Alexandre Dumas, Pere - "Louise de la Valliere"

Pedro Calderon de la Barca - "The Purgatory of St. Patrick"

Lillian Elizabeth Roy - "Polly of Pebbly Pit"

S. Weir Mitchell - "Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker"

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




"We call these interesting beings monkeys; but how do we know that
they do not return the compliment, and call us, in their own
particular dialect, something quite as offensive? It would become
our species to manifest a more equitable and philosophical spirit,
and to consider these interesting strangers as an unfortunate family
which has fallen into the hands of brutes, and which is in every way
entitled to our commiseration and our active interference. Hitherto
I have never sufficiently stimulated my sympathies for the animal
world by any investment in quadrupeds; but it is my intention to
write to-morrow to my English agent to purchase a pack of hounds and
a suitable stud of horses; and by way of quickening so laudable a
resolution, I shall forthwith make propositions to the Savoyards for
the speedy emancipation of this family of amiable foreigners. The
slave-trade is an innocent pastime compared to the cruel oppression
that the gentleman in the Spanish hat, in particular, is compelled
to endure."

"King!"

"He may be a king, sure enough, in his own country, Captain Poke; a
fact that would add tenfold agony to his unmerited sufferings."

Hereupon I proceeded without more ado to open a negotiation with the
Savoyards. The judicious application of a few Napoleons soon brought
about a happy understanding between the contracting parties, when
the Savoyards transferred to my hands the strings which confined
their vassals, as the formal and usual acknowledgment of the right
of ownership. Committing the three others to the keeping of Mr.
Poke, I led the individual in the hussar jacket a little on one
side, and raising my hat to show that I was superior to the vulgar
feelings of feudal superiority, I addressed him briefly in the
following words:

"Although I have ostensibly bought the right which these Savoyards
professed to have in your person and services, I seize an early
occasion to inform you that virtually you are now free. As we are
among a people accustomed to see your race in subjection, however,
it may not be prudent to proclaim the nature of the present
transaction, lest there might be some further conspiracies against
your natural rights. We will retire to my hotel forthwith,
therefore, where your future happiness shall be the subject of our
more mature and of our united deliberations."

The respectable stranger in the hussar jacket heard me with
inimitable gravity and self-command until, in the warmth of feeling,
I raised an arm in earnest gesticulation, when, most probably
overcome by the emotions of delight that were naturally awakened in
his bosom by this sudden change in his fortune, he threw three
summersets, or flapjacks, as Captain Poke had quaintly designated
his evolutions, in such rapid succession as to render it for a
moment a matter of doubt whether nature had placed his head or his
heels uppermost.

Making a sign for Captain Poke to follow, I now took my way directly
to the Rue de Rivoli. We were attended by a constantly increasing
crowd until the gate of the hotel was fairly entered; and glad was I
to see my charge safely housed, for there were abundant indications
of another design upon their rights in the taunts and ridicule of
the living mass that rolled up as it were upon our heels. On
reaching my own apartments, a courier who had been waiting my
return, and who had just arrived express from England, put a packet
into my hands, stating that it came from my principal English agent.
Hasty orders were given to attend to the comfort and wants of
Captain Poke and the strangers (orders that were in no danger of
being neglected, since Sir John Goldencalf, with the reputed annual
revenue of three millions of francs, had unlimited credit with all
the inhabitants of the hotel); and I hurried into my cabinet and sat
down to the eager perusal of the different communications.

Alas! there was not a line from Anna! The obdurate girl still
trifled with my misery; and in revenge I entertained a momentary
resolution of adopting the notions of Mahmoud, in order to qualify
myself to set up a harem.

The letters were from a variety of correspondents, embracing many of
those who were entrusted with the care of my interests in very
opposite quarters of the world. Half an hour before I had been dying
to open more intimate relations with the interesting strangers; but
my thoughts instantly took a new direction, and I soon found that
the painful sentiments I had entertained touching their welfare and
happiness were quite lost in the newly awakened interests that lay
before me. It is in this simple manner, no doubt, that the system to
which I am a convert effects no small part of its own great
purposes. No sooner does any one interest grow painful by excess
than a new claim arises to divert the thoughts, a new demand is made
on the sensibilities; and by lowering our affections from the
intensity of selfishness to the more bland and equable feeling of
impartiality, forms that just and generous condition of the mind at
which the political economists aim when they dilate on the glories
and advantages of their favorite theory of the social stake.

