Remember the Alamo

Name: Remember the Alamo
Author: Amelia E. Barr

by Amelia E. Barr

Pages: about 293
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 5.4 h at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 3 h at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

“What, are you stepping westward?” “Yea.” * * * * * Yet who would stop or fear to advance, Though home or shelter there was none, With such a sky to lead him on!” --WORDSWORTH.
“Ah! cool night wind, tremulous stars, Ah! glimmering water, Fitful earth murmur, Dreaming woods!” --ARNOLD.
In A. D. sixteen hundred and ninety-two, a few Franciscan monks began to build a city. The site chosen was a lovely wilderness hundreds of miles away from civilization on every side, and surrounded by savage and warlike tribes. But the spot was as beautiful as the garden of God. It was shielded by picturesque mountains, watered by two rivers, carpeted with flowers innumerable, shaded by noble trees joyful with the notes of a multitude of singing birds. To breathe the balmy atmosphere was to be conscious of some rarer and finer life, and the beauty of the sunny skies--marvellous at dawn and eve with tints of saffron and amethyst and opal--was like a dream of heaven.
One of the rivers was fed by a hundred springs situated in the midst of charming bowers. The monks called it the San Antonio; and on its banks they built three noble Missions. The shining white stone of the neighborhood rose in graceful domes and spires above the green trees. Sculptures, basso-relievos, and lines of gorgeous coloring adorned the exteriors. Within, were splendid altars and the appealing charms of incense, fine vestures and fine music; while from the belfreys, bells sweet and resonant called to the savages, who paused spell-bound and half-afraid to listen.
Certainly these priests had to fight as well as to pray. The Indians did not suffer them to take possession of their Eden without passionate and practical protest. But what the monks had taken, they kept; and the fort and the soldier followed the priest and the Cross. Ere long, the beautiful Mission became a beautiful city, about which a sort of fame full of romance and mystery gathered.

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Remember the Alamo

From the opening

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