the son, the grandson,
the great-grandson of Puritans, — and I say to you, Plant
the footsteps of your child on the ground of the old Cambridge
Platform, and teach her as Winthrop and Dudley and the
Mathers taught their children, — that she `is already a member
in the Church of Christ, — that she is in covenant with God, and
hath the seal thereof upon her, to wit, baptism; and so, if not
regenerate, is yet in a more hopeful way of attaining regeneration
and all spiritual blessings, both of the covenant and seal.'*
* Cambridge Platform. Mather's Magnalia, page 227, article 7.
By teaching the child this, you will place her mind in natural and
healthful relations with God and religion. She will feel in her
Father's house, and under her Father's care, and the long and
weary years of a sense of disinheritance with which you struggled
will be spared to her. “MY DEAR Brother: — I am in a complete embarras what
to do with Tina. She is the very light of my eyes, — the
sweetest, gayest, brightest, and best-meaning little mortal that
ever was made; but somehow or other I fear I am not the one
that ought to have undertaken to bring her up. “Sister Mehitable: — The thing has happened that I
have foreseen. Send her up here; she shall board in the minister's
family; and his daughter Esther, who is wisest, virtuousest,
discreetest, best, shall help keep her in order. “Here we are, dear Aunty, up in the skies, in the most beautiful
place that you can possibly conceive of. We had such a
good time coming! you 've no idea of the fun we had. You
know I am going to be very sober, but I did n't think it was
necessary to begin while we were travelling, and we kept Uncle
Jacob laughing so that I really think he must have been tired. “I have had a dozen minds to write to you before now, having
had good accounts of you from Mr. Davenport; but, to say
truth, have been ashamed to write. I did not do right by your
mother, nor by you and your sister, as I am now free to acknowledge.
She was not of a family equal to ours, but she was too
good for me. I left her in America, like a brute as I was, and
God has judged me for it. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 185 | Author: | Stowe
Harriet Beecher
1811-1896 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The pearl of Orr's Island | | | | 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: | On the road to the Kennebec, below the town of Bath,
in the State of Maine, might have been seen, on a certain
autumnal afternoon, a one-horse wagon, in which two
persons were sitting. One is an old man, with the peculiarly
hard but expressive physiognomy which characterizes
the seafaring population of the New England shores. The next day Senor Don Guzman de Cardona arrived,
and the whole house was in a commotion of excitement.
There was to be no school, and everything was
bustle and confusion. I passed my time in my own room
in reflecting severely upon myself for the imprudent words
by which I had thrown one more difficulty in the way of
this poor harassed child. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 186 | Author: | Stowe
Harriet Beecher
1811-1896 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Pink and white tyranny | | | | 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: | Dear Jo, or Miss Alcott, — We have all been reading “Little Women,” and
we liked it so much I could not help wanting to write to you. We think you are
perfectly splendid; I like you better every time I read it. We were all so disappointed
about your not marrying Laurie; I cried over that part, — I could not help
it. We all liked Laurie ever so much, and almost killed ourselves laughing over
the funny things you and he said. Dear Miss Alcott, — We have just finished “Little Men,” and like it so
much that we thought we would write and ask you to write another book sequel to
“Little Men,” and have more about Laurie and Amy, as we like them the best.
We are the Literary Club, and we got the idea from “Little Women.” We have
a paper two sheets of foolscap and a half. There are four of us, two cousins and
my sister and myself Our assumed names are: Horace Greeley, President; Susan
B Anthony, Editor; Harriet B Stowe, Vice-President; and myself, Anna C.
Ritchie, Secretary. We call our paper the “Saturday Night,” and we all write
stories and have reports of sermons and of our meetings, and write about the
queens of England. We did not know but you would like to hear this, as the
idea sprang from your book; and we thought we would write, as we liked your
book so much. And now, if it is not too much to ask of you, I wish you would
answer this, as we are very impatient to know if you will write another book; and
please answer soon, as Miss Anthony is going away, and she wishes very much to
hear from you before she does. If you write, please direct to — Street, Brooklyn,
N.Y.
706EAF. Page 001. In-line Illustration. Image of a girl in a pretty dress. She is carrying a parasol and her long hair is loose and wavy.
“It is not her beauty merely that drew me to her,
though she is the most beautiful human being I ever
saw: it is the exquisite feminine softness and delicacy
of her character, that sympathetic pliability by which
she adapts herself to every varying feeling of the heart.
You, my dear sister, are the noblest of women, and
your place in my heart is still what it always was; but
I feel that this dear little creature, while she fills a
place no other has ever entered, will yet be a new bond
to unite us. She will love us both; she will gradually
come into all our ways and opinions, and be insensibly
formed by us into a noble womanhood. Her extreme
beauty, and the great admiration that has always followed
her, have exposed her to many temptations, and
caused most ungenerous things to be said of her. “Dear Grace, — You must pardon me this beginning,
— in the old style of other days; for though many
years have passed, in which I have been trying to walk
in your ways, and keep all your commandments, I have
never yet been able to do as you directed, and forget
you: and here I am, beginning `Dear Grace,' — just
where I left off on a certain evening long, long ago. I
wonder if you remember it as plainly as I do. I am
just the same fellow that I was then and there. If
you remember, you admitted that, were it not for
other duties, you might have considered my humble
supplication. I gathered that it would not have been
impossible per se, as metaphysicians say, to look with
favor on your humble servant. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 188 | Author: | Stowe
Harriet Beecher
1811-1896 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Uncle Sam's emancipation | | | | 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: | BY AN ALABAMA MAN. Dear Sam—I am just on the eve of my departure
for Pittsburg; I may not see you again
for a long time, possibly never, and I leave this
letter with your friends, Messrs. A. and B., for
you, and herewith bid you an affectionate farewell.
Let me give you some advice, which is,
now that you are a free man, in a free State, be
obedient as you were when a slave; perform all
the duties that are required of you, and do all
you can for your own future welfare and respectability.
