Willa Cather - "O Pioneers!"

Ambrose Bierce - "The Parenticide Club"

Upton Sinclair - "The Pot Boiler"

Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc) - "Jacqueline, v2"

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




"I didn't intend to turn preacher, Doctor, but I do positively
believe, if I hadn't a been a clockmaker, dear old Minister would have
made me one. I don't allot, though, I would have taken in Slickville,
for I actilly think I couldn't help waltzing with the galls, which
would have put our folks into fits, or kept old Clay, clergymen like,
to leave sinners behind me. I can't make out these puritan fellows, or
evangelical boys, at all. To my mind, religion is a cheerful thing,
intended to make us happy, not miserable; and that our faces, like
that of nature, should be smiling, and that like birds we should sing
and carol, and like lilies, we should be well arrayed, and not that
our countenances should make folks believe we were chosen vessels,
containing, not the milk of human kindness, but horrid sour vinegar
and acid mothery grounds. Why, the very swamp behind our house is full
of a plant called 'a gall's side-saddle.'1


1 This is the common name for the Sarracenia.


"Plague take them old Independents; I can't and never could understand
them. I believe, if Bishop Laud had allowed them to sing through their
noses, pray without gowns, and build chapels without steeples, they
would have died out like Quakers, by being let alone. They wanted to
make the state believe they were of consequence. If the state had
treated them as if they were of no importance, they would have felt
that too very soon. Opposition made them obstinate. They won't stick
at nothing to carry their own ends.

"They made a law once in Connecticut that no man should ride or drive
on a Sunday except to a conventicle. Well, an old Dutch governor of
New York, when that was called New Amsterdam and belonged to Holland,
once rode into the colony on horseback on a Sabbath day, pretty hard
job it was too, for he was a very stout man, and a poor horseman.
There were no wheel carriages in those days, and he had been used to
home to travel in canal boats, and smoke at his ease; but he had to
make the journey, and he did it, and he arrived just as the puritans
were coming out of meeting, and going home, slowly, stately, and
solemnly, to their cold dinner cooked the day before (for they didn't
think it no harm to make servants work double tides on Saturday),
their rule being to do anything of a week day, but nothing on the
Sabbath.

"Well, it was an awful scandal this, and a dreadful violation of the
blue laws of the young nation. Connecticut and New Amsterdam (New
York) were nothing then but colonies; but the puritans owed no
obedience to princes, and set up for themselves. The elders and
ministry and learned men met on Monday to consider of this dreadful
profanity of the Dutch governor. On the one hand it was argued, if he
entered their state (for so they called it then) he was amenable to
their laws, and ought to be cited, condemned, and put into the stocks,
as an example to evil-doers. On the other hand, they got hold of a
Dutch book on the Law of Nations, to cite agin him; but it was written
in Latin, and although it contained all about it, they couldn't find
the place, for their minister said there was no index to it. Well, it
was said, if we are independent, so is he, and whoever heard of a king
or a prince being put in the stocks? It bothered them, so they sent
their Yankee governor to him to bully and threaten him, and see how he
would take it, as we now do, at the present day, to Spain about Cuba,
and England about your fisheries.

"Well, the governor made a long speech to him, read him a chapter in
the Bible, and then expounded it, and told him they must put him in
the stocks. All this time the Dutchman went on smoking, and blowing
out great long puffs of tobacco. At last he paused, and said:

"'You be tamned. Stockum me--stockum teivel.' And he laid down his
pipe, and with one hand took hold of their governor by the fore-top,
and with the other drew a line across his forehead and said, 'Den I
declare war, and Gooten Himmel! I shall scalp you all.'

"After delivering himself of that long speech, he poured out two
glasses of Schiedam, drunk one himself, and offered the Yankee
governor the other, who objected to the word Schiedam, as it
terminated in a profane oath, with which, he said, the Dutch language
was greatly defiled; but seeing it was also called Geneva, he would
swallow it. Well, his high mightiness didn't understand him, but he
opened his eyes like an owl and stared, and said, 'Dat is tam coot,'
and the conference broke up.

