| | 201 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | John Inglefield's Thanksgiving  | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | On the evening of Thanksgiving Day, John Inglefield, the
blacksmith, sat in his elbow-chair, among those
who had been keeping festival at his board. Being
the central figure of the domestic circle, the
fire threw its strongest light on his massive and
sturdy frame, reddening his rough visage, so that
it looked like the head of an iron statue, all
aglow from his own forge, and with its features
rudely fashioned on his own anvil. At John
Inglefield's right hand was an empty chair. The
other places round the hearth were filled by the
members of the family, who all sat quietly, while,
with a semblance of fantastic merriment, their
shadows danced on the wall behind them. One of
the group was John Inglefield's son, who had been
bred at college, and was now a student of theology
at Andover. There was also a daughter of sixteen,
whom nobody could look at without thinking of a
rose-bud almost blossomed. The only other person
at the fireside was Robert Moore, formerly an
apprentice of the blacksmith, but now his
journeyman, and who seemed more like an own son of
John Inglefield than did the pale and slender
student. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 202 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Lady Eleanore`s Mantle | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | MINE excellent friend, the landlord of the Province House,
was pleased, the other evening, to invite Mr. Tiffany and
myself to an oyster supper. This slight mark of respect
and gratitude, as he handsomely observed, was far less than
the ingenious tale-teller, and I, the humble-note-taker of
his narratives, had fairly earned, by the public notice
which our joint lucubrations had attracted to his
establishment. Many a cigar had been smoked within his
premises-many a glass of wine, or more potent aqua vita,
had been quaffed-many a dinner had been eaten by curious
strangers, who, save for the fortunate conjunction of Mr.
Tiffany and me, would never have ventured through that
darksome avenue, which gives access to the historic
precincts of the Province House. In short, if any credit be
due to the courteous assurances of Mr. Thomas Waite, we
had brought his forgotten mansion almost as effectually
into public view as if we had thrown down the vulgar range
of shoe-shops and dry-good stores, which hides its
aristocratic front from Washington Street. It may be
unadvisable, however, to speak too loudly of the increased
custom of the house, lest Mr. Waite should find it difficult
to renew the lease on so favorable terms as heretofore. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 203 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Main-Street | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | A respectable-looking individual makes his bow, and
addresses the public. In my daily walks along the principal street of my
native town, it has often occurred to me, that, if its growth from infancy
upward, and the vicissitude of characteristic scenes that have passed along
this thoroughfare, during the more than two centuries of its existence, could
be presented to the eye in a shifting panorama, it would be an exceedingly
effective method of illustrating the march of time. Acting on this idea, I
have contrived a certain pictorial exhibition, somewhat in the nature of a
puppet-show, by means of which I propose to call up the multiform and
many-colored Past before the spectator, and show him the ghosts of his
forefathers, amid a succession of historic incidents, with no greater trouble
than the turning of a crank. Be pleased, therefore, my indulgent patrons, to
walk into the show-room, and take your seats before yonder mysterious curtain.
The little wheels and springs of my machinery have been well oiled; a
multitude of puppets are dressed in character, representing all varieties of
fashion, from the Puritan cloak and jerkin to the latest Oak Hall coat; the
lamps are trimmed, and shall brighten into noontide sunshine, or fade away in
moonlight, or muffle their brilliancy in a November cloud, as the nature of
the scene may require; and, in short, the exhibition is just ready to
commence. Unless something should go wrong, — as, for instance, the misplacing
of a picture, whereby the people and events of one century might be thrust
into the middle of another, or the breaking of a wire, which would bring the
course of time to a sudden period, — barring, I say, the casualties to which
such a complicated piece of mechanism is liable, I flatter myself, ladies and
gentlemen, that the performance will elicit your generous approbation. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 204 | Author: | Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Prophetic Pictures | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | BUT THIS PAINTER!" cried Walter Ludlow, with animation. "He not
only excels in his peculiar art, but possesses vast acquirements in
all other learning and science. He talks Hebrew with Dr. Mather, and
gives lectures in anatomy to Dr. Boylston. In a word, he will meet the
best instructed man among us on his own ground. Moreover, he is a
polished gentleman, a citizen of the world-yes, a true cosmopolite;
for he will speak like a native of each clime and country of the globe
except our own forests, whither he is now going. Nor is all this
what I most admire in him." | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 205 | Author: | Brock: Hutchinson, Thomas | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay (excerpt) / by Thomas Hutchinson | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Mr. Hutchinson, who was then speaker of the house of representatives,
imagined this to be a most favorable opportunity for abolishing bills of
credit, the source of so much iniquity and for establishing a stable
currency of silver and gold for the future. About two million two
hundred thousand pounds would be outstanding in bills in the year 1749.