Let me assure you that I have the same
good feeling towards you that you know I always
had; and let me tell you further, that if ever you
want a friend, call or write to me, and I will be
that friend. Should you be sick, and not able to
work, and want money to a small amount at different
times, write to me, and I will always let you
have it. I have not with me at present much
money, though I will leave with my agent here,
the Messrs. W., five dollars for you; you must
give them a receipt for it. On my return from
Pittsburg, I will call and see you if I have time;
fail not to write to my father, for he made you a
good master, and you should always treat him
with respect, and cherish his memory so long as
you live. Be good, industrious, and honourable,
and if unfortunate in your undertakings, never
forget that you have a friend in me. Farewell,
and believe me your affectionate young master
and friend. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 189 | Author: | Stowe
Harriet Beecher
1811-1896 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | We and our neighbors, or, The records of an
unfashionable street | | | | 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: | “WHO can have taken the Ferguses' house, sister?”
said a brisk little old lady, peeping through
the window blinds. “It's taken! Just come here and
look! There's a cart at the door.” MY Dear Belle: Well, here we are, Harry and I,
all settled down to housekeeping quite like old
folks. All is about done but the last things,—those little
touches, and improvements, and alterations that go off into
airy perspective. I believe it was Carlyle that talked
about an “infinite shoe-black” whom all the world could
not quite satisfy so but that there would always be a
next thing in the distance. Well, perhaps it 's going to be
so in housekeeping, and I shall turn out an infinite housekeeper;
for I find this little, low-studded, unfashionable
home of ours, far off in a tabooed street, has kept all my
energies brisk and busy for a month past, and still there
are more worlds to conquer. Visions of certain brackets
and lambrequins that are to adorn my spare chamber
visit my pillow nightly, while Harry is placidly sleeping
the sleep of the just. I have been unable to attain to
them because I have been so busy with my parlor ivies
and my Ward's case of ferns, and some perfectly seraphic
hanging baskets, gorgeous with flowering nasturtiums
that are now blooming in my windows. There is a
dear little Quaker dove of a woman living in the next
house to ours who is a perfect witch at gardening—a
good kind of witch, you understand, one who could
make a broomstick bud and blossom if she undertook it
—and she has been my teacher and exemplar in these
matters. Her parlor is a perfect bower, a drab dove's
nest wreathed round with vines and all a-bloom with geraniums;
and mine is coming on to look just like it. So
you see all this has kept me ever so busy. MY Dear Mother: Harry says I must do all the
writing to you and keep you advised of all our
affairs, because he is so driven with his editing and proof-reading
that letter-writing is often the most fatiguing
thing he can do. It is like trying to run after one has
become quite out of breath. “You were right, my dear Eva, in saying, in our last
interview, that it did not seem to you that I had the kind
of character that was adapted to the profession I have
chosen. I don't think I have. I am more certain of it
from comparing myself from day to day with Ida, who
certainly is born and made for it, if ever a woman was.
My choice of it has been simply and only for the reason
that I must choose something as a means of self-support,
and more than that, as a refuge from morbid distresses
of mind which made the still monotony of my New England
country life intolerable to me. This course presented
itself to me as something feasible. I thought it,
too, a good and worthy career—one in which one might
do one's share of good for the world. But, Eva, I can
feel that there is one essential difference between Ida and
myself: she is peculiarly self-sustained and sufficient to
herself, and I am just the reverse. I am full of vague
unrest; I am chased by seasons of high excitement, alternating
with deadly languor. Ida has hard work to
know what to do with me. You were right in supposing,
as you intimate in your letter, that a certain common
friend has something to do with this unrest, but you cannot,
unless you know my whole history, know how much.
There was a time when he and I were all the world to
each other—when shall I ever forget that time! I was
but seventeen; a young girl, so ignorant of life! I never
had seen one like him; he was a whole new revelation to
me; he woke up everything there was in me, never to go
to sleep again; and then to think of having all this tide
and current of feeling checked—frozen. My father overwhelmed
him with accusations; every baseness was laid
to his charge. I was woman enough to have stood for
him against the world if he had come to me. I would
have left all and gone to the ends of the earth with him
if he had asked me, but he did not. There was only
one farewell, self-accusing letter, and even that fell into
my father's hands and never came to me till after his
death. For years I thought myself wantonly trifled with
by a man of whose attentions I ought to be ashamed. I
was indignant at myself for the love that might have been
my glory, for it is my solemn belief that if we had been
let alone he would have been saved all those wretched
falls, those blind struggles that have marred a life whose
purpose is yet so noble. CONGRATULATE us, dear mother; we have had
a success! Our first evening was all one could
hope! Everybody came that we wanted, and, what is
quite as good in such cases, everybody staid away that
we didn't want. You know how it is; when you
intend to produce real acquaintance, that shall ripen
into intimacy, it is necessary that there should be no
non-conductors to break the circle. There are people
that shed around them coldness and constraint, as if they
were made of ice, and it is a mercy when such people
don't come to your parties. As it is, I have had the
happiness to see our godly rector on most conversable
terms with our heretic doctor, and each thinking better
of the other. Oh! and, what was a greater triumph yet,
I managed to introduce a Quaker preacheress to Mr. St.
John, and had the satisfaction to see that he was completely
charmed by her, as well he may be. The way it
came about, you must know, is this:— I HAD not thought to obtrude myself needlessly on
you ever again. Oppressed with the remembrance
that I have been a blight on a life that might otherwise
have been happy, I thought my only expiation was
silence. But it had not then occurred to me that possibly
you could feel and be pained by that silence. But
of late I have been very intimate with Mrs. Henderson,
whose mind is like those crystalline lakes we read of—
a pebble upon the bottom is evident. She loves you so
warmly and feels for you so sympathetically that, almost
unconsciously, when you pour your feelings into her
heart, they are revealed to me through the transparent
medium of her nature. I confess that I am still so selfish
as to feel a pleasure in the thought that you cannot
forget me. I cannot forget you. I never have forgotten
you, I believe, for a waking conscious hour since that
time when your father shut the door of his house between
you and me. I have demonstrated in my own
experience that there may be a double consciousness all
the while going on, in which the presence of one person
should seem to pervade every scene of life. You have
been with me, even in those mad fatal seasons when I
have been swept from reason and conscience and hope
—it has added bitterness to my humiliation in my weak
hours; but it has been motive and courage to rise up
again and again and renew the fight—the fight that must
last as long as life lasts; for, Caroline, this is so. In
some constitutions, with some hereditary predispositions,
the indiscretions and ignorances of youth leave a
fatal irremediable injury. Though the sin be in the
first place one of inexperience and ignorance, it is one
that nature never forgives. The evil once done can
never be undone; no prayers, no entreaties, no resolutions,
can change the consequences of violated law.
The brain and nerve force, once vitiated by poisonous
stimulants, become thereafter subtle tempters and traitors,
forever lying in wait to deceive and urging to ruin;
and he who is saved, is saved so as by fire. Since it is
your unhappy fate to care so much for me, I owe to you
the utmost frankness. I must tell you plainly that I am
an unsafe man. I am like a ship with powder on board
and a smouldering fire in the hold. I must warn my
friends off, lest at any moment I carry ruin to them,
and they be drawn down in my vortex. We can be
friends, dear friends; but let me beg you, think as little
of me as you can. Be a friend in a certain degree, after
the manner of the world, rationally, and with a wise
regard to your own best interests—you who are worth
five hundred times what I am—you who have beauty,
talent, energy—who have a career opening before you,
and a most noble and true friend in Miss Ida; do not
let your sympathies for a very worthless individual lead
you to defraud yourself of all that you should gain in
the opportunities now open to you. Command my services
for you in the literary line when ever they may be
of the slightest use. Remember that nothing in the
world makes me so happy as an opportunity to serve
you. Treat me as you would a loyal serf, whose only
thought is to live and die for you; as the princess of
the middle ages treated the knight of low degree, who
devoted himself to her service. There is nothing you
could ask me to do for you that would not be to me a
pleasure; and all the more so, if it involved any labor
or difficulty. In return, be assured, that merely by being
the woman you are, merely by the love which you have
given and still give to one so unworthy, you are a constant
strength to me, an encouragement never to faint
in a struggle which must last as long as this life lasts.