In this happy frame of mind I fell to reading the letters with
avidity and with the godlike determination to reverence Providence
and to do justice. Fiat justitia ruat coelum!

The first epistle was from the agent of the principal West India
estate. He acquainted me with the fact that all hopes from the
expected crop were destroyed by a hurricane, and he begged that I
would furnish the means necessary to carry on the affairs of the
plantation until another season might repair the loss. Priding
myself on punctuality as a man of business, before I broke another
seal a letter was written to a banker in London requesting him to
supply the necessary credits, and to notify the agents in the West
Indies of the circumstance. As he was a member of parliament, I
seized the occasion also to press upon him the necessity of
government's introducing some early measure for the protection of
the sugar-growers, a most meritorious class of his fellow-subjects,
and one whose exposures and actual losses called loudly for relief
of this nature. As I closed the letter I could not help dwelling
with complacency on the zeal and promptitude with which I had acted-
-the certain proof of the usefulness of the theory of investments.

The second communication was from the manager of an East India
property, that very happily came with its offering to fill the
vacuum left by the failure of the crops just mentioned. Sugar was
likely to be a drug in the peninsula, and my correspondent stated
that the cost of transportation being so much greater than from the
other colonies, this advantage would be entirely lost unless
government did something to restore the East Indian to his natural
equality. I enclosed this letter in one to my Lord Say and Do, who
was in the ministry, asking him in the most laconic and pointed
terms whether it were possible for the empire to prosper when one
portion of it was left in possession of exclusive advantages, to the
prejudice of all the others? As this question was put with a truly
British spirit, I hope it had some tendency to open the eyes of his
majesty's ministers; for much was shortly after said, both in the
journals and in parliament, on the necessity of protecting our East
Indian fellow-subjects, and of doing natural justice by establishing
the national prosperity on the only firm basis, that of free trade.

The next letter was from the acting partner of a large manufacturing
house to which I had advanced quite half the capital, in order to
enter into a sympathetic communion with the cotton-spinners. The
writer complained heavily of the import duty on the raw material,
made some poignant allusions to the increasing competition on the
continent and in America, and pretty clearly intimated that the lord
of the manor of Householder ought to make himself felt by the
administration in a question of so much magnitude to the nation. On
this hint I spake. I sat down on the spot and wrote a long letter to
my friend Lord Pledge, in which I pointed out to him the danger that
threatened our political economy; that we were imitating the false
theories of the Americans (the countrymen of Captain Poke), that
trade was clearly never so prosperous as when it was the most
successful, that success depended on effort, and effort was the most
efficient when the least encumbered, and in short that as it was
self-evident a man would jump farther without being in foot-irons,
or strike harder without being hand-cuffed, so it was equally
apparent that a merchant would make a better bargain for himself
when he could have things all his own way than when his enterprise
and industry were shackled by the impertinent and selfish
interposition of the interests of others. In conclusion there was an
eloquent description of the demoralizing consequences of smuggling,
and a pungent attack on the tendencies of taxation in general. I
have written and said some good things in my time, as several of my
dependents have sworn to me in a way that even my natural modesty
cannot repudiate; but I shall be excused for the weakness if I now
add that I believe this letter to Lord Pledge contained some as
clever points as anything I remember in their way; the last
paragraph in particular being positively the neatest and the best
turned moral I ever produced.

Letter fourth was from the steward of the Householder estate. He
spoke of the difficulty of getting the rents; a difficulty that he
imputed altogether to the low price of corn. He said that it would
soon be necessary to relet certain farms; and he feared that the
unthinking cry against the corn-laws would affect the conditions. It
was incumbent on the landed interest to keep an eye on the popular
tendencies as respected this subject, for any material variation
from the present system would lower the rental of all the grain-
growing counties in England thirty per cent, at least at a blow. He
concluded with a very hard rap at the agrarians, a party that was
just coming a little into notice in Great Britain, and by a very
ingenious turn, in which he completely demonstrated that the
protection of the landlord and the support of the Protestant
religion were indissolubly connected. There was also a vigorous
appeal to the common sense of the subject on the danger to be
apprehended by the people from themselves; which he treated in a way
that, a little more expanded, would have made a delightful homily on
the rights of man.

