| | 41 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Add | | | Title: | Mercedes of Castile, Or, the Voyage to Cathay  | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Whether we take the pictures of the inimitable Cervantes,
or of that scarcely less meritorious author from
whom Le Sage has borrowed his immortal tale, for our
guides; whether we confide in the graver legends of history,
or put our trust in the accounts of modern travellers,
the time has scarcely ever existed when the inns of Spain
were good, or the roads safe. These are two of the blessings
of civilization which the people of the peninsula would
really seem destined never to attain; for, in all ages, we
hear, or have heard, of wrongs done the traveller equally by
the robber and the host. If such are the facts to-day, such
also were the facts in the middle of the fifteenth century,
the period to which we desire to carry back the reader in
imagination. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 42 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Add | | | Title: | Mercedes of Castile, Or, the Voyage to Cathay | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | The slumbers of Columbus were of short duration.
While his sleep lasted it was profound, like that of a man
who has so much control over his will as to have reduced
the animal functions to its domination, for he awoke regularly
at short intervals, in order that his watchful eye might
take a survey of the state of the weather, and of the condition
of his vessels. On this occasion, the admiral was on
deck again, a little after one, where he found all things
seemingly in that quiet and inspiring calm that ordinarily
marks, in fine weather, a middle watch at sea. The men
on deck mostly slumbered, the drowsy pilot, and the steersman,
with a look-out or two, alone remaining erect and
awake. The wind had freshened, and the caravel was
ploughing her way ahead, with an untiring industry, leaving
Ferro and its dangers, at each instant, more and more
remote. The only noises that were audible, were the gentle
sighing of the wind among the cordage, the wash of the
water, and the occasional creaking of a yard, as the breeze
forced it, with a firmer pressure, to distend its tackle and to
strain its fittings. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 43 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Add | | | Title: | The Pathfinder, Or, the Inland Sea | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | The sublimity connected with vastness is familiar to every
eye. The most abstruse, the most far-reaching, perhaps the
most chastened of the poet's thoughts, crowd on the imagination
as he gazes into the depths of the illimitable void. The expanse
of the ocean is seldom seen by the novice with indifference,
and the mind, even in the obscurity of night, finds a parallel
to that grandeur, which seems inseparable from images
that the senses cannot compass. With feelings akin to this admiration
and awe—the offspring of sublimity—were the different
characters with which the action of this tale must open,
gazing on the scene before them. Four persons in all—two
of each sex—they had managed to ascend a pile of trees,
that had been uptorn by a tempest, to catch a view of the
objects that surrounded them. It is still the practice of the
country to call these spots wind-rows. By letting in the
light of heaven upon the dark and damp recesses of the
wood, they form a sort of oases in the solemn obscurity of
the virgin forests of America. The particular wind-row of
which we are writing, lay on the brow of a gentle acclivity,
and, though small, it had opened the way for an extensive
view to those who might occupy its upper margin, a rare
occurrence to the traveller in the woods. As usual, the spot
was small, but owing to the circumstances of its lying on the
low acclivity mentioned, and that of the opening's extending
downward, it offered more than common advantages to the
eye. Philosophy has not yet determined the nature of the
power that so often lays desolate spots of this description:
some ascribing it to the whirlwinds that produce water-spouts
on the ocean; while others again impute it to sudden and
violent passages of streams of the electric fluid; but the effects
in the woods are familiar to all. On the upper margin
of the opening to which there is allusion, the viewless influence
had piled tree on tree, in such a manner as had not only
enabled the two males of the party to ascend to an elevation
of some thirty feet above the level of the earth, but, with a
little care and encouragement, to induce their more timid
companions to accompany them. The vast trunks that had
been broken and driven by the force of the gust, lay blended
like jack-straws, while their branches, still exhaling the
fragrance of wilted leaves, were interlaced in a manner to
afford sufficient support to the hands. One tree had been
completely uprooted, and its lower end, filled with earth,
had been cast uppermost, in a way to supply a sort of
staging for the four adventurers, when they had gained the
desired distance from the ground. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 44 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Add | | | Title: | The Pathfinder, Or, the Inland Sea | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | As the day advanced, that portion of the inmates of the
vessel which had the liberty of doing so, appeared on deck.