"Well, it was the first visit of the Dutch governor, and they hoped it
would be the last, so they passed it over. But his business was
important, and it occupied him the whole week to settle it, and he
took his leave on Saturday evening, and was to set out for home on
Sunday again. Well, this was considered as adding insult to injury.
What was to be done? Now it's very easy and very proper for us to sit
down and condemn the Duke of Tuscany, who encourages pilgrims to go to
shrines where marble statues weep blood, and cataliptic galls let
flies walk over their eyes without winking, and yet imprisons an
English lady for giving away the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' It's very
wrong, no doubt, but it ain't very new after all. Ignorant and bigoted
people always have persecuted, and always will to the end of the
chapter. But what was to be done with his high mightiness, the Dutch
governor? Well, they decided that it was not lawful to put him into
the stocks; but that it was lawful to deprive him of the means of
sinning. So one of the elders swapped horses with him, and when he
started on the Sabbath, the critter was so lame after he went a mile,
he had to return and wait till Monday.

"No, I don't understand these puritan folks; and I suppose if I had
been a preacher they wouldn't have understood me. But I must get back
to where I left off. I was a talkin' about the difference of life in
town and in the country, and how in the world I got away, off from the
subject, to the Dutch governor and them puritans, I don't know. When I
say I love the country, I mean it in its fullest extent, not merely
old settlements and rural districts, but the great unbroken forest.
This is a taste, I believe, a man must have in early life. I don't
think it can be acquired in middle age, any more than playin' marbles
can, though old Elgin tried that game and made money at it. A man must
know how to take care of himself, forage for himself, shelter himself,
and cook for himself. It's no place for an epicure, because he can't
carry his cook, and his spices, and sauces, and all that, with him.
Still a man ought to know a goose from a gridiron; and if he wants to
enjoy the sports of the flood and the forest, he should be able to
help himself; and what he does he ought to do well. Fingers were made
afore knives and forks; flat stones before bake-pans; crotched sticks
before jacks; bark before tin; and chips before plates; and it's worth
knowing how to use them or form them.

"It takes two or three years to build and finish a good house. A
wigwam is knocked up in an hour; and as you have to be your own
architect, carpenter, mason, and labourer, it's just as well to be
handy as not. A critter that can't do that, hante the gumption of a
bear who makes a den, a fox who makes a hole, or a bird that makes a
nest, let alone a beaver, who is a dab at house building. No man can
enjoy the woods that ain't up to these things. If he ain't, he had
better stay to his hotel, where there is one servant to clean his
shoes, another to brush his coat, a third to make his bed, a fourth to
shave him, a fifth to cook for him, a sixth to wait on him, a seventh
to wash for him, and half a dozen more for him to scold and bless all
day. That's a place where he can go to bed, and get no sleep--go to
dinner, and have no appetite--go to the window, and get no fresh air,
but snuff up the perfume of drains, bar-rooms, and cooking
ranges--suffer from heat, because he can't wear his coat, or from
politeness, because he can't take it off--or go to the beach, where
the sea breeze won't come, it's so far up the country, where the white
sand will dazzle, and where there is no shade, because trees won't
grow--or stand and throw stones into the water, and then jump in arter
'em in despair, and forget the way out. He'd better do anything than
go to the woods.

"But if he can help himself like a man, oh, it's a glorious place. The
ways of the forest are easy to learn, its nature is simple, and the
cooking plain, while the fare is abundant. Fish for the catching, deer
for the shooting, cool springs for the drinking, wood for the cutting,
appetite for eating, and sleep that waits no wooing. It comes with the
first star, and tarries till it fades into morning. For the time you
are monarch of all you survey. No claimant forbids you; no bailiff
haunts you; no thieves molest you; no fops annoy you. If the tempest
rages without, you are secure in your lowly tent. Though it humbles in
its fury the lofty pine, and uproots the stubborn oak, it passes
harmlessly over you, and you feel for once you are a free and
independent man. You realize a term which is a fiction in our
constitution. Nor pride nor envy, hatred nor malice, rivalry nor
strife is there. You are at peace with all the world, and the world is
at peace with you. You own not its authority. You can worship God
after your own fashion, and dread not the name of bigot, idolater,
heretic, or schismatic. The forest is his temple--he is ever present,
and the still small voice of your short and simple prayer seems more
audible amid the silence that reigns around you. You feel that you are
in the presence of your Creator, before whom you humble yourself, and
not of man, before whom you clothe yourself with pride. Your very
solitude seems to impress you with the belief that, though hidden from
the world, you are more distinctly visible, and more individually an
object of Divine protection, than any worthless atom like yourself
ever could be in the midst of a multitude--a mere unit of millions.
Yes, you are free to come, to go, to stay; your home is co-extensive
with the wild woods. Perhaps it is better for a solitary retreat than
a permanent home; still it forms a part of what I call the country.

