Emile Zola - "The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes, Complete"

George Gissing - "Our Friend the Charlatan"

Geneve L.A. Shaffer - "The Log of the Empire State"

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

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




Her voice lost its steadiness, trembled a moment, and then she hid
her face, in silence and in tears, upon his bosom.

As Wilmer had foreseen, the strength for further labour was gone for
ever. He lingered about for a few weeks, and then took to his bed.
And now came the time for the full trial of Mrs. Wilmer's mental and
bodily strength.

Notwithstanding all her close application at the needle, the small
sum that had been saved from former earnings, slowly, but steadily
diminished. Daily she increased her exertions, and encroached
further upon the hours of rest; but still there was a steady
withdrawal of the hoarded treasure. At first, her confidence in the
Divine Providence was measurably shaken; but soon the wavering
needle of her faith turned steadily to its polar star. Her own
health, never vigorous, began also to give way under the increased
application which became necessary for the support of the beloved
ones, now entirely dependent upon her labour for food and raiment.
Her appetite, never very good, failed considerably, and consequently
there was a withdrawal instead of an increase of strength. But none
knew of her pain or weakness. Her pale face was ever a cheerful one,
and her voice full of tenderness.

When the next spring opened, Wilmer was not only confined to the
house, but unable to sit up, except for a few hours at a time
through the day. His wife's health had suffered much, and all the
hours she sat at her needle, were hours of painful endurance. Spring
passed away, and summer came. But the milder airs had no kind effect
upon the fast sinking frame of her husband. He was rapidly going
down to the grave, his last hours embittered by the sight of his
wife and children suffering before him.

During the month of August, Wilmer declined so fast, and needed such
constant attention, that his wife could find but little time to
devote to her needle. What she thus lost in the day-time, she had to
make up, as far as possible, by encroaching upon the night hours,
and often the lamp by her side would grow dim before the light of
day, while she still bent in weariness and pain, over the work that
was to give bread to her children.

For some months her work had been confined to one shop, the master
of which was not always punctual in paying her the pittance she
earned. Instead of handing her, whenever she called, the trifle due
her, he made her procure a little book in which he would enter the
work, promising to pay when it would amount to a certain sum. In
anxious hope would Mrs. Wilmer wait until her earnings rose to the
required amount; but not always then could she get her due; there
would too frequently be a part payment, or a request to call in a
day or two.

One day towards the first of September, she found that both food and
money were out. She was just finishing a couple of vests for the
clothing-shop, and there were more than three dollars due to her.
While turning over in her own mind the hope that Mr.--would pay
her the small sum due, when she carried in the work, and troubled
the While with fears lest he should deny her, as he had often done
before; her husband, whose bright eye had been upon her for some
time, and whose countenance, unseen by her, had expressed an
earnest, yet hesitating desire to ask for something, said--

"Constance, I don't know whether you are able to get them, but if
you can, I should like, above all things, to have some grapes."

"Then you shall have some," Constance replied, earnestly and
affectionately. "I am sure they will help you. Why did I not think
of this for you long ago?"

Resuming her needle, she plied it with double swiftness, her heart
trembling lest when she asked for her money at the shop, it should
be refused her. At last the work was done and she carried it in. It
was entered, and her book handed back to her. She paused a moment,
then turned to go out, but she could not go home without some money.
Hesitatingly she asked to have her due, but it was refused on some
excuse of having a large payment to make on that very day. Again she
turned to go, but again turned to ask for only a part of what was
her own. One dollar was thrown her with an unkind remark. The first
she seized with avidity, the last passed her ear unheeded.

How swiftly did she hurry home with her little treasure! more
precious than a hundred times the sum had ever been before. It was
to meet the first expressed want of her husband, to gratify which
she would herself have abstained days from food.

The grapes were soon obtained, with some bread, and a small portion
of meat, for the children. They proved very grateful and refreshing
to Wilmer, who, soon after he had eaten a few of them, fell into a
gentle sleep.

The food which Mrs. Wilmer had bought would last them probably about
two days--not longer. Two months' rent would be due in a week,
amounting to eight dollars. Their landlord had threatened to take
some of their things to satisfy the last months' rent, and she had
little hope of his being put off longer than the expiration of the
two months. There were still two-and-a-half dollars due her by the
keeper of the clothing-store, which she knew it would be almost as
hard to get as to earn.

