Charles Darwin - "Insectivorous Plants"

Leonard Huxley - "The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1"

John Kendrick Bangs - "The Enchanted Typewriter"

John Lothrop Motley - "The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1561 62"

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




A little cynical old man, commonly called the major, looks knowing,
puts on a quizzical expression, and touching his nose with the tip of
his finger, says, "One of the new magistrates qualifying as he goes
down to be sworn into office."

It makes the politicians smile, restores their equanimity, and they
make room for another committee of safety. A little lower down the
street, a mail-coach is starting for Windsor, and ten or fifteen men
are assembled doing their utmost, and twenty or thirty boys helping
them, to look at the passengers, but are unexpectedly relieved from
their arduous duty by a military band at the head of a marching
regiment.

Give me the bar though. I don't mean the bar-room, though there are
some capital songs sung, and good stories told, and first-rate rises
taken out of green ones, in that bar-room at the big hotel, but I mean
the lawyers. They are the merriest and best fellows everywhere. They
fight like prize-boxers in public and before all the world, and shake
hands when they set to and after it's over. Preachers, on the
contrary, write anonymous letters in newspapers, or let fly pamphlets
at each other, and call ugly names. While doctors go from house to
house insinuating, undermining, shrugging shoulders, turning up noses,
and looking as amazed as when they was fust born into the world, at
each other's prescriptions. Well, politicians are dirty birds too,
they get up all sorts of lies against each other, and if any one lays
an egg, t'other swears it was stole out of his nest. But lawyers are
above all these tricks. As soon as court is ended, off they go
arm-in-arm, as if they had both been fighting on one side. "I say,
Blowem, that was a capital hit of yours, making old Gurdy swear he was
king of the mountains."

"Not half as good as yours, Monk, telling the witness he couldn't be a
partner, for the plaintiff had put in all the 'stock in hand,' and he
had only put in his 'stock in feet.'"

They are full of stories, too, tragic as well as comic, picked up in
the circuits.

"Jones, do you know Mc Farlane of Barney's River, a Presbyterian
clergyman? He told me he was once in a remote district there where no
minister had ever been, and visiting the house of a settler of Scotch
descent, he began to examine the children.

"'Well, my man,' said he, patting on the shoulder a stout junk of a
boy of about sixteen years of age, 'can you tell me what is the chief
end of man?'

"'Yes, Sir,' said he. 'To pile and burn brush.'1


1 In clearing woodland, after the trees are chopped down and cut into
convenient sizes for handling, they are piled into heaps and burned.


"'No it ain't,' said his sister.

"'Oh, but it is though,' replied the boy, 'for father told me so
himself.'

"'No, no,' said the minister, 'it's not that; but perhaps, my dear,'
addressing the girl, 'you can tell me what it is?'

"'Oh, yes, Sir,' said she, 'I can tell you, and so could John, but he
never will think before he speaks.'

"'Well, what is it, dear?'

"'Why, the chief end of man, Sir, is his head and shoulders.'

"'Oh,' said a little lassie that was listening to the conversation,
'if you know all these things, Sir, can you tell me if Noah had any
butterflies in the ark? I wonder how in the world he ever got hold of
them! Many and many a beauty have I chased all day, and I never could
catch one yet.'"

"I can tell you a better one than that," says Larry Hilliard. "Do you
recollect old Hardwood, our under-sheriff? He has a very beautiful
daughter, and she was married last week at St Paul's Church, to a
lieutenant in the navy. There was such an immense crowd present (for
they were considered the handsomest couple ever married there), that
she got so confused she could hardly get through the responses. When
the archdeacon said, 'Will you have this man to be your wedded
husband?'

"'Yes,' she said, and made a slight pause; and then became bewildered,
and got into her catechism. 'Yes,' she said, 'by God's grace I will,
and I humbly thank my Heavenly Father for having brought me to this
state of salvation.'

"It was lucky she spoke low, and that the people didn't distinctly
hear her, but it nearly choaked the parson."

"Talking of church anecdotes," says Lawyer Martin, "reminds me of old
Parson Byles, of St John's, New Brunswick. Before the American
rebellion he was rector at Boston, and he had a curate who always
preached against the Roman Catholics. It tickled the Puritans, but
didn't injure the Papists, for there were none there at that time. For
three successive Sundays he expounded the text, 'And Peter's wife's
mother lay ill of a fever.'

