The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today

Laura soon discovered that there were three distinct aristocracies in Washington. One of these, (nick-named the Antiques,) consisted of cultivated, high-bred old families who lo...

Mr. Buckstone's campaign was brief--much briefer than he supposed it would be. He began it purposing to win Laura without being won himself; but his experience was that of all w...

When Mr. Noble's bombshell fell in Senator Dilworthy's camp, the statesman was disconcerted for a moment. For a moment; that was all. The next moment he was calmly up and doing....

We skip ten years and this history finds certain changes to record. Judge Hawkins and Col. Sellers have made and lost two or three moderate fortunes in the meantime and are now...

The galleries of the House were packed, on the momentous day, not because the reporting of an important bill back by a committee was a thing to be excited about, if the bill wer...

The locality was Obedstown, East Tennessee. You would not know that Obedstown stood on the top of a mountain, for there was nothing about the landscape to indicate it--but it di...

Whatever may have been the language of Harry's letter to the Colonel, the information it conveyed was condensed or expanded, one or the other, from the following episode of his...

--Seventhly, Before his Voyage, He should make his peace with God, satisfie his Creditors if he be in debt; Pray earnestly to God to prosper him in his Voyage, and to keep him f...

It is the fashion in New England to give Indian names to the public houses, not that the late lamented savage knew how to keep a hotel, but that his warlike name may impress the...

She, the gracious lady, yet no paines did spare To doe him ease, or doe him remedy: Many restoratives of vertues rare And costly cordialles she did apply, To mitigate his stubbo...

Eli Bolton and his wife talked over Ruth's case, as they had often done before, with no little anxiety. Alone of all their children she was impatient of the restraints and monot...

It is impossible for the historian, with even the best intentions, to control events or compel the persons of his narrative to act wisely or to be successful. It is easy to see...

Philip left the capitol and walked up Pennsylvania Avenue in company with Senator Dilworthy. It was a bright spring morning, the air was soft and inspiring; in the deepening way...

The capital of the Great Republic was a new world to country-bred Washington Hawkins. St. Louis was a greater city, but its floating population did not hail from great distances...

MAMMON. Come on, sir. Now, you set your foot on shore In Novo Orbe; here's the rich Peru: And there within, sir, are the golden mines, Great Solomon's Ophir!---- B. Jonson

Mrs. Hawkins slowly and conscientiously, as if every detail of her family history was important, told the story of the steamboat explosion, of the finding and adoption of Laura....

Il veut faire secher de la neige au four et la vendre pour du sel blanc. When the Boreas backed away from the land to continue her voyage up the river, the Hawkinses were richer...

While Ruth was thus absorbed in her new occupation, and the spring was wearing away, Philip and his friends were still detained at the Southern Hotel. The great contractors had...

What ever to say be toke in his entente, his langage was so fayer & pertynante, yt semeth unto manys herying not only the worde, but veryly the thyng. Caxton's Book of Curtesye.

Mr. Harry Brierly drew his pay as an engineer while he was living at the City Hotel in Hawkeye. Mr. Thompson had been kind enough to say that it didn't make any difference wheth...

Philip Sterling was on his way to Ilium, in the state of Pennsylvania. Ilium was the railway station nearest to the tract of wild land which Mr. Bolton had commissioned him to e...

Only two or three days had elapsed since the funeral, when something happened which was to change the drift of Laura's life somewhat, and influence in a greater or lesser degree...

Hannah Shoecraft told another cousin that, for her part, she never believed that Ruth had so much more “mind” than other people; and Cousin Hulda added that she always thought R...

Eight years have passed since the death of Mr. Hawkins. Eight years are not many in the life of a nation or the history of a state, but they may be years of destiny that shall f...

Henry Brierly took the stand. Requested by the District Attorney to tell the jury all he knew about the killing, he narrated the circumstances substantially as the reader alread...

This was the announcement at the tent door that woke Philip out of a sound sleep at dead of night, and shook all the sleepiness out of him in a trice.