Not disposed, however, to sit down and brood over her difficulties,
which only made them worse, she went to work in the best spirit
possible to overcome them. She obtained more work, and bent herself
again over her daily employment.

She was sitting with an aching head and troubled heart at her work
on the next morning, having only sought a brief repose through the
night, when a smart tap at the door roused her from her abstraction
of mind.

"Does Mrs. Wilmer live here, ma'am?" asked a man.

"That is my name."

"Then I am directed to leave this basket,"--and the man deposited
his burden on the floor, and was gone before another word could be
spoken.

Mrs. Wilmer stood for a moment in mute surprise, and then removed
the covering off the basket. It contained tea, coffee, sugar, rice,
meat, bread, and various other articles of food; and also, a letter
directed to "Constance Wilmer." She broke the seal with an anxious
and trembling heart. It contained a fifty dollar note, and these
brief words:--

"_Put by your work--you are cared for--there is help coming, and now
very nigh--be of good cheer!_"

The coarse garment she still held in her hand, fell to the floor.
Her fingers released themselves from it by an instinctive effort
which she could not control. Her head reeled for a moment, and she
sunk into a chair, overcome by a tumult of contending feelings. From
this, she was aroused by the voice of her husband, who anxiously
inquired the contents of the letter. He read it, and saw the
enclosure, and the supply of food in the basket, and then clasped
his hands and looked up with mute thankfulness to heaven. Mrs.
Wilmer obeyed, with a confidence for which she could not account,
the injunction of her stranger-friend, and almost hourly for the
first day referred to the characters of the letter, which seemed
familiar to her eye. That she had seen the writing before, she was
certain; but where, or when, she could not tell.

Relieved from daily care and toil, she had more time to give to her
sick husband. She found him nearer the grave than she had supposed.

Four days more passed away, and Wilmer had come down to the very
brink of the dark river of death.

It was night. The two younger children were asleep, and the oldest
boy, just in his tenth year, with his mother, stood anxiously over
the low bed, upon which lay, gasping for breath, the dying husband
and father. The widow, who cannot forget the dear image of her
departed one; the orphan, who remembers the dying agony of a fond
father, can realize in a great degree the sorrows which pressed upon
the hearts of these lone watchers by the bed of death.

The last hours of Wilmer's life were hours of distinct
consciousness.

"Constance," he whispered, in a low difficult whisper, while his
bright eyes were fixed upon her face--"Constance, what will you do
when I am gone? I am but a burden on you now; but my presence I feel
is something."

His stricken-hearted wife could make no answer; but the tears rolled
over her face in great drops, and fell fast upon the pillow of her
dying husband.

"I cannot say, 'do not weep,'" continued Wilmer. "O that I could
give a word of comfort! but your cup is full, running over, and I
cannot dash it from your lips:--Dear Constance! you have been to me
a wife and a mother. Let me feel your warm cheek once more against
mine, for it is cold, very cold. Hark! did you not hear voices?" And
he strained his eyes towards the door, half-lifting himself up.

For a few moments he looked eagerly for some one to enter, and then
fell back upon the bed with a heavy sigh, murmuring to himself, in a
low disappointed tone--

"I thought they were coming."

"Who, love?" asked Mrs. Wilmer, eagerly. But her husband did not
seem to hear her question; but lay gasping for breath, the muscles
of his neck and face distorted and giving to his countenance the
ghastly expression of death.

"Who, love?--who were coming?" eagerly asked Mrs. Wilmer again, her
own heart trembling with a recurrence of the vague hopes with which
the mysterious letter and timely supply had inspired her,--hopes
that had never been hinted to her husband. But it seemed that he had
given the incident his own interpretation.

But he heeded not her question. For some time mother and son again
stood over him, in troubled silence. Perhaps half an hour had passed
since he had spoken, when a slight bustle was heard, on the steps
below, and then feet were heard quickly ascending, and hastening
along the passage towards their chamber door.

"They come! They come!" half-shrieked the dying man, springing up in
the bed, and bending over towards the door, which was hastily flung
open. His eyes glared upon the two persons, a man and woman, both
well advanced in life, as they entered. That one anxious gaze was
enough. Looking up into the face of Constance, against whose breast
his head had sunk, his countenance changed into an expression of
intense delight, and he whispered--

"They have come, Constance! they have come. Think of me as at rest
and happy. I die in peace!"

