George Bernard Shaw - "Androcles and the Lion"

Ben Jonson - "The Poetaster"

John Lothrop Motley - "History of the United Netherlands, 1603 04"

Wilkie Collins - "Heart and Science"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll Latest

C >> Col. Robert Green Ingersoll >> Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll Latest




What right has he to murder the sunshine of the day? What right has he
to assassinate the joy of life? Where you go home you ought to feel the
light there is in the house; if it is in the night it will burst out of
doors and windows and illuminate the darkness. It is just as well to go
home a ray of sunshine as an old sour, cross curmudgeon, who thinks he
is the head of the family. Wise men think their mighty brains have been
in a turmoil; they have been thinking about who will be alderman from
the fifth ward; they have been thinking about politics; great and
mighty questions have been engaging their minds; they have bought
calico at 8 cents, or 6, and want to sell it for 7. Think of the
intellectual strain that must have been upon a man, and when he gets
home everybody else in the house must look out for his comfort. A woman
who has only taken care of five or six children, and one or two of them
may be sick; has been nursing them and singing to them, and taking care
of them, and trying to make one yard of cloth do the work of two--she,
of course, is fresh and fine, and ready to wait upon this great
gentleman--the head of the family I don't like him a bit!

Do you know another thing? I despise a stingy man. I don't see how it
is possible for a man to die worth fifty millions of dollars, or ten
millions of dollars, in a city full of want, when he meets almost every
day the withered hand of beggary and the white lips of famine. How a
man can withstand all that, and hold in the clutch of his greed twenty
or thirty millions of dollars, is past my comprehension. I do not see
how he can do it. I should not think he could do it any more than he
could keep a pile of lumber where hundreds and thousands of men were
drowning in the sea. I should not think he could do it.

Do you know I have known men who would trust their wives with their
hearts and their honor, but not with their pocketbook; not with a
dollar. When I see a man of that kind I always think he knows which of
these articles is the most valuable. Think of making your wife a
beggar! Think of her having to ask you every day for a dollar, or for
two dollars, or for fifty cents! "What did you do with that dollar I
gave you last week?" Think of having a wife that was afraid of you!
What kind of children do you expect to have with a beggar and a coward
for their mother? Oh, I tell you, if you have but a dollar in the world,
and you have got to spend it, spend it like a king; spend it as though
it were a dry leaf and you the owner of unbounded forests! That's the
way to spend it! I had rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar like
a king, than be a king and spend my money like a beggar. If it's got to
go, let it go.

Get the best you can for your family--try to look as well as you can
yourself. When you used to go courting, how nice you looked! Ah, your
eye was bright, your step was light, and you just put on the very best
look you could. Do you know that it is insufferable egotism in you to
suppose that a woman is going to love you always looking as bad as you
can? Think of it! Any woman on earth will be true to you forever when
you do your level best. Some people tell me, "Your doctrine about
loving, and wives, and all that is splendid for the rich, but it won't
do for the poor." I tell you tonight there is on the average more love
in the homes of the poor than in the palaces of the rich; and the
meanest but with love in it is fit for the gods, and a palace without
love is a den only fit for wild beasts. That's my doctrine!

You can't be so poor but that you can help somebody. Good nature is the
cheapest commodity in the world; and love is the only thing that will
pay 10 percent to borrower and lender both. Don't tell me that you have
got to be rich! We have all a false standard of greatness in the United
States. We think here that a man to be great, must be notorious; must
be extremely wealthy, or his name must be between the lips of rumor. It
is all nonsense! It is not necessary to be rich to be great, or to be
powerful to be happy; and the happy man is the successful man.
Happiness is the legal tender of the soul. Joy is wealth.

