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Soldier's Bride And Other Tales (Notable American Authors)
Soldier's Bride And Other Tales - Notable American Authors Author:James Hall General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1833 Original Publisher: Key and Biddle Subjects: Literary Criticism / General Fiction / Literary Fiction / Short Stories Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / American / General Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illu... more »strations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: THE CAPTAIN'S LADY. After an absence of several years from my native city, I had lately the pleasure of paying it a visit; and, having spent a few days with my friends, was about to bid adieu, once more, to the goodly and quiet streets of Philadelphia. The day had not yet dawned, and I stood trembling at the door of the stage-office, muffled in a great coat, while the driver was securing my baggage. The streets were still and tenantless, and not a foot seemed to be travelling but my own. Every body slept, gentle and simple; for sleep is a gentle and simple thing. The watchmen slumbered; and the very lamps seemed to have caught the infectious drowsiness. I felt that I possessed at that moment a lordly pre-eminence among my fellow citizens; for they were all torpid, as dead to consciousness as swallows in the winter, or mummies in a catacomb. I alone had sense, knowledge, power, energy. The rest were all92 perdu -- shut up, like the imprisoned genii, wha were bottled away by Solomon, and cast into the sea. I could release them from durance, in an instant ; I could discharge either of them from imprisonment, or I could suffer the whole to remain spell-bound until the appointed time for their enlargement. Every thing slept; mayor, aldermen, and councils, the civil and the military, learning, and beauty, and eloquence, porters, dogs, and drays, steam engines and patent machines, even the elements reposed. If it had no...« less