"From which he inferred priests ought to marry. Shortly after that the
bell was tolling one day, and somebody asked Dr Byles who was dead.

"Says he, and he looked solemcoly, shut one eye and winked with the
other, as if he was trying to shut that also--'I rather think it is
Peter's wife's mother, for she has been ill of a fever for three
weeks.'"

There are charms in these little "home scenes," these little detached
sketches, which are wholly lost in a large landscape.

There is one very redeeming property about the people. Although they
differ widely in politics, I infer that they live in the greatest
possible harmony together, from the fact that they speak of each other
like members of the same family. The word Mr is laid aside as too cold
and formal, and the whole Christian name as too ceremonious. Their
most distinguished men speak of each other, and the public follow
their example, as Joe A, or Jim B, or Bill C, or Tom D, or Fitz this,
or Dick that. It sounds odd to strangers no doubt, but the inference
that may be drawn from it is one of great amiability.

Still, in holding up the mirror, hold it up fairly, and take in all
the groups, and not merely those that excite ridicule. Halifax has
more real substantial wealth about it than any place of its size in
America; wealth not amassed by reckless speculation, but by judicious
enterprise, persevering industry, and consistent economy. In like
manner there is better society in it than in any similar American or
colonial town. A man must know the people to appreciate them. He must
not merely judge by those whom he is accustomed to meet at the social
board, for they are not always the best specimens anywhere, but by
those also who prefer retirement, and a narrower circle, and rather
avoid general society, as not suited to their tastes. The character of
its mercantile men stands very high, and those that are engaged in
professional pursuits are distinguished for their ability and
integrity. In short, as a colonist, Squire, you may at least be
satisfied to hear from a stranger like me, that they contrast so
favourably with those who are sent officially among them from England,
that they need not be ashamed to see themselves grouped with the best
of them in the same mirror.

Yes, yes, Squire, every place has its queer people, queer talk, and
queer grouping. I draw what is before me, and I can't go wrong. Now,
if the sketcher introduces his own person into his foregrounds, and I
guess I figure in all mine as large as life (for like a respectable
man I never forget myself), he must take care he has a good likeness
of his skuldiferous head, as well as a flattering one. Now, you may
call it crackin' and braggin', and all that sort of a thing, if you
please, but I must say, I allot that I look, sit, walk, stand, eat,
drink, smoke, think, and talk, aye, and brag too, like a Yankee
clockmaker, don't you? Yes, there is a decided and manifest
improvement in the appearance of this province. When I say the
province, I don't refer to Halifax alone, though there are folks there
that think it stands for and represents the whole colony. I mean what
I say in using that expression, which extends to the country at
large--and I am glad to see this change, for I like it. And there is a
still more decided and manifest improvement in the people, and I am
glad of that too, for I like them also. Now, I'll tell you one great
reason of this alteration. Blue-nose has seen himself as other folks
see him, he has had "the mirror held up to him."



CHAPTER XIX.

THE BUNDLE OF STICKS.


I had hardly entered these remarks in my Journal, and ascended the
companion-ladder, when the doctor joined me in my quarter-deck walk,
and said, "Mr Slick, what is your opinion of the state of these North
American colonies?"

What a curious thing these coincidences are, Squire, ain't they? How
often when you are speaking of a man, he unexpectedly makes his
appearance, don't he? or if you are thinking of a subject, the person
who is with you starts the same topic, or if you are a going to say a
thing, he takes, as we say, the very words out of your mouth. It is
something more than accident that, but what is it? Is it animal
magnetism, or what is it? Well, I leave you to answer that question,
for I can't.

"Their growth beats all. The way they are going ahead is a caution to
them that live in Sleepy Hollow, a quiet little place the English call
Downing Street. It astonishes them as a young turkey does a hen that
has hatched it, thinking it was a chicken of her own. She don't know
what in the world to make of the great long-legged, long-bodied
critter, that is six times as large as herself, that has cheeks as red
as if it drank brandy, an imperial as large as a Russian dragoon, eats
all the food of the poultry-yard, takes a shocking sight of nursing
when it is young, and gets as sarcy as the devil when it grows up."

"Yes," said he, "I am aware of its growth; but what do you suppose is
the destiny of British North America?"