"At Country Harbour we had a sample of the simple, plain, natural,
unpretending way in which neighbours meet of an evening in the rural
districts. But look at that house in the town, where we saw the family
assembled at breakfast this morning, and see what is going on there
to-night. It is the last party of the season. The family leave the
city in a week for the country. What a delightful change from the
heated air of a town-house, to the quiet retreat of an hotel at a
watering-place, where there are only six hundred people collected. It
is positively the very last party, and would have been given weeks
ago, but everybody was engaged for so long a time a-head, there was no
getting the fashionable folks to come. It is a charming ball. The old
ladies are fully dressed, only they are so squeezed against the walls,
their diamonds and pearls are hid. And the young ladies are so lightly
dressed, they look lovely. And the old gentlemen seem so happy as they
walk round the room, and smile on all the acquaintances of their early
days; and tell every one they look so well, and their daughters are so
handsome. It ain't possible they are bored, and they try not even to
look so. And the room is so well lighted, and so well filled, perhaps
a little too much so to leave space for the dancers; but yet not more
so than is fashionable. And then the young gentlemen talk so
enchantingly about Paris, and London, and Rome, and so disparagingly
of home, it is quite refreshing to hear them. And they have been in
such high society abroad, they ought to be well bred, for they know
John Manners, and all the Manners family, and well informed in
politics; for they know John Russell, who never says I'll be hanged if
I do this or that, but I will be beheaded if I do; in allusion to one
of his great ancestors who was as innocent of trying to subvert the
constitution as he is. And they have often seen 'Albert, Albert,
Prince of Wales, and all the royal family,' as they say in England for
shortness. They have travelled with their eyes open, ears open, mouths
open, and pockets open. They have heard, seen, tasted, and bought
everything worth having. They are capital judges of wine, and that
reminds them there is lots of the best in the next room; but they soon
discover they can't have it in perfection in America. It has been
nourished for the voyage, it has been fed with brandy. It is heady,
for when they return to their fair friends, their hands are not quite
steady, they are apt to spill things over the ladies dresses (but they
are so good-natured, they only laugh; for they never wear a dress but
wunst). And their eyes sparkle like jewels, and they look at their
partners as if they would eat 'em up. And I guess they tell them so,
for they start sometimes, and say:

"'Oh, well now, that's too bad! Why how you talk! Well, travellin'
hasn't improved you?'

"But it must be a charming thing to be eat up, for they look delighted
at the very idea of it; and their mammas seem pleased that they are so
much to the taste of these travelled gentlemen.

"Well then, dancing is voted a bore by the handsomest couple in the
room, and they sit apart, and the uninitiated think they are making
love. And they talk so confidentially, and look so amused; they seem
delighted with each other. But they are only criticising.

"'Who is pink skirt?'

"'Blue-nose Mary.'

"'What in the world do they call her Blue-nose for?'

"'It is a nickname for the Nova Scotians. Her father is one; he made
his fortune by a diving-bell.'

"'Did he? Well, it's quite right then it should go with a belle.'

"'How very good! May I repeat that? You do say such clever things! And
who is that pale girl that reminds you of brown holland, bleached
white? She looks quite scriptural; she has a proud look and a high
stomach.'

"'That's Rachael Scott, one of my very best friends. She is as good a
girl as ever lived. My! I wish I was as rich as she is. I have only
three hundred thousand dollars, but she will have four at her father's
death if he don't bust and fail. But, dear me! how severe you are! I
am quite afraid of you. I wonder what you will say of me when my back
is turned!'

"'Shall I tell you?'

"'Yes, if it isn't too savage.'

"The hint about the money is not lost, for he is looking for a
fortune, it saves the trouble of making one; and he whispers something
in her ear that pleases her uncommonly, for she sais,

"'Ah now, the severest thing you can do is to flatter me that way.'

"They don't discourse of the company anymore; they have too much to
say to each other of themselves now.

"'My! what a smash! what in the world is that?'

"'Nothing but a large mirror. It is lucky it is broken, for if the
host saw himself in it, he might see the face of a fool.'

"'How uproariously those young men talk, and how loud the music is,
and how confounded hot the room is! I must go home. But I must wait a
moment till that noisy, tipsy boy is dragged down-stairs, and shoved
into a hack.'

