Edward Peple - "A Night Out"

John S. C. Abbott - "Napoleon Bonaparte"

Ignatius Donnelly - "Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel"

Andre Theuriet - "A Woodland Queen, v3"

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: Nature and Human Nature

T >> Thomas Chandler Haliburton >> Nature and Human Nature




It is astonishing how much animation and attitude has to do with
beauty. I had never seen one look well before, but as his form was
relieved against the sky, he looked as he is, the giant king of the
forest. He was just in the act of shifting his feet in the yielding
surface of the boggy meadow, preparatory to a start, when he was again
transfixed by an arrow, in a more vulnerable and vital part. He
sprung, or rather reared forward, and came down on his knees, and then
several times repeated the attempt to commence his flight by the same
desperate effort. At last he fell to rise no more, and soon rolled
over, and after some splashing with his head to avoid the impending
death by drowning, quietly submitted to his fate. Nothing now was
visible of him but the tips of his horns, and a small strip of the
hide that covered his ribs. A shout from the boat proclaimed the
victory.

"Ah, Mr Slick," said the doctor, "what could you have done with only a
charge of duck-shot in your gun, eh? The arrow, you see, served for
shot and bullet. I could have killed him with the first shaft, but his
head was turned, and covered the vital spot. So I had to aim a little
too far forward, but still it carried a death-warrant with it, for he
couldn't have run over a mile without falling from exhaustion, arising
from the loss of blood. It is a charming day for the bow, for there is
no wind, and I could hit a dollar at a hundred and twenty yards. There
is another on that island, but she probably has a calf, perhaps two,
and it would be a wicked waste of the food that God provides for us,
to destroy her. But we must get this gentleman into the boat, and it
will bring us down so deep in the water, we must keep near the shore,
as it may be necessary occasionally to wade."

Peter, without ceremony, began to make preparations for such an
emergency. He had been accustomed all his life, until he left the
Nor-west Company's employment, to the kilt, and he neither felt nor
looked at home in the trousers. Like most of his countrymen, he
thought there was more beauty in a hairy leg, and in a manly
shammy-leather looking skin, than in any covering. While his bald
knee, the ugliest, weakest, most complicated and important joint in
the frame, he no doubt regarded with as much veneration as the pious
do the shaven crown of a monk. He therefore very complacently and
coolly began to disencumber himself of this detestable article of the
tailor's skill. I thought it best therefore to push off in time, to
spare his daughters this spectacle, merely telling the doctor we would
wait for him where we had embarked.

We proceeded very leisurely, only once in a while dipping the paddle
gently into the water, so as to keep up the motion of the canoe. The
girls amused themselves by imitating the call and answer of the loon,
the blue-jay, the kingfisher, and the owl. With a piece of bark,
rolled up in the form of a short-ear trumpet, they mimicked the
hideous voice of the moose, and the not less disagreeable lowing of
the cariboo. The martin started in surprise at his affrighted
neighbour on the water, and the fox no doubt crept from his hole to
listen to the voice that called him to plunder, at this dangerous
hour. All these sounds are signals among the Indians, and are carried
to a perfection that deceives the ear of nature itself. I had read of
their great power in this species of ventriloquism, but never had
heard it practised before, with the exception of the imitation of the
deer tribe, which is well-known to white "still-hunters."

They are, in their own country, not very communicative to strangers;
and above all, never disclose practices so peculiarly reserved for
their own service or defence. I was amazed at their skill in this
branch of Indian accomplishment.

But the notes of the dear little chick-a-dee-dee charmed me the most.
The stillness of this wild, sequestered place was most agreeably
diversified by all these fictitious birds and beasts, that seemed
inviting, each his own kind, to come and look at this lovely scene.
From the wonderful control they appeared to have over their voices, I
knew that one or both of them must sing. I therefore asked them if
they knew the Canadian-boat song; and they answered, with great
delight, that they did. And suiting the action to the word, which, by
the by, adds marvellously to its effect, they sung it charmingly. I
couldn't resist their entreaties to join in it, although I would
infinitely have preferred listening to taking a part. When we
concluded it, Jessie said it was much prettier in her native tongue,
and sung a verse in her own language. She said the governor of the
fort, who spoke Indian as well as English, had arranged the words for
it, and when she was a child in his family, she learned it. "Listen,"
said she, "what is that?"

