Captain Marryat - "The Little Savage"

Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne - "Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v8"

Alexander von Humboldt - "Equinoctial Regions of America "

Sam Vaknin - "Narcissism Book of Quotes"

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




With the most earnest attentions, and the tenderest solicitude, did
Mrs. Marshall wait and watch by the bedside of her husband, both day
and night, wearing down her own strength, and neglecting her
children.

At the end of three weeks, he had so far recovered, as to be able to
sit up, and to bear a portion of his weight. As fear for the
consequences of the injury her husband had received, began to fade
from the mind of Mrs. Marshall, another fear took possession of
it--a heart-sickening fear, under which her spirit grew faint. There
was no pledge to bind him, and his newly-awakened desire for liquor,
she felt sure would bear him away inevitably, notwithstanding the
dreadful lesson he had received.

About this time, however, two or three of his temperance friends,
who had heard of his fall, came to see him. This encouraged her,
especially as they soon began to urge him again to sign the
pledge;--but he would not consent.

"It is useless," was his steady reply, to all importunities, and
made usually, in a mournful tone, "for me to sign another pledge.
Having broken one, wilfully and deliberately, I have no power to
keep another. I am conscious of this--and, therefore, am resolved
not to stain my soul with another sin."

"But you can keep it. I am sure you can," one friend, more
importunate than the rest, would repeatedly urge. "You broke your
first pledge, deliberately, because you believed that you were freed
from the old desire, even in a latent form. Satisfied, from painful
experience, that this is not the case, you will not again try so
dangerous an experiment."

But Marshall would shake his head, sadly, in rejection of all
arguments and persuasions.

"It may all seem easy enough for you," he would sometimes say, "who
have never broken a solemn pledge; but you know not how utter a
destruction of internal moral power such an act, deliberately done,
effects. I am not the man I was, before I so wickedly violated that
solemn compact made between myself and heaven--for so I now look
upon it. While I kept my pledge, I had the sustaining power of
heaven to bear me safely up against all temptations;--but since the
very moment it was broken, I have had nothing but my own strength to
lean upon, and that has proved to be no better than a broken reed,
piercing me through with many sorrows."

To such declarations, in answer to arguments, and sometimes earnest
entreaties made by his friends to induce him to renew his pledge,
Mrs. Marshall would listen in silence, but with a sinking, sickening
sensation of mind and body. All and more than she could say, was
said to him, but he resisted every appeal--and what good could her
weak persuasions and feeble admonitions do?

Day after day passed on, and Marshall gradually gained more use of
his limbs. In six weeks, he could walk without the aid of his
crutches.

"I think I must try and get down to the store to-morrow," he said,
to his wife, about this time. "This is a busy season, and I can be
of some use there for two or three hours, every day."

"I don't think I would venture out yet," Mrs. Marshall said, looking
at him, with an anxious, troubled expression of countenance, that
she tried in vain to conceal.

"Why not, Jane?"

"I don't think you are strong enough, dear."

"O, yes, I am. And, besides, it will do me good to go out and take
the fresh air. You know that it is now six weeks since I have been
outside of the front door."

"I know it has. But--"

"But what, Jane?"

"You know what I would say, Jonas. You know the terrible fear that
rests upon my heart like a night-mare."

And Mrs. Marshall covered her face with her hands, and gave way to
tears.

A long silence followed this. At length Marshall said,

"I hope, Jane, that I shall be able to restrain myself. I am, at
least, resolved to try."

"O, husband, if you will only try!" Mrs. Marshall ejaculated
eagerly, lifting her tearful eyes, and looking him with an appealing
expression in the face--"If you will only try!"

"I will try, Jane. But do not feel too much confidence in my effort.
I am weak--so weak that I tremble when I think of it--and remember
what an almost irresistible influence I have to contend with."

"Why not take the pledge, again, Jonas?" said his wife, for the
first time she had urged that recourse upon him.

"You have heard my reasons given for that, over and over again."

"I know I have. But they never satisfied me."

"You would not have me add the sin of a double violation of a solemn
pledge to my already overburdened conscience?"

"No, Jonas. Heaven forbid!"

"The fear of that restrains me. I dare not again take it."

"Do you not deeply repent of your first violation?" the wife asked,
after a few moments of earnest thought. "Heaven knows how deeply."