"And this is upstart life, is it? Yes, but there are changing scenes
in life. Look at these rooms next morning. The chandelier is broken;
the centre table upset, the curtains are ruined, the carpets are
covered with ice-creams, jellies, blancmanges, and broken glass. And
the elegant album, souvenirs, and autograph books, are all in the
midst of this nasty mess.1 The couches are greasy, the silk ottoman
shows it has been sat in since it met with an accident which was only
a trifle, and there has been the devil to pay everywhere. A doctor is
seen going into the house, and soon after a coffin is seen coming out.
An unbidden guest, a disgusting levelling democrat came to that ball,
how or when no one knew; but there he is and there he will remain for
the rest of the summer. He has victimized one poor girl already, and
is now strangling another. The yellow fever is there. Nature has sent
her avenging angel. There is no safety but in flight.


1 Whoever thinks this description over-drawn, is referred to a
remarkably clever work which lately appeared in New York, entitled
"The Potiphar Papers." Mr Slick has evidently spared this class of
society.


"Good gracious! if people will ape their superiors, why won't they
imitate their elegance as well as their extravagance, and learn that
it is the refinement alone, of the higher orders which in all
countries distinguishes them from the rest of mankind? The decencies
of life, when polished, become its brightest ornaments. Gold is a
means, and not an end. It can do a great deal, still it can't do
everything; and among others I guess it can't make a gentleman, or
else California would be chock full of 'em. No, give me the country,
and the folks that live in it, I say."



CHAPTER XXI.

THE HONEYMOON.


After having given vent to the foregoing lockrum, I took Jehosophat
Bean's illustrated "Biography of the Eleven Hundred and Seven
Illustrious American Heroes," and turned in to read a spell; but arter
a while I lost sight of the heroes and their exploits, and I got into
a wide spekilation on all sorts of subjects, and among the rest my
mind wandered off to Jordan river, the Collingwood girls in
particular, and Jessie and the doctor, and the Beaver-dam, and its
inmates in general. I shall set down my musings as if I was thinking
aloud.

I wonder, sais I to myself, whether Sophy and I shall be happy
together, sposin' always, that she is willing to put her head into the
yoke, for that's by no means sartain yet. I'll know better when I can
study her more at leisure. Still matrimony is always a risk, where you
don't know what sort of breaking a critter has had when young. Women
in a general way don't look like the same critters when they are
spliced, that they do before; matrimony, like sugar and water, has a
nateral affinity for and tendency to acidity. The clear, beautiful,
bright sunshine of the wedding morning is too apt to cloud over at
twelve o'clock, and the afternoon to be cold, raw, and uncomfortable,
or else the heat generates storms that fairly make the house shake,
and the happy pair tremble again. Everybody knows the real, solid
grounds which can alone make married life perfect. I should only prose
if I was to state them, but I have an idea as cheerfulness is a great
ingredient, a good climate has a vast deal to do with it, for who can
be chirp in a bad one? Wedlock was first instituted in Paradise. Well,
there must have been a charming climate there. It could not have been
too hot, for Eve never used a parasol, or even a "kiss-me-quick," and
Adam never complained, though he wore no clothes, that the sun
blistered his skin. It couldn't have been wet, or they would have
coughed all the time, like consumptive sheep, and it would have
spoiled their garden, let alone giving them the chilblains and the
snuffles. They didn't require umbrellas, uglies, fans, or India-rubber
shoes. There was no such a thing as a stroke of the sun or a
snow-drift there. The temperature must have been perfect, and
connubial bliss, I allot, was rael jam up. The only thing that seemed
wanting there, was for some one to drop in to tea now and then for Eve
to have a good chat with, while Adam was a studyin' astronomy, or
tryin' to invent a kettle that would stand fire; for women do like
talking, that's a fact, and there are many little things they have to
say to each other that no man has any right to hear, and if he did, he
couldn't understand.

It's like a dodge Sally and I had to blind mother. Sally was for
everlastingly leaving the keys about, and every time there was an
inquiry about them, or a hunt for them, the old lady would read her a
proper lecture. So at last she altered the name, and said, "Sam, wo is
shlizel?" instead of Where is the key, and she tried all she could to
find it out, but she couldn't for the life of her.

