The End of the World.A LOVE STORY.
BYEDWARD EGGLESTON
,AUTHOR OF "THE HOOSIER SCHOOL-MASTER," ETC.WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS.
NEW YORK:
ORANGE JUDD AND COMPANY,
245 BROADWAY.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
ORANGE JUDD &
CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
page: 5[View Page 5]PREFACE.
[IN THE POTENTIAL MOOD.]
IT is the pretty unanimous conclusion of book-writers that body reads them. And it is the pretty unanimous practice of book-writers to continue to write them with such pains and elaborateness as would indicate a belief that the success a graceful preface. My principal embarrassment is that it is then shall I choose between the half-dozen letters of introduction I might give my story, each better and worse on inclined to adopt the following, which might for some reasons be styled the.
PREFACE SENTIMENTAL.
Perhaps no writer not infatuated with conceit, can send out a book full of thought and feeling which, whatever they may be of his offspring. And there are few prefaces which do not in some way betray this nervousness. I confess to a respect for even the prefatory doggerel of good Tinker Bunyana respect for his paternal tenderness toward his book, not at all for his villainous rhyming. When I saw, the other day, the white handkerchiefs of my children mud-clerk on the Iatan, and the shaggy lord of Shady-Hollow Castle, and the rest, that have watched with me of nights and crossed the page: 6[View Page 6] ferry with me twice a day for half a yeareven now, as I see them waving me adieu with their red silk and "yaller" cotton "hand-kerchers," I know how many rocks of misunderstanding and criticism and how many shoals of damning faint praise are before them, and my heart is full of misgiving.
But it will never do to have misgivings in a preface. How often have publishers told me this! Ah! if I could write with half the heart and hope my publishers evince in their advertisements, where they talk about "front rank" and "great American story" and all that, it would doubtless be better for the book, provided anybody would read the preface or believe it when they had read it. But at any rate let us not have a preface in the minor key.
A philosophical friend of mine, who is addicted to Carlyle, has recommended that I try the following, which he calls
THE HIGH PHILOSOPHICAL PREFACE.
Why should I try to forestall the Verdict? Is it not foreordained in the very nature of a Book and the Constitution of the Reader that a certain very Definite Number of Headers will misunderstand and dislike a given Book? And that another very Definite Number will understand it and dislike it none the less? And that still a third class, also definitely fixed in the Eternal Nature of Things, will misunderstand and like it, and, what is more, like it only because of their misunderstanding? And in relation to a true Book, there can not fail to be an Elect Few who understand adminingy and understandingly admire. Why, then, make bows, write prefaces, attempt to prejudice the Case? Can I change the Reader? Will I change the Book? No? Then away with Preface! The destiny of the Book is fixed. I can not foretell it, for I am no prophet. But let us not hope to change the Fates by our prefatory bowing and scraping.
I was forced to confess to my friend who was so kind as to offer to lend me this preface, that there was much truth in it and that truth is nowhere more rare than in prefaces, but it was not possible to adopt it, for two reasons: one, that page: 7[View Page 7] my proof-reader can not abide so many capitals, maintaining that they disfigure the page, and what is a preface of the high philosophical sort worth without a profusion of capitals? Even Carlyle's columns would lose their greatest ornament if their capitals were gone. The second reason for declining to use this preface was that my publishers are not philosophers and would never be content with an "Elect Few," and for my own part the pecuniary interest I have in the copyright renders it quite desirable that as many as possible should be elected to like it, or at least to buy it.
After all it seems a pity that I can not bring myself to use a straightforward
APOLOGETIC AND EXPLANATORY PREFACE.
In view of the favor bestowed upon the author's previous story, both by the Public who Criticise and the Public who Buy, it seems a little laid in the valley of the Ohio. But the picture of Western country life in "The Hoosier School-Master" would not have been complete And indeed there is no provincial life richer in material if only one knew how to get at it.
Nothing is more reverent than a wholesome hatred of hypocrisy. If any man think I have offended against his religion, I must believe that his religion is not what it should be. If anybody shall imagine that this is a work of religious controversy leveled are, unfortunately, pretty widely distributed. However, if
And so on.
But why multiply examples of the half-dozen or more that I might, could, would, or should have written? Since everybody is agreed that nobody reads a preface, I have concluded to let the book go without any.
BROOKLYN, September, 1872.
page: 8[View Page 8]"And as he [Wordsworth] mingled freely with all kinds of men, he found a pith of sense and a solidity of judgment here and there among the unlearned which he had failed to find in the most lettered; from obscure men he heard high truths. . . . . And love, true love and pure, he found was no flower reared only in what was called refined society, and requiring leisure and polished manners for its growth. . . . . He believed that in country people, what is permanent in human nature, the essential feelings and passions of mankind, exist in greater simplicity and strength,"
--PRINCIPAL SHAIRP.
