| | 83 | Author: | O'Brien, Fitz-James | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Wondersmith  | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | A SMALL lane, the name of which I have forgotten, or do not
choose to remember, slants suddenly off from Chatham Street,
(before that headlong thoroughfare reaches into the Park,) and
retreats suddenly down towards the East River, as if it were
disgusted with the smell of old clothes, and had determined to wash
itself clean. This excellent intention it has, however, evidently
contributed towards the making of that imaginary pavement mentioned
in the old adage; for it is still emphatically a dirty street. It
has never been able to shake off the Hebraic taint of filth which
it inherits from the ancestral thoroughfare. It is slushy and
greasy, as if it were twin brother of the Roman Ghetto. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 84 | Author: | Osborne, William Hamilton | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | After Death — What | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | As Spalding — superannuated, possibly, but jaunty still — trotted
nimbly down the aisle between the rows of desks, glances of
welcome, murmurs of surprise, greeted him. He had become a
stranger; the office force had not seen him for full two years. He
nodded right and left, chuckled, as was his wont, and here and
there stretched out a hand. Plainly he was glad to greet the
Interstate Company once again, and that concern returned the
compliment. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 85 | Author: | Oskison, John M. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | "Only the Master Shall Praise." | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | ON the cattle ranges of the Indian Territory ten years ago he was
known as "the Runt," because he was several inches shorter than the
average puncher. His other title of "Hanner" had been fastened
upon him by a ludicrous incident in his youth. "Hanner the Runt"
was a half-breed Cherokee cow-boy, who combined with the stoicism
of the Indian something of the physical energy and mental weakness
of his white father. One of his shoulders was knocked down a
quarter of a foot lower than the other, two ribs had been "caved
in" on his left side, and a scar high up on his cheek-bone
indicated a stormy life. It was a matter of speculation in the
cow-camps as to the number of times Hanner had been thrown from
horses and discharged by his employers; he would have been called
the foot-ball of fate had these cow-boys been modern and college-bred. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 86 | Author: | Oskison, John M. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | 'The Quality of Mercy': A Story of the Indian Territory | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | MISS VENITA CHURCHFIELD took up eagerly the fresh, neatly folded
copy of the "Sachem" which a small half-breed Indian boy, with the
singular little war-whoop that invariably announced his weekly
delivery, had just thrown across the picket-fence. Going indoors,
she smiled at the three columns of cattle-brands displayed on
splotchy black cuts of steers, and was irritated anew that Efferts,
the editor, should continue to print them. They occupied a
considerable share of the four pages devoted to keeping the little
prairie town of Black Oak informed of the world's doings in and
outside of that small corner of the Indian Territory. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 90 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Assignation | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Ill-fated and mysterious man! — bewildered in the brilliancy
of thine own imagination, and fallen in the flames of thine own
youth! Again in fancy I behold thee! Once more thy form hath
risen before me! — not — oh not as thou art — in the cold valley and
shadow — but as thou shouldst be — squandering away a life of
magnificent meditation in that city of dim visions, thine own
Venice — which is a star-beloved Elysium of the sea, and the wide
windows of whose Palladian palaces look down with a deep and
bitter meaning upon the secrets of her silent waters. Yes! I
repeat it — as thou shouldst be. There are surely other worlds
than this — other thoughts than the thoughts of the multitude —
other speculations than the speculations of the sophist. Who
then shall call thy conduct into question? who blame thee for thy
visionary hours, or denounce those occupations as a
wasting away of life, which were but the overflowing of thine
everlasting energies? | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 95 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Man of the Crowd | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | It was well said of a certain German book that 'es lasst
sich nicht lesen' — it does not permit itself to be read. There
are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men
die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly
confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes — die with
despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the
hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be
revealed. Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes
up a burthen so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only
into the grave. And thus the essence of all crime is undivulged. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 97 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Domain of Arnheim | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | From his cradle to his grave a gale of prosperity bore my
