Henry James - "A Passionate Pilgrim"

(A.E.)George William Russell - "National Being"

Alfred de Vigny - "Cinq Mars, v5"

John Lothrop Motley - "The Life of John of Barneveld, 1609"

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: Title

J >> J. Fenimore Cooper >> Title




The king himself merely represents a sentiment, all the power
belonging to his eldest first cousin of the masculine gender, and
any intercourse with him is entirely of a disinterested or of a
sentimental character. He is the head of the church--after a very
secular fashion, however;--all the bishops and clergy therefore got
down on their knees and said their prayers; though the captain
suggested that it might be their catechisms; I never knew which. I
observed, also, that all his law officers did the same thing; but as
THEY never pray, and do not know their catechisms, I presume the
genuflections were to beg something better than the places they
actually filled. After this, came a long train of military and naval
officers, who, soldier-like, kissed his paw. The civilians next had
a chance, and then it was our turn to be presented.

"I have the honor to present the lord high admiral of Great Britain
to your majesty," said Judge People's Friend, who had waived his
official privilege of going first, in order to do us this favor in
person; it having been decided, on a review of all the principles
that touched the case, that nothing human could take precedence of a
monikin at court, always making the exception in favor of royalty,
as in the case of Prince Bob.

"I am happy to see you at my court, Admiral Poke," the king politely
rejoined, manifesting the tact of high rank in recognizing Noah by
his family name, to the great surprise of the old sealer.

"King!"

"You were about to remark?--" most graciously inquired his majesty,
a little at a loss to understand what his visitor would be at.

"Why, I could not contain my astonishment at your memory, Mr. King,
which has enabled you to recall a name that you probably never
before heard!"

There was now a great, and to me, a very unaccountable confusion in
the circle. It would seem, that the captain had unwittingly
trespassed on two of the most important of the rules of etiquette,
in very mortal points. He had confessed to the admission of an
emotion as vulgar as that of astonishment in the royal presence, and
he had intimated that his majesty had a memory; a property of the
mind which, as it might prove dangerous to the liberties of
Leaphigh, were it left in the keeping of any but a responsible
minister, it had long been decided it was felony to impute to the
king. By the fundamental law of the land, the king's eldest first-
cousin of the masculine gender, may have as many memories as he
please, and he may use them, or abuse them, as he shall see fit,
either in private or in the public service; but it is held to be
utterly unconstitutional and unparliamentary, and, by consequence,
extremely underbred, to insinuate, even in the most remote manner,
that the king himself has either a memory, a will, a determination,
a resolution, a desire, a conceit, an intention, or, in short, any
other intellectual property, that of a "royal pleasure" alone
excepted. It is both constitutional and parliamentary to say the
king has a "royal pleasure" provided the context goes to prove that
this "royal pleasure" is entirely at the disposition of his eldest
first-cousin of the masculine gender.

When Mr. Poke was made acquainted with his mistake, he discovered a
proper contrition; and the final decision of the affair was
postponed, in order to have the opinion of the judges on the
propriety of taking bail, which I promptly offered to put in, in
behalf of my old shipmate. This disagreeable little interruption
temporarily disposed of, the business of the drawing-room went on.

Noah was next conducted to the queen, who was much inclined (always
by deputy) to overlook the little mistake into which he had fallen
with her royal consort, and to receive him graciously.

"May it please your majesty, I have the honor to present to your
majesty's royal notice the Lord Noah Poke, the lord high admiral of
a distant and but little known country, called Great Britain," said
the gold stick of the evening--Judge People's Friend being afraid of
committing Leaplow, and declining to introduce the captain to any
one else.

"Lord Poke is a countryman of our royal cousin, the Prince Bob!"
observed the queen, in an exceedingly gracious manner.

"No, marm," put in the sealer, promptly, "your cousin Bob is no
cousin of mine; and if it were lawful for your majesty to have a
memory, or an inclination, or anything else in that way, I should
beg the favor of you to order the young blackguard to be soundly
threshed."