I believe I meditated on the contents of this letter fully an hour.
Its writer, John Dobbs, was as worthy and upright a fellow as ever
breathed; and I could not but admire the surprising knowledge of men
which shone through every line he had indited. Something must be
done it was clear; and at length I determined to take the bull by
the horns and to address Mr. Huskisson at once, as the shortest way
of coming at the evil. He was the political sponsor for all the new
notions on the subject of our foreign mercantile policy; and by
laying before him in a strong point of view the fatal consequences
of carrying his system to extremes, I hoped something might yet be
done for the owners of real estate, the bones and sinews of the
land.

I shall just add in this place that Mr. Huskisson sent me a very
polite and a very statesman-like reply, in which he disclaimed any
intention of meddling improperly with British interests in any way;
that taxation was necessary to our system, and of course every
nation was the best judge of its own means and resources; but that
he merely aimed at the establishment of just and generous
principles, by which nations that had no occasion for British
measures should not unhandsomely resort to them; and that certain
external truths should stand, like so many well-constructed tubs,
each on its own bottom. I must say I was pleased with this attention
from a man generally reputed as clever as Mr. Huskisson, and from
that time I became a convert to most of his opinions.

The next communication that I opened was from the overseer of the
estate in Louisiana, who informed me that the general aspect of
things in that quarter of the world was favorable, but the smallpox
had found its way among the negroes, and the business of the
plantation would immediately require the services of fifteen able-
bodied men, with the usual sprinkling of women and children. He
added that the laws of America prohibited the further importation of
blacks from any country without the limits of the Union, but that
there was a very pretty and profitable internal trade in the
article, and that the supply might be obtained in sufficient season
either from the Carolinas, Virginia, or Maryland. He admitted,
however, that there was some choice between the different stocks of
these several States, and that some discretion might be necessary in
making the selection. The negro of the Carolinas was the most used
to the cotton-field, had less occasion for clothes, and it had been
proved by experiment could be fattened on red herrings; while, on
the other hand, the negro farther north had the highest instinct,
could sometimes reason, and that he had even been known to preach
when he had got as high up as Philadelphia. He much affected, also,
bacon and poultry. Perhaps it might be well to purchase samples of
lots from all the different stocks in market.

In reply I assented to the latter idea, suggesting the expediency of
getting one or two of the higher castes from the north; I had no
objection to preaching provided they preached work; but I cautioned
the overseer particularly against schismatics. Preaching, in the
abstract, could do no harm; all depending on doctrine.

This advice was given as the result of much earnest observation.
Those European states that had the most obstinately resisted the
introduction of letters, I had recently had occasion to remark were
changing their systems, and were about to act on the principle of
causing "fire to fight fire." They were fast having recourse to
school-books, using no other precaution than the simple expedient of
writing them themselves. By this ingenious invention poison was
converted into food, and truths of all classes were at once put
above the dangers of disputations and heresies.

Having disposed of the Louisianian, I very gladly turned to the
opening of the sixth seal. The letter was from the efficient trustee
of a company to whose funds I had largely contributed by way of
making an investment in charity. It had struck me, a short time
previously to quitting home, that interests positive as most of
those I had embarked in had a tendency to render the spirit worldly;
and I saw no other check to such an evil than by seeking for some
association with the saints, in order to set up a balance against
the dangerous propensity. A lucky occasion offered through the wants
of the Philo-African-anti-compulsion-free-labor Society, whose
meritorious efforts were about to cease for the want of the great
charity-power--gold. A draft for five thousand pounds had obtained
me the honor of being advertised as a shareholder and a patron; and,
I know not why!--but it certainly caused me to inquire into the
results with far more interest than I had ever before felt in any
similar institution. Perhaps this benevolent anxiety arose from that
principle in our nature which induces us to look after whatever has
been our own as long as any part of it can be seen.