It was Jackson playing on the key-bugle. Oh, how gloriously it
sounded, as its notes fell on the ear, mellowed and softened by the
distance. When Englishmen talk of the hunters' horn in the morning,
they don't know what they are a saying of. It's well enough I do
suppose in the field, as it wakes the drowsy sportsman, and reminds
him that there is a hard day's ride before him. But the lake and the
forest is nature's amphitheatre, and it is at home there. It won't
speak as it can do at all times and in all places; but it gives its
whole soul out in the woods; and the echoes love it, and the mountains
wave their plumes of pines to it, as if they wanted to be wooed by its
clear, sweet, powerful notes.1 All nature listens to it, and keeps
silence, while it lifts its voice on high. The breeze wafts its music
on its wings, as if proud of its trust; and the lake lies still, and
pants like a thing of life, as if its heart beat to its tones. The
birds are all hushed, as if afraid to disturb it; and the deer pause,
and listen, and gaze on the skies, as if the music came from heaven.
Money only can move some men, and a white heat alone dissolve stones.
But he who has ever heard the bugle, and is not inspired by it, has no
divinity within him. The body is there, but the soul is wanting.


1 This inflated passage, and some other similar ones, are extremely
characteristic of Americans in the same station of life as Slick. From
the use of superlative expressions in their conversation, they
naturally adopt an exaggerative style in writing, and the minor poets
and provincial orators of the Republic are distinguished for this
hyperbolical tone. In Great Britain they would be admired by the
Irish; on the Continent, by the Gascons. If Mr Slick were not affected
by this weakness himself, he would be among the first to detect and
ridicule it in others.


"Go on, Jackson, I will forgive your twaddle about sargeant M'Clure,
the stroke of the sun, the trooper's helmet, and the night among the
wolves. I will listen to your old soldier's stories all night, only go
on and play for me. Give me that simple air again. Let me drink it in
with my ears, till my heart is full. No grace notes, no tricks of the
band-master's, no flourishes; let it be simple and natural. Let it
suit us, and the place we are in, for it is the voice of our common
parent, nature." Ah, he didn't hear me, and he ceased.

"Jessie, dear, ain't that beautiful?" said I.

"Oh," she said (and she clasped her hands hard), "it is like the sound
of a spirit speaking from above."

"Imitate it," said I.

She knew the air, it was a Scotch one; and their music is the most
touching, because the most simple, I know.

Squire, you will think I am getting spooney, but I ain't. You know how
fond I am of nature, and always was; but I suppose you will think if I
ain't talking Turkey, that I am getting crankey, when I tell you an
idea that came into my mind just then. She imitated it in the most
perfect manner possible. Her clear, sweet, mellow, but powerful notes,
never charmed me so before. I thought it sounded like a maiden,
answering her lover. One was a masculine, the other a female voice.
The only difference was in the force, but softness was common to both.
Can I ever forget the enchantment of that day?

"Dear Jessie," said I, "you and your friend are just formed for each
other. How happy you could make him."

"Who?" said she, and there was no affectation in the question. She
knew not the import of that word. "What do you mean?"

"Hush," said I, "I will tell you by and by. Old Tom is playing again."

It was "Auld lang syne." How touching it was! It brought tears to
Jessie's eyes. She had learned it, when a child, far, far away; and it
recalled her tribe, her childhood, her country, and her mother. I
could see these thoughts throw their shadows over her face, as light
clouds chase each other before the sun, and throw their veil, as they
course along the sky, over the glowing landscape. It made me feel sad,
too; for how many of them with whom my early years were spent have
passed away. Of all the fruit borne by the tree of life, how small a
portion drops from it when fully ripe, and in the due course of
nature. The worm, and premature decay, are continually thinning them;
and the tempest and the blight destroy the greater part of those that
are left. Poor dear worthy old Minister, you too are gone, but not
forgotten. How could I have had these thoughts? How could I have
enjoyed these scenes? and how described them? but for you! Innocent,
pure, and simple-minded man, how fond you were of nature, the
handy-work of God, as you used to call it. How full you were of
poetry, beauty, and sublimity! And what do I not owe to you? I am not
ashamed of having been a Clockmaker, I am proud of it.1 But I should
indeed have been ashamed, with your instruction, always to have
remained one. Yes, yes!


"Why should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?"


Why? indeed.


1 This is the passage to which Mr Slick referred in the conversation I
had with him, related in Chapter I., entitled, "A Surprise."