Yes, what can be expected of such a climate as Nova Scotia or England?
Though the first can ripen Indian corn and the other can't, and that
is a great test, I can tell you. It is hard to tell which of them is
wuss, for both are bad enough, gracious knows, and yet the fools that
live in them brag that their own beats all natur. If it is the former,
well then thunder don't clear the weather as it does to the South, and
the sun don't come out bright again at wunst and all natur look clear
and tranquil and refreshed; and the flowers and roses don't hang their
heads down coily for the breeze to brush the drops from their
newly-painted leaves, and then hold up and look more lovely than ever;
nor does the voice of song and merriment arise from every tree; nor
fragrance and perfume fill the air, till you are tempted to say, Now
did you ever see anything so charming as this? nor do you stroll out
arm-in-arm (that is, sposin' you ain't in a nasty dirty horrid town),
and feel pleased with the dear married gall and yourself, and all you
see and hear, while you drink in pleasure with every sense--oh, it
don't do that. Thunder unsettles everything for most a week, there
seems no end to the gloom during these three or four days. You shiver
if you don't make a fire, and if you do you are fairly roasted alive.
It's all grumblin' and growlin' within, and all mud, slush, and slop
outside. You are bored to death everywhere. And if it's English
climate it is wuss still, because in Nova Scotia there is an end to
all this at last, for the west wind blows towards the end of the week
soft and cool and bracing, and sweeps away the clouds, and lays the
dust and dries all up, and makes everything smile again. But if it is
English it's unsettled and uncertain all the time. You can't depend on
it for an hour. Now it rains, then it clears, after that the sun
shines; but it rains too, both together, like hystericks, laughing and
crying at the same time. The trees are loaded with water, and hold it
like a sponge; touch a bough of one with your hat, and you are drowned
in a shower-bath. There is no hope, for there is no end visible, and
when there does seem a little glimpse of light, so as to make you
think it is a going to relent, it wraps itself up in a foggy, drizzly
mist, and sulks like anything.

In this country they have a warm summer, a magnificent autumn, a
clear, cold, healthy winter, but no sort of spring at all. In England
they have no summer and no winter.1 Now, in my opinion, that makes the
difference in temper between the two races. The clear sky and bracing
air here, when they do come, give the folks good spirits; but the
extremes of heat and cold limit the time, and decrease the inclination
for exercise. Still the people are good-natured, merry fellows. In
England, the perpetual gloom of the sky affects the disposition of the
men. America knows no such temper as exists in Britain. People here
can't even form an idea of it. Folks often cut off their children
there in their wills for half nothing, won't be reconciled to them on
any terms, if they once displease them, and both they and their sons
die game, and when death sends cards of invitation for the last
assemblage of a family, they write declensions. There can't be much
real love where there is no tenderness. A gloomy sky, stately houses,
and a cold, formal people, make Cupid, like a bird of passage, spread
his wings, and take flight to a more congenial climate.


1 I wonder what Mr Slick would say now, in 1855?


Castles have show-apartments, and the vulgar gaze with stupid wonder,
and envy the owners. But there are rooms in them all, not exhibited.
In them the imprisoned bird may occasionally be seen, as in the olden
time, to flutter against the casement and pine in the gloom of its
noble cage. There are chambers too in which grief, anger, jealousy,
wounded pride, and disappointed ambition, pour out their sighs, their
groans, and imprecations, unseen and unheard. The halls resound with
mirth and revelry, and the eye grows dim with its glittering
splendour; but amid all this ostentatious brilliancy, poor human
nature refuses to be comforted with diamonds and pearls, or to
acknowledge that happiness consists in gilded galleries, gay
equipages, or fashionable parties. They are cold and artificial. The
heart longs to discard this joyless pageantry, to surround itself with
human affections, and only asks to love and be loved.

Still England is not wholly composed of castles and cottages, and
there are very many happy homes in it, and thousands upon thousands of
happy people in them, in spite of the melancholy climate, the
destitution of the poor, and the luxury of the rich. God is good. He
is not only merciful, but a just judge. He equalizes the condition of
all. The industrious poor man is content, for he relies on Providence
and his own exertions for his daily bread. He earns his food, and his
labour gives him a zest for it. Ambition craves, and is never
satisfied, one is poor amid his prodigal wealth, the other rich in his
frugal poverty. No man is rich whose expenditure exceeds his means;
and no one is poor whose incomings exceeds his outgoings. Barring such
things as climate, over which we have no control, happiness, in my
idea, consists in the mind, and not in the purse. These are plain
common truths, and everybody will tell you there is nothing new in
them, just as if there was anything new under the sun but my wooden
clocks, and yet they only say so because they can't deny them, for who
acts as if he ever heard of them before. Now, if they do know them,
why the plague don't they regulate their timepieces by them? If they
did, matrimony wouldn't make such an everlastin' transmogrification of
folks as it does, would it?