Hamlin Garland - "Main Travelled Roads"

Louisa May Alcott - "An Old fashioned Girl"

Emile Zola - "Nouveaux Contes a Ninon"

Pierre Loti - "Madame Chrysantheme, v1"

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: The Lights and Shadows of Real Life

T >> T.S. Arthur >> The Lights and Shadows of Real Life




"What is this?" was his natural inquiry.

"Something that Mr. Smith left."

"Mr. Smith from Q--?"

"Yes."

"I wonder what he has here?" said Mr. Jones, taking hold of the
demijohn. "It feels heavy."

The cork was unhesitatingly removed, and the mouth of the vessel
brought in contact with the smelling organ of Mr. Jones.

"Wine, as I live!" fell from his lips. "Bring me a glass."

"O! no, Mr. Jones. I wouldn't touch his wine," said Mrs. Jones.

"Bring me a glass. Do you think I'm going to let a gallon of wine
pass my way without exacting toll? No--no! Bring me a glass."

The glass, a half-pint tumbler, was produced, and nearly filled with
the execrable stuff--as guiltless of grape juice as a dyer's
vat--which was poured down the throat of Mr. Jones.

"Pretty fair wine, that; only a little rough," said Mr. Jones,
smacking his lips.

"It's a shame!" remarked Mrs. Jones, warmly, "for you to do so."

"I only took toll," said the husband, laughing. "No harm in that,
I'm sure."

"Rather heavy toll, it strikes me," replied Mrs. Jones.

Meantime, Mr. Smith, having completed most of his business for that
day, stopped at a store where he wished two or three articles put
up. While these were in preparation he said to the keeper of the
store,

"I wish you would let your lad Tom step over for me to Mr. Jones's.
I left a demijohn of common wine there, which I bought for the
purpose of making it into antimonial wine.

"O! certainly," replied the store-keeper. "Here, Tom!" and he called
for his boy.

Tom came, and the store-keeper said to him,

"Run over to Mr. Jones's and get a jug of antimonial wine which Mr.
Smith left there. Go quickly, for Mr. Smith is in a hurry."

"Yes, sir," replied the lad, and away he ran.

After Mr. Jones had disposed of his half a pint of wine, he thought
his stomach had rather a curious sensation, which is not much to be
wondered at, considering the stuff with which he had burdened it.

"I wonder if that really is wine?" said he, turning from the window
at which he had seated himself, and taking up tie demijohn again.
The cork was removed, and his nose applied to the mouth of the huge
bottle.

"Yes, it's wine; but I'll vow it's not much to brag of." And the
cork was once more replaced.

Just then came a knock at the door. Mrs. Jones opened it, and the
store-keeper's lad appeared.

"Mr. Smith says, please let me have the jug of antimonial wine he
left here."

"Antimonial wine!" exclaimed Mr. Jones, his chin falling, and a
paleness instantly overspread his face.

"Yes, sir," said the lad.

"Antimonial wine!" fell again, but huskily, from the quivering lips
of Mr. Jones. "Send for the doctor, Kitty, quick! Oh! How sick I
feel! Send for the doctor, or I'll be a dead man in half an hour!"

"Antimonial wine! Dreadful!" exclaimed Mrs. Jones, now as pale and
frightened as her husband. "Do you feel sick?"

"O! yes. As sick as death!" And the appearance of Mr. Jones by no
means belied his words. "Send for the doctor instantly, or it may be
too late."

Mrs. Jones ran first in one direction and then in another, and
finally, after telling the boy to run for the doctor, called Jane,
her single domestic, and started her on the same errand.

Off sprung Jane at a speed outstripping that of John Gilpin.
Fortunately, the doctor was in his office, and he came with all the
rapidity a proper regard to the dignity of his profession would
permit, armed with a stomach pump and a dozen antidotes. On arriving
at the house of Mr. Jones he found the sufferer lying upon a bed,
ghastly pale, and retching terribly.

"O! doctor! I'm afraid it's all over with me!" gasped the patient.

"How did it happen? what have you taken?" inquired the doctor,
eagerly.

"I took, by mistake, nearly a pint of antimonial wine."

"Then it must be removed instantly," said the doctor; and down the
sick man's throat went one end of a long, flexible, India rubber
tube, and pump! pump! pump! went the doctor's hand at the other end.
The result was very palpable. About a pint of reddish fluid,
strongly smelling of wine, came up, after which the instrument was
withdrawn.

"There," said the doctor, "I guess that will do. Now let me give you
an antidote." And a nauseous dose of something or other was mixed up
and poured down, to take the place of what had just been removed.