The principal trustee of the Philo-African-anti-compulsion-free-
labor Society now wrote to state that some of the speculations which
had gone pari passu with the charity had been successful, and that
the shareholders were, by the fundamental provisions of the
association, entitled to a dividend, but--how often that awkward
word stands between the cup and the lip!--BUT that he was of opinion
the establishment of a new factory near a point where the slavers
most resorted, and where gold-dust and palm-oil were also to be had
in the greatest quantities, and consequently at the lowest prices,
would equally benefit trade and philanthropy; that by a judicious
application of our means these two interests might be made to see-
saw very cleverly, as cause and effect, effect and cause; that the
black man would be spared an incalculable amount of misery, the
white man a grievous burden of sin, and the particular agents of so
manifest a good might quite reasonably calculate on making at the
very least forty per cent. per annum on their money besides having
all their souls saved in the bargain. Of course I assented to a
proposition so reasonable in itself, and which offered benefits so
plausible!

The next epistle was from the head of a great commercial house in
Spain in which I had taken some shares, and whose interests had been
temporarily deranged by the throes of the people in their efforts to
obtain redress for real or imaginary wrongs. My correspondent showed
a proper indignation on the occasion, and was not sparing in his
language whenever he was called to speak of popular tumults. "What
do the wretches wish?" he asked with much point--"Our lives as well
as our property? Ah! my dear sir, this bitter fact impresses us all
(by us he meant the mercantile interests) with the importance of
strong executives. Where should we have been but for the bayonets of
the king? or what would have become of our altars, our firesides,
and our persons, had it not pleased God to grant us a monarch
indomitable in will, brave in spirit, and quick in action?" I wrote
a proper answer of congratulation and turned to the next epistle,
which was the last of the communications.

The eighth letter was from the acting head of another commercial
house in New York, United States of America, or the country of
Captain Poke, where it would seem the president by a decided
exercise of his authority had drawn upon himself the execrations of
a large portion of the commercial interests of the country; since
the effect of the measure, right or wrong, as a legitimate
consequence or not, by hook or by crook, had been to render money
scarce. There is no man so keen in his philippics, so acute in
discovering and so prompt in analyzing facts, so animated in his
philosophy, and so eloquent in his complaints, as your debtor when
money unexpectedly gets to be scarce. Credit, comfort, bones,
sinews, marrow and all appear to depend on the result; and it is no
wonder that, under so lively impressions, men who have hitherto been
content to jog on in the regular and quiet habits of barter, should
suddenly start up into logicians, politicians, aye, or even into
magicians. Such had been the case with my present correspondent, who
seemed to know and to care as little in general of the polity of his
own country as if he had never been in it, but who now was ready to
split hairs with a metaphysician, and who could not have written
more complacently of the constitution if he had even read it. My
limits will not allow an insertion of the whole letter, but one or
two of its sentences shall be given. "Is it tolerable, my dear sir,"
he went on to say, "that the executive of ANY country, I will not
say merely of our own, should possess, or exercise, even admitting
that he does possess them, such unheard of powers? Our condition is
worse than that of the Mussulmans, who in losing their money usually
lose their heads, and are left in a happy insensibility to their
sufferings: but, alas! there is an end of the much boasted liberty
of America! The executive has swallowed up all the other branches of
the government, and the next thing will be to swallow up us. Our
altars, our firesides, and our persons will shortly be invaded; and
I much fear that my next letter will be received by you long after
all correspondence shall be prohibited, every means of communication
cut off, and we ourselves shall be precluded from writing, by being
chained like beasts of burden to the car of a bloody tyrant." Then
followed as pretty a string of epithets as I remember to have heard
from the mouth of the veriest shrew at Billingsgate.

I could not but admire the virtue of the "social-stake system,"
which kept men so sensibly alive to all their rights, let them live
where they would, or under what form of government, which was so
admirably suited to sustain truth and render us just. In reply I
sent back epithet for epithet, echoed all the groans of my
correspondent, and railed as became a man who was connected with a
losing concern.

This closed my correspondence for the present, and I arose wearied
with my labors, and yet greatly rejoicing in their fruits. It was
now late, but excitement prevented sleep; and before retiring for
the night I could not help looking in upon my guests. Captain Poke
had gone to a room in another part of the hotel, but the family of
amiable strangers were fast asleep in the antechamber. They had
supped heartily as I was assured, and were now indulging in a happy
but temporary oblivion--to use an improved expression--of all their
wrongs. Satisfied with this state of things, I now sought my own
pillow, or, according to a favorite phrase of Mr. Noah Poke, I also
"turned in."




