Don Manoel Gonzales - "London in 1731"

George Washington Plunkitt - "Plunkitt of Tammany Hall "

Alfred de Vigny - "Cinq Mars, v5"

William Butler Yeats - "The Land Of Heart's Desire"

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




Minister used to talk of some old chap, that killed a dragon and
planted his teeth, and armed men sprung up. As soon as we whipped the
British we sowed their teeth, and full-grown coons growed right out of
the earth. Lord bless you, we have fellows like Crocket, that would
sneeze a man-of-war right out of the water.

We have a right to brag, in fact it ain't braggin', its talking
history, and cramming statistics down a fellow's throat, and if he
wants tables to set down to, and study them, there's the old chairs of
the governors of the thirteen united universal worlds of the old
States, besides the rough ones of the new States to sit on, and
canvas-back ducks, blue-point oysters, and, as Sorrow says, "hogs and
dogs," for soup and pies, for refreshment from labour, as Freemasons
say. Brag is a good dog, and Holdfast is a better one, but what do you
say to a cross of the two?--and that's just what we are. An English
statesman actually thinks nobody knows anything but himself. And his
conduct puts folks both on the defensive and offensive. He eyes even
an American all over as much as to say, Where the plague did you
originate, what field of cotton or tobacco was you took from? and if a
Canadian goes to Downing Street, the secretary starts as much as to
say, I hope you han't got one o' them rotten eggs in your hand you
pelted Elgin with. Upon my soul, it wern't my fault, his indemnifyin'
rebels, we never encourage traitors except in Spain, Sicily, Hungary,
and places we have nothin' to do with. He brags of purity as much as a
dirty piece of paper does, that it was originally clean.

"We appreciate your loyalty most fully, I assure you," he says. "When
the militia put down the rebellion, without efficient aid from the
military, parliament would have passed a vote of thanks to you for
your devotion to our cause, but really we were so busy just then we
forgot it. Put that egg in your pocket, that's a good fellow, but
don't set down on it, or it might stain the chair, and folks might
think you was frightened at seeing so big a man as me;" and then he
would turn round to the window and laugh.

Whoever brags over me gets the worst of it, that's a fact. Lord, I
shall never forget a rise I once took out of one of these magnetized
officials, who know all about the colonies, tho' he never saw one. I
don't want any man to call me coward, and say I won't take it
parsonal. There was a complaint made by some of our folks against the
people of the Lower provinces seizing our coasters under pretence they
were intrudin' on the fisheries. Our embassador was laid up at the
time with rheumatism, which he called gout, because it sounded
diplomatic. So says he, "Slick, take this letter and deliver it to the
minister, and give him some verbal explanations."

Well, down I goes, was announced and ushered in, and when he saw me,
he looked me all over as a tailor does a man before he takes his
measure. It made me hoppin' mad I tell you, for in a general way I
don't allow any man to turn up his nose at me without having a shot at
it. So when I sat down I spit into the fire, in a way to put it out
amost, and he drew back and made a face, a leettle, just a leettle
uglier than his natural one was.

"Bad habit," sais I, "that'of spittin', ain't it?" lookin' up at him
as innocent as you please, and makin' a face exactly like his.

"Very," said he, and he gave a shudder.

Sais I, "I don't know whether you are aware of it or not, but most bad
habits are catching."

"I should hope not," said he, and he drew a little further off.

"Fact," sais I; "now if you look long and often at a man that winks,
it sets you a winkin'. If you see a fellow with a twitch in his face,
you feel your cheek doin' the same, and stammerin' is catching too.
Now I caught that habit at court, since I came to Europe. I dined
wunst with the King of Prussia, when I was with our embassador on a
visit at Berlin, and the King beats all natur in spittin', and the
noise he makes aforehand is like clearin' a grate out with a poker,
it's horrid. Well, that's not the worst of it, he uses that ugly
German word for it, that vulgarians translate 'spitting.' Now some of
our western people are compelled to chew a little tobacco, but like a
broker tasting cheese, when testing wine, it is only done to be able
to judge of the quality of the article, but even them unsophisticated,
free, and enlightened citizens have an innate refinement about them.
They never use that nasty word 'spitting,' but call it 'expressing the
ambia.' Well, whenever his Majesty crosses my mind, I do the same out
of clear sheer disgust. Some o' them sort of uppercrust people, I call
them big bugs, think they can do as they like, and use the privilege
of indulging those evil habits. When folks like the king do it, I call
them 'High, low, jack, and the game.'"