Henry Brierly was at the Dilworthy's constantly and on such terms of intimacy that he came and went without question. The Senator was not an inhospitable man, he liked to have g...

The court room was packed on the morning on which the verdict of the jury was expected, as it had been every day of the trial, and by the same spectators, who had followed its p...

For some days Laura had been a free woman once more. During this time, she had experienced--first, two or three days of triumph, excitement, congratulations, a sort of sunburst...

The case of the State of New York against Laura Hawkins was finally set down for trial on the 15th day of February, less than a year after the shooting of George Selby.

Via, Pecunia! when she's run and gone And fled, and dead, then will I fetch her again With aqua vita, out of an old hogshead! While there are lees of wine, or dregs of beer, I'l...

It had been a bad winter, somehow, for the firm of Pennybacker, Bigler and Small. These celebrated contractors usually made more money during the session of the legislature at H...

----“We have view'd it, And measur'd it within all, by the scale The richest tract of land, love, in the kingdom! There will be made seventeen or eighteeen millions, Or more, as...

Philip's first effort was to get Harry out of the Tombs. He gained permission to see him, in the presence of an officer, during the day, and he found that hero very much cast down.

December 18--, found Washington Hawkins and Col. Sellers once more at the capitol of the nation, standing guard over the University bill. The former gentleman was despondent, th...

O lift your natures up: Embrace our aims: work out your freedom. Girls, Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed; Drink deep until the habits of the slave, The sins of emptine...

Now this surprising news caus'd her fall in 'a trance, Life as she were dead, no limbs she could advance, Then her dear brother came, her from the ground he took And she spake u...

“It's easy enough for another fellow to talk,” said Harry, despondingly, after he had put Philip in possession of his view of the case. “It's easy enough to say 'give her up,' i...

The session was drawing toward its close. Senator Dilworthy thought he would run out west and shake hands with his constituents and let them look at him. The legislature whose d...

The visit of Senator Abner Dilworthy was an event in Hawkeye. When a Senator, whose place is in Washington moving among the Great and guiding the destinies of the nation, condes...

It was evening when Philip took the cars at the Ilium station. The news of his success had preceded him, and while he waited for the train, he was the center of a group of eager...

Laura went down stairs, knocked at/the study door, and entered, scarcely waiting for the response. Senator Dilworthy was alone--with an open Bible in his hand, upside down. Laur...

Clay Hawkins, years gone by, had yielded, after many a struggle, to the migratory and speculative instinct of our age and our people, and had wandered further and further westwa...

The letter that Philip Sterling wrote to Ruth Bolton, on the evening of setting out to seek his fortune in the west, found that young lady in her own father's house in Philadelp...

The momentous day was at hand--a day that promised to make or mar the fortunes of Hawkins family for all time. Washington Hawkins and Col. Sellers were both up early, for neithe...

Open your ears; for which of you will stop, The vent of hearing when loud Rumor speaks? I, from the orient to the drooping west, Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold The...

Washington's delight in his beautiful sister was measureless. He said that she had always been the queenliest creature in the land, but that she was only commonplace before, com...

Two months had gone by and the Hawkins family were domiciled in Hawkeye. Washington was at work in the real estate office again, and was alternately in paradise or the other pla...

Washington dreamed his way along the street, his fancy flitting from grain to hogs, from hogs to banks, from banks to eye-water, from eye-water to Tennessee Land, and lingering...

“It is beautiful to hear him talk when his heart is full of thankfulness for some manifestation of the Divine favor. You shall know him, some day my Louise, and knowing him you...

Philip Sterling's circumstances were becoming straightened. The prospect was gloomy. His long siege of unproductive labor was beginning to tell upon his spirits; but what told s...

When Laura had been in Washington three months, she was still the same person, in one respect, that she was when she first arrived there--that is to say, she still bore the name...

It was a hard blow to poor Sellers to see the work on his darling enterprise stop, and the noise and bustle and confusion that had been such refreshment to his soul, sicken and...

In due time Laura alighted at the book store, and began to look at the titles of the handsome array of books on the counter. A dapper clerk of perhaps nineteen or twenty years,...

