Eric Hermannson's Soul
By Willa Cather
5/5
()
About this ebook
Uprooted from a well-ordered life in Virginia when she was nine, Willa Cather came of age in the West during the last years of the American frontier. She developed a love for the beauty of the open grassland and an abiding interest in the Old World customs of her neighbors, the dreamers and builders who inhabit her fiction. This collection includes work from the early part of Cather's career and clearly marks themes and landscapes that she would detail and explore for the remainder of her life.
Willa Cather
Born in 1873, Willa Cather was raised in Virginia and Nebraska. After graduating from the University of Nebraska she established herself as a theatre critic, journalist and teacher in Pittsburgh whilst also writing short stories and poems. She then moved to New York where she took a job as an investigative journalist before becoming a full-time writer. Cather enjoyed great literary success and won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel One of Ours. She’s now best known for her Prairie trilogy: O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark and My Ántonia. She travelled extensively and died in New York in 1947.
Read more from Willa Cather
Death Comes for the Archbishop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One of Ours Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Professor's House Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Willa Cather: Four Great Novels?O Pioneers!, One of Ours, The Song of the Lark, My Ántonia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Ántonia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Greatest Ghost and Horror Stories Ever Written: volume 4 (30 short stories) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Christmas Library: 250+ Essential Christmas Novels, Poems, Carols, Short Stories...by 100+ Authors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Greatest Christmas Stories of All Time: Timeless Classics That Celebrate the Season Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOne of Ours: World War I Novel (Winner of Pulitzer Prize) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Song of the Lark Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Antonia / O Pioneers! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest American Short Stories: 50+ Classics of American Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeath Comes for the Archbishop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Mortal Enemy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bohemian Girl: Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Essential Willa Cather Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5My Mortal Enemy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest Christmas Stories: 120+ Authors, 250+ Magical Christmas Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Lost Lady: American Classic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best American Short Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClassic Westerns Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Greatest American Short Stories (Vol. 1) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Eric Hermannson's Soul
Related ebooks
The Bohemian Girl: Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHalls of Shadow: Kingdoms of Sand, #5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe White Savages: Miracles of the Hawk Crosses Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trail of the Seneca Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGov. Bob. Taylor's Tales "The fiddle and the bow," "The paradise of fools," "Visions and dreams" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPulling Back the Earth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTales of a Wayside Inn Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Witch of Prague: A Fantastic Tale Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Witch of Prague: 'During the seconds that followed, his eyes were riveted upon the beloved head'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMakeda Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Gifts from the Gods: Ancient Words and Wisdom from Greek and Roman Mythology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Witch of Prague Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrim Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Copper: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Heart of War: OF WAR Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bramble and the Rose: A Historical Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInto the Path of Gods Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Delphi Works of W. B. Yeats (Illustrated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Say Babylon: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Raven Thief: The Royal Thieves Trilogy, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Thorny Path Volume 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeloved: The Prophet Trilogy, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Stone Knife Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lost Word: A Christmas Legend of Long Ago Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rowena & Harold A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBorn in the USA - Exploring American Poems. The Ohio Poets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Witch of Prague: A Fantastic Tale Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Great Slave Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOregon Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWings in the Night Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Short Stories For You
Selected Short Stories Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Little Birds: Erotica Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sex and Erotic: Hard, hot and sexy Short-Stories for Adults Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Explicit Content: Red Hot Stories of Hardcore Erotica Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hellbound Heart: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Little Shop of Hidden Treasures: a joyful and heart-warming novel you won't want to miss Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Years of the Best American Short Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tales of Mystery and Imagination Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Finn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Stories of Ray Bradbury Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The ABC Murders: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sour Candy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Four Past Midnight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Two Scorched Men Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Skeleton Crew Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: A Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ficciones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Eric Hermannson's Soul
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
Eric Hermannson's Soul - Willa Cather
Eric Hermannson’s Soul
Short Story
Willa Cather
Contents
Begin Reading
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
ERIC HERMANNSON’S SOUL
I
It was a great night at the Lone Star schoolhouse—a night when the Spirit was present with power and when God was very near to man. So it seemed to Asa Skinner, servant of God and Free Gospeller. The schoolhouse was crowded with the saved and sanctified, robust men and women, trembling and quailing before the power of some mysterious psychic force. Here and there among this cowering, sweating multitude crouched some poor wretch who had felt the pangs of an awakened conscience, but had not yet experienced that complete divestment of reason, that frenzy born of a convulsion of the mind, which, in the parlance of the Free Gospellers, is termed the Light.
On the floor before the mourners’ bench lay the unconscious figure of a man in whom outraged nature had sought her last resort. This trance
state is the highest evidence of grace among the Free Gospellers, and indicates a close walking with God.
Before the desk stood Asa Skinner, shouting of the mercy and vengeance of God, and in his eyes shone a terrible earnestness, an almost prophetic flame. Asa was a converted train gambler who used to run between Omaha and Denver. He was a man made for the extremes of life; from the most debauched of men he had become the most ascetic. His was a bestial face, a face that bore the stamp of Nature’s eternal injustice. The forehead was low, projecting over the eyes, and the sandy hair was plastered down over it and then brushed back at an abrupt right angle. The chin was heavy, the nostrils were low and wide, and the lower lip hung loosely except in his moments of spasmodic earnestness, when it shut like a steel trap. Yet about those coarse features there were deep, rugged furrows, the scars of many a hand-to-hand struggle with the weakness of the flesh, and about that drooping lip were sharp, strenuous lines that had conquered it and taught it to pray. Over those seamed cheeks there was a certain pallor, a greyness caught from many a vigil. It was as though, after Nature had done her worst with that face, some fine chisel had gone over it, chastening and almost transfiguring it. Tonight, as his muscles twitched with emotion, and the perspiration dropped from his hair and chin, there was a certain convincing power in the man. For Asa Skinner was a man possessed of a belief, of the sentiment of the sublime before which all inequalities are leveled, that transport of conviction which seems superior to all laws of condition, under which debauch-ees have become martyrs; which made a tinker an artist and a camel-driver the founder