"Do you feel any better now?" inquired the doctor, as he sat holding
the pulse of the sick man, and scanning, with a professional eye,
his pale face, that was covered with a clammy perspiration.

"A little," was the faint reply. "Do you think all danger is past?"

"Yes, I think so. The antidote I have given you will neutralize the
effect of the drug, as far as it has passed into the system."

"I feel as weak as a rag," said the patient. "I am sure I could not
bear my own weight. What a powerful effect it had!"

"Don't think of it," returned the doctor. "Compose yourself. There
is now no danger to be apprehended whatever."

The wild flight of Jane through the street, and the hurried
movements of the doctor, did not fail to attract attention. Inquiry
followed, and it soon became noised about that Mr. Jones had taken
poison.

Mr. Smith was just stepping into his wagon, when a man came up and
said to him,

"Have you heard the news?"

"What news?"

"Mr. Jones has taken poison!"

"What?"

"Poison!"

"Who! Mr. Jones?"

"Yes. And they say he cannot live."

"Dreadful! I must see him." And without waiting for further
information, Mr. Smith spoke to his horse and rode off at a gallop
for the residence of his friend. Mrs. Jones met him at the door,
looking very anxious.

"How is he?" inquired Mr. Smith, in a serious voice.

"A little better, I thank you. The doctor has taken it all out of
his stomach. Will you walk up?"

Mr. Smith ascended to the chamber where lay Mr. Jones, looking as
white as a sheet. The doctor was still by his side.

"Ah! my friend," said the sick man, in a feeble voice, as Mr. Smith
took his hand, "that antimonial wine of yours has nearly been the
death of me."

"What antimonial wine?" inquired Mr. Smith, not understanding his
friend.

"The wine you left here in the gallon demijohn."

"That wasn't antimonial wine!"

"It was not?" fell from the lips of both Mr. and Mrs. Jones.

"Why, no! It was only wine that I had bought for the purpose of
making antimonial wine."

Mr. Jones rose up in bed.

"Not antimonial wine?"

"No!"

"Why the boy said it was."

"Then he didn't know any thing about it. It was nothing but some
common wine which I had bought."

Mr. Jones took a long breath. The doctor arose from the bedside, and
Mr. Jones exclaimed,

"Well, I never!"

Then came a grave silence, in which one looked at the other,
doubtingly.

"Good-day;" said the doctor, and went down stairs.

"So you have been drinking my wine, it seems," laughed Mr. Smith, as
soon as the man with the stomach pump had retired.

"I only took a little toll," said Mr. Jones, back into whose pale
face the color was beginning to come, and through whose almost
paralyzed nerves was again flowing from the brain a healthy
influence. "But don't say any thing about it! Don't for the world!"

"I won't, on one condition," said Mr. Smith, whose words were
scarcely coherent, so strongly was he convulsed with laughter.

"What is that?"

"You must become a teetotaller."

"Can't do that," replied Mr. Jones.

"Give me a day or two to make up my mind."

"Very well. And now, good bye; the sun is nearly down, and it will
be night before I get home."

And Mr. Smith shook hands with Mr. and Mrs. Jones and hurriedly
retired, trying, but in vain, to leave the house in a grave and
dignified manner. Long before Mr. Jones had made up his mind to join
the teetotallers, the story of his taking toll was all over the
town, and for the next two or three months he had his own time of
it. After that, it became an old story.






"THOU ART THE MAN!"





"HOW can you reconcile it to your conscience to continue in your
present business, Mr. Muddler?" asked a venerable clergyman of a
tavern-keeper, as the two walked home from the funeral of a young
man who had died suddenly.

"I find no difficulty on that score," replied the tavern-keeper, in
a confident tone: "My business is as necessary to the public as that
of any other man."

"That branch of it, which regards the comfort and accommodation of
travellers, I will grant to be necessary. But there is another
portion of it which, you must pardon me for saying, is not only
uncalled for by the real wants of the community, but highly
detrimental to health and good morals."

"And pray, Mr. Mildman, to what portion of my business do you
allude?"

"I allude to that part of it which embraces the sale of intoxicating
drinks."

"Indeed! the very best part of my business. But, certainly, you do
not pretend to say that I am to be held accountable for the
unavoidable excesses which sometimes grow out of the use of liquors
as a beverage?"

