Caroline Clifford Newton - "Once Upon A Time In Connecticut"

D. P. Thompson - "The Rangers"

Jack London - "The Little Lady of the Big House"

Voltaire - "Jeannot et Colin"

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




After Sorrow had retired, we lighted our cigars, and turned to for a
chat, if chat it can be called one, where I did most of the talking
myself.

"Doctor," said I, "I wish I had had more time to have examined your
collection of minerals. I had no idea Nova Scotia could boast of such
an infinite variety of them. You could have taught me more in
conversation in five minutes than I could have learned by books in a
month. You are a mineralogist, and I am sorry to say I ain't, though
every boarding-school miss now-a-days in our country consaits she is.
They are up to trap at any rate, if nothing else, you may depend," and
I gave him a wink.

"Now don't, Slick," said he, "now don't set me off, that's a good
fellow."

"'Mr Slick,' said a young lady of about twelve years of age to me
wunst, 'do you know what gray wackey is? for I do.'

"'Don't I,' sais I; 'I know it to my cost. Lord! how my old master
used to lay it on!'

"'Lay it on!' she said, 'I thought it reposed on a primitive bed.'

"'No it don't,' said I. 'And if anybody knows what gray wackey is, I
ought; but I don't find it so easy to repose after it as you may. Gray
means the gray birch rod, dear, and wackey means layin' it on. We
always called it gray whackey in school, when a feller was catching
particular Moses.'

"'Why, how ignorant you are!' said she. 'Do you know what them mining
tarms, clinch, parting, and black bat means?'

"'Why, in course I do!' sais I; 'clinch is marrying, parting is
getting divorced, and black bat is where a fellow beats his wife black
and blue."

"'Pooh!' said she, 'you don't know nothing.'

"'Well,' sais I, 'what do you know?'

"'Why,' said she, 'I know Spanish and mathematics, ichthiology and
conchology, astronomy and dancing, mineralogy and animal magnetism,
and German and chemistry, and French and botany. Yes, and the use of
the globes too. Can you tell me what attraction and repulsion is?'

"'To be sure I can,' said I, and I drew her on my knee and kissed her.
'That's attraction, dear.' And when she kicked and screamed as cross
as two cats, 'that, my pretty one,' I said, 'is repulsion. Now I know
a great many things you don't. Can you hem a pocket-handkerchief?'

"'No.'

"'Nor make a pudding?'

"'No.'

"'Nor make Kentucky batter?'

"'No.'

"'Well, do you know any useful thing in life?'

"'Yes, I do; I can sing, and play on the piano, and write valentines,'
sais she, 'so get out.' And she walked away, quite dignified,
muttering to herself, 'Make a pudding, eh! well, I want to know!'

"Thinks I to myself, my pretty little may-flower, in this everlastin'
progressive nation of ourn, where the wheel of fortune never stops
turning day or night, and them that's at the top one minute are down
in the dirt the next, you may say, "'I want to know' before you die,
and be very glad to change your tune, and say, 'Thank heaven I do
know!'"

"Is that a joke of yours," said the doctor, "about the young girl's
geology, or is it really a fact?"

"Fact, I assure you," said I. "And to prove it I'll tell you a story
about a Female College that will show you what pains we take to spoil
our young ladies to home. Miss Liddy Adams, who was proprietor and
'dentess (presidentess) of a Female College to Onionville, was a
relation of mother's, and I knew her when she was quite a young shoat
of a thing to Slickville. I shall never forget a flight into Egypt I
caused once in her establishment. When I returned from the embassy, I
stopped a day in Onionville, near her university--for that was the
name she gave hern; and thinks I, I will just call and look in on Lid
for old acquaintance' sake, and see how she is figuring it out in
life. Well, I raps away with the knocker as loud as possible, as much
as to say, Make haste, for there is somebody here, when a tall spare
gall with a vinegar face opened the door just wide enough to show her
profile, and hide her back gear, and stood to hear what I had to say.
I never see so spare a gall since I was raised. Pharaoh's lean kine
warn't the smallest part of a circumstance to her. She was so thin,
she actilly seemed as if she would have to lean agin the wall to
support herself when she scolded, and I had to look twice at her
before I could see her at all, for I warn't sure she warn't her own
shadow."