A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon, a
magnificent tomb, fit for a dead deity almost, and gazed into the great
circle at the bottom of it. In the sarcophagus, of black Egyptian
marble, at last rest the ashes of that restless man. I looked over the
balustrade, and I thought about the career of Napoleon. I could see him
walking upon the banks of the Seine contemplating suicide. I saw him at
Toulon. I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris. I saw
him at the head of the army of Italy. I saw him crossing the bridge at
Lodi. I saw him in Egypt, fighting the battle of the pyramids. I saw
him cross the Alps, and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of
the crags. I saw him at Austerlitz. I saw him with his army scattered
and dispersed before the blast. I saw him at Leipsic when his army was
defeated and he was taken captive. I saw him escape. I saw him land
again upon French soil, and retake an empire by the force of his own
genius. I saw him captured once more, and again at St. Helena, with his
arms behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea; and I thought
of the orphans and Widows he had made.

I thought of the tears that had been shed for his glory. I thought of
the only woman who ever loved him, who had been pushed from his heart by
the cold hand of ambition; and as I looked at the sarcophagus, I said,
"I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes; I
would rather have lived in a hut, with a vine growing over the door, and
the grapes growing and ripening in the autumn sun; I would rather have
been that peasant, with my wife by my side and my children upon my
knees, twining their arms of affection about me; I would rather have
been that poor French peasant, and gone down at last to the eternal
promiscuity of the dust, followed by those who loved me; I would a
thousand times rather have been that French peasant than that imperial
personative of force and murder." And so I would, ten thousand times.

It is not necessary to be great to be happy; it is not necessary to be
rich to be just and generous, and to have a heart filled with divine
affection. No matter whether you are rich or poor, use your wife as
though she were a splendid creation, and she will fill your life with
perfume and joy. And do you know, it is a splendid thing for me to
think that the woman you really love will never grow old to you?
Through the wrinkles of time, through the music of years, if you really
love her, you will always see the face you loved and won. And a woman
who really loves a man, does not see that he grows older; he is not
decrepit; he does not tremble; he is not old; she always sees the
same gallant gentleman who won her hand and heart. I like to think of
it in that way. I like to think of all passions; love is eternal, and,
as Shakespeare says, "Although Time, with his sickle, can rob ruby lips
and sparkling eyes, let him reach as far as he can, he cannot quite
touch love; that reaches even to the end of the tomb." And to love in
that way, and then go down the hill of life together, and as you go down
hear, perhaps, the laughter of grandchildren--the birds of joy and love
sing once more in the leafless branches of age. I believe in the
fireside. I believe in the democracy of home. I believe in the
republicanism of the family. I believe in liberty and equality with
those we love.

If women have been slaves, what shall I say of children; of the little
children in the alleys and sub-cellars; the little children who turn
pale when they hear their father's footsteps; little children who run
away when they only hear their names called by the lips of another;
little children--the children of poverty, the children of crime, the
children of brutality wherever you are--flotsam and jetsam upon the
wild, mad sea of life, my heart goes out to you, one and all. I tell
you the children have the same rights that we have, and we ought to
treat them as though they were human beings; and they should be reared
by love, by kindness, by tenderness, and not by brutality. That is my
idea of children. When your little child tells a lie, don't rush at him
as though the world were about to go into bankruptcy. Be honest with
him. A tyrant father will have liars for children; do you know that?
A lie is born of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the other,
and when you rush at a poor little boy with a club in your hand, of
course he lies. I thank Mother Nature that she has put ingenuity enough
in the breast of a child, when attacked by a brutal parent, to throw up
a little breastwork in the shape of a lie. When one of your children
tells a lie, be honest with him; tell him you have told hundreds of
them yourself. Tell him it is not the best way; you have tried it.
Tell him, as the man did in Maine when his boy left home: "John,
honesty is the best policy; I have tried both." Just be honest with
him. Imagine now; you are about to whip a child five years of age.
What is the child to do? Suppose a man, as much larger than you are
larger than a child five years old, should come at you with liberty-pole
in hand, and in a voice of thunder shout, "Who broke the plate?" There
is not a solitary one of you who wouldn't swear you never saw it, or
that it was cracked when you found it. Why not be honest with these
children? Just imagine a man who deals in stocks putting false rumors
afloat!