His eye-lids closed naturally--there was no longer any convulsive
play of the muscles, and as an infant sinking into slumber, so
quietly did Theodore Wilmer sleep the sleep of death.

One month from that night of sorrow, the darkest one in the many
gloomy seasons of Mrs. Wilmer's life, might have been seen this
child of many afflictions, with her three little ones, at home in
one of the most pleasant houses in the vicinity of New York. There
was something sad and subdued in the expression of her pale face,
but it was from the recollection of the past. Her mother, who ten
years before had cast her off as unworthy, now gazed upon her with a
look of the intensest affection; and the father, who had sworn never
to call her his child, sat holding her thin white hand in his, and
listening to her first recital of all she had passed through since
she left the home of her childhood, while the tears fell from his
eyes in large drops, upon the hand that lay within his own.






THE SISTERS.





[THE following unadorned narrative, the reminiscence of a friend, I
give as if related by him from whom I received it. He was, in early
years, the apprentice of a tradesman, in whose family the principal
incidents occurred. The picture presented is one of every-day life.]

MR. WILLIAMS, to whom, when a boy, I was apprenticed to learn the
art and mystery by which he supported a pretty large family, was not
rich, although, by industry and economy, he had gathered together a
few thousand dollars, and owned, besides, two or three neat little
houses, the aggregate annual rent of which was something like six
hundred dollars. His wife, a weak-minded woman, however, considered
him independent, in regard to wealth, and valued herself
accordingly. Few held their heads higher, or trode the pavement with
a statelier step than Mrs. Williams.

An elder sister, greatly her superior in every quality of mind, had
been far less fortunate in her marriage. She was the wife of a man,
who, instead of increasing his worldly goods, the fruit of some
twenty years' prudence and industry, had become dissipated, and at
the time now referred to, was sinking rapidly, and bearing his
family, of course, down with him. All energy seemed lost, and though
his family was steadily increasing, he grew more and more careless
every day.

He spent much time in taverns, and wasted there a good deal of
money, that his family needed. Mrs. Haller, his wife, was, as has
been said, in intelligence and feeling, much the superior of Mrs.
Williams, but appeared to little advantage in her peculiar
situation. She was the elder sister, by four or five years. At the
time of which I am now writing, Mrs. Haller had five children, two
of them grown up, and the rest small. Her husband had become so
indolent and sottish, that all her exertions were needed to keep her
little flock from suffering with cold and hunger. No woman could
have laboured more untiringly than she did, but it was labouring
against a strong current that bore her little bark slowly, but
surely backward. Here, then, are the two sisters; one, the elder,
and superior in all the endowments of head and heart--the other with
few claims to estimation other than those afforded by a competence
of worldly goods. Let us view them a little closer. Perhaps we can
read a lesson in their mutual conduct that will not soon be
forgotten.

In earlier years, I have learned, that they were much attached to
each other. In their father's house, they knew no cares, and when
they married, which was within a few years of each other, their
prospects were equal for future happiness. While this equality
existed, their intercourse was uninterrupted and affectionate. But,
as Mr. Haller began to neglect his family, the cloud that settled
upon the brow of his poor wife was not pleasant for Mrs. Williams to
look upon. Nor were the complaints that a full heart too often
forced to the lips, at all agreeable to her ears. Naturally proud
and selfish, these two feelings had been gaining strength with the
progress of years, and were now so confirmed, that even towards an
only sister in changed circumstances they remained in full activity.

When I first went to live with Mr. Williams, Mrs. Haller resided in
a neatly furnished, small two-story brick house. Her husband had not
then shown his vagabond propensities very distinctly, though he
spent in his family, and otherwise, all that he earned each week,
thus leaving nothing for a rainy day. He was a little in debt, too,
but not so much as to make him feel uneasy. Mrs. Haller was anxious
to lay up something, and to be getting ahead in the world, and was,
consequently, always troubled because things never got any better.
She came to our house every week, and Mr. Williams would visit her
once in a month or two. Mrs. Haller often talked of her troubles to
her sister, who used then to sympathize with her, and make many
suggestions of means to gender things more accordant with her
desires. As matters gradually grew worse in the progress of time,
and Mrs. Haller began to make rather an indifferent appearance, the
manner of her sister became evidently constrained and
unsympathizing. She began to look upon her in the light of a "poor
relation." Her children, cousins of course to Mrs. Williams's, were
not treated encouragingly when they came to our house, and if
company happened to be there, they were kept out of sight, or sent
home. Mrs. Williams rarely visited Mrs. Haller--not so often as once
in six months.