Well, the stare he gave me would have made you die a larfin'. I never
saw a man in my life look so skeywonaky. He knew it was true that the
king had that custom, and it dumb-foundered him. He looked at me as
much as to say, "Well, that is capital; the idea of a Yankee, who
spits like a garden-engine, swearing it's a bad habit he larned in
Europe, and a trick he got from dining with a king, is the richest
thing I ever heard in my life. I must tell that to Palmerston."

But I didn't let him off so easy. In the course of talk, sais he:

"Mr Slick, is it true that in South Carolina, if a free nigger, on
board of one of our vessels, lands there, he is put into jail until
the ship sails?" and he looked good, as much as to say, "Thank heaven
I ain't like that republican."

"It is," said I. "We consider a free nigger and a free Englishman on a
parr; we imprison a free black, lest he should corrupt our slaves. The
Duke of Tuscany imprisons a free Englishman, if he has a Bible in his
possession, lest he should corrupt his slaves. It's upon the
principle, that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."

He didn't pursue the subject.

That's what I call brag for brag. We never allow any created critter,
male or female, to go a-head of us in anything. I heard a lady say to
embassador's wife once, in answer to her question, "how she was?"

"Oh, I am in such rude health, I have grown quite indecently stout."

Embassadress never heard them slang words before (for even high life
has its slang), but she wouldn't be beat.

"Oh," said she, "all that will yield to exercise. Before I was married
I was the rudest and most indecent gall in all Connecticut."

Well, an Irishman, with his elbow through his coat, and his shirt, if
he has one, playing diggy-diggy-doubt from his trowsers, flourishes
his shillalah over his head, and brags of the "Imirald Isle," and the
most splindid pisantry in the world; a Scotchman boasts, that next to
the devil and the royal owner of Etna, he is the richest proprietor of
sulphur that ever was heard of; while a Frenchman, whose vanity
exceeds both, has the modesty to call the English a nation of
shopkeepers, the Yankees, canaille, and all the rest of the world
beasts. Even John Chinaman swaggers about with his three tails, and
calls foreigners "Barbarians." If we go a-head and speak out, do you
do so, too. You have a right to do so. Hold the mirror to them, and
your countrymen, too. It won't lie, that's a fact. They require it, I
assure you. The way the just expectations of provincials have been
disappointed, the loyal portion depressed, the turbulent petted, and
the manner the feelings of all disregarded, the contempt that has
accompanied concessions, the neglect that has followed devotion and
self-sacrifice, and the extraordinary manner the just claims of the
meritorious postponed to parliamentary support, has worked a change in
the feelings of the people that the Downing Street officials cannot
understand, or surely they would pursue a different course. They want
to have the mirror held up to them.

I know they feel sore here about the picture my mirror gives them, and
it's natural they should, especially comin' from a Yankee; and they
call me a great bragger. But that's nothin' new; doctors do the same
when a feller cures a poor wretch they have squeezed like a sponge,
ruinated, and given up as past hope. They sing out Quack. But I don't
care; I have a right to brag nationally and individually, and I'd be
no good if I didn't take my own part. Now, though I say it that
shouldn't say it, for I ain't afraid to speak out, the sketches I send
you are from life; I paint things as you will find them and know them
to be. I'll take a bet of a hundred dollars, ten people out of twelve
in this country will recognise Jerry Boudrot's house who have never
entered it, but who have seen others exactly like it, and will say, "I
know who is meant by Jerry and his daughter and wife; I have often
been there; it is at Clare or Arichat or Pumnico, or some such place
or another."

Is that braggin'? Not a bit; it's only the naked fact. To my mind
there is no vally in a sketch if it ain't true to nature. We needn't
go searching about for strange people or strange things; life is full
of them. There is queerer things happening every day than an author
can imagine for the life of him. It takes a great many odd people to
make a world, that's a fact. Now, if I describe a house that has an
old hat in one window, and a pair of trousers in another, I don't stop
to turn glazier, take 'em out and put whole glass in, nor make a
garden where there is none, and put a large tree in the foreground for
effect; but I take it as I find it, and I take people in the dress I
find 'em in, and if I set 'em a talkin' I take their very words down.
Nothing gives you a right idea of a country and its people like that.