Think of a lawyer beating his own flesh and blood for evading the truth,
when he makes half of his own living that way! Think of a minister
punishing his child for not telling all he thinks! Just think of it!
When your child commits a wrong, take it in your arms; let it feel your
heart beat against its heart; let the child know that you really and
truly and sincerely love it. Yet some Christians, good Christians, when
a child commits a fault, drive it from the door, and say, "Never do you
darken this house again." Think of that! And then these same people
will get down on their knees and ask God to take care of the child they
have driven from home. I will never ask God to take care of my children
unless I am doing my level best in that same direction. But I will tell
you what I say to my children: "Go where you will; commit what crime
you may; fall to what depth of degradation you may; you can never
commit any crime that will shut my door, my arms, my heart to you; as
long as I live you shall have no more sincere friend."

Do you know, I have seen some people who acted as though they thought
when the Savior said, "Suffer little children to come unto me, for such
is the Kingdom of Heaven," that he had a rawhide under his mantle and
made that remark to get the children within striking distance. I don't
believe in the government of the lash. If any one of you ever expect to
whip your children again after you hear me, I want you to have a
photograph taken of yourself when you are in the act, with your face red
with vulgar anger; and then the face of the little child, with eyes
swimming in tears, and the little chin dimpled with fear, like a piece
of water struck by a sudden, cold wind. Have the picture taken. If
that little child should die, I cannot find a sweeter way to spend an
autumn afternoon than to go out to the cemetery, when the maples are
clad in bright colors, and little scarlet runners are coming, like poems
of regret, from the sad heart of the earth--than to go out to the
cemetery and sit down upon the grave and look at this photograph, and
think of the flesh, now dust, that you beat.

I tell you it is wrong; it is no way to raise children! Make your home
happy. Be honest with them, divide fairly with them in everything.
Give them a little liberty, and you cannot drive them out of the house.
They will want to stay there. Make home pleasant. Let them play any
game they want to. Don't be so foolish as to say: "You may roll balls
on the ground, but you must not roll them on green cloth. You may knock
them with a mallet, but you must not push them with a cue. You may play
with little pieces of paper which have 'Authors' written on them, but
you must not have 'keerds.'" Think of it! "You may go to a minstrel
show, where people blacken themselves up and degrade themselves, and
imitate humanity below themselves, but you must not go to the theater
and see the characters of immortal genius put upon the stage." Why?
Well, I can't think of any reason in the world except "minstrel" is a
word of two syllables and theater has three. Let children have some
daylight at home if you want to keep them there, and don't commence at
the cradle and yell, "Don't!" "Don't!" "Stop!" That is nearly all
that is said to a young one from the cradle until he is twenty one years
old, and when he comes of age other people begin saying "Don't!" And the
church says "Don't!" And the party that he belongs to says "Don't!" I
despise that way of going through this world. Let us have a little
liberty--just a little bit. There is another thing. In old times, you
know, they thought some days were too good for a child to enjoy himself
in. When I was a boy Sunday was considered altogether too good to be
happy in; and Sunday used to commence then when the sun went down
Saturday night. That was to get good ready--a kind of running jump;
and when the sun went down, a darkness ten thousand times deeper than
that of night fell on that house. Nobody said a word then; nobody
laughed; and the child that looked the sickest was regarded the most
pious. You couldn't crack hickory nuts; you couldn't chew gum; and if
you laughed, it was only another evidence of the total depravity of man.
That was a solemn night; and the next morning everybody looked sad,
mournful, dyspeptic--and thousands of people think they have religion
when they have only got dyspepsia--thousands! But there is nothing in
this world that would break up the old orthodox churches as quick as
some specific for dyspepsia--some sure cure.

Then we went to church, and the minister was up in a pulpit about twenty
feet high, with a little sounding-board over him, and he commenced with
Firstly and went on to about twenty-thirdly, and then around by way of
application, and then divided it off again once or twice, and after
having put in about two hours, he got to Revelations. We were not
allowed to have any fire, even if it was in the winter. It was thought
to be outrageous to be comfortable while you are thanking the Lord, and
the first church that ever had a stove put in it in New England was
broken up on that account. Then we went a-nooning, and then came the
catechism, the chief end of man. We went through that; and then this
same sermon was preached, commencing at the other end, and going back.
After that was over we started for home, solemn and sad--"not a soldier
discharged his farewell shot;" not a word was said--and when we got
home, if we had been good boys, they would take us up to the graveyard
to cheer us up a little.