Long before the period of which I am now writing, Haller had become
drunken and very lazy. Their comfortable house and furniture had
been changed for poor rooms, with little in them, except what was
barely necessary. The oldest child, a son, about nineteen years of
age, on to whose maturity the mother had often looked with a lively
hope, following the example of his father, had become idle and
dissipated; spending most of his time in low taverns and
gambling-shops. Here was a keen sorrow which no heart but a mother's
can understand. Oh, what a darkening of all the dreams of early
years! When a warm-hearted girl, looking into the pleasant future
with a tremulous joy, she stood beside her chosen one at the altar,
how little did she dream of the shadows and darkness that were to
fall upon her path! And alas! how little does many a careless girl,
who gives herself away, thoughtlessly, to a young man of unformed
character, dream of the sorrow too deep for tears that awaits her.
Surely this were anguish enough,--and surely it called for the
sustaining sympathy of friends. But the friend of her early years,
the sister in whose arms, in the days of innocent childhood, she had
slept peacefully, now turned from her coldly, and even repulsively.

So unnatural and revolting seems the picture I am drawing, even in
its dim outlines, that I turn from it myself, half-resolved to leave
it unfinished. But many reasons, stronger than feeling, urge me to
complete my task with the imperfect skill I possess, and I take the
pencil which I had laid down in shame and disgust, and proceed to
fill up more distinctly.

I had observed for some time the growing coolness of Mrs. Williams
towards her unfortunate sister, and had noted more than once the
deep dejection of Mrs. Haller's manner, whenever she went away from
our house. She began to come less and less frequently, and her
children at still more remote intervals. Things became desperate
with her at length, and she came, forced by necessity, to seek a
little aid and comfort in her sorrow from her once kind sister, and
with the faint hope that some relief would be offered. I was sitting
in the neatly furnished breakfast-room, one evening, a little after
tea, reading a book, when Mrs Haller came in. She had on a dark
calico dress, faded, but clean, a rusty shawl that had once been
black, and a bonnet that Mrs. Williams's kitchen-servant would not
have worn. My eye instinctively glanced to the face of Mrs. Williams
as she entered; it had at once contracted into a cold and forbidding
expression. She neither rose from her chair, nor asked Mrs. Haller
to take one, greeting her only with a chilling "well, Sally." The
latter naturally sought a chair, and waited silently, and surely
with an aching heart, for a kinder manifestation of sisterly regard.
I immediately left the room; but learned afterwards enough of the
interview to make it distinct to the imagination of the reader.

The sisters sat silent for some moments, the one vainly trying to
keep down the struggling anguish of a stricken heart, and the other,
half-angry at the intrusion, endeavouring to fashion a form of
greeting that should convey her real impressions, without being
verbally committed. At length the latter said, half-kindly,
half-repulsively:--

"Why, Sally, what has brought you so far from home, after dark?"

"Nothing very particular. Only I thought I would like to drop in a
little while and see how you all did. Besides, little Thomas is
sick, and I wanted to get a few herbs from you, as you always keep
them."

"What kind of herbs do you want?"

"Only a few sprigs of balm, and some woodbitney."

"Kitty"--bawled out this unfeeling woman to the servant in the
kitchen--"go up into the garret and bring me a handful of balm and
woodbitney--and don't stay all night!"

"No, ma'am," said Kitty, thinking the last part of the order most
requiring a reply.

A further pause of a few minutes ensued, when Mrs. Haller, after
almost struggling to keep silence, at length ventured to say, sadly,
and despondingly, that she should have to move again.

"And what, in the name of heaven, Sally, are you going to move again
for? You can't be suited much better."

"Nor much worse, either, Mary. But John has paid no rent, and we
can't stay any longer. The landlord has ordered us to leave by next
Wednesday, or he will throw our few things into the street."

"Well, I declare, there is always something occurring with you to
worry my mind. Why do you constantly harass me with your troubles? I
have enough at home in my own family to perplex me, without being
made to bear your burdens. I never trouble you with my grievances,
or anybody else, and do not think it kind in you to make me feel bad
every time you come here. I declare, I grow nervous whenever I see
you!"