One hundred and eighty thousand pounds sterling at eleven for one which
was the lowest rate of exchange with London for a year or two before,
and perhaps the difference was really twelve for one, would redeem
nineteen hundred and eighty thousand pounds, which would leave but two
hundred and twenty thousand pounds outstanding, it was therefore
proposed that the sum granted by parliament should be shipped to the
province in Spanish milled dollars and applied for the redemption of the
bills as far it would serve for that purpose, and that the remainder of
the bills should be drawn in by a tax on the year 1749. This would
finish the bills. For the future, silver of sterling alloy at
6s. 8d.
the ounce, if payment should be made in
bullion or otherwise milled
dollars at 6s. each should be the lawful money of the province and no
person should receive or pay within the province, bills of credit of any
of the other governments of New-England. This proposal being made to the
governor he approved of it as founded in justice and tending to promote
the real interest of the province, but he knew the attachment of the
people to paper money and supposed it impracticable. The speaker,
however, laid the proposal before the house, where it was received with
a smile and generally thought to be an Utopian project and, rather out
of deference to the speaker, than from an apprehension of any effect,
the house appointed a committee to consider of it. The committee treated
it in the same manner but reported that the speaker should be desired to
bring in a bill for the consideration of the house. When this came to be
known abroad, exceptions were taken and a clamour was raised from every
quarter. The major part of the people, in number, were no sufferers by a
depreciating currency, the number of debtors is always more than the
number of creditors, and although debts on specialties had allowance
made in judgments of court for depreciation of the bills, yet on simple
contracts, of which there were ten to one specialty, no allowance was
made. Those who were for a fixed currency were divided. Some supposed
the bills might be reduced to so small a quantity as to be fixed
andstable and, therefore, were for redeeming as many by bills of
exchange as should be thought superfluous; others were for putting an
end to the bills, but in a gradual way, otherwise it was said a fatal
shock would be given to trade. This last was the objection of many men
of good sense. Douglass, who had wrote well upon the paper currency and
had been the oracle of the anti-paper party was among them and, as his
manner was with all who differed from him, discovered as much rancor against the author and promoters of this new
project as he had done against the fraudulent contrivers of paper
money emissions. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 209 | Author: | Knight, Enoch | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Real Artemus Ward | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | THE above epitaph, written by the genial humorist's mother, one may
read on a marble slab in the little cemetery at Waterford, Oxford
County, Maine,— "Water-ford near Rum-ford," as he used to say, "the
little village that nestled amongst the hills and never did anything but
nestle." It is a charming spot where rest the remains of Charles Farrar
Browne, looking out upon the little lake, and hard by the edge of a
beech and maple wood,
Where ruddy children tumbled in their play,
And lovers came to woo,
in the days when I first knew the place. Born in the same year and in
the same neighborhood as himself, and all the scenes of his early life
being as dear and familiar to me as the songs of the birds or the crests
of the bordering hills, it has seemed partly a duty, as well as a
privilege and pleasure, to add my little contribution to the literature
his career has called forth. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 212 | Author: | Melville, Herman, 1819-1891 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Billy Budd / by Herman Melville | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IN THE time before steamships, or then more frequently than now, a
stroller along the docks of any considerable sea-port would
occasionally have his attention arrested by a group of bronzed
mariners, man-of-war's men or merchant-sailors in holiday attire
ashore on liberty. In certain instances they would flank, or, like a
body-guard quite surround some superior figure of their own class,
moving along with them like Aldebaran among the lesser lights of his
constellation. That signal object was the "Handsome Sailor" of the
less prosaic time alike of the military and merchant navies. With no
perceptible trace of the vainglorious about him, rather with the
off-hand unaffectedness of natural regality, he seemed to accept the
spontaneous homage of his shipmates. A somewhat remarkable instance
recurs to me. In Liverpool, now half a century ago, I saw under the
shadow of the great dingy street-wall of Prince's Dock (an obstruction
long since removed) a common sailor, so intensely black that he must
needs have been a native African of the unadulterate blood of Ham. A
symmetric figure much above the average height. The two ends of a
gay silk handkerchief thrown loose about the neck danced upon the
displayed ebony of his chest; in his ears were big hoops of gold,
and a Scotch Highland bonnet with a tartan band set off his shapely
head. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 213 | Author: | Merritt, Abraham, 1882-1943 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | The Metal Monster / by Abraham Merritt | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IN THIS great crucible of life we call the world—in the
vaster one we call the universe—the mysteries lie close
packed, uncountable as grains of sand on ocean's shores.
They thread gigantic, the star-flung spaces; they creep,
atomic, beneath the microscope's peering eye. They walk
beside us, unseen and unheard, calling out to us, asking
why we are deaf to their crying, blind to their wonder. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 218 | Author: | Raine, William McLeod | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | "At the Dropping-off Place" | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | IN THE cabin situated on Lot 10, Block E, Water Street, Eagle City,
Alaska, four men were striving to wear away the torment-laden, sleepless
Yukon night. It was twelve o'clock by the Waterbury watch which hung on
the wall, but save for a slight murkiness there was no sign of darkness.
The mosquitoes hummed with a fiendish pertinacity that effectually
precluded sleep. The thermometer registered one hundred degrees of
torture. A thick smoke from four pipes and a smudge-fire hung cloudlike
over the room, but entirely failed to disturb the countless pests. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 219 | Author: | Sadlier, Anna T. | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Arabella | | | | Published: | 2000 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Arabella stood thoughtfully there on that ridge of land, where the brown
earth was studded with daisies and mulleins, the common children of the soil.
The sky was a clear gold at the horizon, and Arabella, gazing thereon, pondered
on something she had just heard. She had suddenly become an heiress. She
looked down on her plain, brown frock, at her coarse shoes, and at her hands
roughened by work about the house. She had been the orphan, the charity-child,
and now — | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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