| | 182 | Author: | Chesnutt, Charles Waddell, 1858-1932 | Add | | | Title: | The House Behind the Cedars  | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | TIME touches all things with destroying hand;
and if he seem now and then to bestow the bloom
of youth, the sap of spring, it is but a brief
mockery, to be surely and swiftly followed by the
wrinkles of old age, the dry leaves and bare branches
of winter. And yet there are places where Time
seems to linger lovingly long after youth has
departed, and to which he seems loath to bring the
evil day. Who has not known some even-tempered
old man or woman who seemed to have
drunk of the fountain of youth? Who has not
seen somewhere an old town that, having long
since ceased to grow, yet held its own without
perceptible decline?
You may think it
strange that I should address you after what has
passed between us; but learning from my mother
of your presence in the neighborhood, I am
constrained to believe that you do not find my
proximity embarrassing, and I cannot resist the wish
to meet you at least once more, and talk over the
circumstances of our former friendship. From a
practical point of view this may seem superfluous,
as the matter has been definitely settled. I have
no desire to find fault with you; on the contrary,
I wish to set myself right with regard to my own
actions, and to assure you of my good wishes. In
other words, since we must part, I would rather we
parted friends than enemies. If nature and society
—or Fate, to put it another way—have decreed
that we cannot live together, it is nevertheless
possible that we may carry into the future a pleasant
though somewhat sad memory of a past friendship.
Will you not grant me one interview? I
appreciate the difficulty of arranging it; I have
found it almost as hard to communicate with you
by letter. I will suit myself to your convenience
and meet you at any time and place you may
designate. Please answer by bearer, who I think is
trustworthy, and believe me, whatever your answer may be, Dear Sir,—I have requested your messenger
to say that I will answer your letter by mail, which
I shall now proceed to do. I assure you that
I was entirely ignorant of your residence in this
neighborhood, or it would have been the last place
on earth in which I should have set foot. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 183 | Author: | Chesnutt, Charles Waddell, 1858-1932 | Add | | | Title: | The March of Progress | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE colored people of Patesville had at length gained the object
they had for a long time been seeking—the appointment of a
committee of themselves to manage the colored schools of the town.
They had argued, with some show of reason, that they were most
interested in the education of their own children, and in a
position to know, better than any committee of white men could,
what was best for their children's needs. The appointments had
been made by the county commissioners during the latter part of the
summer, and a week later a meeting was called for the purpose of
electing a teacher to take charge of the grammar school at the
beginning of the fall term. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 184 | Author: | Chopin, Kate | Add | | | Title: | Ozeme's Holiday | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | OZÈME often wondered why there was not a special dispensation
of providence to do away with the necessity for work. There seemed
to him so much created for man's enjoyment in this world, and so
little time and opportunity to profit by it. To sit and do nothing
but breathe was already a pleasure to Ozème; but to sit in the
company of a few choice companions, including a sprinkling of
ladies, was even a greater delight; and the joy which a day's
hunting or fishing or picnicking afforded him is hardly to be
described. Yet he was by no means indolent. He worked faithfully
on the plantation the whole year long, in a sort of methodical way;
but when the time came around for his annual week's holiday, there
was no holding him back. It was often decidedly inconvenient for
the planter that Ozème usually chose to take his holiday during
some very busy season of the year. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 185 | Author: | Chopin, Kate | Add | | | Title: | Regret. | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | MAMZELLE AURÉLIE possessed a good strong figure, ruddy cheeks,
hair that was changing from brown to gray, and a determined eye.
She wore a man's hat about the farm, and an old blue army overcoat
when it was cold, and sometimes top-boots. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 186 | Author: | Clouston, J. Storer | Add | | | Title: | Count Bunker | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IT is only with the politest affectation of interest,
as a rule, that English Society learns the arrival
in its midst of an ordinary Continental nobleman;
but the announcement that the Baron Rudolph
von Blitzenberg had been appointed attaché to the German
embassy at the Court of St. James was unquestionably
received with a certain flutter of excitement. That
his estates were as vast as an average English county,
and his ancestry among the noblest in Europe, would
not alone perhaps have arrested the attention of the
paragraphists, since acres and forefathers of foreign
extraction are rightly regarded as conferring at the most a
claim merely to toleration. But in addition to these he
possessed a charming English wife, belonging to one of
the most distinguished families in the peerage (the Grillyers
of Monkton-Grillyer), and had further demonstrated
his judgment by purchasing the winner of the
last year's Derby, with a view to improving the horse-flesh of his native land. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 189 | Author: | Cooper, James Fenimore | Add | | | Title: | The Eclipse | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Note by the Editor.—During Mr. Cooper's residence at
Paris, he wrote, at the request of an English friend, his
recollections of the great eclipse of 1806. This article, which is
undated, must have been written about the year 1831, or twenty-five
years after the eclipse. His memory was at that period of his life
very clear and tenacious, where events of importance were
concerned. From some accidental cause, this article was never sent
to England, but lay, apparently forgotten, among Mr. Cooper's
papers, where it was found after his death. At the date of the
eclipse, the writer was a young sailor of seventeen, just returned
from a cruise. At the time of writing these recollections, he had
been absent from his old home in Otsego County some fifteen years,
and his affectionate remembrance of the ground may be traced in
many little touches, which would very possibly have been omitted
under other circumstances. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 192 | Author: | Crane, Stephen, 1871-1900 | Add | | | Title: | The Men in the Storm | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | AT about three o'clock of the February afternoon, the blizzard
began to swirl great clouds of snow along the streets, sweeping it
down from the roofs and up from the pavements until the faces of
pedestrians tingled and burned as from a thousand needle-prickings.