"Good gracious!" said the doctor, "what a description! but go on."

"'Is the mistress to home?' said I.

"'I have no mistress,' said she.

"'I didn't say you had,' sais I, 'for I knew you hadn't afore you
spoke.'

"'How did you know that?' said she.

"'Because,' sais I, 'seein' so handsome a lady as you, I thought you
was one of the professors; and then I thought you must be the mistress
herself, and was a thinking how likely she had grow'd since I seed her
last. Are you one of the class-teachers?'

"It bothered her; she didn't know whether it was impudence or
admiration; but when a woman arbitrates on a case she is interested
in, she always gives an award in her own favour.

"'Walk in, Sir,' said she, 'and I will see,' and she backed and backed
before me, not out of deference to me, but to the onfastened hooks of
her gown, and threw a door open. On the opposite side was a large room
filled with galls, peeping and looking over each other's shoulders at
me, for it was intermission.

"'Are these your pupils?' sais I; and before she could speak, I went
right past into the midst of 'em. Oh, what a scuddin' and screamin'
there was among them! A rocket explodin' there couldn't a done more
mischief. They tumbled over chairs, upsot tables, and went head and
heels over each other like anything, shouting out, 'A man! a man!'

"'Where--where?' sais I, a chasin' of them, 'show him to me, and I'll
soon clear him out. What is he a doing of?'

"It was the greatest fun you ever see. Out they flew through the door
at the other eend of the room, some up and some down-stairs, singing
out, 'A man! a man!' till I thought they would have hallooed their
daylights out. Away I flew after them, calling out, 'Where is he? show
him to me, and I'll soon pitch into him!' when who should I see but
Miss Liddy in the entry, as stiff and as starch as a stand-up shirt
collar of a frosty day. She looked like a large pale icicle, standing
up on its broad end, and cold enough to give you the ague to look at
her.

"'Mr Slick,' said she, 'may I ask what is the meaning of all this
unseemly behaviour in the presence of young ladies of the first
families in the State?'

"Says I, 'Miss Adam,' for as she used the word Mr as a handle to me, I
thought I'de take a pull at the Miss,' some robber or housebreaker has
got in, I rather think, and scared the young feminine gender students,
for they seemed to be running after somebody, and I thought I would
assist them.'

"'May I ask, Sir,' a drawin' of herself up to her full height, as
straight and as prim as a Lombardy poplar, or rather, a bull-rush, for
that's all one size. 'May I ask, Sir, what is the object of your visit
here--at a place where no gentlemen are received but the parents or
guardians of some of the children.'

"I was as mad as a hatter; I felt a little bit vain of the embassy to
London, and my Paris dress, particularly my boots and gloves, and all
that, and I will admit, there is no use talkin', I rather kinder
sorter thought she would be proud of the connection. I am a
good-natured man in a general way when I am pleased, but it ain't safe
to ryle me, I tell you. When I am spotty on the back, I am dangerous.
I bit in my breath, and tried to look cool, for I was determined to
take revenge out of her.

"'Allow me to say, Sir,' said she, a perkin' up her mouth like the end
of a silk purse, 'that I think your intrusion is as unwelcome as it is
unpardonable. May I ask the favour of you to withdraw? if not, I must
introduce you to the watchman.'

"'I came,' sais I, 'Miss Adam, having heard of your distinguished
college in the saloons of Paris and London, to make a proposal to you;
but, like a bull--'

"'Oh dear!' said she, 'to think I should have lived to hear such a
horrid word, in this abode of learning!'