"Tam it," said Peter, for we were so absorbed in listening to the
music, we did not hear the approach of the boat, "ta ting is very
coot, but it don't stir up te blood, and make you feel like a man, as
ta pipes do! Did she ever hear barris an tailler? Fan she has done
with her brass cow-horn, she will give it to you. It can wake the
tead, that air. When she was a piper poy to the fort, Captain Fraisher
was killed by the fall of a tree, knocked as stiff as a gunparrel, and
as silent too. We laid her out on the counter in one of the stores,
and pefore we put her into the coffin the governor said: 'Peter,' said
he, 'she was always fond of barris an tailler, play it before we nail
her up, come, seid suas (strike up).'

"Well, she gets the pipes and plays it hern ainsel, and the governor
forgot his tears; and seized McPhee by the hand, and they danced; they
couldn't help it when that air was played, and what do you think? It
prought Captain Fraisher to life. First she opened her eyes, and ten
her mouth again wunst more. She did, upon my shoul.

"Says she, 'Peter, play it faster, will you? More faster yet, you
blackguard.' And she tropt the pipes and ran away, and it was the
first and last time Peter McDonald ever turned his pack on a friend.
The doctor said it was a trance, but he was a sassanach and knew
nothing about music; but it was the pipes prought the tead to. This is
the air," and he played it with such vigour he nearly grew black in
the face.

"I believe it," sais I; "it has brought me to also, it has made me a
new man, and brought me back to life again. Let us land the moose."

"Ted," said Peter, "she is worth two ted men yet. There is only two
teaths. Ted as te tevil, and ted drunk, and she ain't neither; and if
she were poth she would wake her up with tat tune, barris an tailler,
as she tid Captain Fraisher, tat she will."

"Now," said I, "let us land the moose."



CHAPTER XI.

A DAY ON THE LAKE.--PART II.


Peter's horrid pipes knocked all the romance out of me. It took all
the talk of dear old Minister (whose conversation was often like
poetry without rhyme), till I was of age, to instil it into me. If it
hadn't been for him I should have been a mere practical man, exactly
like our Connecticut folks, who have as much sentiment in them in a
general way as an onion has of otter of roses. It's lucky when it
don't predominate though, for when it does, it spoils the relish for
the real business of life.

Mother, when I was a boy, used to coax me up so everlastingly with
loaf-cake, I declare I got such a sweet tooth, I could hardly eat
plain bread made of flour and corn meal, although it was the
wholesomest of the two. When I used to tell Minister this sometimes,
as he was flying off the handle, like when we travelled through New
York State to Niagara, at the scenery of the Hudson; or Lake George,
or that everlastin' water-fall, he'd say--

"Sam, you are as correct as a problem in Euclid, but as cold and dry.
Business and romance are like oil and water that I use for a
night-lamp, with a little cork dipsey. They oughtn't to be mixed, but
each to be separate, or they spoil each other. The tumbler should be
nearly full of water, then pour a little oil on the top, and put in
your tiny wick and floater, and ignite it. The water goes to the
bottom--that's business you see, solid and heavy. The oil and its
burner lies on the top--and that's romance. It's a living flame, not
enough to illuminate the room, but to cheer you through the night, and
if you want more, it will light stronger ones for you. People have a
wrong idea of romance, Sam. Properly understood, it's a right keen,
lively appreciation of the works of nature, and its beauty, wonders,
and sublimity. From thence we learn to fear, to serve, and to adore
Him that made them and us. Now, Sam, you understand all the wheels,
and pullies, and balances of your wooden clocks; but you don't think
anything more of them, than it's a grand speculation for you, because
they cost you a mere nothing, seeing they are made out of that which
is as cheap as dirt here, and because you make a great profit out of
them among the benighted colonists, who know little themselves, and
are governed by English officials who know still less. Well, that's
nateral, for it is a business view of things.1 Now sposen you lived in
the Far West woods, away from great cities, and never saw a watch or a
wooden clock before, and fust sot your eyes on one of them that was as
true as the sun, wouldn't you break out into enthusiasm about it, and
then extol to the skies the skill and knowledge of the Yankee man that
invented and made it? To be sure you would. Wouldn't it carry you off
into contemplatin' of the planet whose daily course and speed it
measures so exact? Wouldn't you go on from that point, and ask
yourself what must be the wisdom and power of Him who made innumerable
worlds, and caused them to form part of a great, grand, magnificent,
and harmonious system, and fly off the handle, as you call it, in
admiration and awe? To be sure you would. And if anybody said you was
full of romance who heard you, wouldn't you have pitied his ignorance,
and said there are other enjoyments we are capable of besides
corporeal ones? Wouldn't you be a wiser and a better man? Don't you go
now for to run down romance, Sam; if you do, I shall think you don't
know there is a divinity within you," and so he would preach on for an
hour, till I thought it was time for him to say Amen and give the
dismissal benediction.