friend Ellison along. Nor do I use the word prosperity in its
mere worldly sense. I mean it as synonymous with happiness. The
person of whom I speak seemed born for the purpose of
foreshadowing the doctrines of Turgot, Price, Priestley and
Condorcet — of exemplifying by individual instance what has been
deemed the chimera of the perfectionists. In the brief existence
of Ellison I fancy that I have seen refuted the dogma, that in
man's very nature lies some hidden principle, the antagonist of
bliss. An anxious examination of his career has given me to
understand that, in general, from the violation of a few simple
laws of humanity arises the wretchedness of mankind — that as a
species we have in our possession the as yet unwrought
elements of content — and that, even now, in the present darkness and
madness of all thought on the great question of the social
condition, it is not impossible that man, the individual, under
certain unusual and highly fortuitous conditions, may be happy. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 98 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Eleonora | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | I am come of a race noted for vigour of fancy and ardour of
passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet
settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence —
whether much that is glorious — whether all that is profound — does
not spring from disease of thought — from moods of mind
exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream
by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream
only by night. In their grey visions they obtain glimpses of
eternity, and thrill, in awaking, to find that they have been
upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn
something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere
knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however rudderless
or compassless, into the vast ocean of the
'light ineffable' and
again, like the adventurers of the Nubian geographer, '
aggressi sunt mare tenebrarum, quid in eo esset exploraturi'. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 99 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Hop-Frog | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | I never knew any one so keenly alive to a joke as the king
was. He seemed to live only for joking. To tell a good story of
the joke kind, and to tell it well, was the surest road to his
favour. Thus it happened that his seven ministers were all noted
for their accomplishments as jokers. They all took after the
king, too, in being large, corpulent, oily men, as well as
inimitable jokers. Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether
there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I
have never been quite able to determine; but certain it is that a
lean joker is a rara avis in terris. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 100 | Author: | Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809-1849 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Island of the Fay | | | | Published: | 1994 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | 'La musique,' says Marmontel, in those 'Contes Moraux'
1
which, in all our translations, we have insisted upon calling
'Moral Tales' as if in mockery of their spirit — 'la musique est
le seul des talents qui jouissent de lui-même; tous les autres
veulent des témoins.' He here confounds the pleasure derivable
from sweet sounds with the capacity for creating them. No more
than any other talent, is that for music susceptible of complete
enjoyment, where there is no second party to appreciate its
exercise. And it is only in common
with other talents that it produces effects which may be fully
enjoyed in solitude. The idea which the raconteur has either
failed to entertain clearly, or has sacrificed in its expression
to his national love of point, is, doubtless, the very tenable
one that the higher order of music is the most thoroughly
estimated when we are exclusively alone. The proposition, in
this form, will be admitted at once
by those who love the lyre
for its sake, and for its spiritual uses. But there is one
pleasure still within the reach of fallen mortality — and perhaps
only one — which owes even more than does music to the accessory
sentiment of seclusion. I mean the happiness experienced in the
contemplation of natural scenery. In truth, the man who would
behold aright the glory of God upon earth must in solitude behold
that glory. To me, at least, the presence — not of human life
only, but of life in any other form than that of the green things
which grow upon the soil and are voiceless — is a stain upon the
landscape — is at war with the genius of the scene. I love,
indeed, to regard the dark valleys, and the grey rocks, and the
waters that silently smile, and the forests that sigh in uneasy
slumbers, and the proud watchful mountains that look down upon
all — I love to regard these as themselves but the colossal
members of one vast animate and sentient whole — a whole whose
form (that of the sphere) is the most perfect and most inclusive
of all; whose path is among associate planets; whose meek
handmaiden is the moon; whose mediate sovereign is the sun; whose
life is eternity; whose thought is that of a God; whose enjoyment
is knowledge; whose destinies are lost in immensity; whose
cognizance of ourselves is akin with our own cognizance of the
animalculae which infest the brain — a being which we, in
consequence, regard as purely inanimate and material, much in the
same manner as these animalculae must thus regard us. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
|