There is always some interest in natur, where truly depicted. Minister
used to say that some author (I think he said it was old Dictionary
Johnson) remarked, that the life of any man, if wrote truly, would be
interesting. I think so too; for every man has a story of his own,
adventures of his own, and some things have happened to him that never
happened to anybody else. People here abuse me for all this, they say,
after all my boastin' I don't do 'em justice. But after you and I are
dead and gone, and things have been changed, as it is to be hoped they
will some day or another for the better, unless they are like their
Acadian French neighbours, and intend to remain just as they are for
two hundred and fifty years, then these sketches will be curious; and,
as they are as true to life as a Dutch picture, it will be interestin'
to see what sort of folks were here in 1854, how they lived, and how
they employed themselves, and so on.

Now it's more than a hundred years ago since Smollett wrote, but his
men and women were taken from real life, his sailors from the navy,
his attorneys from the jails and criminal courts, and his fops and
fine ladies from the herd of such cattle that he daily met with. Well,
they are read now; I have 'em to home, and laugh till I cry over them.
Why? Because natur is the same always. Although we didn't live a
hundred years ago, we can see how the folks of that age did; and,
although society is altered, and there are no Admiral Benbows, nor
Hawser Trunnions, and folks don't travel in vans with canvas covers,
or wear swords, and frequent taverns, and all that as they used to did
to England; still it's a pictur of the times, and instructin' as well
as amusin'. I have learned more how folks dressed, talked, and lived,
and thought, and what sort of critters they were, and what the state
of society, high and low, was then, from his books and Fielding's than
any I know of. They are true to life, and as long as natur remains the
same, which it always will, they will be read. That's my idea at
least.

Some squeamish people turn up the whites of their peepers at both
those authors and say they are coarse. How can they be otherwise?
society was coarse. There are more veils worn now, but the devil still
lurks in the eye under the veil. Things ain't talked of so openly, or
done so openly, in modern as in old times. There is more concealment;
and concealment is called delicacy. But where concealment is, the
passions are excited by the difficulties imposed by society. Barriers
are erected too high to scale, but every barrier has its wicket, its
latch key, and its private door. Natur is natur still, and there is as
much of that that is condemned in his books now, as there was then.
There is a horrid sight of hypocrisy now, more than there was one
hundred years ago; vice was audacious then, and scared folks. It ain't
so bold at present as it used to did to be; but if it is forbid to
enter the drawing-room, the back staircase is still free. Where there
is a will there is a way, and always will be. I hate pretence, and,
above all, mock modesty; it's a bad sign.

I knew a clergyman to home a monstrous pious man, and so
delicate-minded, he altered a great many words and passages in the
Church Service, he said he couldn't find it in his heart to read them
out in meetin', and yet that fellow, to my sartain knowledge, was the
greatest scamp in private life I ever knew. Gracious knows, I don't
approbate coarseness, it shocks me, but narvous sensibility makes me
sick. I like to call things by their right names, and I call a leg a
leg, and not a larger limb; a shirt a shirt, though it is next the
skin, and not a linen vestment; and a stocking a stocking, though it
does reach up the leg, and not a silk hose; and a garter a garter,
though it is above the calf, and not an elastic band or a hose
suspender. A really modest woman was never squeamish. Fastidiousness
is the envelope of indelicacy. To see harm in ordinary words betrays a
knowledge, and not an ignorance of evil.

But that is neither here nor there, as I was sayin', when you are dead
and gone these Journals of mine which you have edited, when mellowed
by time, will let the hereafter-to-be Blue-noses, see what the
has-been Nova Scotians here from '34 to '54 were. Now if something of
the same kind had been done when Halifax was first settled a hundred
years ago, what strange coons the old folks would seem to us. That
state of society has passed away, as well as the actors. For instance,
when the militia was embodied to do duty so late as the Duke of Kent's
time, Ensign Lane's name was called on parade. "Not here," said
Lieutenant Grover, "he is mending Sargent Street's breeches."