The majesty of Leaphigh stood aghast, by proxy! It would seem Noah
had now actually fallen into a more serious error than the mistake
he had made with the king. By the law of Leaphigh, the queen is not
a feme couverte. She can sue and be sued in her own name, holds her
separate estate, without the intervention of trustees, and IS
supposed to have a memory, a will, an inclination, or anything else
in that way, except a "royal pleasure," to which she cannot, of
right, lay claim. As to her, the king's first-cousin is a dead
letter; he having no more control over her conscience than he has
over the conscience of an apple-woman. In short, her majesty is
quite as much the mistress of her own convictions and conscience as
it probably ever falls to the lot of women in such high stations to
be the mistress of interests that are of so much importance to those
around them. Noah, innocently enough, I do firmly believe, had
seriously wounded all those nice sensibilities which are naturally
dependent on such an improved condition of society. Forbearance
could go no further, and I saw, by the dark looks around me, that
the captain had committed a serious crime. He was immediately
arrested, and conducted from the presence to an adjoining room, into
which I obtained admission, after a good deal of solicitation and
some very strong appeals to the sacred character of the rights of
hospitality.

It now appeared that, in Leaphigh, the merits of a law are decided
on a principle very similar to the one we employ in England in
judging of the quality of our wines, viz., its age. The older a law,
the more it is to be respected, no doubt because, having proved its
fitness by outlasting all the changes of society, it has become more
mellow, if not more palatable. Now, by a law of Leaphigh that is
coeval with the monarchy, he who offends the queen's majesty at a
levee is to lose his head; and he who, under the same circumstances,
offends the king's majesty, necessarily the more heinous offence, is
to lose his tail. In consequence of the former punishment, the
criminal is invariably buried, and he is consigned to the usual
course of monikin regeneration and resuscitation; but in consequence
of the latter, it is thought that he is completely thrown without
the pale of reason, and is thereby consigned to the class of the
retrogressive animals. His mind diminishes, and his body increases;
the brain, for want of the means of development, takes the ascending
movement of sap again; his forehead dilates; bumps reappear; and,
finally, after passing gradually downwards in the scale of
intellect, he becomes a mass of insensible matter. Such, at least,
is the theory of his punishment.

By another law, that is even older than the monarchy, any one who
offends in the king's palace may be tried by a very summary process,
the king's pages acting as his judges; in which case the sentence is
to be executed without delay.

Such was the dilemma to which Noah, by an indiscretion at court, was
suddenly reduced; and, but for my prompt interference, he would
probably have been simultaneously decapitated at both extremities,
in obedience to an etiquette which prescribes that, under the
circumstances of a court trial, neither the king's nor the queen's
rights shall be entitled to precedence. In defence of my client I
urged his ignorance of the usages of the country, and, indeed, of
all other civilized countries, Stunnin'tun alone excepted. I stated
that the criminal was an object altogether unworthy of their notice;
that he was not a lord high admiral at all, but a mere pitiful
sealer; I laid some stress on the importance of maintaining friendly
relations with the sealers, who cruise so near the monikin region; I
tried to convince the judges that Noah meant no harm in imputing
moral properties to the king, and that so long as he did not impute
immoral properties to his royal consort, she might very well afford
to pardon him. I then quoted Shakspeare's celebrated lines on mercy,
which seemed to be well enough received, and committed the whole
affair to their better judgment.

I should have got along very creditably, and most probably obtained
the immediate discharge of my friend, had not the attorney-general
of Leaphigh been drawn by curiosity into the room. Although he had
nothing to say to the merits of my arguments, he objected to every
one of them, on the ground of formality. This was too long, and that
was too short; one was too high, and another too low; a fifth was
too broad, and a sixth too narrow; in short, there was no figure of
speech of this nature to which he did not resort, in order to prove
their worthlessness, with the exception that I do not remember he
charged any of my reasons with being too deep.

Matters were now beginning to look serious for poor Noah, when a
page came skipping in to say that the wedding was about to take
place, and that if his comrades wished to witness it, they must
sentence the prisoner without delay. Many a man, it is said, has
been hanged, in order that the judge might dine; but, in the present
instance, I do believe Captain Poke was spared, in order that his
judges might not miss a fine spectacle. I entered into recognizance,
in fifty thousand promises, for the due appearance of the criminal
on the following morning; and we all returned, in a body, to the
presence-chamber, treading on each other's tails, in the eagerness
to be foremost.