1 It is manifest Mr Hopewell must have had Paley's illustration in his
mind.


Well, that's the way I came by it, I was inoculated for it, but I was
always a hard subject to inoculate. Vaccination was tried on me over
and over again by the doctor before I took it, but at last it came and
got into the system. So it was with him and his romance, it was only
the continual dropping that wore the stone at last, for I didn't
listen as I had ought to have done. If he had a showed me where I
could have made a dollar, he would have found me wide awake, I know,
for I set out in life with a determination to go ahead, and I have;
and now I am well to do, but still I wish I had a minded more what he
did say, for, poor old soul, he is dead now. An opportunity lost, is
like missing a passage, another chance may never offer to make the
voyage worth while. The first wind may carry you to the end. A good
start often wins the race. To miss your chance of a shot, is to lose
the bird.

How true these "saws" of his are; but I don't recollect half of them,
I am ashamed to say. Yes, it took me a long time to get romance in my
sails, and Peter shook it out of them by one shiver in the wind. So we
went to work. The moose was left on the shore, for the doctor said he
had another destination for him than the water-fall. Betty, Jackson,
and Peter, were embarked with their baskets and utensils in the boats,
and directed to prepare our dinner.

As soon as they were fairly off, we strolled leisurely back to the
house, which I had hardly time to examine before. It was an irregular
building made of hewn logs, and appeared to have been enlarged, from
time to time, as more accommodation had been required. There was
neither uniformity nor design in it, and it might rather be called a
small cluster of little tenements than a house. Two of these
structures alone seemed to correspond in appearance and size. They
protruded in front, from each end of the main building, forming with
it three sides of a square. One of these was appropriated to the
purposes of a museum, and the other used as a workshop. The former
contained an exceedingly interesting collection.

"This room," he said, "I cannot intrust to Jackson, who would soon
throw everything into confusion by grouping instead of classifying
things. This country is full of most valuable minerals, and the people
know as much about them as a pudding does of the plums contained in
it. Observe this shelf, Sir, there are specimens of seven different
kinds of copper on it; and on this one, fragments of four kinds of
lead. In the argentiferous galena is a very considerable proportion of
silver. Here is a piece of a mineral called molybdena of singular
beauty, I found it at Gaberous Bay, in Cape Breton. The iron ores you
see are of great variety. The coal-fields of this colony are immense
in extent, and incalculable in value. All this case is filled with
their several varieties. These precious stones are from the Bay of
Fundy. Among them are amethyst, and other varieties of crystal, of
quartz, henlandite, stibite, analcine, chabasie, albite, nesotype,
silicious sinter, and so on. Pray do me the favour to accept this
amethyst. I have several others of equal size and beauty, and it is of
no use to me."

He also presented Cutler with a splendid piece of nesotype or needle
stone, which he begged him to keep as a memento of the "Bachelor
Beaver's-dam."

"Three things, Mr Slick," he continued, "are necessary to the
development of the mineral wealth of this province--skill, capital,
and population; and depend upon it the day is not far distant, when
this magnificent colony will support the largest population, for its
area, in America."

I am not a mineralogist myself, Squire, and much of what he said was
heathen Greek to me, but some general things I could understand, and
remember such as that there are (to say nothing of smaller ones) four
immense independent coal-fields in the eastern section of Nova Scotia;
namely, at Picton, Pomquet, Cumberland, and Londonderry; the first of
which covers an area of one hundred square miles: and that there are
also at Cape Breton two other enormous fields of the same mineral, one
covering one hundred and twenty square miles, and presenting at Lingan
a vein eleven feet thick. Such facts I could comprehend, and I was
sorry when I heard the bugle announcing that the boat had returned for
us.