For although we must not forget that life, in the best
sense of the word, lasts forever, yet this first mortal
phase of it is, thank God, but short. There is another
and a higher life for those whose life has been a failure
here. Those who die fighting—even though they fall,
many times trodden under the hoof of the enemy—will
find themselves there made more than conquerors
through One who hath loved them. My Dear Friend: How can I thank you for the confidence
you have shown me in your letter? You were
K
not mistaken in thinking that this long silence has been
cruel to me. It is more cruel to a woman than it can
possibly be to a man, because if to him silence be a pain,
he yet is conscious all the time that he has the power to
break it; he has the right to speak at any time, but a
woman must die silent. Every fiber of her being says
this. She cannot speak, she must suffer as the dumb
animals suffer. MY Dear Mother: When I wrote you last we were
quite prosperous, having just come through with
our first evening as a great success; and everybody since
has been saying most agreeable things to us about it.
Last Thursday, we had our second, and it was even
pleasanter than the last, because people had got acquainted,
so that they really wanted to see each other again.
There was a most charming atmosphere of ease and
sociability. Bolton and Mr. St. John are getting quite
intimate. Mr. St. John, too, develops quite a fine social
talent, and has come out wonderfully. The side of a
man that one sees in the church and the pulpit is after
all only one side, as we have discovered. I find that he
has quite a gift in conversation, when you fairly get him
at it. Then, his voice for singing comes into play, and
he and Angie and Dr. Campbell and Alice make up a
quartette quite magnificent for non-professionals. Angie
has a fine soprano, and Alice takes the contralto, and the
Doctor, with his great broad shoulders and deep chest,
makes a splendid bass. Mr. St. John's tenor is really
very beautiful. It is one of those penetrating, sympathetic
voices that indicate both feeling and refinement,
and they are all of them surprised and delighted
to find how well they go together. Thursday evening
they went on from thing to thing, and found that they
could sing this and that and the other, till the evening
took a good deal the form of a musical. But never
mind, it brought them acquainted with each other and
made them look forward to the next reunion as something
agreeable. Ever since, the doctor goes round
humming tunes, and says he wants St. John to try the
tenor of this and that, and really has quite lost sight of
his being anything else but a musical brother. So here
is the common ground I wanted to find between them. “Dear Mrs. Henderson: You have tried hard to save me; but
it's no use. I am only a trouble to mother, and I disgrace you. So
I am going, and don't try to find me. May God bless you and
mother. “Dear Little Wifie: I have caught Selby, and we can have him
at dinner to-night; and as I know there's nothing like you for
emergencies, I secured him, and took the liberty of calling in on
Alice and Angie, and telling them to come. I shall ask St. John,
and Jim, and Bolton, and Campbell—you know, the more the merrier,
and, when you are about it, it's no more trouble to have six or
seven than one; and now you have Maggie, one may as well spread
a little. DEAR Mother: I have kept you well informed of
all our prosperities in undertaking and doing: how
everything we have set our hand to has turned out beautifully;
how “our evenings” have been a triumphant
success; and how we and our neighbors are all coming
into the spirit of love and unity, getting acquainted, mingling
and melting into each other's sympathy and knowledge.
I have had the most delightful run of compliments
about my house, as so bright, so cheerful, so
social and cosy, and about my skill in managing to
always have every thing so nice, and in entertaining with
so little parade and trouble, that I really began to plume
myself on something very uncommon in the way of what
Aunt Prissy Diamond calls “faculty.” Well, you know,
next in course after the Palace Beautiful comes the Valley
of Humiliation—whence my letter is dated—where I
am at this present writing. Honest old John Bunyan
says that, although people do not descend into this place
with a very good grace, but with many a sore bruise and
tumble, yet the air thereof is mild and refreshing, and
many sweet flowers grow here that are not found in more
exalted regions. MY Dear Mother: I sit down to write to you with
a heart full of the strangest feelings and expeririences.
I feel as if I had been out in some other
world and been brought back again; and now I hardly
know myself or where I am. You know I wrote you all
about Maggie, and her leaving us, and poor Mary's
trouble about her, and how she had been since seen in a
very bad neighborhood: I promised Mary faithfully that
I would go after her; and so, after all our Christmas
labors were over, Harry and I went on a midnight excursion
with Mr. James, the Methodist minister, who has
started the mission there. “My Dear Sir: Ever since that most sad evening when I went
with you in your work of mercy to those unhappy people, I have
been thinking of what I saw, and wishing I could do something to
help you. You say that you do not solicit aid except from the dear
Father who is ever near to those that are trying to do such work
as this; yet, as long as he is ever near to Christian hearts, he will
inspire them with desires to help in a cause so wholly Christ-like. I
send you this ornament, which was bought in days when I thought
little of its sacred meaning. Sell it, and let the avails go towards
enlarging your Home for those poor people who find no place for
repentance in the world. I would rather you would tell nobody
from whom it comes. It is something wholly my own; it is a relief
to offer it, to help a little in so good a work, and I certainly shall not
forget to pray for your success. DEAR Mother: You've no idea how things have
gone on within a short time. I have been so excited
and so busy, and kept in such a state of constant
consultation, for this past week, that I have had no time
to keep up my bulletins to you. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 190 | Author: | Taylor
Bayard
1825-1878 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Beauty and the beast | | | | 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: | “Dear Friend,—I will not say that your letter was
entirely unexpected, either to Helmine or myself. I
should, perhaps, have less faith in the sincerity of your
attachment if you had not already involuntarily betrayed
it. When I say that although I detected the inclination
of your heart some weeks ago, and that I also saw it was
becoming evident to my sister, yet I refrained from mentioning
the subject at all until she came to me last evening
with your letter in her hand,—when I say this, you
will understand that I have acted towards you with the
respect and sympathy which I profoundly feel. Helmine
fully shares this feeling, and her poor heart is too painfully
moved to allow her to reply. Do I not say, in saying
this, what her reply must be? But, though her heart
cannot respond to your love, she hopes you will always
believe her a friend to whom your proffered devotion was
an honor, and will be—if you will subdue it to her deserts—a
grateful thing to remember. We shall remain in
Warsaw a fortnight longer, as I think yourself will agree
that it is better we should not immediately return to the
castle. Jean, who must carry a fresh order already, will
bring you this, and we hope to have good news of Henri.