"I certainly must say, that, in my opinions a very large share of
the responsibility rests upon your shoulders. You not only make it a
business to sell liquors, but you use every device in your power to
induce men to come and drink them. You invent new compounds with new
and attractive names, in order to induce the indifferent or the
lovers of variety, to frequent your bar-room. In this way, you too
often draw the weak into an excess of self-indulgence, that ends,
alas! in drunkenness and final ruin of body and soul. You are not
only responsible for all this, Mr. Muddler, but you bear the weight
of a fearful responsibility!"

"I cannot see the subject in that light, Mr. Mildman," the
tavern-keeper said, rather gravely. "Mine is an honest and
honourable calling, and it is my duty to my family and to society,
to follow it with diligence and a spirit of enterprise."

"May I ask you a plain question, Mr. Muddler?"

"Oh yes, certainly! as many as you please."

"Can that calling be an honest and honourable one which takes
sustenance from the community, and gives back nothing in return?"

"I do not know that I understand the nature of your question, Mr.
Mildman."

"Consider then society as a man in a larger form, as it really is.
In this great body, as in the lesser body of man, there are various
functions of use and a reciprocity between the whole. Each function
receives a portion of life from the others, and gives back its own
proper share for the good of the whole. The hand does not act for
itself alone--receiving strength and selfishly appropriating it
without returning its quota of good to the general system. And so of
the heart, and lungs, and every other organ in the whole body.
Reverse the order--and how soon is the entire system diseased! Now,
does that member of the great body of the people act honestly and
honourably, who regularly receives his portion of good from the
general social system, and gives nothing back in return?"

To this the landlord made no reply, and Mr. Mildman continued--

"But there is still a stronger view to be taken. Suppose a member of
the human body is diseased--a limb, for instance, in a partial state
of mortification. Here there is a reception of life from the whole
system into that limb, and a constant giving back of disease that
gradually pervades the entire body; and, unless that body possesses
extraordinary vital energy, in the end destroys it. In like manner,
if in the larger body there be one member who takes his share of
life from the whole, and gives back nothing but a poisonous
principle, whose effect is disease and death, surely he cannot be
called a good member--nor honest, nor honourable."

"And pray, Mr. Mildman," asked the tavern-keeper, with warmth,
"where will you find, in society, such an individual as you
describe?"

The minister paused at this question, and looked his companion
steadily in the face. Then raising his long, thin finger to give
force to his remark, he said with deep emphasis--

_"Thou art the man!"_

"Me, Mr. Mildman! me!" exclaimed the tavern-keeper, in surprise and
displeasure. "You surely cannot be in earnest."

"I utter but a solemn truth, Mr. Muddler: such is your position in
society! You receive food, and clothing, and comforts and luxuries
of various kinds for yourself and family from the social body, and
what do you give back for all these? A poison to steal away the
health and happiness of that social body. You are far worse than a
perfectly dead member--you exist upon the great body as a moral
gangrene. Reflect calmly upon this subject. Go home, and in the
silence of your own chamber, enter into unimpassioned and solemn
communion with your heart. Be honest with yourself. Exclude the bias
of selfish feelings and selfish interests, and honestly define to
yourself your true position.'

"But, Mr. Mildman--"

The two men had paused nearly in front of Mr. Muddler's splendid
establishment, and were standing there when the tavern-keeper
commenced a reply to the minister's last remarks. He had uttered but
the first word or two, when he was interrupted by a pale,
thinly-dressed female, who held a little girl by the hand. She came
up before him and looked him steadily in the face for a moment or
two.

"Mr. Muddler, I believe," she said.

"Yes, madam, that is my name," was his reply.

"I have come, Mr. Muddler," the woman then said, with an effort to
smile and affect a polite air, "to thank you for a present I
received last night."

"Thank me, madam! There certainly must be some mistake. I never made
you a present. Indeed, I have not the pleasure of your
acquaintance."

"You said your name was Muddler, I believe?"

"Yes, madam, as I told you before, that is my name."

"Then you are the man. You made my little girl, here a present also,
and we have both come with our thanks."

"You deal in riddles, madam, Speak out plainly."

"As I said before," the woman replied, with bitter irony in her
tones, "I have come with my little girl to thank you for the present
we received last night;--a present of wretchedness and abuse."

"I am still as far from understanding you as ever," the
tavern-keeper said--I never abused you, madam. I do not even know
you."

"But you know my husband, sir! You have enticed him to your bar, and
for his money have given him a poison that has changed him from one
of the best and kindest of men, into a demon. To you, then, I owe
all the wretchedness I have suffered, and the brutal treatment I
shared with my helpless children last night. It is for this that I
have come to thank you."