CHAPTER IX.

THE COMMENCEMENT OF WONDERS, WHICH ARE THE MORE EXTRAORDINARY ON
ACCOUNT OF THEIR TRUTH.


I dare say my head had been on the pillow fully an hour before sleep
closed my eyes. During this time I had abundant occasion to
understand the activity of what are called the "busy thoughts." Mine
were feverish, glowing, and restless. They wandered over a wild
field; one that included Anna, with her beauty, her mild truth, her
womanly softness, and her womanly cruelty; Captain Poke and his
peculiar opinions; the amiable family of quadrupeds and their
wounded sensibilities; the excellences of the social-stake system;
and, in short, most of that which I had seen and heard during the
last four-and-twenty hours. When sleep did tardily arrive, it
overtook me at the very moment that I had inwardly vowed to forget
my heartless mistress, and to devote the remainder of my life to the
promulgation of the doctrine of the expansive-super-human-
generalized-affection-principle, to the utter exclusion of all
narrow and selfish views, and in which I resolved to associate
myself with Mr. Poke, as with one who had seen a great deal of this
earth and its inhabitants, without narrowing down his sympathies in
favor of any one place or person in particular, Stunin'tun and
himself very properly excepted.

It was broad daylight when I awoke on the following morning. My
spirits were calmed by rest, and my nerves had been soothed by the
balmy freshness of the atmosphere. It appeared that my valet had
entered and admitted the morning air, and then had withdrawn as
usual to await the signal of the bell before he presumed to
reappear. I lay many minutes in delicious repose, enjoying the
periodical return of life and reason, bringing with it the pleasures
of thought and its ten thousand agreeable associations. The
delightful reverie into which I was insensibly dropping was,
however, ere long arrested by low, murmuring, and, as I thought,
plaintive voices at no great distance from my own bed. Seating
myself erect, I listened intently and with a good deal of surprise;
for it was not easy to imagine whence sounds so unusual for that
place and hour could proceed. The discourse was earnest and even
animated; but it was carried on in so low a tone that it would have
been utterly inaudible but for the deep quiet of the hotel.
Occasionally a word reached my ear, and I was completely at fault in
endeavoring to ascertain even the language. That it was in neither
of the five great European tongues I was certain, for all these I
either spoke or read; and there were particular sounds and
inflections that induced me to think that it savored of the most
ancient of the two classics. It is true that the prosody of these
dialects, at the same time that it is a shibboleth of learning, is a
disputed point, the very sounds of the vowels even being a matter of
national convention; the Latin word dux, for instance, being ducks
in England, docks in Italy, and dukes in France: yet there is a 'je
ne sais quoi,' a delicacy in the auricular taste of a true scholar,
that will rarely lead him astray when his ears are greeted with
words that have been used by Demosthenes or Cicero. [Footnote: Or
Chichero, or Kickero, whichever may happen to suit the prejudices of
the reader.] In the present instance I distinctly heard the word my-
bom-y-nos-fos-kom-i-ton, which I made sure was a verb in the dual
number and second person, of a Greek root, but of a signification
that I could not on the instant master, but which beyond a question
every scholar will recognize as having a strong analogy to a well-
known line in Homer. If I was puzzled with the syllables that
accidentally reached me, I was no less perplexed with the
intonations of the voices of the different speakers. While it was
easy to understand they were of the two sexes, they had no direct
affinity to the mumbling sibilations of the English, the vehement
monotony of the French, the gagging sonorousness of the Spaniards,
the noisy melody of the Italians, the ear-splitting octaves of the
Germans, or the undulating, head-over-heels enunciation of the
countrymen of my particular acquaintance Captain Noah Poke. Of all
the living languages of which I had any knowledge, the resemblance
was nearer to the Danish and Swedish than to any other; but I much
doubted at the time I first heard the syllables, and still question,
if there is exactly such a word as my-bom-y-nos-fos-kom-i-ton to be
found in even either of those tongues. I could no longer support the
suspense. The classical and learned doubts that beset me grew
intensely painful; and arising with the greatest caution, in order
not to alarm the speakers, I prepared to put an end to them all by
the simple and natural process of actual observation.