"Oh," sais I, "I could tell you if I was Colonial minister, because I
should then have the power to guide that destiny. I know full well
what ought to be done, and the importance of doing it soon, but I am
not in the position to give them the right direction. No English
statesmen have the information, the time, or the inclination to meddle
with the subject. To get rid of the bother of them, they have given up
all control and said to them, 'There is responsible government for
you, now tortle off hum, and manage your own affairs.' Yes, yes, so
far so good--they can manage their own domestic matters, but who is to
manage their foreign affairs, as I said wunst to a member of
parliament. They have outgrown colonial dependance; their minority is
ended; their clerkship is out; they are of age now: they never did
well in your house; they were put out to nurse at a distance; they had
their schooling; they learnt figures early; they can add and multiply
faster than you can to save your soul; and now they are uneasy. They
have your name, for they are your children, but they are younger sons.
The estate and all the honours go to the eldest, who resides at home.
They know but little about their parents, further than that their
bills have been liberally paid, but they have no personal acquaintance
with you. You are tired of maintaining them, and they have too much
pride and too much energy to continue to be a burden to you. They can
and they will do for themselves.

"Have you ever thought of setting them up in business on their own
account, or of taking them into partnership with yourself? In the
course of nature they must form some connection soon. Shall they seek
it with you or the States, or intermarry among themselves, and begin
the world on their own hook? These are important questions, and they
must be answered soon. Have you acquired their confidence and
affection? What has been your manner to them? Do you treat them like
your other younger children that remain at home? Them you put into
your army and navy, place a sword in their hands and say, Distinguish
yourselves, and the highest rewards are open to you; or you send them
to the church or the bar, and say, A mitre or a coronet shall be the
prize to contend for. If you prefer diplomacy, you shall be attaché to
your elder brother. I will place the ladder before you; ascend it. If
you like politics, I will place you in parliament, and if you have not
talents sufficient for the House of Commons, you shall go out as
governor of one of our colonies. Those appointments belong of right to
them, but they can't help themselves at present. Get one while you
can.

"Have you done this, or anything like it, for your children abroad? If
you have, perhaps you will be kind enough to furnish me with some
names, that I may mention them when I hear you accused of neglect. You
are very hospitable and very considerate to strangers. The
representative of any little insignificant German state, of the size
of a Canadian township, has a place assigned him on state occasions.
Do you ever show the same attention to the delegate of a colony, of
infinitely more extent and value than Ireland? There can't be a doubt
you have, though I have never heard of it. Such little trifles are
matters of course, but still, as great interests are at stake, perhaps
it would be as well to notice such things occasionally in the Gazette,
for distant and humble relations are always touchy.

"Ah, Doctor," said I, "things can't and won't remain long as they are.
England has three things among which to choose for her North American
colonies:--First: Incorporation with herself, and representation in
Parliament. Secondly: Independence. Thirdly: Annexation with the
States. Instead of deliberating and selecting what will be most
conducive to the interest of herself and her dependencies, she is
allowing things to take their chance. Now, this is all very well in
matters over which we have no control, because Providence directs
things better than we can; but if one of these three alternatives is
infinitely better than the other, and it is in our power to adopt it,
it is the height of folly not to do so. I know it is said, for I have
often heard it myself, Why, we can but lose the colonies at last.
Pardon me, you can do more than that, for you can lose their
affections also. If the partnership is to be dissolved, it had better
be done by mutual consent, and it would be for the interest of both
that you should part friends. You didn't shake hands with, but fists
at, us when we separated. We had a stand-up fight, and you got licked,
and wounds were given that the best part of a century hasn't healed,
and wounds that will leave tender spots for ever; so don't talk
nonsense.

"Now, Doctor, mark my words. I say again, things won't remain long as
they are. I am glad I have you to talk to instead of the Squire, for
he always says, I am chockfull of crotchets, and brimfull of brag.
Now, it is easy, we all know, to prophesy a thing after it has
happened, but if I foretell a thing and it comes out true, if I
haven't a right to brag of my skill, I have a right to boast that I
guessed right at all events. Now, when I set on foot a scheme for
carrying the Atlantic mail in steamers, and calculated all the
distances and chances, and showed them Bristol folks (for I went to
that place on purpose) that it was shorter by thirty-six miles to come
to Halifax, and then go to New York, than to go to New York direct,
they just laughed at me, and so did the English Government. They said
it couldn't be shorter in the nature of things. There was a captain in
the navy to London too, who said, 'Mr Slick, you are wrong, and I
think I ought to know something about it,' giving a toss of his head.
'Well,' sais I, with another toss of mine, 'I think you ought too, and
I am sorry you don't, that's all.'