Many a queer thing occurred then that would make a queer book, I
assure you. There is much that is characteristic both to be seen and
heard in every harbour in this province, the right way is to jot all
down. Every place has its standing topic. At Windsor it is the gypsum
trade, the St John's steamer, the Halifax coach, and a new house that
is building. In King's County it is export of potatoes, bullocks, and
horses. At Annapolis, cord, wood, oars, staves, shingles, and
agricultural produce of all kinds. At Digby, smoked herrings, fish
weirs, and St John markets. At Yarmouth, foreign freights, berthing,
rails, cat-heads, lower cheeks, wooden bolsters, and the crown, palm,
and shank of anchors. At Shelburne, it is divided between fish,
lumber, and the price of vessels. At Liverpool, ship-building, deals,
and timber, knees, transums, and futtucks, pintles, keelsons, and
moose lines. At Lunenburg, Jeddore, and Chesencook, the state of the
market at the capital. At the other harbours further to the eastward,
the coal trade and the fisheries engross most of the conversation. You
hear continually of the fall run and the spring catch of mackerel that
set in but don't stop to bait. The remarkable discovery of the French
coasters, that was made fifty years ago, and still is as new and as
fresh as ever, that when fish are plenty there is no salt, and when
salt is abundant there are no fish, continually startles you with its
novelty and importance. While you are both amused and instructed by
learning the meaning of coal cakes, Albion tops, and what a
Chesencooker delights in, "slack;" you also find out that a hundred
tons of coal at Sydney means when it reaches Halifax one hundred and
fifteen, and that West India, Mediterranean, and Brazilian fish are
actually made on these shores. These local topics are greatly
diversified by politics, which, like crowfoot and white-weed, abound
everywhere.

Halifax has all sorts of talk. Now if you was writin' and not me, you
would have to call it, to please the people, that flourishing great
capital of the greatest colony of Great Britain, the town with the
harbour, as you say of a feller who has a large handle to his face,
the man with the nose, that place that is destined to be the London of
America, which is a fact if it ever fulfils its destiny. The little
scrubby dwarf spruces on the coast are destined not to be lofty pines,
because that can't be in the natur of things, although some folks talk
as if they expected it; but they are destined to be enormous trees,
and although they havn't grown an inch the last fifty years, who can
tell but they may exceed the expectations that has been formed of
them? Yes, you would have to give it a shove, it wants it bad enough,
and lay it on thick too, so as it will stick for one season.

It reminds me of a Yankee I met at New York wunst, he was disposin' of
a new hydraulic cement he had invented. Now cements, either to resist
fire or water, or to mend the most delicate china, or to stop a crack
in a stove, is a thing I rather pride myself on. I make my own cement
always, it is so much better than any I can buy.

Sais I, "What are your ingredients?"

"Yes," sais he, "tell you my secrets, let the cat out of the bag for
you to catch by the tail. No, no," sais he, "excuse me, if you
please."

It ryled me that, so I just steps up to him, as savage as a meat-axe,
intendin' to throw him down-stairs, when the feller turned as pale as
a rabbit's belly, I vow I could hardly help laughin', so I didn't
touch him at all.

"But," sais I, "you and the cat in the bag may run to Old Nick and see
which will get to him first, and say tag--I don't want the secret, for
I don't believe you know it yourself. If I was to see a bit of the
cement, and break it up myself, I'd tell you in a moment whether it
was good for anything."

"Well," sais he, "I'll tell you;" and he gave me all the particulars.

Sais I, "It's no good, two important ingredients are wantin', and you
haven't tempered it right, and it won't stick."

Sais he, "I guess it will stick till I leave the city, and that will
answer me and my eends."

"No," sais I, "it won't, it will ruin you for ever, and injure the
reputation of Connecticut among the nations of the airth. Come to me
when I return to Slickville, and I will show you the proper thing in
use, tested by experience, in tanks, in brick and stone walls, and in
a small furnace. Give me two thousand dollars for the receipt, take
out a patent, and your fortune is made."

"Well," sais he, "I will if it's all you say, for there is a great
demand for the article, if it's only the true Jeremiah."

"Don't mind what I say," said I, "ask it what it says, there it is, go
look at it."

Well, you would have to give these Haligonians a coat of white-wash
that would stick till you leave the town. But that's your affair, and
not mine. I hold the mirror truly, and don't flatter. Now, Halifax is
a sizable place, and covers a good deal of ground, it is most as large
as a piece of chalk, which will give a stranger a very good notion of
it. It is the seat of government, and there are some very important
officers there, judging by their titles. There are a receiver-general,
an accountant-general, an attorney-general, a solicitor-general, a
commissary-general, an assistant commissary-general, the general in
command, the quartermaster-general, the adjutant-general, the
vicar-general, surrogate-general, and postmaster-general. His
Excellency the governor, and his Excellency the admiral. The master of
the Rolls, their lordships the judges, the lord bishop, and the
archbishop, archdeacon, secretary for the Home department, and a host
of great men, with the handle of honourable to their names. Mayors,
colonels, and captains, whether of the regulars or the militia, they
don't count more than fore-cabin passengers. It ain't considered
genteel for them to come abaft the paddle-wheel. Indeed, the
quarter-deck wouldn't accommodate so many. Now, there is the same
marvel about this small town that there was about the scholar's head--


"And still the wonder grew,
How one small head could carry all he knew."