"Surely, madam, you must be beside yourself. I have nothing to do
with your husband."

"Nothing to do with him!" the woman exclaimed, in an excited tone.
"Would to heaven that it were so! Before you opened your accursed
gin palace, he was a sober man, and the best and kindest of
husbands--but, enticed by you, your advertisement and display of
fancy drinks, he was tempted within the charmed circle of your
bar-room. From that moment began his downfall; and now he is lost to
self-control--lost to feeling--lost to humanity!"

As the woman said this, she burst into tears, and then turned and
walked slowly away.

"To that painful illustration of the truth of what I have said," the
minister remarked, as the two stood once more alone, "I have nothing
to add. May the lesson sink deep into your heart. Between you and
that woman's husband existed a regular business transaction. Did it
result in a mutual benefit? Answer that question to your own
conscience."

How the tavern-keeper answered it, we know not. But if he received
no benefit from the double lesson, we trust that others may; and in
the hope that the practical truth we have endeavoured briefly to
illustrate, will fall somewhere upon good ground, we cast it forth
for the benefit of our fellow-men.






THE TOUCHING REPROOF.





"HERE, Jane," said a father to his little girl not over eleven years
of age, "go over to the shop and buy me a pint of brandy."

At the same time he handed her a quarter of a dollar. The child took
the money and the bottle, and as she did so, looked her father in
the face with an earnest, sad expression. But he did not seem to
observe it, although he perceived it, and felt it; for he understood
its meaning. The little girl lingered, as if reluctant, from some
reason, to go on her errand.

"Did you hear what I said?" the father asked, angrily, and with a
frowning brow, as he observed this.

Jane glided from the room and went over to the shop, hiding, as she
passed through the street, the bottle under her apron. There she
obtained the liquor, and returned with it in a few minutes. As she
reached the bottle to her father, she looked at him again with the
same sad, earnest look, which he observed. It annoyed and angered
him.

"What do you mean by looking at me in that way? Ha!" he said, in a
loud, angry tone.

Jane shrunk away, and passed into the next room, where her mother
lay sick. She had been sick for some time, and as they were poor,
and her husband given to drink, she had sorrow and privation added
to her bodily sufferings. As her little girl came in, she went up to
the side of her bed, and, bending over it, leaned her head upon her
hand. She did not make any remark, nor did her mother speak to her,
until she observed the tears trickling through her fingers.

"What is the matter, my dear?" she then asked, tenderly.

The little girl raised her head, endeavouring to dry up her tears as
she did so.

"I feel so bad, mother," she replied.

"And why do you feel bad, my child?"

"Oh, I always feel so bad when father sends me over to the shop for
brandy; and I had to go just now. I wanted to ask him to buy you
some nice grapes and oranges with the quarter of a dollar--they
would taste so good to you--but he seemed to know what I was going
to say, and looked at me so cross that I was afraid to speak. I wish
he would not drink any more brandy. It makes him cross; and then how
many nice things he might buy for you with the money it takes for
liquor."

The poor mother had no words of comfort to offer her little girl,
older in thought than in years; for no comfort did she herself feel
in view of the circumstances that troubled her child. She only
said--aying her hand upon the child's head--

"Try and not think about it, my dear; it only troubles you, and your
trouble cannot make it any better."

But Jane could not help thinking about it, try as hard as she would.
She went to a Sabbath school, in which a Temperance society had been
formed, and every Sabbath she heard the subject of intemperance
discussed, and its dreadful consequences detailed. But more than all
this, she had the daily experience of a drunkard's child. In this
experience, how much of heart-touching misery was involved!--how
much of privation--how much of the anguish of a bruised spirit. Who
can know the weight that lies, like a heavy burden, upon the heart
of a drunkard's child! None but the child--for language is powerless
to convey it.

On the next morning, the father of little Jane went away to his
work, and she was left alone with her mother and her younger sister.
They were very poor, and could not afford to employ any one to do
the house-work, and so, young as she was, while her mother was sick,
Jane had everything to do:--the cooking, and cleaning, and even the
washing and ironing--a hard task, indeed, for her little hands. But
she never murmured--never seemed to think that she was overburdened;
How cheerfully would all have been done, if her father's smiles had
only fallen like sunshine upon her heart! But that face, into which
her eyes looked so often and so anxiously, was ever hid in
clouds--clouds arising from the consciousness that he was abusing
his family while seeking his own base gratification, and from
perceiving the evidences of his evil works stamped on all things
around him.