As yet, the sea was not very high, from which it was inferred,
that the cutter was still under the lee of the islands; but
it was apparent to all who understood the lake, that they
were about to experience one of the heavy autumnal gales
of that region. Land was nowhere visible; and the horizon,
on every side, exhibited that gloomy void, which lends to all
views, on vast bodies of water, the sublimity of mystery.
The swells, or, as landsmen term them, the waves, were
short and curling, breaking of necessity sooner than the
longer seas of the ocean; while the element itself, instead of
presenting that beautiful hue, which rivals the deep tint of
the southern sky, looked green and angry, though wanting
in the lustre that is derived from the rays of the sun. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 45 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Add | | | Title: | The Two Admirals | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | “Well, Sir Jarvy,” said Galleygo, following on the
heels of the two admirals, as the latter entered the dressing-room
of the officer addressed; “it has turned out just as I
thought; and the County of Fair-villian has come out of his
hole, like a porpoise coming up to breathe, the moment our
backs is turned! As soon as we gives the order to squareaway
for England, and I sees the old Planter's cabin windows
turned upon France, I foreseed them consequences.
Well, gentlemen, here's been a heap of prize-money made
in this house, without much fighting. We shall have to give
the young lieutenant a leave, for a few months, in order that
he may take his swing ashore, here, among his brother
squires!” “My dear Oakes:—Since we parted, my mind has undergone
some violent misgivings as to the course duty requires
of me, in this great crisis. One hand—one heart—
one voice even, may decide the fate of England! In such
circumstances, all should listen to the voice of conscience,
and endeavour to foresee the consequences of their own acts.
Confidential agents are in the west of England, and one of
them I have seen. By his communications I find more depends
on myself than I could have imagined, and more on
the movements of M. de Vervillin. Do not be too sanguine
—take time for your own decisions, and grant me time; for
I feel like a wretch whose fate must soon be sealed. On no
account engage, because you think this division near enough
to sustain you, but at least keep off until you hear from me
more positively, or we can meet. I find it equally hard to
strike a blow against my rightful prince, or to desert my
friend. For God's sake act prudently, and depend on seeing
me in the course of the next twenty-four hours. I shall
keep well to the eastward, in the hope of falling in with you,
as I feel satisfied de Vervillin has nothing to do very far
west. I may send some verbal message by the bearer, for
my thoughts come sluggishly, and with great reluctance. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 46 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Add | | | Title: | Satanstoe, or, The Littlepage manuscripts | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | It is easy to foresee that this country is destined to undergo
great and rapid changes. Those that more properly
belong to history, history will doubtless attempt to record,
and probably with the questionable veracity and prejudice
that are apt to influence the labours of that particular muse;
but there is little hope that any traces of American society,
in its more familiar aspects, will be preserved among us,
through any of the agencies usually employed for such purposes.
Without a stage, in a national point of view at least,
with scarcely such a thing as a book of memoirs that relates
to a life passed within our own limits, and totally without
light literature, to give us simulated pictures of our manners
and the opinions of the day, I see scarcely a mode by which the
next generation can preserve any memorials of the distinctive
usages and thoughts of this. It is true, they will have traditions
of certain leading features of the colonial society,
but scarcely any records; and, should the next twenty years
do as much as the last, towards substituting an entirely new
race for the descendants of our own immediate fathers, it is
scarcely too much to predict that even these traditions will
be lost in the whirl and excitement of a throng of strangers.
Under all the circumstances, therefore, I have come to a determination
to make an effort, however feeble it may prove,
to preserve some vestiges of household life in New York,
at least; while I have endeavoured to stimulate certain
friends in New Jersey, and farther south, to undertake similar
tasks in those sections of the country. What success
will attend these last applications, is more than I can say;
but, in order that the little I may do myself shall not be lost
for want of support, I have made a solemn request in my
will, that those who come after me will consent to continue
this narrative, committing to paper their own experience, as
I have here committed mine, down as low at least as my
grandson, if I ever have one. Perhaps, by the end of the
latter's career, they will begin to publish books in America,
and the fruits of our joint family labours may be thought
sufficiently matured to be laid before the world. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 47 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Add | | | Title: | The redskins, or, Indian and Injin | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | In a minute or two the tumult ceased, and a singular
scene presented itself. The church had four separate groups
or parties left in it, besides the Injins, who crowded the
main isle. The chairman, secretary, two ministers and lecturer,
remained perfectly tranquil in their seats, probably
understanding quite well they had nothing to fear from the
intruders. Mr. Warren and Mary were in another corner,
under the gallery, he having disdained flight, and prudently
kept his daughter at his side. My uncle and myself were
the pendants of the two last named, occupying the opposite
corner, also under the gallery. Mr. Hall, and two or three
friends who stuck by him, were in a pew near the wall, but
about half way down the church, the former erect on a seat,
where he had placed himself to speak. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 48 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Add | | | Title: | The crater, or, Vulcan's Peak | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | There is nothing in which American Liberty, not always
as much restrained as it might be, has manifested a more
decided tendency to run riot, than in the use of names.