I send back the papers, which were unnecessary; we
never doubted you, and we shall of course keep your secret
so long as you choose to wear it. MR. EDITOR,—If you ever read
the “Burroak Banner” (which you
will find among your exchanges, as
the editor publishes your prospectus
for six weeks every year, and
sends no bill to you) my name will
not be that of a stranger. Let me throw aside all affectation
of humility, and say that I hope it is already and not
unfavorably familiar to you. I am informed by those who
claim to know that the manuscripts of obscure writers are
passed over by you editors without examination—in short,
that I must first have a name, if I hope to make one. The
fact that an article of three hundred and seventy-five
pages, which I sent, successively, to the “North American
Review,” the “Catholic World,” and the “Radical,”
was in each case returned to me with my knot on the tape
by which it was tied, convinces me that such is indeed the
case. A few years ago I should not have meekly submitted
to treatment like this; but late experiences have
taught me the vanity of many womanly dreams. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 191 | Author: | Taylor
Bayard
1825-1878 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Hannah Thurston | | | | 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: | Never before had the little society of Ptolemy known so
animated a season. For an inland town, the place could not at
any time be called dull, and, indeed, impressed the stranger
with a character of exuberant life, on being compared with
other towns in the neighborhood. Mulligansville on the east,
Anacreon on the north, and Atauga City on the west, all fierce
rivals of nearly equal size, groaned over the ungodly cheerfulness
of its population, and held up their hands whenever its
name was mentioned. But, at the particular time whereof we
write—November, 1852—the ordinarily mild flow of life in
Ptolemy was unusually quickened by the formation of the great
Sewing-Union. This was a new social phenomenon, which
many persons looked upon as a long stride in the direction of
the Millennium. If, however, you should desire an opposite
view, you have but to mention the subject to any Mulligansvillain,
any Anacreontic, or any Atauga citizen. The simple
fact is, that the various sewing-circles of Ptolemy—three in
number, and working for very different ends—had agreed to
hold their meetings at the same time and place, and labor in
company. It was a social arrangement which substituted one
large gathering, all the more lively and interesting from its
mixed constitution, in place of three small and somewhat
monotonous circles. The plan was a very sensible one, and it
must be said, to the credit of Ptolemy, that there are very few
communities of equal size in the country where it could have
been carried into effect. “Be ye not weak of vision to perceive the coming triumph
of Truth. Even though she creep like a tortoise in the race,
while Error leaps like a hare, yet shall she first reach the goal.
6
The light from the spirit-world is only beginning to dawn upon
the night of Earth. When the sun shall rise, only the owls
and bats among men will be blind to its rays. Then the perfect
day of Liberty shall fill the sky, and even the spheres of
spirits be gladdened by reflections from the realm of mortals! “I will not say that my mind dwelt too strongly on the
symbols by which Faith is expressed, for through symbols the
Truth was made clear to me. There are many paths, but they
all have the same ending.” “Dear Miss Thurston:—I know how much I have asked
of you in begging permission to write, for your eye, the story
which follows. Therefore I have not allowed myself to stand
shivering on the brink of a plunge which I have determined
to make, or to postpone it, from the fear that the venture of
confidence which I now send out will come to shipwreck.
Since I have learned to appreciate the truth and nobleness of
your nature—since I have dared to hope that you honor me
with a friendly regard—most of all, since I find that the feelings
which I recognize as the most intimate and sacred portion
of myself seek expression in your presence, I am forced to
make you a participant in the knowledge of my life. Whether
it be that melancholy knowledge which a tender human charity
takes under its protecting wing and which thenceforward
sleeps calmly in some shadowy corner of memory, or that evil
knowledge which torments because it cannot be forgotten, I
am not able to foresee. I will say nothing, in advance, to
secure a single feeling of sympathy or consideration which
your own nature would not spontaneously prompt you to give.
I know that in this step I may not be acting the part of a
friend; but, whatever consequences may follow it, I entreat
you to believe that there is no trouble which I would not
voluntarily take upon myself, rather than inflict upon you a
moment's unnecessary pain. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 192 | Author: | Taylor
Bayard
1825-1878 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Joseph and his friend | | | | 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: | Rachel Miller was not a little surprised when her nephew
Joseph came to the supper-table, not from the direction of
the barn and through the kitchen, as usual, but from the
back room up stairs, where he slept. His work-day dress
had disappeared; he wore his best Sunday suit, put on with
unusual care, and there were faint pomatum odors in the air
when he sat down to the table. My dear Asten:—Do you remember that curious whirling,
falling sensation, when the car pitched over the edge of
the embankment? I felt a return of it on reading your letter;
for you have surprised me beyond measure. Not by your
request, for that is just what I should have expected of you;
and as well now, as if we had known each other for twenty
years; so the apology is the only thing objectionable— But
I am tangling my sentences; I want to say how heartily I return
the feeling which prompted you to ask me, and yet how
embarrassed I am that I cannot unconditionally say, “Yes,
with all my heart!” My great, astounding surprise is, to
find you about to be married to Miss Julia Blessing,—a
young lady whom I once knew. And the embarrassment is
this: I knew her under circumstances (in which she was not
personally concerned, however) which might possibly render
my presence now, as your groomsman, unwelcome to the
family: at least, it is my duty—and yours, if you still
desire me to stand beside you—to let Miss Blessing and her
family decide the question. The circumstances to which I
refer concern them rather than myself. I think your best
plan will be simply to inform them of your request and my
reply, and add that I am entirely ready to accept whatever
course they may prefer. Since I wrote to you from Prescott, dear Philip, three
months have passed, and I have had no certain means of
sending you another letter. There was, first, Mr. Wilder's
interest at —, the place hard to reach, and the business
difficult to investigate. It was not so easy, even with the
help of your notes, to connect the geology of books with the
geology of nature; these rough hills don't at all resemble
the clean drawings of strata. However, I have learned all
the more rapidly by not assuming to know much, and the report
I sent contained a great deal more than my own personal
experience. The duty was irksome enough, at times;
I have been tempted by the evil spirits of ignorance, indolence,
and weariness, and I verily believe that the fear of
failing to make good your guaranty for my capacity was the
spur which kept me from giving way. Now, habit is beginning
to help me, and, moreover, my own ambition has something
to stand on. When Madeline hung a wreath of holly around your
photograph this morning, I said to it as I say now: “A
merry Christmas, Joseph, wherever you are!” It is a
calm sunny day, and my view, as you know, reaches much
further through the leafless trees; but only the meadow on
the right is green. You, on the contrary, are enjoying
something as near to Paradise in color, and atmosphere,
and temperature (if you are, as I guess, in Southern California),
as you will ever be likely to see. Philip, Philip, I have found your valley! Dear Sir:—“Fay's Geography for Schools” has been added to the list of books
furnished to the schools under the control of the Board of Education. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 193 | Author: | Taylor
Bayard
1825-1878 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The story of Kennett | | | | 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: | At noon, on the first Saturday of March, 1796, there
was an unusual stir at the old Barton farm-house, just
across the creek to the eastward, as you leave Kennett
Square by the Philadelphia stage-road. Any gathering of
the people at Barton's was a most rare occurrence; yet, on
that day and at that hour, whoever stood upon the porch of
the corner house, in the village, could see horsemen approaching
by all the four roads which there met. Some
five or six had already dismounted at the Unicorn Tavern,
and were refreshing themselves with stout glasses of “Old
Rye,” while their horses, tethered side by side to the pegs
in the long hitching-bar, pawed and stamped impatiently.