It did cheer me! When I looked at those tombs the comforting reflection
came to my mind that this kind of thing couldn't last always. Then we
had some certain books that we read just by way of cheerfulness. There
was Milner's "History of the Wilderness," Baxter's "Call to the
Unconverted," and Jenkins' "On the Atonement." I used to read Jenkins'
"On the Atonement;" and I have often thought the atonement would have
to be very broad in its provisions to cover the case of a man who would
write a book like that for a boy to read. Well, you know, the Sunday
had to go at last; and the moment the sun went down Sunday night we
were free. About 4 or 5 o'clock we would go to see how the sun was
coming out. Sometimes it seemed to me that it was just stopping from
pure cussedness; but finally it had to go down, and when the last rim
of light sank below the horizon, out would come our traps, and we would
give three cheers for liberty once more. In those times it was thought
wrong for a child to laugh on Sunday. Think of that! A little child--a
little boy--could go out in the garden, and there would be a tree laden
with blossoms, and this little fellow would lean up against the tree,
and there would be a bird singing and swinging, and thinking about four
little speckled eggs, warmed by the breast of its mate--singing and
swinging, and the music coming rippling out of its throat, and the
flowers blossoming and the air full of perfume, and the great white
clouds floating in the sky; and that little boy would lean up against
that trunk, and think of hell.

That's true! I have heard them preach when I sat in the pew, and my
feet didn't come within eighteen inches of the floor, about that hell.
And they said, "Suppose that once in a million years a bird would come
from some far distant planet, and carry in its bill a grain of sand, the
time would finally come when the last atom composing this earth would be
carried away;" and the old preacher said, in order to impress upon the
boys the length of time they would have to stay, "it wouldn't be sun-up
in hell yet."

Think of that to preach to children! I tell you, my friends, no day can
be so sacred but that the laugh of a little child will make it holier
still--no day! And yet, at that time, the minds of children were
polluted by this infamous doctrine of eternal punishment; and I
denounce it today as an infamous doctrine beyond the power of language
to express. Where did that doctrine of eternal punishment for the
children of men come from? It came from that wretch in the dug-out.
Where did he get it? It was a souvenir from the animals, and the
doctrine of eternal punishment was born in the eyes of snakes when they
hung in fearful coils watching for their prey. It was a doctrine born
of the howling and barking and growling of wild beasts; it was born in
the grin of the hyenas, and of the depraved chatter of the baboons; and
I despise it with every drop of my blood. Tell me there is a God in the
serene heaven that will damn his children for the expression of an
honest belief!

There have been more men who died in their sins, according to your
orthodox religion, than there are leaves on all the forests of this
world ten thousand times over. Tell me they are in hell! Tell me they
are to be punished for ever and ever! I denounce it as an infamous lie!

And when the great ship containing the hope and aspiration of the world,
when the great ship freighted with mankind goes down in the night of
death and disaster, I will go down with the ship. I don't want to
paddle off in any orthodox canoe. I will go down with the ship; and if
there is a God who will damn his children forever I had rather go to
hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous
Deity. I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine, and I'll tell
you why. It has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. It has
polluted the heart of children. It has been a pain and terror to every
man that ever believed it. It has filled the good with horror and fear,
but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. I tell you it is a
bad doctrine. I read in the papers today what Henry Ward Beecher, whom
I regard as the most intellectual preacher in the pulpit of the United
States--I will read from the paper what he said yesterday, and you will
see an abstract of it in the New York Times of today. He has had the
courage, and he has had the magnificent manhood, to say:

"I say to you, and I swear to you, by the wounds in the hands of Christ
--I swear to you by the wounds in the body and feet of Christ, that this
doctrine of eternal hell is a most infamous nightmare of theology! It
never should be preached again."