"Jessie," said the doctor, "here is a little case containing a
curiously fashioned and exquisitely worked ring, and a large gold
cross and chain, that I found while searching among the ruins of the
nunnery at Louisburg. I have no doubt they belonged to the superior of
the convent. These baubles answered her purpose by withdrawing the
eyes of the profane from her care-worn and cold features; they will
serve mine also, by showing how little you require the aid of art to
adorn a person nature has made so lovely."

"Hallo!" sais I to myself, "well done, Doctor, if that don't beat
cock-fighting, then there ain't no snakes in Varginny, I vow. Oh! you
ain't so soft as you look to be after all; you may be a child of
nature, but that has its own secrets, and if you hain't found out its
mysteries, it's a pity."

"They have neither suffered," he continued, "from the corrosion of
time nor the asceticism of a devotee, who vainly thought she was
serving God by voluntarily withdrawing from a world into which he
himself had sent her, and by foregoing duties which he had expressly
ordained she should fulfil. Don't start at the sight of the cross; it
is the emblem of Christianity, and not of a sect, who claim it
exclusively, as if He who suffered on it died for them only. This one
has hitherto been used in the negation of all human affections, may it
shed a blessing on the exercise of yours."

I could hardly believe my ears; I didn't expect this of him. I knew he
was romantic, and all that; but I did not think there was such a depth
and strength of feeling in him.

"I wish," I said, "Jehu Judd could a heard you, Doctor, he would have
seen the difference between the clear grit of the genuine thing and a
counterfeit, that might have made him open his eyes and wink."

"Oh! Slick," said he, "come now, that's a good fellow, don't make me
laugh, or I shall upset these glass cases;" and before Jessie could
either accept or decline this act of gallantry, he managed to lead the
way to the lake. The girls and I embarked in the canoe, and the rest
of the party in the boat, but before I stepped into the bark, I hid
the pipes of Peter behind the body of the moose, very much to the
amusement of Jessie and the doctor, who both seemed to agree with me
in giving a preference to the bugle.

I never saw so lovely a spot in this country as the one we had chosen
for our repast, but it was not my intention to land until the
preparations for our meal were all fully completed; so as soon as Jane
leaped ashore, I took her place and asked Jessie to take another look
at the lake with me. Desiring Jackson to recall us with his bugle when
required, we coasted up the west side of the lake for about half a
mile, to a place where I had observed two enormous birches bend over
the water, into which they were ultimately doomed to fall, as the
current had washed away the land where they stood, so as to leave them
only a temporary resting-place. Into this arched and quiet retreat we
impelled our canoe, and paused for awhile to enjoy its cool and
refreshing shade.

"Jessie," said I, "this time to-morrow I shall be on the sea again."

"So soon?" she replied.

"Yes, dear; business calls us away, and life is not all like a day on
the lake."

"No, no," she said, "not to me; it is the only really happy one I have
spent since I left my country. You have all been so kind to me; you,
the captain, and the doctor, all of you, you have made no difference,
you have treated me as if I was one of you, as if I was born a lady."

"Hasn't the doctor always been kind to you?" I said.

"Oh, yes," she replied, "always very kind, but there is nobody here
like him."

"He loves you very much."

"Yes," she said, in the most unembarrassed and natural manner
possible, "he told me so himself."

"And can't you return his love?"

"I do love him as I do my father, brother, or sister."

"Couldn't you add the word husband?"

"Never, never," she said, "Mr Slick. He thinks he loves me now, but he
may not think so always. He don't see the red blood now, he don't
think of my Indian mother; when he comes nearer perhaps he will see
plainer. No, no, half-cast and outcast, I belong to no race. Shall I
go back to my tribe and give up my father and his people? they will
not receive me, and I must fall asleep with my mother. Shall I stay
here and cling to him and his race, that race that scorns the
half-savage? never! never! when he dies I shall die too. I shall have
no home then but the home of the spirits of the dead."

"Don't talk that way, Jessie," I said, "you make yourself wretched,
because you don't see things as they are. It's your own fault if you
are not happy. You say you have enjoyed this day."

"Oh, yes," she said, "no day like this; it never came before, it don't
return again. It dies to-night, but will never be forgotten."

"Why not live where you are? Why not have your home here by this lake,
and this mountain? His tastes are like yours, and yours like his; you
can live two lives here,--the forest of the red man around you--the
roof of the white one above you. To unite both is true enjoyment;
there is no eye to stare here, no pride to exclude, no tongue to
offend. You need not seek the society of others, let them solicit
yours, and the doctor will make them respect it."