First Words
How novels begin
Southworth, E.D.E.N., The Hidden Hand
"HURRICANE HALL is a large old family mansion, built of dark,
red sandstone, in one of the loneliest and wildest of the mountain regions of Virginia.
The estate is surrounded on three sides by a range of steep, gray rocks, spiked with
clumps of dark evergreens, and called, from its horse-shoe form, the Devil's Hoof.
On the fourth side the ground gradually descends in broken rock and barren soil to the
edge of the wild mountain stream known as the Devil's Run.
When storms and floods were high, the loud roaring of the wild mountain gorges, and the
terrific raging of the torrent over its rocky course, gave to this savage locality its
ill-omened names of Devil's Hoof, Devil's Run, and Hurricane Hall."