Any one who has ever been at a human court, must very well know
that, while it is the easiest thing in the world to throw it into
commotion by a violation of etiquette, matters of mere life and
death are not at all of a nature to disturb its tranquillity. There,
everything is a matter of routine and propriety; and, to judge from
experience, nothing is so unseemly as to appear to possess human
sympathies. The fact is not very different at Leaphigh, for the
monikin sympathies, apparently, are quite as obtuse as those of men;
although justice compels me to allow, that in the case of Captain
Poke, the appeal was made in behalf of a creature of a different
species. It is also a settled principle of Leaphigh jurisprudence,
that it would be monstrous for the king to interfere in behalf of
justice-justice, however, being always administered in his name;
although it certainly is not held to be quite so improper for him to
interfere in behalf of those who have offended justice.

As a consequence of these nice distinctions, which it requires a
very advanced stage of civilization fully to comprehend, both the
king and queen received our whole party, when we came back into the
presence, exactly as if nothing particular had occurred. Noah wore
both head and tail erect, like another; and the lord high admiral of
Leaphigh dropped into a familiar conversation with him, on the
subject of ballasting ships, in just as friendly a manner as if he
were on the best possible terms with the whole royal family. This
moral sang froid is not to be ascribed to phlegm, but is, in fact,
the result of high mental discipline, which causes the courtier to
be utterly destitute of all feeling, except in cases that affect
himself.

It was high time now that I should be presented. Judge People's
Friend, who had witnessed the dilemma of Noah with diplomatic
unconcern, very politely renewed the offer of his services in my
favor, and I went forward and stood before the throne.

"Sire, allow me to present a very eminent literary character among
men, a cunning clerk, by name Goldencalf," said the envoy, bowing to
his majesty.

"He is welcome to my court," returned the king by proxy.

"Pray, Mr. People's Friend, is not this one of the human beings who
have lately arrived in my dominions, and who have shown so much
cleverness in getting Chatterino and his governor through the ice?"

"The very same, please your majesty; and a very arduous service it
was, and right cleverly performed."

"This reminds me of a duty.--Let my cousin be summoned."

I now began to see a ray of hope, and to feel the truth of the
saying which teaches us that justice, though sometimes slow, never
fails to arrive at last. I had also, now, and for the first time, a
good view of the king's eldest first-cousin of the masculine gender,
who drew near at the summons; and, while he had the appearance of
listening with the most profound attention to the instructions of
the king of Leaphigh, was very evidently telling that potentate what
he ought to do. The conference ended, his majesty's proxy spoke in a
way to be heard by all who had the good fortune to be near the royal
person.

"Reasono did a good thing," he said; "really, a very good thing, in
bringing us these specimens of the human family. But for his
cleverness, I might have died without ever dreaming that men were
gifted with tails." [Kings never get hold of the truth at the right
end.] "I wonder if the queen knew it. Pray, did you know, my
Augusta, that men had tails?"

"Our exemption from state affairs gives us females better
opportunities than your majesty enjoys, to study these matters,"
returned his royal consort, by the mouth of her lady of the bed-
chamber.

"I dare say I'm very silly--but our cousin, here, thinks it might be
well to do something for these good people, for it may encourage
their king himself to visit us some day."

An exclamation of pleasure escaped the ladies; who declared, one and
all, it would be delightful to see a real human king--it would be so
funny!

"Well, well," added the good-natured monarch, "Heaven knows what may
happen, for I have seen stranger things. Really, we ought to do
something for these good people; for, although we owe the pleasure
of their visit, in a great degree, to the cleverness of Reasono--
who, by the way, I'm glad to hear is declared an H. O. A. X.--yet he
very handsomely admits, that but for their exertions--none of our
seamikins being within reach--it would have been quite impossible to
get through the ice. I wish I knew, now, which was the cleverest and
the most useful of their party."

Here the queen, always thinking and speaking by proxy, suggested the
propriety of leaving the point to Prince Bob.

"It would be no more than is due to his rank; for though they are
men, I dare say they have feelings like ourselves."

The question was now submitted to Bob, who sat in judgment on us
all, with as much gravity as if accustomed to such duties from
infancy. It is said that men soon get to be familiar with elevation,
and that, while he who has fallen never fails to look backwards, he
who has risen invariably limits his vision to the present horizon.
Such proved to be the case with the princely Bob.

"This person," observed the jackanapes, pointing to me, "is a very
good sort of person, it is true, but he is hardly the sort of person
your majesty wants just now. There is the lord high admiral, too--
but--" (Bob's but was envenomed by a thousand kicks!)--"but--you
wish, sire, to know which of my father's subjects was the most
useful in getting the ship to Leaphigh?"

