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Osceola the Seminole The Red Fawn of the Flower Land By: Mayne Reid (1818-1883) |
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Osceola the Seminole, by Captain Mayne Reid.
OSCEOLA THE SEMINOLE, BY CAPTAIN MAYNE REID. PREFACE. The Historical Novel has ever maintained a high rank perhaps the
highest among works of fiction, for the reason that while it enchants
the senses, it improves the mind, conveying, under a most pleasing form,
much information which, perhaps, the reader would never have sought for
amid the dry records of the purely historic narrative. This fact being conceded, it needs but little argument to prove that
those works are most interesting which treat of the facts and incidents
pertaining to our own history, and of a date which is yet fresh in the
memory of the reader. To this class of books pre eminently belongs the volume which is here
submitted to the American reader, from the pen of a writer who has
proved himself unsurpassed in the field which he has, by his various
works, made peculiarly his own. The brief but heroic struggle of the celebrated Chief, Osceola, forms
the groundwork of a narrative which is equal, if not superior, to any of
Mr Reid's former productions; and while the reader's patriotism cannot
fail to be gratified at the result, his sympathy is, at the same time,
awakened for the manly struggles and untimely fate of the gallant
spirit, who fought so nobly for the freedom of his red brethren and the
preservation of their cherished hunting grounds. CHAPTER ONE. THE FLOWERY LAND. Linda Florida! fair land of flowers! Thus hailed thee the bold Spanish adventurer, as standing upon the prow
of his caravel, he first caught sight of thy shores. It was upon the Sunday of Palms the festival of the flowers and the
devout Castilian beheld in thee a fit emblem of the day. Under the
influence of a pious thought, he gave thee its name, and well deservedst
thou the proud appellation. That was three hundred years ago. Three full cycles have rolled past,
since the hour of thy baptismal ceremony; but the title becomes thee as
ever. Thy floral bloom is as bright at this hour as when Leon landed
upon thy shores ay, bright as when the breath of God first called thee
into being. Thy forests are still virgin and inviolate; verdant thy savannas; thy
groves as fragrant as ever those perfumed groves of aniseed and orange,
of myrtle and magnolia. Still sparkles upon thy plains the cerulean
ixia; still gleam in thy waters the golden nymphae; above thy swamps yet
tower the colossal cypress, the gigantic cedar, the gum, and the
bay tree; still over thy gentle slopes of silvery sand wave long leaved
pines, mingling their acetalous foliage with the frondage of the palm.
Strange anomaly of vegetation; the tree of the north, and the tree of
the south the types of the frigid and torrid in this thy mild mid
region, standing side by side, and blending their branches together! Linda Florida! who can behold thee without peculiar emotion? without
conviction that thou art a favoured land? Gazing upon thee, one ceases
to wonder at the faith the wild faith of the early adventurers that
from thy bosom gushed forth the fountain of youth, the waters of eternal
life! No wonder the sweet fancy found favour and credence; no wonder so
delightful an idea had its crowds of devotees. Thousands came from
afar, to find rejuvenescence by bathing in thy crystal streams
thousands sought it, with far more eagerness than the white metal of
Mexico, or the yellow gold of Peru; in the search thousands grew older
instead of younger, or perished in pursuit of the vain illusion; but who
could wonder? Even at this hour, one can scarcely think it an illusion; and in that
age of romance, it was still easier of belief. A new world had been
discovered, why not a new theory of life? Men looked upon a land where
the leaves never fell, and the flowers never faded... Continue reading book >>
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