Poor Mrs. Haller, already bending beneath her burden, found this
adding a weight that made it past calm endurance, and she burst into
tears, and sobbed aloud. But not the slightest impression did this
exhibition of sorrow make upon Mrs. Williams. She even reproached
her with unbecoming weakness.

Although her sister had before shown indifference and great
coolness, yet never had she spoken thus unkindly. In a few moments
Mrs. Haller regained her calmness, and with it came back some of her
former pride of feeling. For a moment she sat with her eyes cast
upon the floor, endeavouring to keep down her struggling emotions;
in the next she rose up, and looking her sister fixedly in the face,
read her this impressive lesson.

"Mary, I could not have dreamed of such harshness from you! I have
thought you cold and indifferent, long; but I tried hard to believe
that you were not unkind. I have never come to see you in the last
three years, that I did not go away sad in spirit. There was
something in your manner that seemed to say that you thought my
presence irksome, and as you were the only friend I had to speak to
about my wearying cares and anxieties, it grieved me more than I can
tell to think that that only friend was growing cold--and that
friend a sister! As things have become worse with me, your manner
has grown colder, and now you have spoken out distinctly, and
destroyed the little resting place I sometimes sought when wearied
to faintness. Mary, may God who has afflicted me, grant you a
happier lot in the future! May you never know the anguish of one who
sees a once idolized husband become a brute--her children growing up
worthless under the dreadful example of their father, and all often
wanting food to sustain nature! You have everything you desire. I
have not the necessaries of life. We were born of the same mother,
and nursed at the same bosom. We played together in childhood,--once
I saved your life. And now, because our ways are different; yours
even and flowery, and mine rough and thorny, you turn from me, as
from an importunate beggar. Mary, we shall meet our father and
mother at the bar of God!"

Thus saying, Mrs. Haller turned slowly away, and left the house
before her sister, who was startled at this unexpected appeal, could
sufficiently collect her senses to reply. Her real errand, or,
rather, her principal errand to the house of Mrs. Williams, had been
to ask for some food for her children. It was many weeks since her
husband had contributed a single dollar towards the daily family
expenses, and all the burden of their support devolved upon the wife
and mother. Night and day, in pain, and exhaustion of body and mind,
had she toiled to get food for those who looked up to her, but all
her efforts were inadequate. Like thousands of others, when a girl,
she had acquired an education that was more ornamental than useful.
The consequence was, that she had no ready means of earning money.
The wants of a family of children, had, it is true, given her some
skill with her needle, but not of a kind that would enable her to
earn much by sewing.

She did, however, at first try what she could do by working for the
cheap clothing-stores. But twelve-and-a-half cents a pair for
pantaloons, ten cents for vests, and eight cents for shirts, yielded
so little, that she was driven to something else. That something
else was the washtub; over which, and the ironing-table, she toiled
early and late, often ready to sink to the floor from exhaustion.

Of this, she said nothing to Mrs. Williams, who would have been
terribly mortified at the idea of her sister, taking in washing for
a support. The labour of one pair of hands in the wash-tub, was,
however, unequal to the task of providing food for seven mouths,
even of a very poor quality. Consequently, Mrs. Haller found the
wants of her family pressing, every day, harder and harder upon the
slender means by which they were supplied. Often, when she carried
home her work, there was no food in the house, and often did she
work half the night, so as to be able to take her clothes home early
on the next day, and get the money she had earned to meet that day's
wants.

Among those for whom she washed and ironed, was a woman in good
circumstances, who never paid her anything until she asked for it,
and then the money came with an air of reluctance. Of course, she
applied to her for her hard earnings, only when pressed by
necessity. On the morning before the interview with her sister, just
detailed, Mrs. Haller found herself nearly out of everything, and
with not a cent in the world. The woman just alluded to, owed her
two dollars, and she had nearly completed another week's washing for
her, which would make the amount due her two dollars and a half. At
dinner-time, every mouthful of food, and that a scanty portion, was
consumed, and there would be nothing for supper, or breakfast, on
the next morning, unless Mrs. Hamil should pay her. It was nearly
night when she finished ironing the last piece. Hurriedly putting on
her things, after sending two of her children with the clothes in a
basket, she joined them as they were about entering the dwelling of
Mrs. Hamil.