"And Heaven, that perceives and knows the depth and sincerity of
that repentance, accepts it according to its quality. And just so
far as Heaven accepts the sincere offering of a repentant heart,
conscious of its own weakness, and mourning over its derelictions,
is strength given for combat in future temptations. The bruised reed
he will not break, nor quench the smoking flax. Hope, then, dear
husband! you are not cast off--you are not rejected by Heaven."

"O, Jane, if I could feel the truth of what you. say, how happy I
should be!--For the idea of sinking again into that hopeless,
abandoned, wretched condition, out of which this severe affliction
has lifted me, as by the hair of the head, is appalling!" was the
reply, to his wife's earnest appeal.

"Trust me, dear husband,--there is truth in what I say. He who came
down to man's lowest, and almost lost condition, that he might raise
him up, and sustain him against the assaults of his worst enemies,
has felt in his own body all the temptations that ever can assail
his children, and not only felt them, but successfully resisted and
conquered them; so that, there is no state, however low, in which
there is an earnest desire to rise out of evil, to which he does not
again come down, and in which he does not again successfully contend
with the powers of darkness. Look to Him, then, again, in a fixed
resolution to put away the evils into which you have fallen, and you
must, you will be sustained!"

"O, if I could but believe this, how eagerly would I again fly to
the pledge!" Marshall said, in an earnest voice.

"Fly to it then, Jonas, as to a city of refuge; for it is true. You
have felt the power of the pledge once-try it again. It will be
strength to you in your weakness, as it has been before."

Still Marshall hesitated. While he did so, his wife brought him
pens, ink and paper.

"Write a pledge and sign it, dear husband!" she urged, as she placed
them before him. "Think of me--of the joy that it will bring to my
heart--and sign."

"I am afraid, Jane."

"Can you stand alone?"

"I fear not."

"Are you not sure, that the pledge will restrain you some?"

"O, yes. If I ever take it again, I shall tremble under the fearful
responsibility that rests upon me."

"Come with me, a moment," Mrs. Marshall said, after a thoughtful
pause.

Her husband followed, as she led the way to an adjoining room, where
two or three bright-eyed children were playing in the happiest mood.

"For their sakes, if not for mine, Jonas, sign the pledge again,"
she said, while her voice trembled, and then became choked, as she
leaned her head upon his shoulder.

"You have conquered! I will sign!" he whispered in her ear.

Eagerly she lifted her head, arid looked into his face with a glance
of wild delight.

"O, how happy this poor heart will again be!" she ejaculated,
clasping her hands together, and looking upwards with a joyous
smile.

In a few minutes, a pledge of total abstinence from all kinds of
intoxicating drinks, was written out and signed. While her husband
was engaged in doing this, Mrs. Marshall stood looking down upon
each letter as it was formed by his pen, eager to see his name
subscribed. When that was finally done; she leaned forward on the
table at which he wrote, swayed to and fro for a moment or two, and
then sank down upon the floor, lost to all consciousness of external
things.

From that hour to this, Jonas Marshall has been as true to his
second pledge, even in thought, as the needle to the pole. So
dreadful seems the idea of its violation, that the bare recollection
of his former dereliction, makes him tremble.

"It was a severe remedy," he says, sometimes, in regard to his
broken legs; "and proved eminently successful. But for that, I
should have been utterly lost."






THE WANDERER'S RETURN.

A THANKSGIVING STORY.





A MAN, who at first sight, a casual observer would have thought at
least forty or fifty years of age, came creeping out of an old,
miserable-looking tenement in the lower part of Cincinnati, a little
while after night-fall, and, with bent body and shuffling gait,
crossed the street an angle; and, after pausing for a few moments
before a mean frame building, in the windows of which decanters of
liquor were temptingly displayed, pushed open the door and entered.

It was early in November. Already the leaves had fallen, and there
was, in the aspect of nature, a desolateness that mirrored itself in
the feelings. Night had come, hiding all this, yet by no means
obliterating the impression which had been made, but measurably
increasing it; for, with the darkness had begun to fall a misty
rain, and the rising wind moaned sadly among the eaves.

A short time after sundown the man, to whom we have just referred,
came home to the comfortless-looking house we have seen him leaving.
All day he had turned a wheel in a small manufactory; and when his
work was done, he left, what to him was a prison-house, and retired
to the cheap but wretched boarding-place he had chosen, where were
congregated about a dozen men of the lowest class. He did not feel
happy. That was impossible. No one who debases himself by
intemperance can be happy; and this man had gone down, step by step,
until he attained a depth of degradation most sad to contemplate.
And yet he was not thirty years old! After supper he went out, as
usual, to spend the evening in drinking.