Those on the walks huddled their necks closely in the collars of
their coats and went along stooping like a race of aged people.
The drivers of vehicles hurried their horses furiously on their
way. They were made more cruel by the exposure of their positions,
aloft on high seats. The street cars, bound up-town, went slowly,
the horses slipping and straining in the spongy brown mass that lay
between the rails. The drivers, muffled to the eyes, stood erect
and facing the wind, models of grim philosophy. Overhead the
trains rumbled and roared, and the dark structure of the elevated
railroad, stretching over the avenue, dripped little streams and
drops of water upon the mud and snow beneath it. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 193 | Author: | Crane, Stephen, 1871-1900 | Add | | | Title: | The Veteran | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | OUT of the low window could be seen three hickory trees placed
irregularly in a meadow that was resplendent in spring-time green.
Farther away, the old dismal belfry of the village church loomed
over the pines. A horse meditating in the shade of one of the
hickories lazily swished his tail. The warm sunshine made an
oblong of vivid yellow on the floor of the grocery. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 194 | Author: | Davis, Rebecca Harding, 1831-1910 | Add | | | Title: | Anne | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IT was a strange thing, the like of which had never before happened
to Anne. In her matter-of-fact, orderly life mysterious
impressions were rare. She tried to account for it afterward by
remembering that she had fallen asleep out-of-doors. And out-of-doors, where there is the hot sun and the sea and the teeming earth
and tireless winds, there are perhaps great forces at work, both
good and evil, mighty creatures of God going to and fro, who do not
enter into the strong little boxes in which we cage ourselves. One
of these, it may be, had made her its sport for the time. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 195 | Author: | Davis, Rebecca Harding, 1831-1910 | Add | | | Title: | An Ignoble Martyr | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | OLD Aaron Pettit, who had tried to live for ten years with half of
his body dead from paralysis, had given up at last. He was
altogether dead now, and laid away out of sight in the three-cornered lot where the Pettits had been buried since colonial days.
The graveyard was a triangle cut out of the wheat field by a
certain Osee Pettit in 1695. Many a time had Aaron, while
ploughing, stopped to lean over the fence and calculate how many
bushels of grain the land thus given up to the dead men would have
yielded. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 197 | Author: | Dawes, Henry L. | Add | | | Title: | "The Indian Territory." | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IN order to understand the purpose for which the Commission to the
Five Civilized Tribes was created, and the present condition of
their work, it will be necessary to refresh our memories as to the
conditions which caused its appointment. So much of the past of
these tribes as is essential for this purpose is briefly this.
These tribes are the Cherokees, the Choctaws, the Chickasaws, the
Creeks, and the Seminoles, numbering about 64,000 at the last
census. Seventy years ago they were living on their own lands in
Georgia, North Carolina and Mississippi, and to induce them to
surrender these lands to the white men of the States where they
were situated, the United States gave them in exchange the Indian
Territory. In the treaties made with them we conveyed the title to
the lands directly to the tribes for the use of the people of the
tribes to hold as long as they maintained their tribal
organizations and occupied them. This stipulation prevented their
parting with them without the consent of the United States. We
stipulated in these treaties that they should have the right to
establish their own governments without our interference, such
governments as they pleased, not in conflict with the constitution
of the United States. We also covenanted with them that we would
keep all the white people out of their territory. Having thus set
them up for themselves in a territory far west of any of the
States, beyond all further trouble, as it was thought, we left them
to do as they pleased for forty years. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 198 | Author: | Dodge, David | Add | | | Title: | "The Free Negroes of North Carolina" | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | According to the census of 1860, there were in the United States,
in round numbers, 487,000 free negroes, of which the fifteen slave-holding States contained 251,000. Virginia stood first, with
58,000; North Carolina second, with 30,000; and in the seven States
south of these, in which the most rigorous free-negro laws
prevailed, there were a total of less than 40,000. In Virginia
they formed 10.60 per cent. of the negro population, in North
Carolina 8.42 per cent., and in the other seven States alluded to
considerably less than two per cent. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 199 | Author: | Douglass, Frederick, 1817?-1895 | Add | | | Title: | "The Color Line" | | | | Published: | 1995 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Few evils are less accessible to the force of reason, or more
tenacious of life and power, than a long-standing prejudice. It is
a moral disorder, which creates the conditions necessary to its own
existence, and fortifies itself by refusing all contradiction. It
paints a hateful picture according to its own diseased imagination,
and distorts the features of the fancied original to suit the
portrait. As those who believe in the visibility of ghosts can
easily see them, so it is always easy to see repulsive qualities in
those we despise and hate. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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