"Then the Squire said:--'Why, how you talk, Mr Slick! Recollect, if
you please, that Doctor Lardner says that steam won't do to cross the
Atlantic, and he is a great gun."

"'Well,' sais I, 'I don't care a fig for what Lardner says, or any
other locomotive lecturer under the light of the living sun. If a
steamer can go agin a stream, and a plaguy strong one too, two
thousand five hundred miles up the Mississippi, why in natur can't it
be fixed so as to go across the Atlantic?'

"Well, some time after that, my second Clockmaker came out in London,
and, sais I, I'll stand or fall by my opinion, right or wrong, and I
just put it body and breeches all down in figures in that book. Well,
that set inquiries on foot, folks began to calculate--a tender was
made and accepted, and now steam across the Atlantic is a fixed fact,
and an old story. Our folks warn't over pleased about it, they
consaited I should have told them first, so they might have taken the
lead in it, as they like to go ahead of the British in all things, and
I wish to goodness I had, for thanks are better nor jeers at any time.

"Well, I was right there, you see. So on this subject I have told
Squire, and them who ought to know something of the colonies they
rule, over and over again, and warned government that something was
wanting to place these provinces on a proper permanent footing; that I
knew the temper of colony folks better than they did, and you will
find in my Journals the subject often mentioned. But no, a debate on a
beer bill, or a metropolitan bridge, or a constabulary act, is so
pressing, there is no time. Well, sure enough that's all come true.
First, the Canadian league started up, it was a feverish symptom, and
it subsided by good treatment, without letting blood. Last winter it
was debated in the Legislature here, and the best and ablest speeches
made on it ever heard in British America, and infinitely superior to
the great majority of those uttered in the House of Commons.1 Do you
suppose for a moment that proud-spirited, independent, able men like
those members, will long endure the control of a Colonial minister,
who, they feel, is as much below them in talent, as by accident he may
be above them in rank? No, Sir, the day is past. The form of
provincial government is changed, and with it provincial dependence
also. When we become men, we must put away childish thing's.


1 All these speeches are well worth reading, especially those of Mr
Howe, Mr Johnston, and Mr M. Wilkins. That of the former gentleman is
incomparably superior to any one delivered during the last session of
the Imperial Parliament.


"There is a sense of soreness that is uncomfortably felt by a colonist
now when he surveys our condition, and that of Englishmen, and
compares his own with it. He can hardly tell you what he wants, he has
yet no definite plan: but he desires something that will place him on
a perfect equality with either. When I was in Europe lately, I spent a
day at Richmond, with one of them I had known out in America. He was a
Tory, too, and a pretty staunch one, I tell you.

"Thinks I to myself, 'I'll put you through your paces a little, my
young sucking Washington, for fear you will get out of practice when
you get back.'

"So, sais I, 'how do you get on now? I suppose responsible government
has put an end to all complaints, hain't it?'

"Sais he, 'Mr Slick,' and I saw he felt sore, for he looked like it,
and talked like it; 'Mr Slick,' said he, 'kinder niblin' at the
question, I have no remonstrance to make. There is something very
repulsive in a complaint. I can't bear the sound of it myself. It
should never be pronounced but in the ear of a doctor, or a police
magistrate. Your man with a grievance is everywhere voted a bore. If
he goes to the Colonial Office with one, that stout gentleman at the
door, the porter, who has the keys of that realm of knowledge and
bliss, and knows as much and has as many airs as his master, soon
receives an order not to admit him.

"'Worn out with fatigue and disappointment, the unfortunate suitor
finds at last his original grievance merged in the greater one, that
he can obtain no hearing and no redress, and he returns to his own
province, like Franklin, or the Australian delegate, with thoughts of
deep revenge, and visions of a glorious revolution that shall set his
countrymen free from foreign dominion. He goes a humble suppliant, he
returns an implacable rebel. The restless Pole, who would rather play
the part of a freebooting officer than an honest farmer, and who
prefers even begging to labour, wanders over Europe and America,
uttering execrations against all monarchs in general, and his own in
particular, and, when you shake your head at his oft-told tale of
fictitious patriotism, as he replaces his stereotyped memorial in his
pocket, exhibits the handle of a stiletto, with a savage smile of
unmistakeable scoundrelism.'