The man, fallen as he was, and lost to all the higher and nobler
sentiments of the heart, had experienced during the day a pressure
upon his feelings heavier than usual, that had its origin in some
reviving memories of earlier times.

The sound of his mother's voice had been in his ears frequently
through the day; and images of persons, places, and scenes, the
remembrance of which brought no joy to his heart, had many times
come up before him. At the supper-table, amid his coarse,
vulgar-minded companions, his laugh was not heard as usual; and,
when spoken to, he answered briefly and in monosyllables.

The tippling-house to which the man went to spend his day's earnings
and debase himself with drink, was one of the lowest haunts of vice
in the city. Gambling with cards, dominoes, and dice, occupied the
time of the greater number who made it a place of resort, and little
was heard there except language the most obscene and profane. For
his daily task at the wheel, the man was paid seventy-five cents a
day. His boarding and lodging cost him thirty-one and a quarter
cents,--and this had to be paid every night under penalty of being
expelled from the house. He was a degraded drunkard, and not
therefore worthy of confidence nor credit beyond a single day, and
he received none. What remained of the pittance earned, was
invariably spent in drink, or gambled away before he retired from
the grogshop for the night; when, staggering home, he groped his way
to his room, too helpless to remove his clothes, and threw himself
upon a straw pallet, that could scarcely be dignified with the name
of bed. This in outline, was the daily history of the man's life;
and daily the shadows of vice fell more and more darkly upon his
path.

The drinking-house had two rooms on the first floor. In front was a
narrow counter, six or eight feet in length, and behind this stood a
short, bloated, vice-disfigured image of humanity, ready to supply
the wants of customers. Two or three roughly-made pine tables, and
some chairs, stood around the room. The back apartment contained
simply chairs and tables, and was generally occupied by parties
engaged in games of chance, for small sums. Tobacco-smoke, the fumes
of liquor, and the polluted breaths of the inmates, made the
atmosphere of these rooms so offensive, that none but those who had
become accustomed to inhale it, could have endured to remain there
for a minute.

The man, on entering this den of vice, went to the counter and
called for whisky. A decanter was set before him, and from this he
poured into a glass nearly a gill of the vilest kind of stuff and
drank it off, undiluted. About half the quantity of water was sent
down after the burning fluid, to partially subdue its ardent
qualities; and then the man turned slowly from the bar. As he did
so, an individual who had seen him enter, and who had kept his eyes
upon him from the moment he passed through the door, came towards
him with a smile of pleasure upon his countenance, and reaching out
his hand, said, in an animated voice--

"How are you, Martin, my good fellow! How are you?"

And he grasped the poor wretch's hand with a hearty grip and shook
it warmly. Something like a smile lighted up the marred and almost
expressionless face of the miserable creature, as he gave to the
hand that had taken his a responsive pressure, and replied,

"Oh! very well, very well, considering all things."

"Bad night out," said the man, as he sat down near a stove, that was
sending forth a genial heat.

"Yes, bad enough," returned Martin. A thought of the damp and chilly
air without caused him to shiver suddenly, and draw a little nearer
to the stove.

"Which makes us prize a comfortable place like this, where we can
spend a pleasant evening among pleasant friends, so much the more."

"Yes. It's very pleasant," said Martin, spreading himself out before
the stove, with a hand upon each knee, and looking with an
absent-minded air, through the opening in the door, which had once
been closed by a thin plate of mica, and seeing strange forms in the
glowing coals.

"Pleasant after a hard day's work," remarked the man, with an
insinuating air.

"I don't know what life would be worth, if seasons of recreation and
social intercourse did not come, nightly, to relieve both body and
mind from their wearisomeness and exhaustion."

"Yes--yes. It's tiresome enough to have to sit and turn a wheel all
day," said Martin.

"And a relief to get into a place like this at night," returned the
man, rubbing his hands with animation.

"It's a great deal better than sitting at the wheel," sighed Martin.

"I should think it was! Come! won't you liquor."

"Thank you! I've just taken something."

"No matter. Come along, my good fellow, and try something more." And
he arose, as he spoke, and moved towards the bar.