"That is precisely the fact I desire to know."

Bob hereupon pointed to the cook; who, it will be remembered, was
present as one of his train-bearers. "I believe I must say, sire,
that this is the man. He fed us all; and without food, and that in
considerable quantities, too, nothing could have been done."

The little blackguard was rewarded for his impudence, by
exclamations of pleasure from all around him.--"It was so clever a
distinction,"--"it showed so much reflection,"--"it was so very
profound,"--"it proved how much he regarded the base of society;"--
in short, "it was evident England would be a happy country, when he
should be called to the throne!" In the meantime the cook was
required to come forth, and kneel before his majesty.

"What is your name?" whispered the lord of the bed-chamber, who now
spoke for himself.

"Jack Coppers, your honor."

The lord of the bed-chamber made a communication to his majesty,
when the sovereign turned round by proxy, with his back towards
Jack, and, giving him the accolade with his tail, he bade him rise,
as "Sir Jack Coppers."

I was a silent, an admiring, an astounded witness of this act of
gross and flagrant injustice. Some one pulled me aside, and then I
recognized the voice of Brigadier Downright.

"You think that honors have alighted where they are least due. You
think that the saying of your crown prince has more smartness than
truth, more malice than honesty. You think that the court has judged
on false principles, and acted on an impulse rather than on reason;
that the king has consulted his own ease in affecting to do justice;
that the courtiers have paid a homage to their master, in affecting
to pay a homage to merit; and that nothing in this life is pure or
free from the taint of falsehood, selfishness, or vanity. Alas! this
is too much the case with us monikins, I must allow; though,
doubtless, among men you manage a vast deal more cleverly."




CHAPTER XIX.

ABOUT THE HUMILITY OF PROFESSIONAL SAINTS, A SUCCESSION OF TAILS, A
BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM, AND OTHER HEAVENLY MATTERS, DIPLOMACY
INCLUDED.


Perceiving that Brigadier Downright had an observant mind, and that
he was altogether superior to the clannish feeling which is so apt
to render a particular species inimical to all others, I asked
permission to cultivate his acquaintance; begging, at the same time,
that he would kindly favor me with such remarks as might be
suggested by his superior wisdom and extensive travels, on any of
those customs or opinions that would naturally present themselves in
our actual situation. The brigadier took the request in good part,
and we began to promenade the rooms in company. As the Archbishop of
Aggregation, who was to perform the marriage ceremony, was shortly
expected, the conversation very naturally turned on the general
state of religion in the monikin region.

I was delighted to find that the clerical dogmas of this insulated
portion of the world were based on principles absolutely identical
with those of all Christendom. The monikins believe that they are a
miserable lost set of wretches, who are so debased by nature, so
eaten up by envy, uncharitableness, and all other evil passions,
that it is quite impossible they can do anything that is good of
themselves; that their sole dependence is on the moral interference
of the great superior power of creation; and that the very first,
and the one needful step of their own, is to cast themselves
entirely on this power for support, in a proper spirit of dependence
and humility. As collateral to, and consequent on, this condition of
the mind, they lay the utmost stress on a disregard of all the
vanities of life, a proper subjection of the lusts of the flesh, and
an abstaining from the pomp and vainglory of ambition, riches,
power, and the faculties. In short, the one thing needful was
humility--humility--humility. Once thoroughly humbled to a degree
that put them above the danger of backsliding, they obtained
glimpses of security, and were gradually elevated to the hopes and
the condition of the just.

The brigadier was still eloquently discoursing on this interesting
topic, when a distant door opened, and a gold stick, or some other
sort of stick, announced the right reverend father in God, his grace
the most eminent and most serene prelate, the very puissant and
thrice gracious and glorified saint, the Primate of All Leaphigh!