What right have you, sir; you, minister, as you are, to stand at the
portal of eternity, or the portal of the tomb, and fill the future with
horror and with fear? You have no right to do it. I don't believe it,
and neither do you. You would not sleep one night. Any man who
believes it, who has got a decent heart in his bosom, will go insane.
Yes, sir, a man that really believes that doctrine and does not go
insane, has got the conscience of a snake and the intellect of a hyena.
O! I thank my stars that you do not believe it. You cannot believe it,
and you never will believe it. Old Jonathan Edwards, the dear old soul,
he is in heaven I suppose, said: "Can the believing husband in heaven
be happy with his unbelieving wife in hell? Can the believing father in
heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in hell? Can the loving
wife in heaven be happy with her unbelieving husband in hell? I tell
you yea. Such will be their sense of justice that it will increase
rather than diminish their happiness."

Think of these infamous doctrines that have been taught in the name of
religion! Do not stuff these things into the minds of your children.
Give them a chance. Let them read. Let them think. Do not treat your
children like posts, to be set in the orthodox road, but like trees,
that need light and sun and air. Be honest with them. Be fair with
them. In old times they used to make all children go to bed when they
were not sleepy, and all of them got up when they were sleepy. I say
let them go to bed--when they are sleepy and get up when they are not.
But they say that will do for the rich, but not for the poor. Well, if
the poor have to wake their children early in the morning, it is as easy
to wake them with a kiss as with a club. I believe in letting children
commence at which end of the dinner they want to.

Let them eat what they want. It is their business. They know what they
want to eat. And if they have had their liberty from the first, they
can beat any doctor in the world. All the improvement that has ever
been made in medicine has been made by the recklessness of patients.
Yes, sir. Thousands and thousands of years the doctors wouldn't let a
man have water in fever. Every now and then some fellow got reckless and
said: "I will die, I am so thirsty," and drank two or three quarts of
water and got well. And they kept that up until finally the doctors
said, "that is the best thing for a fever you can do."

I have more confidence to agree with nature about these things than any
of the conclusions of the schools. Just let your children have freedom,
and they will fall right into your ways and do just as you do. But you
try to make them, and there is some magnificent, splendid thing in the
human heart that will not be driven. And do you know it is the luckiest
thing for this world that ever happened that people are so. What would
we have been if the people in any age of the world had done just as the
doctors told them? They would have been all dead. What would we have
done if, at any age of the world, we had followed implicitly the
direction of the church? We would have been all idiots, every one.

It is a splendid thing that there is always some fellow who won't mind,
and will think for himself. And I believe in letting children think for
themselves. I believe in having a family like a democracy. If there is
anything splendid in this world it is a home of that kind. They used to
tell us, "Let your victuals close your mouth." We used to eat as though
it was a religious performance. I like to see the children about, and
every one telling what he has seen and heard. I like to hear the
clatter of the knives and spoons mingling with the laughter of their
voices. I had rather hear it than any opera that has ever been put upon
the boards. Let them have liberty; let them have freedom, and I tell
you your children will love you to death.

Now, I have some excuses to offer for the race to which I belong. I have
two. My first excuse is that this is not a very good world to raise
folks in anyway. It is not very well adapted to raising magnificent
people. There's only a quarter of it land to start with. It is three
times better fitted for raising fish than folks, and in that one quarter
of land there is not a tenth part fit to raise people on. You can't
raise people without a good climate. You have got to have the right
kind of climate, and you have got to have certain elements in the soil,
or you can't raise good people. Do you know that there is only a little
zig-zag strip around the world within which have been produced all men
of genius?

The southern hemisphere has never produced a man of genius, never; and
never will until civilization, fighting the heat that way and the cold
this, widens this portion of the earth until it is capable of producing
great men and great women. It is the same with men that it is with
vegetation; you go into a garden, and find there flowers growing. And
as you go up the mountain, the birch and the hemlock and the spruce are
to be found. And as you go toward the top, you find little, stunted
trees getting a miserable subsistence out of the crevices of the rocks,
and you go on up and up and up, until finally you find at the top little
moss-like freckles. You might as well try to raise flowers where those
freckles grow as to raise great men and women where you haven't got the
soil.