An eye familiar with the ways of the neighborhood might
have surmised the nature of the occasion which called so
many together, from the appearance and equipment of
these horses. They were not heavy animals, with the
marks of plough-collars on their broad shoulders, or the
hair worn off their rumps by huge breech-straps; but light
and clean-limbed, one or two of them showing signs of
good blood, and all more carefully groomed than usual. “Sir: Yr respd favour of ye1
1 This form of the article, though in general disuse at the time, was still
frequently employed in epistolary writing, in that part of Pennsylvania.
11th came duly to hand,
and ye proposition wh it contains has been submitted to
Mr. Jones, ye present houlder of ye mortgage. He wishes
me to inform you that he did not anticipate ye payment
before ye first day of April, 1797, wh was ye term agreed
upon at ye payment of ye first note; nevertheless, being
required to accept full and lawful payment, whensoever
tendered, he hath impowered me to receive ye moneys
at yr convenience, providing ye settlement be full and compleat,
as aforesaid, and not merely ye payment of a part or
portion thereof. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 194 | Author: | Thomas
Frederick William
1806-1866 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | John Randolph, of Roanoke, and other sketches of
character, including William Wirt | | | | 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: | I remember some years since to have seen
John Randolph in Baltimore. I had frequently
read and heard descriptions of him; and one day,
as I was standing in Market, now Baltimore Street,
I remarked a tall, thin, unique-looking being hurrying
towards me with a quick impatient step,
evidently much annoyed by a crowd of boys who
were following close at his heels; not in the obstreperous
mirth with which they would have followed
a crazy or a drunken man, or an organ-grinder
and his monkey, but in the silent, curious
wonder with which they would have haunted a
Chinese, bedecked in full costume. I instantly
knew the individual to be Randolph, from the
descriptions. I therefore advanced towards him,
that I might take a full observation of his person
without violating the rules of courtesy in stopping
to gaze at him. As he approached, he occasionally
turned towards the boys with an angry glance, but
without saying anything, and then hurried on as if
to outstrip them; but it would not do. They followed
close behind the orator, each one observing
him so intently that he said nothing to his companions.
Just before I met him, he stopped a Mr.
C—, a cashier of one of the banks, said to be
as odd a fish as John himself. I loitered into
a store close by, and, unnoticed, remarked the
Roanoke orator for a considerable time; and really,
he was the strangest-looking being I ever beheld. Gentlemen: It is a matter of deep regret to me, that I
did not receive your kind letter of the 9th of August till a
very late day. I was in the mountains of New Hampshire,
taking a breath of my native air, and it was the last of
August before I returned. I know not whether, if I had
received your communication sooner, it would have been
in my power to attend the meeting to which I was invited,
but I should have been able to have given a more timely
answer. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 196 | Author: | Thompson
Daniel P.
(Daniel Pierce)
1795-1868 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The doomed chief, or, Two hundred years ago | | | | 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: | It was an anxious, as well as a stirring day with the colonists
at New Plymouth. The public mind, for the last few months,
had been laboring under a very unusual, and a constantly increasing
excitement. Among all classes of men there evidently
existed a deep, though unacknowledged consciousness,
that the calculations of selfishness, craft, and fraud, instead of
obedience to the simple dictates of justice and honesty, had
latterly characterized their intercourse with the Indians.
This, as in most other cases of conscious wrong doing, had
made them, especially the leading men of the colony, peculiarly
sensitive respecting the relations in which they stood
with the red men, filling them with jealousies, suspicions, and
apprehensions, lest the latter, impressed doubtless with the
same or livelier convictions of their wrongs, should be secretly
nourishing thoughts and schemes of redress and retribution.
The colonists were also fully conscious that the injured race
were now no longer the comparatively harmless and contemptible
foes they were in times past, when bows and arrows and
war-clubs were their most formidable weapons, whole scores
of which were scarcely good against a single musket in battle;
but that they had, at this period, almost universally supplied
themselves with fire arms, in the fatal use of which, when
occasion required, they had no superiors, even among the most
expert sharp-shooters of the old world. And especially and
painfully conscious were likewise the leading colonists, that
in addition to the advantages thus possessed by their apprehended
foes, there had now sprung up among them a Master
Spirit who was believed to be fully capable of combining, and
giving direction to all the various elements of their disaffection
with fearful effect. That Master Spirit was Metacom, the
King Philip of subsequent historic renown. And it was not
without reason they feared that he, insulted, fined, and dragooned
as he had been into hollow treaties of peace, would not
long remain inactive or forego—unless prompt and decided
measures were taken to prevent the execution of what was
believed to be his bold and settled design—a war of extermination
against the colonists of New England. “As soon as Captain Willis is able to travel, which I trust
is now, his late captor, or prisoner, or nurse in the woods,
would be gratified to see him at Providence. Enquire of
Governor Williams for | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 197 | Author: | Thompson
Daniel P.
(Daniel Pierce)
1795-1868 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Gaut Gurley, or, The trappers of Umbagog | | | | 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: | So wrote the charming Cowper, giving us to understand, by
the drift of the context, that he intended the remark as having
a moral as well as a physical application; since, as he there
intimates, in “gain-devoted cities,” whither naturally flow “the
dregs and feculence of every land,” and where “foul example
in most minds begets its likeness,” the vices will ever find their
favorite haunts; while the virtues, on the contrary, will always
most abound in the country. So far as regards the virtues, if
we are to take them untested, this is doubtless true. And so
far, also, as regards the mere vices, or actual transgressions of
morality, we need, perhaps, to have no hesitation in yielding
our assent to the position of the poet. But, if he intends to
include in the category those flagrant crimes which stand first
in the gradation of human offences, we must be permitted to
dissent from that part of the view; and not only dissent, but
claim that truth will generally require the very reversal of the
picture, for of such crimes we believe it will be found, on
examination, that the country ever furnishes the greatest proportion.