As for Christian names, the Heathen Mythology, the Bible,
Ancient History, and all the classics, have long since been
exhausted, and the organ of invention has been at work
with an exuberance of imagination that is really wonderful
for such a matter-of-fact people. Whence all the strange
sounds have been derived which have thus been pressed
into the service of this human nomenclature, it would
puzzle the most ingenious philologist to say. The days
of the Kates, and Dollys, and Pattys, and Bettys, have
passed away, and in their stead we hear of Lowinys,
and Orchistrys, Philenys, Alminys, Cythérys, Sarahlettys,
Amindys, Marindys, &c. &c. &c. All these last appellations
terminate properly with an a, but this unfortunate vowel,
when a final letter, being popularly pronounced like y, we
have adapted our spelling to the sound, which produces a
complete bathos to all these flights in taste. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 49 | Author: | Cooper
James Fenimore
1789-1851 | Add | | | Title: | The crater, or, Vulcan's Peak | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | The building of the houses, and of the schooner, was
occupation for everybody, for a long time. The first were
completed in season to escape the rains; but the last was
on the stocks fully six months after her keel had been laid.
The fine weather had returned, even, and she was not yet
launched. So long a period had intervened since Waally's
visit to Rancocus Island without bringing any results, that
the council began to hope the Indians had given up their
enterprises, from the consciousness of not having the
means to carry them out; and almost every one ceased to
apprehend danger from that quarter. In a word, so
smoothly did the current of life flow, on the Reef and at
Vulcan's Peak, that there was probably more danger of
their inhabitants falling into the common and fatal error
of men in prosperity, than of anything else; or, of their
beginning to fancy that they deserved all the blessings that
were conferred on them, and forgetting the hand that bestowed
them. As is to recall them to a better sense of
things, events now occurred which it is our business to
relate, and which aroused the whole colony from the sort
of pleasing trance into which they had fallen, by the united
influence of security, abundance, and a most seductive
climate. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 54 | Author: | Poe
Edgar Allan
1809-1849 | Add | | | Title: | Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Antiochus Epiphanes is very generally looked
upon as the Gog of the prophet Ezekiel. This honor
is, however, more properly attributable to Cambyses,
the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the character of the
Syrian monarch does by no means stand in need of
any adventitious embollishment. His accession to
the throne, or rather his usurpation of the sovereignty,
a hundred and seventy-one years before the coming
of Christ—his attempt to plunder the temple of
Diana at Ephesus—his implacable hostility to the
Jews—his pollution of the Holy of Holies, and his
miserable death at Taba, after a tumultuous reign of
eleven years, are circumstances of a prominent kind,
and therefore more generally noticed by the historians
of his time than the impious, dastardly, cruel,
silly, and whimsical achievements which make up
the sum total of his private life and reputation. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 55 | Author: | Sedgwick
Catharine Maria
1789-1867 | Add | | | Title: | A New-england Tale, Or, Sketches of New-england Character and Manners | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Mr. Elton was formerly a flourishing trader,
or, in country phrase, a merchant, in the village
of—. In the early part of his life he had
been successful in business; and having a due portion
of that mean pride which is gratified by pecuniary
superiority, he was careful to appear quite
as rich as he was. When he was at the top of
fortune's wheel, some of his prying neighbours
shrewdly suspected, that the show of his wealth
was quite out of proportion to the reality; and
their side glances and prophetic whispers betrayed
their contempt of the offensive airs of the
purse-proud man. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 57 | Author: | Simms
William Gilmore
1806-1870 | Add | | | Title: | Beauchampe, Or, the Kentucky Tragedy | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | The stormy and rugged winds of March were overblown—the
first fresh smiling days of April had come at
last—the days of sunshine and shower, of fitful breezes,
the breath of blossoms, and the newly awakened song of
birds. Spring was there in all the green and glory of her
youth, and the bosom of Kentucky heaved with the prolific
burden of the season. She had come, and her messengers
were every where, and every where busy. The birds bore