Martin was not the man to refuse a drink at any time, so he followed
to the counter.

"What'll you take? Whisky, rum, gin, brandy, or spirits? Any thing,
so it's strong enough to drink to old acquaintanceship. Ha! my boy?"
And he leered in Martin's face with a sinister expression, and
slapped him familiarly on the shoulder.

"Brandy," said Martin. "Brandy let it be! Nothing like brandy! Set
out your pure old Cogniac! Toby. A drink for the gods!"

"Prime stuff! that. It warms you to the very soles of your feet!"
added the, man after he had turned off his glass. "Don't you say so,
Martin?"

"Yes! and through your stockings, to your very shoes!"

"Hat ha! ha! He! he!" laughed the man with a forced effort. "Why,
Bill Martin, you're a wit!"

"It ain't Bill, it's the brandy," said the bar-keeper, with more
truth than jest.

"That brandy would put life into a grindstone!"

"It's put life into our friend here, without doubt." And as the very
disinterested companion of Martin said this, he slapped him again
upon the shoulder.

The two men turned from the bar and sat down again by the stove,
both getting more and more familiar and chatty.

"Suppose we try a game of dominoes or chequers?" at length suggested
the friend.

"No objection," replied Martin. "Any thing to make the time pass
agreeably. Suppose we say chequers?"

"Very well. Here's a board. We'll go into the backroom where it's
more quiet."

The two men retired into the little den in the rear of the bar-room,
where were several parties engaged at cards or dice.

"Here's a cozy little corner," said the pleasant friend of Martin.
"We can be as quiet as kittens."

"What's the stake?" he next inquired, as soon as the board was
opened and the pieces distributed. "Shall we say a bit?"

Martin received, at the close of each day, his earnings. Of his
seventy-five cents, he had already paid out for board thirty-one and
a quarter cents; and for a glass of liquor and some tobacco, six
cents more. So he had but thirty-seven and a half cents. This sum he
drew from his pocket, and counted over with scrupulous accuracy, so
as to be sure of the amount. While he was doing so, his companion's
eyes were fixed eagerly upon the small coins in his hands, in order,
likewise, to ascertain their sum.

"A bit let it be." And the man laid down a twelve-and-a-half-cent
piece.

"No! We'll start with a picayune," said Martin, selecting the
smaller coin and placing it on the table.

"That's too trifling. Say a bit," returned the man, but half
concealing the eager impatience he felt to get hold of the poor
wretch's money.

"Well, I don't care! Call it a bit, then," said Martin. And the coin
was staked.

An observer would have been struck with the change that now came
over Martin. His dull eyes brightened; something like light came
flashing into his almost expressionless face, and his lips arched
with the influx of new life and feeling. He moved his pieces on the
board with the promptness and skill of one accustomed to the game,
and, though he played with an opponent whose clearer head gave him
an advantage, he yet held his own with remarkable pertinacity, and
was not beaten until after a long and well-balanced struggle. But
beaten he was; and one-third of all he possessed in the world passed
from his hand.

Another twelve-and-a-half-cent piece was staked, and, in like
manner, lost.

"I can't go but a picayune this time," said Martin, when the pieces
were arranged for the third game. "My funds are getting too low."

"Very well, a picayune let it be. Any thing just to give a little
interest to the game. I'm sure you'll win this time."

And win Martin did. This elated him. He played another game and
lost. The next was no more successful. Only a single picayune now
remained. For a short time he hesitated about risking this. He
wanted more liquor; and, if he lost, there would be no means left to
gratify the ever burning thirst that consumed him. Not until the
close of the next day would he receive any money; and, without
money, he could get nothing. There were unpaid scores against him in
a dozen shops.

"Try again. Don't be afraid. You're a better player than I am.
You'll be sure to win. Luck lies in the last sixpence. Don't you
know that?"

Thus urged, Martin put down the last small remnant of his day's
earnings. The interest taken in the games had nearly counteracted
the effects of the liquor, and he was, therefore, able to play with
a skill nearly equal to that of his companion. Slowly and
thoughtfully he made his moves, and calculated the effect of every
change in the board with as much intelligence as it was possible for
him to summon to his aid. But luck, so called, was against him. His
three last pieces, kings, were swept from the board by a single play
of his adversary, at a moment when he believed himself sure of the
game. A bitter imprecation fell from his lips, as he turned from the
table, and thrusting his hands nearly to his elbows in his pockets,
stalked into the bar-room, leaving the man who had won from him the
remnant of his day's earnings for the twentieth time, to enjoy the
pleasures of success. This man was too much occupied in kind
attentions to others who were to be his victims, to even see Martin
again during the evening.