"'Poles loom large,' sais I, 'in the fogs of London, but they dwindle
into poor sticks with us.'

"He was in no temper however to laugh. It was evident he felt deeply,
but he was unwilling to exhibit the tender spot. 'The world, Sir,' he
said, 'is full of grievances. Papineau's parliament mustered
ninety-two of them at one time, and a Falmouth packet-ship actually
foundered with its shifting cargo. What a pity it is that their
worthlessness and lightness alone caused them to float! The English,
who reverse every wholesome maxim, in this instance pursued their
usual course. The sage advice, parcere subjectis, et debilare
superbos, was disregarded. The loyalists suffered, the arrogant and
turbulent triumphed. Every house, Sir, in the kingdom is infested with
grievances. Fathers grieve over the extravagances of their sons, the
giddiness of their daughters, and the ceaseless murmurs of their
wives, while they in their turn unite in complaining of parental
parsimony and meanness. Social intercourse I have long since given up,
for I am tired of tedious narratives of the delinquencies of servants
and the degeneracy of the times. I prefer large parties, where,
although you know the smile hides the peevish temper, the aching
heart, the jealous fear, and the wounded pride; yet it is such a great
satisfaction to know there is a truce to complaints, that I prefer its
many falsehoods to unceasing wailings over the sad realities of life.'

"This was no answer, but something to bluff me off. I saw he was
unwilling to speak out, and that it was a mere effort to button up and
evade the subject. So to draw him out, I said,

"'Well, there is one thing you can boast. Canada is the most valuable
and beautiful appendage of the British Crown.'

"'England may boast of it as such,' he said, 'but I have no right to
do so. I prefer being one of the pariahs of the empire, a mere
colonist, having neither grade nor caste, without a country of my own,
and without nationality. I am a humble man, and when I am asked where
I come from, readily answer, the Chaudiere River. Where is that? Out
of the world? Extra flammantia limina mundi. What is the name of your
country? It is not a country, it is only a place. It is better to have
no flag than a borrowed one. If I had one I should have to defend it.
If it were wrested from me I should be disgraced, while my victorious
enemy would be thanked by the Imperial Legislature, and rewarded by
his sovereign. If I were triumphant, the affair would be deemed too
small to merit a notice in the Gazette. He who called out the militia,
and quelled amid a shower of balls the late rebellion, was knighted.
He who assented amid a shower of eggs to a bill to indemnify the
rebels, was created an earl. Now to pelt a governor-general with eggs
is an overt act of treason, for it is an attempt to throw off the
yoke. If therefore he was advanced in the peerage for remunerating
traitors for their losses, he ought now to assent to another act for
reimbursing the expenses of the exhausted stores of the poultry yards,
and be made a marquis, unless the British see a difference between a
rebel mob and an indignant crowd, between those whose life has been
spent in hatching mischief, and those who desired to scare the foul
birds from their nests.

"'If that man had been a colonist, the dispatch marked 'private' would
have said, 'It sarved you right,' whereas it announced to him, 'You
are one of us,' and to mark our approbation of your conduct, you may
add one of these savoury missiles to your coat of arms, that others
may be egged on to do their duty. Indeed, we couldn't well have a flag
of our own. The Americans have a very appropriate and elegant one,
containing stripes emblematical of their slaves, and stars to
represent their free states, while a Connecticut goose typifies the
good cheer of thanksgiving day. It is true we have the honour of
fighting under that of England; but there is, as we have seen, this
hard condition annexed to it, we must consent to be taxed, to
reimburse the losses of those whom by our gallantry we subdue. If we
take Sebastopol, we must pay for the damage we have done. We are not
entitled to a separate flag, and I am afraid if we had one we should
be subject to ridicule. A pure white ground would prefigure our snow
drifts; a gull with outspread wings, our credulous qualities; and a
few discoloured eggs, portray our celebrated missiles. But what sort
of a flag would that be? No, Sir, these provinces should be united,
and they would from their territorial extent, their commercial
enterprise, their mineral wealth, their wonderful agricultural
productions, and, above all, their intelligent, industrious, and still
loyal population, in time form a nation second to none on earth, until
then I prefer to be a citizen of the world.