The reader will anticipate the eager curiosity with which I advanced
to get a glimpse of a saint under a system as sublimated as that of
the great monikin family. Civilization having made such progress as
to strip all the people, even to the king and queen, entirely of
everything in the shape of clothes, I did not well see under what
new mantle of simplicity the heads of the church could take refuge!
Perhaps they shaved off all the hair from their bodies in sign of
supereminent self-abasement, leaving themselves naked to the
cuticle, that they might prove, by ocular evidence, what a poor
ungainly set of wretches they really were, carnally considered; or
perhaps they went on all-fours to heaven, in sign of their unfitness
to enter into the presence of the pure of mind in an attitude more
erect and confident. Well, these fancies of mine only went to prove
how erroneous and false are the conclusions of one whose capacity
has not been amplified and concatenated by the ingenuities of a very
refined civilization. His grace the most gracious father in God,
wore a mantle of extraordinary fineness and beauty, the material of
which was composed of every tenth hair taken from all the citizens
of Leaphigh, who most cheerfully submitted to be shaved, in order
that the wants of his most eminent humility might be decently
supplied. The mantle, wove from such a warp and such a woof, was
necessarily very large; and it really appeared to me that the
prelate did not very well know what to do with so much of it, more
especially as the contributions include a new robe annually. I was
now desirous of getting a sight of his tail; for, knowing that the
Leaphighers take great pride in the length and beauty of that
appurtenance, I very naturally supposed that a saint who wore so
fine and glorious a robe, by way of humility, must have recourse to
some novel expedient to mortify himself on his sensitive subject, at
least. I found that the ample proportions of the mantle concealed
not only the person, but most of the movements of the archbishop;
and it was with many doubts of my success that I led the brigadier
behind the episcopal train to reconnoitre. The result disappointed
expectation again. Instead of being destitute of a tail, or of
concealing that with which nature had supplied him beneath his
mantle, the most gracious dignitary wore no less than six caudae,
viz., his own, and five others added to it, by some subtle process
of clerical ingenuity that I shall not attempt to explain; one "bent
on the other," as the captain described them in a subsequent
conversation. This extraordinary train was allowed to sweep the
floor; the only sign of humility, according to my uninstructed
faculties, I could discern about the person and appearance of this
illustrious model of clerical self-mortification and humility.

The brigadier, however, was not tardy in setting me right. In the
first place, he gave me to understand that the hierarchy of Leaphigh
was illustrated by the order of their tails. Thus, a deacon wore one
and a half; a curate, if a minister, one and three-quarters, and a
rector two; a dean, two and a half, an archdeacon, three; a bishop,
four; the Primate of Leaphigh, five, and the Primate of ALL
Leaphigh, six. The origin of the custom, which was very ancient, and
of course very much respected, was imputed to the doctrine of a
saint of great celebrity, who had satisfactorily proved that as the
tail was the intellectual or the spiritual part of a monikin, the
farther it was removed from the mass of matter, or the body, the
more likely it was to be independent, consecutive, logical, and
spiritualized. The idea had succeeded astonishingly at first; but
time, which will wear out even a cauda, had given birth to schisms
in the church on this interesting subject; one party contending that
two more joints ought to be added to the archbishop's embellishment,
by way of sustaining the church, and the other that two joints ought
to be incontinently abstracted, in the way of reform.

These explanations were interrupted by the appearance of the bride
and bridegroom, at different doors. The charming Chatterissa
advanced with a most prepossessing modesty, followed by a glorious
train of noble maidens, all keeping their eyes, by a rigid ordinance
of hymeneal etiquette, dropped to the level of the queen's feet. On
the other hand, my lord Chatterino, attended by that coxcomb
Hightail, and others of his kidney, stepped towards the altar with a
lofty confidence, which the same etiquette exacted of the
bridegroom. The parties were no sooner in their places, than the
prelate commenced.

The marriage ceremony, according to the formula of the established
church of Leaphigh, is a very solemn and imposing ceremony. The
bridegroom is required to swear that he loves the bride and none but
the bride; that he has made his choice solely on account of her
merits, uninfluenced even by her beauty; and that he will so far
command his inclinations as, on no account, ever to love another a
jot. The bride, on her part, calls heaven and earth to witness, that
she will do just what the bridegroom shall ask of her; that she will
be his bondwoman, his slave, his solace and his delight; that she is
quite certain no other monikin could make her happy, but, on the
other hand, she is absolutely sure that any other monikin would be
certain to make her miserable. When these pledges, oaths, and
asseverations were duly made and recorded, the archbishop caused the
happy pair to be wreathed together, by encircling them with his
episcopal tail, and they were then pronounced monikin and monikina.
I pass over the congratulations, which were quite in rule, to relate
a short conversation I held with the brigadier.