After having lost his last farthing, the latter, feeling miserable
enough, sat down at a table on which were three or four newspapers,
and tried to find in them something to interest his mind. He was
nearer to being sober than he had been for many weeks. On the night
before, he had gambled away his last penny, and the consequence was,
that he had been obliged to do without liquor all day. The effects
of the two glasses he had taken since nightfall had been almost
entirely obliterated by the excitement of the petty struggle through
which he had passed, and his mind was, therefore, in a more that
usually disturbed state. The day had been one of troubled feelings;
and the night found him less happy than he had been through the day.

As he ran his eye over the newspaper he was trying to read, pausing
now and then at a paragraph, and seeking to find in it something of
interest, the words, "Thanksgiving in Massachusetts," arrested his
attention, He read over the few lines that followed this heading.
They were a simple statement of the fact, that a certain day in
November had been appointed as a thanksgiving day by the Governor of
Massachusetts, followed by these brief remarks by some editor who
had recorded the fact:--"How many look forward to this day as a time
of joyful re-union! And such it is to thousands of happy families.
But, somehow, we always think of the vacant places that death or
absence leaves at many tables; and of the shadows that come over the
feelings of those who gather in the old homestead. Of the absent,
how many are wanderers, like the poor prodigal! And how gladly would
they be received if they would only return, and let all the unhappy
past be forgotten and forgiven! Does, by any chance, such a
wanderer's eye fall upon these few sentences? If so, we do earnestly
and tenderly entreat him, by the love of his mother, that is still
with him, no matter how far he has gone from the right path, to come
back on this blessed day; and thus make the thanksgiving of that
mother's heart complete."

Every word of this appeal, which seemed as if it were addressed
directly to himself, touched a responsive feeling in the bosom of
Martin. One after another, images of other days passed before
him--innocent, happy days. His mother's face, his mother's voice,
her very words were present with unwonted vividness. Then came the
recollection of blessed re-unions on the annual Thanksgiving
festival. The rush of returning memories was too strong for the
poor, weak, depressed wanderer from home and happiness. He felt the
waters of repentance gathering in his eyes; and he drew his hand
suddenly across them, with an instinctive effort to check their
flow. But a fountain, long sealed, had been touched; and, ere he was
more than half aware of the tendency of his feelings, a tear came
forth and rested on his cheek. It was brushed away quickly. Another
followed, and another. The man had lost his self-control. Into one
of the lowest haunts of vice and dissipation the voice of his mother
had come, speaking to him words of hope. Even here had her image
followed him, and he saw her with the old smile of love upon her
face. And he saw the smile give way to looks of sorrow, and heard
the voice saying, in tones of the tenderest entreaty, "William! my
poor wanderer! come home! Come home!"

Oh! with what deep, heart-aching sincerity did the poor wretch wish
that he had never turned aside into the ways of folly. "If I could
but go home and die!" he said, mentally.

"If I could but feel my mother's hand upon my forehead, and hear her
voice again!"

He had remained sitting at the table with the newspaper before his
face, to hide from other eyes all signs of emotion. But, the new
feelings awakened were, in no degree, congenial to the gross,
depraved, and sensual sphere by which he was surrounded; and, as he
had no money left, and, therefore, no means of gratifying his thirst
for liquor, there was no inducement for him longer to breathe the
polluted atmosphere. Rising, therefore, he quietly retired; no one
asking him to stay or expressing surprise at his departure He had no
money to spend at the bar, nor to lose at the gaming. table; and was
not, therefore, an object of the slightest interest to any.

As Martin stepped into the street, the cold rain struck him in the
face, and the chilly air penetrated his thin, tattered garments. The
driving mist of the early evening had changed to a heavy shower, and
the street was covered with water. Through this he plunged as he
crossed over, and entered his boarding-house, dripping from head to
foot. He did not stop to speak with any one, but groped his way, in
the dark to the attic. Removing a portion of his wet clothing, he
threw himself upon his bed. He had not come to sleep, but to be
alone that he might think. But thought grew so painful that he would
fain have found relief in slumber, had that been possible.