her gladsome tidings to
“Alley green,
Dingle or bushy dell of each wild wood,
And every bosky bourn from side to side—”
nor were the lately trodden and seared grasses of the forests
left unnoted; and the humbled flower of the wayside
sprang up at her summons. Like some loyal and devoted
people, gathered to hail the approach of a long exiled and
well-beloved sovereign, they crowded upon the path over
which she came, and yielded themselves with gladness at
her feet. The mingled songs and sounds of their rejoicing
might be heard, and far off murmurs of gratulation, rising
from the distant hollows, or coming faintly over the hill
tops, in accents not the less pleasing because they were the
less distinct. That lovely presence which makes every
land blossom and every living thing rejoice, met, in the
happy region in which we meet her now, a double tribute
of honour and rejoicing. The “dark and bloody ground,”
by which mournful epithets Kentucky was originally
known to the Anglo-American, was dark and bloody no
longer. The savage had disappeared from its green forests
for ever, and no longer profaned with slaughter, and his
unholy whoop of death, its broad and beautiful abodes. A
newer race had succeeded; and the wilderness, fulfilling
the better destinies of earth, had begun to blossom like the
rose. Conquest had fenced in its sterile borders, with a
wall of fearless men, and peace slept every where in security
among its green recesses. Stirring industry—the
perpetual conqueror—made the woods resound with the
echoes of his biting axe and ringing hammer. Smiling villages
rose in cheerful white, in place of the crumbling and
smoky cabins of the hunter. High and becoming purposes
of social life and thoughtful enterprise superseded that
eating and painful decay, which has terminated in the
annihilation of the native man; and which, among every
people, must always result from their refusal to exercise,
according to the decree of experience, no less than Providence,
their limbs and sinews in tasks of well directed
and continual labour. A great nation urging on a sleepless
war against sloth and feebleness, is one of the noblest of
human spectacles. This warfare was rapidly and hourly
changing the monotony and dreary aspects of rock and
forest. Under the creative hands of art, temples of magnificence
rose where the pines had fallen. Long and lovely
vistas were opened through the dark and hitherto impervious
thickets. The city sprang up beside the river, while
hamlets, filled with active hope and cheerful industry,
crowded upon the verdant hill-side, and clustered among
innumerable valleys. Grace began to seek out the homes
of toil, and taste supplied their decorations. A purer form
of religion hallowed the forest homes of the red man,
while expelling for ever the rude divinities of his worship;
and throughout the land, an advent of moral loveliness
seemed approaching, not less grateful to the affections and
the mind, than was the beauty of the infant April, to the
eye and the heart of the wanderer. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 58 | Author: | Simms
William Gilmore
1806-1870 | Add | | | Title: | Beauchampe, Or, the Kentucky Tragedy | | | | Published: | 1997 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Modern English collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | Having seen his enemy fairly mounted and under way,
as he thought, for Charlemont, Ned Hinkley returned to
Ellisland for his own horse. Here he did not suffer himself
to linger, though before he could succeed in taking
his departure, he was subjected to a very keen and searching
examination by the village publican and politician.
Having undergone this scrutiny with tolerable patience, if
not to the entire satisfaction of the examiner, he set forward
at a free canter, determined that his adversary should
not be compelled to wait. It was only while he rode that
he began to fancy the possibility of the other having taken
a different course; but as, upon reflection, he saw no
other plan, which he might have adopted—for lynching
for suspected offences was not yet a popular practice in and
about Charlemont,—he contented himself with the reflection
that he had done all that could have been done, and if
Alfred Stevens failed to keep his appointment, he, at least,
was one of the losers. He would necessarily lose the
chance of revenging an indignity, not to speak of the
equally serious loss of that enjoyment which a manly
fight usually gave to Ned Hinkley himself, and which, he
accordingly assumed, must be an equal gratification to all
other persons. When he arrived at Charlemont, he did
not make his arrival known, but repairing directly to the
lake among the hills, he hitched his horse, and prepared,
with what patience he could command, to await the coming
of the enemy. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
|