In cities, the frequent intercourse of men with their
fellow-men, the constant interchange of the ordinary civilities
of life, and the thousand amusements and calls on their attention
that are daily occurring, have almost necessarily a tendency
to soften or turn away the edge of malice and hatred, to divert
the mind from the dark workings of revenge, and prevent it
from settling into any of those fatal purposes which result in
the wilful destruction of life, or some other gross outrage on
humanity. But in the country, where, it will be remembered,
the first blood ever spilled by the hand of a murderer cried up
to Heaven from the ground, and where the meliorating circumstances
we have named as incident to congregated life are almost
wholly wanting, man is left to brood in solitude over his
real or fancied wrongs, till all the fierce and stormy passions
of his nature become aroused, and hurry him unchecked along
to the fatal outbreak. In the city, the strong and bad passions
of hate, envy, jealousy, and revenge, softened in action, as we
have said, on finding a readier vent in some of the conditions
of urban society, generally prove comparatively harmless. In
the country, finding no such softening influences, and no such
vent, and left to their own workings, they often become dangerously
concentrated, and, growing more and more intensified as
their self-fed fires are permitted to burn on, at length burst
through every barrier of restraint, and set all law and reason
alike at defiance. “Thinking something unusual to be brewing overhead, we
are off for the lake about 10 A. M. “Dear Claud, — You do not know, you cannot know, what
the effort costs me to write this. You do not know, you cannot
know, what I have felt, what I have suffered since I became
fully apprised of the painful circumstances under which
your late expedition was brought to a close; and especially
since I became apprised of the lamentable scenes that occurred
in the court, growing out of that unfortunate — O how unfortunate,
expedition! Before that court was held, and during the
doubtful days which intervened between it and your escape from
the terrible perils that attended your return, the hope that all
would, all must turn out right, in some measure relieved my
harrowing fears and anxieties; though even then the latter was
to the former as days of cloud to minutes of sunshine. But,
when I heard what occurred at the trial, — the bitter crimination
and recrimination, the open rupture, the menaces exchanged,
and the angry parting, — and, more alarming than all,
when I saw my father return in that fearful mood, from which
he still refuses to be diverted, the last gleam of hope faded, and
all became cloud, all gloom, — dark, impenetrable, and forbidding.
My nights, when sleep at length comes to close my
weeping eyes, are passed in troubled dreams; my days in more
troubled thoughts, which I would fain believe were dreams
also. O, why need this be? I have done nothing, — you
have done nothing; and I have no doubt of your faith and
honor for performing all I shall ever require at your hands.
But, Claud, I love you, and all
`Know love is woman's happiness;'
and all know, likewise, that the ties of love are but gossamer
threads, which a word may rupture, a breath shake, and even
the power of unpleasant associations destroy. Still, is there
not one hope, — the hope that this thread, hitherto so blissfully
uniting our hearts, subtle and attenuated as it is, may yet
be preserved unbroken, if we suffer no opinion, no word, no
syllable to escape our lips, respecting the unfortunate affair
that is embroiling our parents; if we wholly deny ourselves
the pleasure of that social intercourse which, to me, at least,
has thus far made this wilderness an Eden of delight? But
can it be thus preserved, if we keep up that intercourse, as in
the sunshine of our love, — those pleasant, fleeting, rosy months,
when I was so happy, O so very happy, in the feelings of the
present and the prospects of the future? No, no, it is not possible,
it is not possible for you to come here, and encounter my
father in such a mood, and then return and receive the upbraidings
of your own, that you are joining or upholding the house
of his foes. It is not possible for you to do this, and your
heart receive no jar, and mine no fears or suspicions of its continued
fealty. I dare not risk it. Then do not, dearest Claud,
O do not come here, at least for the present. Perhaps my
dark forebodings, that our connection is not to be blessed for our
future happiness, may be groundless. Perhaps the storm that
now so darkly hangs over us may pass harmlessly away.
Perhaps this painful and perplexing misunderstanding — as I
trust in Heaven's mercy it only is — may yet be placed in a light
which will admit of a full reconciliation between our respective
families. But, till then, let our relations to each other stand, if
you feel disposed to let them, precisely as we left them at our
last mournfully happy parting; for, till then, though it break
my heart, I could never, never consent to a renewal of our
intercourse. Have I said enough, and not too much? I could
not, under the almost insupportable weight of grief, fear, and
anxiety, that is distracting my brain, and crushing my poor
heart, — I could not say less, I dare not say more. O Claud,
Claud, why has this dreadful cloud come over us? O, pray that
it may be speedily removed, and once more let in, on our pained
and perplexed hearts, the sunshine of their former happiness.
Dearest Claud, good-by; don't come, but don't forget “Mrs. Elwood, my Friend, — Our Mr. Phillips has been
here, and told us all that has happened in your settlement.
Mrs. Elwood, I am greatly troubled at the loss your family
suffer, with the rest of the hunters, but still more troubled and
fearful for your husband and your noble son, about what may
grow out of the quarrel with that dark man. My father knew
him, time long past, and said there would be mischief done the
company, when we heard he was going with them. I hope Mr.
Elwood will keep out of his way; and I hope, Claud, — O, I
cannot write the thought. Mrs. Elwood, I am very unhappy.
I sometimes wish your brave and noble son had suffered me to
go down and be lost in the dark, wild waters of those fearful
rapids. By the goodness of my white father, whom I am proud
22
to hope you may some time see with me in your settlement, I
have all the comforts and indulgences that a heart at ease could
desire; warm, carpeted rooms, dress, books, company, smooth
flatterers, who mean little, it may be, together with real friends,
who mean much, and prove it by actions, which do not, like
words, ever deceive. And yet, Mrs. Elwood, they are all
now without any charms for me. My heart is in your settlement.
The grand old forest, and the bright lake, were always
things of beauty for me, before I saw him; but now, when associated
with him, — O, Mrs. Elwood, if I did not know you
had something of what I meant should forever be kept secret
from all but the Great Eye, in your keeping, and if you had
not made me feel you would be my discreet friend, and keep it
as safe from all as an unspoken thought, I would not for worlds
write what I have, and what I every moment find my pen on
the point of writing more fully. O, how I wish I could make
you understand, without words, what I feel, — how I grieve
over what I almost know must be vain hopes, and vainer visions
of happiness! You have sometimes had, it may be, very
bright, delightful dreams, which seemed to bring you all your
heart desired; and then you suddenly awoke, and found all had
vanished, leaving you dark and sad with disappointment and
regret. If you have, you may fancy what my thoughts are
undergoing every hour of the day. O, how my heart is drawn
away towards you! I often feel that I must fly up, like a bird,
to be there. I should come now, but for what might be thought.
I shall certainly be there in early spring. I can't stay away,
though I may come only to see what I could bear less easy
than these haunting, troubled fancies. Mrs. Elwood, adieu.