"'But,' I went on without stopping, 'like a bull in a chiny-shop, I
see I have got into the wrong pew; so nothin' remains for me but to
beg pardon, keep my proposal for where it will be civilly received, at
least, and back out.'

"She was as puzzled as the maid. But women ain't throwed off their
guard easily. If they are in a dark place, they can feel their way
out, if they can't see it. So says she, dubious like:

"'About a child, I suppose?'

"'It is customary in Europe,' sais I, 'I believe, to talk about the
marriage first, isn't it? but I have been so much abroad, I am not
certified as to usages here.'

"Oh, warn't she brought to a hack! She had a great mind to order me
out, but then that word 'proposal' was one she had only seen in a
dictionary--she had never heard it; and it is such a pretty one, and
sounded so nice to the ear; and then that word 'marriage' was used
also, so it carried the day.

"'This is not a place, Mr Slick, for foundlings, I'de have you to
know,' she said, with an air of disgust, 'but children whose parents
are of the first class of society. If,' and she paused and looked at
me scrutinisin', 'if your proposals are of that nature, walk in here,
Sir, if you please, where our conversation will not be over-heard.
Pray be seated. May I ask, what is the nature of the proposition with
which you design to honour me?' and she gave me a smile that would
pass for one of graciousness and sweet temper, or of encouragement. It
hadn't a decided character, and was a non-committal one. She was doin'
quite the lady, but I consaited her ear was itching to hear what I had
to say, for she put a finger up, with a beautiful diamond ring on it,
and brushed a fly off with it; but, after all, perhaps it was only to
show her lily-white hand, which merely wanted a run at grass on the
after-feed to fatten it up, and make it look quite beautiful.

"'Certainly,' sais I, 'you may ask any question of the kind you like.'

"It took her aback, for she requested leave to ask, and I granted it;
but she meant it different.

"Thinks I, 'My pretty grammarian, there is a little grain of
difference between, 'May I ask,' and, 'I must ask.' Try it again.'

"She didn't speak for a minute; so to relieve her, sais I:

"'When I look round here, and see how charmingly you are located, and
what your occupation is, I hardly think you would feel disposed to
leave it; so perhaps I may as well forbear the proposal, as it isn't
pleasant to be refused.'

"'It depends,' she said, 'upon what the nature of those proposals are,
Mr Slick, and who makes them,' and this time she did give a look of
great complacency and kindness. 'Do put down your hat, Sir. I have
read your Clockmaker,' she continued; 'I really feel quite proud of
the relationship; but I hope you will excuse me for asking, Why did
you put your own name to it, and call it 'Sam Slick the Clockmaker,'
now that you are a distinguished diplomatist, and a member of our
embassy at the court of Victoria the First? It's not an elegant
appellation that, of Clockmaker,' sais she, 'is it?' (She had found
her tongue now.) 'Sam Slick the Clockmaker, a factorist of wooden
clocks especially, sounds trady, and will impede the rise of a
colossal reputation, which has already one foot in the St Lawrence,
and the other in the Mississippi.'

"'And sneezes in the Chesapeake,' sais I.

"'Oh,' said she, in the blandest manner, 'how like you, Mr Slick! you
don't spare a joke even on yourself. You see fun in everything.'

"'Better,' sais I, 'than seeing harm in everything, as them galls--'

"'Young ladies,' said she.

"'Well, young ladies, who saw harm in me because I was a man. What
harm is there in their seeing a man? You ain't frightened at one, are
you, Liddy?'

"She evaded that with a smile, as much as to say, 'Well, I ain't much
skeered, that's a fact.'

"'Mr Slick, it is a subject not worth while pursuing,' she replied.
'You know the sensitiveness, nervous delicacy, and scrupulous
innocence of the fair sex in this country, and I may speak plainly to
you as a man of the world. You must perceive how destructive of all
modesty in their juvenile minds, when impressions are so easily made,
it would be to familiarise their youthful eyes to the larger limbs of
gentlemen enveloped in pantaloons. To speak plainly, I am sure I
needn't tell you it ain't decent.'