Well, it is a wonder so many great men can be warm-clothed,
bedded-down, and well stalled there, ain't it? But they are, and very
comfortably, too. This is the upper crust; now the under crust
consists of lawyers, doctors, merchants, army and navy folks, small
officials, articled clerks, and so on. Well, in course such a town, I
beg pardon, it is a city (which is more than Liverpool in England is),
and has two cathedral churches, with so many grades, trades, blades,
and pretty maids in it, the talk must be various. The military talk is
professional, with tender reminiscences of home, and some little
boasting, that they are suffering in their country's cause by being so
long on foreign service at Halifax. The young swordknots that have
just joined are brim full of ardour, and swear by Jove (the young
heathens) it is too bad to be shut up in this vile hole (youngsters,
take my advice, and don't let the town's-people hear that, or they
will lynch you), instead of going to Constantinople.

"I say, Lennox, wouldn't that be jolly work?"

"Great work," says Lennox, "rum coves those Turks must be in the
field, eh? The colonel is up to a thing or two; if he was knocked on
the head, there would be such promotion, no one would lament him, but
his dear wife and five lovely daughters, and they would be really
distressed to lose him."

He don't check the youthful ardour, on the contrary, chimes in, and is
in hopes he can make interest at the Horse-guards for the regiment to
go yet, and then he gives a wink to the doctor, who was in the corps
when he was a boy, as much as to say, "Old fellow, you and I have seen
enough of the pleasures of campaigning in our day, eh! Doctor, that is
good wine; but it's getting confounded dear lately; I don't mind it
myself, but it makes the expense of the mess fall heavy upon the
youngsters." The jolly subs look across the table and wink, for they
know that's all bunkum.

"Doctor," sais a new hand, "do you know if Cargill has sold his orses.
His leada is a cleverwish saut of thing, but the wheela is a riglar
bute. That's a goodish orse the Admewall wides; I wonder if he is
going to take him ome with him."

"Haven't heard--can't say. Jones, what's that thing that wont burn, do
you know? Confound the thing, I have got it on the tip of my tongue
too."

"Asphalt," sais Jones.

"No! that's not it; that's what wide-awakes are made of."

"Perhaps so," sais Gage, "ass'felt is very appropriate for a fool's
cap."

At which there is a great roar.

"No; but really what is it?"

"Is it arbutus?" sais Simpkins, "I think they make it at Killarney--"

"No, no; oh! I have it, asbestos; well, that's what I believe the
cigars here are made of--they won't go."

"There are a good many things here that are no go," sais Gage, "like
Perry's bills on Coutts; but, Smith, where did you get that flash
waistcoat I saw last night?"

"Oh! that was worked by a poor despairing girl at Bath, during a fit
of the scarlet fever."

"It was a memento mori then, I suppose," replies the other.

But all the talk is not quite so frivolous. Opposite to that large
stone edifice, is an old cannon standing on end at the corner of the
street, to keep carriages from trespassing on the pavement, and the
non-military assemble round it; they are civic great guns. They are
discussing the great event of the season--the vote of want of
confidence of last night, the resignation of the provincial ministry
this morning, and the startling fact that the head upholsterer has
been sent for to furnish a new cabinet, that won't warp with the heat
and fly apart. It is very important news; it has been telegraphed to
Washington, and was considered so alarming, the President was waked up
to be informed of it. He rubbed his eyes and said:

"Well, I acknowledge the coin, you may take my hat. I hope I may be
cow-hided if I knew they had a ministry. I thought they only had a
governor, and a regiment for a constitution. Will it affect the
stocks? How it will scare the Emperor of Rooshia, won't it?" and he
roared so loud he nearly choked. That just shows (everybody regards
the speaker with silence, for he is an oracle), says Omniscient Pitt.

That just shows how little the Yankees know and how little the English
care about us. "If we want to be indepindent and respictable," sais an
Hibernian magnate, "we must repale the Union." But what is this? here
is a fellow tied hand and foot on a truck, which is conveying him to
the police court, swearing and screaming horribly. What is the meaning
of all that?