Found yet Lost

By Roe, Edward Payson

Book Id: WPLBN0000097660
Format Type: PDF eBook
File Size: 0.8 MB
Reproduction Date: 2005

Title:	Found yet Lost
Author:	Roe, Edward Payson
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Literature, Literature & thought, Writing.
Collections:	Classic Literature Collection
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	World Ebook Library


Citation APA MLA Chicago Roe, E. P. (n.d.). Found yet Lost. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.cc/

Excerpt
Jeff, the hero of my tale, was as truly a part of the Southern Confederacy as the greater Jeff at Richmond. Indeed, were it not for the humbler Jeff and the class he represented, the other Jeff would never have attained his eminence. Jeff's prospects were as dark as himself. He owned nothing, not even himself, yet his dream of riches is the motive of my tale. Begarded as a chattel, for whom a bill of sale would have been made as readily as for a bullock, he proved himself a man and brother by a prompt exhibition of traits too common to human nature when chance and some heroism on his part gave into his hands the semblance of a fortune. Jeff was a native Virginian and belonged to an F.F.V. in a certain practical, legal sense which thus far had not greatly disturbed his equanimity. His solid physique and full shining face showed that slavery had brought no horrors into his experience. He had indulged, it is true, in vague yearnings for freedom, but these had been checked by hearing that liberty meant working for Yankees—appalling news to an indolent soul. He was house-servant and man-of-all-work in a family whose means had always been limited, and whose men were in the Confederate army. His missus evinced a sort of weary content when he had been scolded or threatened into the completion of his tasks by nightfall. He then gave her and her daughters some compensation for their trials with him by producing his fiddle and making the warm summer evening resonant with a kind of music which the negro only can evoke. Jeff was an artist, and had a complacent consciousness of the fact. He was a living instance of the truth that artists are born, not made. No knowledge of this gifted class had ever suggested kinship; he did not even know what the word meant, but when his cheek rested lovingly against his violin he felt that he was made of different clay from other niggahs. During the day he indulged in moods by the divine right and impulse of genius, imitating his gifted brothers unconsciously. In waiting on the table, washing dishes, and hoeing the garden, he was as great a laggard as Pegasus would have been if compelled to the labors of a cart- horse; but when night came, and uncongenial toil was over, his soul expanded. His corrugated brow unwrinkled itself; his great black fingers flew back and forth over the strings as if driven by electricity; and electric in effect were the sounds produced by his swiftly-glancing bow.

Table of Contents
· CHAPTER I. LOVE IN THE WILDERNESS · CHAPTER II. LOVE AT HOME · CHAPTER III. DISABLED · CHAPTER IV. MARTINE SEEKS AN ANTIDOTE · CHAPTER V. SECOND BLOOM · CHAPTER VI. MORE THAN REWARD · CHAPTER VII. YANKEE BLANK · CHAPTER VIII. HOW CAN I? · CHAPTER IX. SHADOWS OF COMING EVENTS · CHAPTER X. YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND · CHAPTER XI. MR. KEMBLE'S APPEAL · CHAPTER XII. YOU MUST REMEMBER · CHAPTER XIII. I'M HELEN · CHAPTER XIV. FORWARD! COMPANY A