You won't show this, or breathe a word about it, — I know you
won't; you could not be so cruel as that. Mrs. Elwood, may
I not sign myself your friend? “To Claud Elwood:— My career is ended, at last. Well,
I have the satisfaction of knowing that I have been nobody's fool
nor nobody's tool. Early perceiving that nine out of ten were only
the stupid instruments of the tenth man, the world over, I resolved
to go into the system, and did, and improved on it so as to make
nineteen out of twenty tools to me, — that is all. I have no great
fault to find with men generally, though I always despised the
whole herd; for I knew that, if they used me well, it was only
because they dared not do otherwise. I don't write this, however,
to preach upon that, but to let you know another thing, to chew
upon. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 198 | Author: | Thompson
Daniel P.
(Daniel Pierce)
1795-1868 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The rangers, or, The Tory's daughter | | | | 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: | Towards night, on the twelfth of March, 1775, a richly-equipped
double sleigh, filled with a goodly company of well-dressed
persons of the different sexes, was seen descending from
the eastern side of the Green Mountains, along what may now
be considered the principal thoroughfare leading from the upper
navigable portions of the Hudson to those of the Connecticut
River. The progress of the travellers was not only slow, but
extremely toilsome, as was plainly evinced by the appearance of
the reeking and jaded horses, as they labored and floundered
along the sloppy and slumping snow paths of the winter road,
which was obviously now fast resolving itself into the element of
which it was composed. Up to the previous evening, the dreary
reign of winter had continued wholly uninterrupted by the advent
of his more gentle successor in the changing rounds of the
seasons; and the snowy waste which enveloped the earth would,
that morning, have apparently withstood the rains and suns of
months before yielding entirely to their influences. But during
the night there had occurred one of those great and sudden
transitions from cold to heat, which can only be experienced in
northern climes, and which can be accounted for only on the supposition,
that the earth, at stated intervals, rapidly gives out large
quantities of its internal heats, or that the air becomes suddenly
rarefied by some essential change or modification in the state of
the electric fluid. The morning had been cloudless; and the
rising sun, with rays no longer dimly struggling through the
dense, obstructing medium of the dark months gone by, but, with
the restored beams of his natural brightness, fell upon the smoking
earth with the genial warmth of summer. A new atmosphere,
indeed, seemed to have been suddenly created, so warm and
bland was the whole air; while, occasionally, a breeze came over
the face of the traveller, which seemed like the breath of a
heated oven. As the day advanced, the sky gradually became
overcast — a strong south wind sprung up, before whose warm
puffs the drifted snow-banks seemed literally to be cut down,
like grass before the scythe of the mower; and, at length, from
the thickening mass of cloud above, the rain began to descend
in torrents to the mutely recipient earth. All this, for a while,
however, produced no very visible effects on the general face of
nature; for the melting snow was many hours in becoming
saturated with its own and water from above. Nor had our
travellers, for the greater part of the day, been much incommoded
by the rain, or the thaw, that was in silent, but rapid
progress around and beneath them; as their vehicle was a covered
one, and as the hard-trodden paths of the road were the last
to be affected. But, during the last hour, a great change in the
face of the landscape had become apparent; and the evidence
of what had been going on unseen, through the day, was now
growing every moment more and more palpable. The snow
along the bottom of every valley was marked by a long, dark
streak, indicating the presence of the fast-collecting waters beneath.
The stifled sounds of rushing streams were heard issuing
from the hidden beds of every natural rill; while the larger
brooks were beginning to burst through their wintry coverings,
and throw up and push on before them the rending ice and
snow that obstructed their courses to the rivers below, to which
they were hurrying with increasing speed, and with seemingly
growing impatience at every obstacle they met in their way.
The road had also become so soft, that the horses sunk nearly to the
flank at almost every step, and the plunging sleigh drove heavily
along the plashy path. The whole mass of the now saturated
and dissolving snow, indeed, though lying, that morning, more
than three feet deep on a level, seemed to quiver and move,
as if on the point of flowing away in a body to the nearest
channels. Vermont was ushered into political existence midst storm and
tempest. We speak both metaphorically and literally; for it is
a curious historical fact, that her constitution, the result of the
first regular movement ever made by her people towards an
independent civil government, was adopted during the darkest
period of the revolution, at an hour of commotion and alarm,
when the tempest of war was actually bursting over her borders
and threatening her entire subversion. And, as if to make the
event the more remarkable, the adoption took place amidst a
memorable thunder-storm, but for the happening of which, at that
particular juncture, as will soon appear, that important political
measure must have been postponed to a future period, and a
period, too, when the measure, probably, would have been defeated,
and the blessings of an independent government forever
lost, owing to the dissensions, which, as soon as the common
danger was over, New York and New Hampshire combined to
scatter among her people. The whole history of the settlement
and organization of the state, indeed, exhibits a striking anomaly,
when viewed with that of any other state in the Union. She
may emphatically be called the offspring of war and controversy.
The long and fierce dispute for her territory between the colonies
above named had sown her soil with dragon teeth, which
at length sprang up in a crop of hardy, determined, and liberty-loving
men, who, instead of joining either of the contending parties,
soon resolved to take a stand for themselves against both.
And that stand, when taken, they maintained with a spirit and
success, to which, considering the discouragements, difficulties,
and dangers they were constantly compelled to encounter, history
furnishes but few parallels. But although every step of her progress,
from the felling of the first tree in her dark wilderness to
her final reception into the sisterhood of the states, was marked
by the severest trials, yet the summer of 1777 — the period to
which the remainder of our tale refers — was, for her, far the most
gloomy and portentous. And still it was a period in which she
filled the brightest page of her history, and, at the same time, did
more than in any other year towards insuring her subsequent
happy destiny. “You are hereby appointed by the Council of Safety to go
through this and the neighboring towns, bordering on the British
line of march; to spy out the resorts of the tories; to mark
and identify all inimical persons; to gain all the information
that can be obtained respecting the movements of the enemy at
large; and make report, from time to time, to this council or
some field officer of our line.*
* Those who may doubt the probability that such a commission would
be issued by this body, would do well to consult that part of the journal
of their proceedings, at this period, which has been preserved and published,
in which will be found several similar ones, to serve as specimens
of the many contained in the part that was lost, and to show how
searching were the operations of these vigilant guardians of the cause of
liberty in Vermont, and how various the instruments they made use of
to effect their objects.