"'Well,' sais I, 'it wouldn't be decent if they wern't enveloped in
them.'

"She looked down to blush, but it didn't come natural, so she looked
up and smiled (as much as to say, do get out you impudent critter. I
know its bunkum as well as you do, but don't bother me. I have a part
to play.) Then she rose and looked at her watch, and said the lecture
hour for botany has come.

"'Well,' sais I, a taking up my hat, 'that's a charming study, the
loves of the plants, for young ladies, ain't it? they begin with
natur, you see, and--(well, she couldn't help laughing). 'But I see
you are engaged.'

"'Me,' said she, 'I assure you, Sir, I know people used to say so,
afore General Peleg Smith went to Texas.'

"'What that scallawag,' said I. 'Why, that fellow ought to be kicked
out of all refined society. How could you associate with a man who had
no more decency than to expect folks to call him by name!'

"'How?' said she.

"'Why,' sais I, 'what delicate-minded woman could ever bring herself
to say Pe-leg. If he had called himself Hujacious Smith, or
Larger-limb Smith, or something of that kind, it would have done, but
Peleg is downright ondecent. I had to leave Boston wunst a whole
winter, for making a mistake of that kind. I met Miss Sperm one day
from Nantucket, and says I, 'Did you see me yesterday, with those two
elegant galls from Albany?'

"'No,' said she, 'I didn't.'

"'Strange, too,' said I, 'for I was most sure I caught a glimpse of
you, on the other side of the street, and I wanted to introduce you to
them, but warn't quite sartain it was you. My,' sais I, 'didn't you
see a very unfashionable dressed man' (and I looked down at my Paris
boots, as if I was doing modest), 'with two angeliferous females? Why,
I had a leg on each arm.'

"She fairly screamed out at that expression, rushed into a milliner's
shop, and cried like a gardner's watering-pot. The names she called me
ain't no matter. They were the two Miss Legges of Albany, and cut a
tall swarth, I tell you, for they say they are descended from a
govenor of Nova Scotia, when good men, according to their tell, could
be found for govenors, and that their relations in England are some
pumpkins, too. I was as innocent as a child, Letty.'

"'Well,' said she, 'you are the most difficult man to understand I
ever see--there is no telling whether you are in fun or in earnest.
But as I was a saying, there was some such talk afore General Smith
went to Texas; but that story was raised by the Pawtaxet College
folks, to injure this institution. They did all they could to tear my
reputation to chitlins. Me engaged, I should like to see the man
that--'

"'Well, you seemed plaguey scared at one just now,' sais I. 'I am sure
it was a strange way to show you would like to see a man.'

"'I didn't say that,' she replied, 'but you take one up so quick.'

"'It's a way I have,' said I, 'and always had, since you and I was to
singing-school together, and larnt sharps, flats, and naturals. It was
a crotchet of mine,' and I just whipped my arm round her waist, took
her up and kissed her afore she knowed where she was. Oh Lordy! Out
came her comb, and down fell her hair to her waist, like a mill-dam
broke loose; and two false curls and a braid fell on the floor, and
her frill took to dancin' round, and got wrong side afore, and one of
her shoes slipt off, and she really looked as if she had been in an
indgian-scrimmage and was ready for scalpin'.

"'Then you ain't engaged, Liddy,' sais I; 'how glad I am to hear that,
it makes my heart jump, and cherries is ripe now, and I will help you
up into the tree, as I used to did when you and I was boy and gall
together. It does seem so nateral, Liddy, to have a game of romps with
you again; it makes me feel as young as a two-year-old. How beautiful
you do look, too! My, what a pity you is shut up here, with these
young galls all day, talking by the yard about the corrallas, calyxes,
and staminas of flowers, while you


"'Are doom'd to blush unseen,
And waste your sweetness on the desert air.'