As Jane passed frequently through her mother's room during the
morning, pausing almost every time to ask if she wanted anything;
she saw, too plainly, that she was not as well as on the day
before--that she had a high fever, indicated to her by her hot skin
and constant request for cool water.

"I wish I had an orange," the poor woman said, as Jane came up to
her bed-side, for the twentieth time, "it would taste so good to
me."

She had been thinking about an orange all the morning; and
notwithstanding her effort to drive the thought from her mind, the
form of an orange would ever picture itself before her, and its
grateful flavour ever seem about to thrill upon her taste. At last
she uttered her wish--not so much with the hope of having it
gratified, as from an involuntary impulse to speak out her desire.

There was not a single cent in the house, for the father rarely
trusted his wife with money--he could not confide in her judicious
expenditure of it!

"Let me go and buy you an orange, mother," Jane said; "they have
oranges at the shop."

"I have no change, my dear; and if I had, I should not think it
right to spend four or five cents for an orange, when we have so
little. Get me a cool drink of water; that will do now."

Jane brought the poor sufferer a glass of cool water, and she drank
it off eagerly. Then she lay back upon her pillow with a sigh, and
her little girl went out to attend to the household duties that
devolved upon her. But all the while Jane thought of the orange, and
of how she should get it for her mother.

When her father came home to dinner, he looked crosser than he did
in the morning. He sat down to the table and eat his dinner in moody
silence, and then arose to depart, without so much as asking after
his sick wife, or going into her chamber. As he moved towards the
door, his hat already on his head, Jane went up to him, and looking
timidly in his face, said, with a hesitating voice--

"Mother wants an orange so bad. Won't you give me some money to buy
her one?"

"No, I will not! Your mother had better be thinking about something
else than wasting money for oranges!" was the angry reply, as the
father passed out, and shut the door hard after him.

Jane stood for a moment, frightened at the angry vehemence of her
father, and then burst into tears. She said nothing to her mother of
what had passed, but after the agitation of her mind had somewhat
subsided, began to cast about in her thoughts for some plan by which
she might obtain an orange. At last it occurred to her, that at the
shop where she got liquor for her father, they bought rags and old
iron.

"How much do you give a pound for rags?" she asked, in a minute or
two after the idea had occurred to her, standing at the counter of
the shop.

"Three cents a pound," was the reply.

"How much for old iron?"

"A cent a pound."

"What's the price of them oranges?"

"Four cents apiece."

With this information, Jane hurried back. After she had cleared away
the dinner-table, she went down into the cellar and looked up all
the old bits of iron that she could find. Then she searched the
yard, and found some eight or ten rusty nails, an old bolt, and a
broken hinge. These she laid away in a little nook in the cellar.
Afterwards she gathered together all the old rags that she could
find about the house, and in the cellar, and laid them with her old
iron. But she saw plainly enough that her iron would not weigh over
two pounds, nor her rags over a quarter of a pound. If time would
have permitted, she would have gone into the street to look for old
iron, but this she could not do; and disappointed at not being able
to get the orange for her mother, she went about her work during the
afternoon with sad and desponding thoughts and feelings.

It was summer time, and her father came home from his work before it
was dark.

"Go and get me a pint of brandy," he said to Jane, in a tone that
sounded harsh and angry to the child, handing her at the same time a
quarter of a dollar. Since the day before he had taken a pint of
brandy, and none but the best would suit him.

She took the money and the bottle, and went over to the shop.
Wistfully she looked at the tempting oranges in the window, as she
gave the money for the liquor,--and thought how glad her poor mother
would be to have one.

As she was hurrying back, she saw a thick rusty iron ring lying in
the street: she picked it up, and kept on her way. It felt heavy,
and her heart bounded with the thought that now she could buy the
orange for her mother. The piece of old iron was dropped in the
yard, as she passed through. After her father had taken a dram, he
sat down to his supper. While he was eating it, Jane went into the
cellar and brought out into the yard her little treasure of scrap
iron. As she passed backwards and forwards before the door facing
which her father sat, he observed her, and felt a sudden curiosity
to know what she was doing. He went softly to the window, and as he
did so, he saw her gathering the iron, which she had placed in a
little pile, into her apron. Then she rose up quickly, and passed
out of the yard-gate into the street.

The father went back to his supper, but his appetite was gone. There
was that in the act of his child, simple as it was, that moved his
feelings, in spite of himself. All at once he thought of the orange
she had asked for her mother; and he felt a conviction that it was
to buy an orange that Jane was now going to sell the iron she had
evidently been collecting since dinner-time.