“You remember your promise, Sabrey, to visit me the first
opportunity. That opportunity now occurs. Captain Jones and
other friends have presented your father's name at head-quarters
for promotion; and he has now, I am informed, received an
appointment. If he accepts, as I am sure he will, I hope you will
accompany him, and remain with me. I have just received one
of those letters so precious to me: he says the army will probably
move on to Fort Edward next week, the obstructions in
the road being now mostly removed; so that, by the time you
arrive, I shall probably be enabled to introduce you to the beautiful
and accomplished ladies of whom he has so much to say, —
such as the Countess of Reidesel, Lady Harriet Ackland, and
others, who accompany their husbands in the campaign. But
you will perhaps say that he is interested in praising these ladies
for the love and heroism which prompt them to brave such
fatigues and dangers for the sake of their lords, since he is
warmly urging me to consent to an immediate union, that I may
follow their example. He says, in his last letter, — and I think
truly, — that I cannot long remain where I am, in a section which,
he evidently anticipates, will soon become a frightful scene of
strife and bloodshed; and that I must therefore go away with
my friends, and leave him, perhaps forever, or put myself under
his protection in the army. And he seems hurt that I hesitate in
a choice of the alternatives. On the other hand, my connections
and friends here think it would be little short of madness in me
to yield to my lover's proposal. The people about here are
greatly alarmed at the expected approach of the British army,
which is known to be accompanied by a large body of Indians.
Many are already removing, and nearly all preparing to go.
The crisis hastens, and yet I am undecided. Prudence points
one way, love the other. What shall I do? O Sabrey, what
shall I do? Should you come on with your father, I think I
should feel a confidence in going with you to the British encampment.
Come then, my friend, come quickly; for I feel as if I
could not go without friends, and especially a female friend, to
accompany me; while, at the same time, I feel as if some irresistible
destiny would compel me to the attempt. And yet why
should I hesitate to take any step which he advises? Why refuse
to share with him any dangers which he may encounter? And
why should my anticipations of the future, which have ever, till
recently, during my happy intimacy with Mr. Jones, been so
bright and blissful, be clouded now? I know not; I know not
why it should be so; but lately my bosom has become disturbed by
strange misgivings, and my mind perplexed by dark and undefined
apprehensions. I must not, however, indulge them; and
your presence, I know, would entirely dissipate them. I repeat,
therefore, come, and that quickly. Adieu. “I am at the British head-quarters — not exactly a prisoner,
but evidently a closely-watched personage, having reached here,
with my captors, after a forced and fatiguing journey, which,
however, was not made unpleasant by any disrespectful treatment.
9 *
Although the party, to whom I became a prisoner, have
been frightened back or recalled, and the expedition, of which
they were the advance, given up, yet I think it my duty to say,
that another, and much more formidable one, is in agitation against
Bennington. I hope our people will be prepared for it, and
show these haughty Britons that they do not deserve the name of
the undisciplined rabble of poltroons and cowards by which I here
daily hear them branded. “This is a work I can cheerfully recommend, for in my estimation it
is the best collection of Hymn Tunes that has appeared for several years,
and one of the best ever published in this country. In style, the Music is
very chaste and pleasing, and in its arangement excellent. Being generally
plain and easy of performance, it is admirably adapted to the wants
of Country Choirs. I shall be glad to see the work more extensively
used, and shall take much pleasure in introducing it in my Schools. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 199 | Author: | Thompson
Maurice
1844-1901 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Hoosier mosaics | | | | 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: | No matter what business or what pleasure
took me, I once, not long ago, went to Colfax.
Whisper it not to each other that I was seeking
a foreign appointment through the influence
of my fellow Hoosier, the late Vice-President
of the United States. O no, I didn't go
to the Hon. Schuyler Colfax at all; but I went
to Colfax, simply, which is a little dingy town,
in Clinton County, that was formerly called
Midway, because it is half way between Lafayette
and Indianapolis. It was and is a place
of some three hundred inhabitants, eking out
an aguish subsistence, maintaining a swampy,
malarious aspect, keeping up a bilious, nay,
an atra-bilious color, the year round, by sucking
like an attenuated leech at the junction,
or, rather, the crossing of the I. C. & L., and
the L. C. & S. W. railroads. It lay mouldering,
like something lost and forgotten, slowly
rotting in the swamp. “Come to see us, even if you won't stay but
one day. Come right off, if you're a Christian
girl. Zach Jones is dying of consumption and
is begging to see you night and day. He says
he's got something on his mind he wants to
say to you, and when he says it he can die
happy. The poor fellow is monstrous bad off,
and I think you ought to be sure and come.
We're all well. Your loving uncle, Mr. Editor—Sir: This, for two reasons, is
my last article for your journal. Firstly: My
time and the exigencies of my profession will
not permit me to further pursue a discussion
which, on your part, has degenerated into the
merest twaddle. Secondly: It only needs, at
my hands, an exposition of the false and fraudulent
claims you make to classical attainments,
to entirely annihilate your unsubstantial and
wholly underserved popularity in this community,
and to send you back to peddling your
bass wood hams and maple nutmegs. In order
to put on a false show of erudition, you lug
into your last article a familiar Latin sentence.
Now, sir, if you had sensibly foregone any attempt
at translation, you might, possibly, have
made some one think you knew a shade more
than a horse; but “whom the gods would destroy
they first make mad.” “Editor of the Star—Dear Sir: In answer
to your letter requesting me to decide between
yourself and Mr. Blodgett as to the
correct English rendering of the Latin sentence
“De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” allow me to
say that your free translation is a good one, if
not very literal or elegant. As to Mr. Blodgett's,
if the man is sincere, he is certainly
crazy or wofully illiterate; no doubt the latter. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 200 | Author: | Trowbridge
J. T.
(John Townsend)
1827-1916 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Lucy Arlyn | | | | 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: | IT was a proud day for Archy Brandle and
his mother when Lucy Arlyn came out to their
house to make a friendly visit and to drink tea. “You promised to grant me a favor. This is
what I am directed to require of you. Find yourself at Dr.
Biddikin's to-morrow at three, P.M. There you will meet a
disagreeable little old woman, with yellow hair and a sour
temper, named “Miss Lucy Arlyn. Respected Madam, — The reason
you saw the undersigned a-fishing to-day, and which you may
have seen him on previous occasions passing with rod and line
by the brook which meandures beyond the house which has
the honor of being your residence (viz., Jehiel Hedge's), the
undersigned might explain, and would astonish you, if you
would but grant an interview which he has sought in this way
in order to get a word with you; not venturing to call openly,
fear of offence: though he has in his possession facts of the
most utmost importance to you, whom I fear have been
wronged by a man I have long served faithfully, and blinded
my eyes to his misdeeds, but whom I now suspect is a villain
of the darkest calibre” — “I can no longer be of use to you, and I go; having
already staid a day too long. My spiritual gift — for which
alone you valued me — went before. I lost it when I lost
myself. It will return to me only when my tranquillity returns;
which can never be with you. I loved you, Guy
Bannington. There, take my heart; tread it beneath your
proud feet. I neither hate nor love you now. I am ice.
The universe wails around me; but I hear it with dull ears.
Farewell! I am weary, and wish to sleep.” | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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