A DEDICATION.
IT would hardly be In character for me to dedicate thia book in good, stiff, old-fashioned tomb-stone style, but I could not have put in the background of scenery without being reminded of the two boys, inseparable as the Siamese twine, who gathered mussel-shells in the river marge, played hide-and-seek in the hollow sycamores, and led a happy life in the shadow of just such hills as those among which the events of this story took place. And all the more man who has relieved me of many burdens while I wrote this story, do I feel impelled to dedicate it to GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON, a manly man and a brotherly brother.
page: 9[View Page 9]CONTENTS.
- CHAPTER I.In Love with a Dutchman 11
- CHAPTER II.An Explosion 22
- CHAPTER III.A Fare well 26
- CHAPTER IV.A Counter-Irriant 35
- CHAPTER V.At the Castle 39
- CHAPTER VI.The Backwoods Philosopher 47
- CHAPTER VII.Within and Without 54
- CHAPTER VIII.Figgers won't Lie 57
- CHAPTER IX.The New Singing-Master 62
- CHAPTER X.An Offer of Help 71
- CHAPTER XI.The Coon-dog Argument 75
- CHAPTER XII.Two Mistakes 79
- CHAPTER XIII.The Spider Spins 89
- CHAPTER XIV.The Spider's Web 94
- CHAPTER XV.The Web Broken 101
- CHAPTER XVI.Jonas Expounds the Subject 109
- CHAPTER XVII.The Wrong Pew 115
- CHAPTER XVIII.The Encounter 123
- CHAPTER XIX.The Mother 129
- CHAPTER XX.The Steam-Doctor 133
- CHAPTER XXI.The Hawk in a New Part 145
- CHAPTER XXII.Jonas Expresses his Opinion on Dutchmen 149
- CHAPTER XXIII.Somethin' Ludickerous 154
- CHAPTER XXIV.The Giant Great-heart 162
- CHAPTER XXV.A Chapter of Betweens 167
- CHAPTER XXVI.A Nice Little Game 171
- CHAPTER XXVII.The Result of an Evening with Gentlemen 181
- CHAPTER XXVIII.Waking up an Ugly Customer 187
- CHAPTER XXIX.August and Norman 193
- CHAPTER XXX.Aground 197
- CHAPTER XXXI.Cynthy Ann's Sacrifice 200
- CHAPTER XXXII.Julia's Enterprise 207
- CHAPTER XXXIII.The Secret Stairway 212
- CHAPTER XXXIV.The Inverview 215
- CHAPTER XXXV.Getting Ready for the End 220
- CHAPTER XXXVI.The Sin of Sanctimony 225
- CHAPTER XXXVII.The Deluge 232
- CHAPTER XXXVIII.Scaring a Hawk 238
- CHAPTER XXXIX.Jonas takes an Appeal 243
- CHAPTER XL.Selling out 251
- page: 10[View Page 10]
- CHAPTER XLI.The Last Day and What Happened In it 256
- CHAPTER XLII.For Ever and Ever 264
- CHAPTER XLIII.The Midnight Alarm 271
- CHAPTER XLIV.Squaring Accounts 278
- CHAPTER XLV.New Plans 288
- CHAPTER XLVI.The Shiveree 293
ILLUSTRATIONS.
BY FRANK BEARD.
- The Backwoods Philosopher Frontispiece .
- Taking an Observation 14
- A Talk with a Plowman 17
- A little rustle brought her to consciousness 31
- Gottlieb 36
- The Castle 41
- The Sedilium at the Castle 45
- "Look at me" 49
- "Don't be oncjaritable, Jonas" 64
- The Hawk 67
- "Tell that to Jule" 85
- Tempted 91
- "Now I hate you" 97
- At Cynthy's Door 102
- Cynthy Ann had often said in class-meeting that temptations abounded on every hand 105
- Jonas 112
- Julia sat down in mortification 121
- "Good-by!" 126
- The Mother's Blessing 131
- Corn-Sweats and Calamus 134
- "Fire! Murder! Help!" 137
- Norman Anderson 151
- Somethin' Ludikerous 157
- To the Rescue 163
- A Nice Little Game 175
- The Mud-Clerk 183
- Waking up an Ugly Customer 191
- Cynthy Ann's Sacrifice 204
- A Pastoral Visit 227
- Brother Goshorn 246
- "Say them words over again" 248
- "I want to buy your place" 253