"'Oh,' said she, 'Sam, I must cut and run, and 'blush unseen,' that's
a fact, or I'm ruinated,' and she up curls, comb, braid, and shoe, and
off like a shot into a bed-room that adjoined the parlour, and bolted
the door, and double-locked it, as if she was afraid an attachment was
to be levied on her and her chattels, by the sheriff, and I was a
bum-bailiff.

"Thinks I, old gall, I'll pay you off for treating me the way you did
just now, as sure as the world. 'May I ask, Mr Slick, what is the
object of this visit?' A pretty way to receive a cousin that you
haven't seen so long, ain't it? and though I say it that shouldn't say
it, that cousin, too, Sam Slick, the attaché to our embassy to the
Court of Victoria, Buckingham Palace. You couldn't a treated me wuss
if I had been one of the liveried, powdered, bedizened, be-bloated
footmen from 't'other big house there of Aunt Harriette's.' I'll make
you come down from your stilts, and walk naterel, I know, see if I
don't.

"Presently she returned, all set to rights, and a little righter, too,
for she had put a touch of rouge on to make the blush stick better,
and her hair was slicked up snugger than before, and looked as if it
had growed like anything. She had also slipped a handsome habit-shirt
on, and she looked, take her altogether, as if, though she warn't
engaged, she ought to have been afore the last five hot summers came,
and the general thaw had commenced in the spring, and she had got
thin, and out of condition. She put her hand on her heart, and said,
'I am so skared, Sam, I feel all over of a twitteration. The way you
act is horrid.'

"'So do I,' sais I, 'Liddy, it's so long since you and I used to--'

"'You ain't altered a bit, Sam,' said she, for the starch was coming
out, 'from what you was, only you are more forrider. Our young men,
when they go abroad, come back and talk so free and easy, and take
such liberties, and say it's the fashion in Paris, it's quite
scandalous. Now, if you dare to do the like again, I'll never speak to
you the longest day I ever live, I'll go right off and leave, see if I
don't.'

"'Oh, I see, I have offended you,' sais I, 'you are not in a humour to
consent now, so I will call again some other time.'

"'This lecture on botany must now be postponed,' she said, 'for the
hour is out some time ago. If you will be seated, I will set the young
students at embroidery instead, and return for a short time, for it
does seem so nateral to see you, Sam, you saucy boy,' and she pinched
my ear, 'it reminds one, don't it, of bygones?' and she hung her head
a one side, and looked sentimental.

"'Of by-gone larks,' said I.

"'Hush, Sam,' she said, 'don't talk so loud, that's a dear soul. Oh,
if anybody had come in just then, and caught us.'

("Us," thinks I to myself, "I thought you had no objection to it, and
only struggled enough for modesty-like; and I did think you would have
said, caught you.")

"'I would have been ruinated for ever and ever, and amen, and the
college broke up, and my position in the literary, scientific, and
intellectual world scorched, withered, and blasted for ever. Ain't my
cheek all burning, Sam? it feels as if it was all a-fire;' and she put
it near enough for me to see, and feel tempted beyond my strength.
'Don't it look horrid inflamed, dear?' And she danced out of the room,
as if she was skipping a rope.

"Well, well," sais I, when she took herself off. "What a world this
is! This is evangelical learning; girls are taught in one room to
faint or scream if they see a man, as if he was an incarnation of sin;
and yet they are all educated and trained to think the sole object of
life is to win, not convert, but win one of these sinners. In the next
room propriety, dignity, and decorum, romp with a man in a way to make
even his sallow face blush. Teach a child there is harm in everything,
however innocent, and so soon as it discovers the cheat, it won't see
no sin in anything. That's the reason deacons' sons seldom turn out
well, and preachers' daughters are married through a window. Innocence
is the sweetest thing in the world, and there is more of it than folks
generally imagine. If you want some to transplant, don't seek it in
the enclosures of cant, for it has only counterfeit ones, but go to
the gardens of truth and of sense. Coërced innocence is like an
imprisoned lark, open the door and it's off for ever. The bird that
roams through the sky and the groves unrestrained knows how to dodge
the hawk and protect itself, but the caged one, the moment it leaves
its bars and bolts behind, is pounced upon by the fowler or the
vulture.