Col. Selby had just come to Washington, and taken lodgings in Georgetown. His business was to get pay for some cotton that was destroyed during the war. There were many others i...

The very next day, sure enough, the campaign opened. In due course, the Speaker of the House reached that Order of Business which is termed “Notices of Bills,” and then the Hon....

His pen therefore, and whereas, and not as aforesaid, strayed off into other scribbling. In an unfortunate hour, he had two or three papers accepted by first-class magazines, at...

Whatever the lagging dragging journey may have been to the rest of the emigrants, it was a wonder and delight to the children, a world of enchantment; and they believed it to be...

“Oh, yes--that is, it may be and it may not be. If you have known what perfection is in woman, it is fair to argue that inferiority cannot interest you now.”

Toward the close of the third day's journey the wayfarers were just beginning to think of camping, when they came upon a log cabin in the woods. Hawkins drew rein and entered th...

If there be any place and time in the world where and when it seems easy to “go into something” it is in Broadway on a spring morning, when one is walking city-ward, and has bef...

Once more Louise had good news from her Washington--Senator Dilworthy was going to sell the Tennessee Land to the government! Louise told Laura in confidence. She had told her p...

Phillip and Harry reached New York in very different states of mind. Harry was buoyant. He found a letter from Col. Sellers urging him to go to Washington and confer with Senato...

The weeks drifted by monotonously enough, now. The “preliminaries” continued to drag along in Congress, and life was a dull suspense to Sellers and Washington, a weary waiting w...

91. AT HEADQUARTERS 92. TOUCHING A WEAK SPOT 93. CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEE, $10,000, 94. MALE LOBBYIST, $3,000 255 95. FEMALE LOBBYIST, $3,000 96. HIGH MORAL SENATOR, $3,000 97. COU...

FRONTPIECE COL. SELLERS FEEDING HIS FAMILY ON EXPECTATIONS 1. CONTEMPLATION 2. THE SQUIRE's HOUSE S. THE U. S. MAIL 4. OBEDSTOWN MALES 5. HURRYING 6. THE SQUIRE'S KITCHEN 7. “FO...

155. SENATOR DILWORTHY TRANQUIL 156. “SHE AIN'T DAH, SAR” 157. AS THE WITNESSES DESCRIBED IT 158. THE LEARNED DOCTORS 159. IMPORTANT BUSINESS 160. COL. SELLERS AND WASHINGTON IN...

64. NOT EASILY REFERRED 65. ORDER, GENTLEMEN 66. THE SENATOR'S WALK 67. RESIDENCE OF SQUIRE MONTAGUE 68. INSIDE THE MANSION 69. RUTH DISSIPATING 70. TAIL PIECE 71. ANTICIPATION...

128. PLAYING TO WIN 129. SHE SAID “PARDON” 130. “IT'S HE! IT'S HE!” 131. REFLECTION 132. ONCE MORE FACE TO FACE 133. COL. SELBY KNEELS AND KISSES HER HAND 134. JOLLY GOOD COMPAN...

187. SEARCH FOR A FATHER 158. TAKING ADVANTAGE OF A LULL 189. TERM EXPIRED 190. RE-ELECTED 191. THE “FAITHFUL OLD HAND” 192. A FIRE BRAND 193. TAIL PIECE 194. COL. SELLERS AND W...

LOOKING AT THE “NEW ONE” BY CANDLE LIGHT 60. “ONLY FOR YOU, BRIERLY” 51. AN ACCLIMATED MAN 51. NO THANKS! GOOD BYE! 52. “BRESS YOU, CHILE, YOU DAR NOW” 53. CAMP LIFE 54. STRAIGH...

37. LAURA SEEKING POR EVIDENCES OF HER BIRTH 38. EVER TRUE 39. A HEALTHY MEAL 40. PHILIP AT THE THEATRE 41. WHAT PHILIP LEARNED AT COLLEGE 42. THE DELEGATE'S INTERESTING GAME 43...