My French Neighbor The Englishman at Paris English and French Character The Tuileries and Windsor Castle The Field of Waterloo Paris at the Restoration

AMERICAN RESEARCHES IN ITALY--Life of Tasso: Recovery of a Lost Portrait of Dante

THE TAKING OF THE VEIL The Charming Letorieres

THE EARLY EXPERIENCES OF RALPH RINGWOOD--Noted Down from his Conversations

THE SEMINOLES

ORIGIN OF THE WHITE, THE RED, AND THE BLACK MEN--A Seminole Tradition

THE CONSPIRACY OF NEAMATHLA--An Authentic Sketch

LETTER FROM GRANADA

ABDERAHMAN: Founder of the Dynasty of the Ommiades in Spain

THE WIDOW'S ORDEAL: or a Judicial Trial by Combat

THE CREOLE VILLAGE: A Sketch from a Steamboat

A CONTENTED MAN

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MOUNTJOY OR SOME PASSAGES OUT OF THE LIFE OF A CASTLE-BUILDER

I was born among romantic scenery, in one of the wildest parts of the Hudson, which at that time was not so thickly settled as at present. My father was descended from one of the old Huguenot families that came over to this country on the revocation of the edict of Nantz. He lived in a style of easy, rural independence, on a patrimonial estate that had been for two or three generations in the family. He was an indolent, good-natured man, who took the world as it went, and had a kind of laughing philosophy, that parried all rubs and mishaps, and served him in the place of wisdom. This was the part of his character least to my taste; for I was of an enthusiastic, excitable temperament, prone to kindle up with new schemes and projects, and he was apt to dash my sallying enthusiasm by some unlucky joke; so that whenever I was in a glow with any sudden excitement, I stood in mortal dread of his good-humor.