"Puritans, whether in or out of the church (for there is a whole squad
of 'em in it, like rats in a house who eat up its bread and undermine
its walls), make more sinners than they save by a long chalk. They
ain't content with real sin, the pattern ain't sufficient for a cloak,
so they sew on several breadths of artificial offences, and that makes
one big enough to wrap round them, and cover their own deformity. It
enlarges the margin, and the book, and gives more texts.

"Their eyes are like the great magnifier at the Polytechnic, that
shows you many-headed, many-armed, many-footed, and many-tailed awful
monsters in a drop of water, which were never intended for us to see,
or Providence would have made our eyes like Lord Rosse's telescope
(which discloses the secrets of the moon), and given us springs that
had none of these canables in 'em. Water is our drink, and it was made
for us to take when we were dry, and be thankful. After I first saw
one of these drops, like an old cheese chock full of livin' things, I
couldn't drink nothing but pure gin or brandy for a week. I was scared
to death. I consaited when I went to bed I could audibly feel these
critters fightin' like Turks and minin' my inerds, and I got narvous
lest my stomach like a citadel might be blowed up and the works
destroyed. It was frightful.

"At last I sot up and said, Sam, where is all your common sense gone?
You used to have a considerable sized phial of it, I hope you ain't
lost the cork and let it all run out. So I put myself in the
witness-stand, and asked myself a few questions.

"'Water was made to drink, warn't it?'

"'That's a fact.'

"'You can't see them critters in it with your naked eye?'

"'I can't see them at all, neither naked or dressed.'

"'Then it warn't intended you should?'

"'Seems as if it wasn't,' sais I.

"'Then drink, and don't be skeered.'

"'I'll be darned if I don't, for who knows them wee-monstrosities
don't help digestion, or feed on human pyson. They warn't put into
Adam's ale for nothin', that's a fact.'

"It seems as if they warn't,' sais I. 'So now I'll go to sleep.'

"Well, puritans' eyes are like them magnifiers; they see the devil in
everything but themselves, where he is plaguy apt to be found by them
that want him; for he feels at home in their company. One time they
vow he is a dancin' master, and moves his feet so quick folks can't
see they are cloven, another time a music master, and teaches children
to open their mouths and not their nostrils in singing. Now he is a
tailor or milliner, and makes fashionable garments; and then a manager
of a theatre, which is the most awful place in the world; it is a
reflex of life, and the reflection is always worse than the original,
as a man's shadow is more dangerous than he is. But worst of all, they
solemnly affirm, for they don't swear, he comes sometimes in lawn
sleeves, and looks like a bishop, which is popery, or in the garb of
high churchmen, who are all Jesuits. Is it any wonder these cantin'
fellows pervert the understanding, sap the principles, corrupt the
heart, and destroy the happiness of so many? Poor dear old Minister
used to say, 'Sam, you must instruct your conscience; for an ignorant
or superstitious conscience is a snare to the unwary. If you think a
thing is wrong that is not, and do it, then you sin, because you are
doing what you believe in your heart to be wicked. It is the intention
that constitutes the crime.' Those sour crouts therefore, by creating
artificial and imitation sin in such abundance, make real sin of no
sort of consequence, and the world is so chock full of it, a fellow
gets careless at last and won't get out of its way, it's so much
trouble to pick his steps.

"Well, I was off in a brown study so deep about artificial sins, I
didn't hear Liddy come in, she shut the door so softly and trod on
tiptoes so light on the carpet. The first thing I knew was I felt her
hands on my head, as she stood behind me, a dividin' of my hair with
her fingers.