John William Draper - "History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science"

James E. Seaver - "A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison"

Jerome K. Jerome - "Clocks"

Henry Lindlahr - "Nature Cure"

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




Peter seemed to understand that no answer was required, and therefore
made none, but asked him where he had come from?

"Where did he come from?" said the stranger, who evidently applied the
question to a fish in his basket, and not to himself, "originally from
the lake, Peter, where it was spawned, and whither it annually
returns. You ought to understand that, Mac, for you have a head on
your shoulders, and that is more than half the poor wretches that
float ashore here from the deep have. It's a hard life, my friend,
going to sea, and hard shores sailors knock against sometimes, and
still harder hearts they often find there. A stone in the end of a
stocking is a sling for a giant, and soon puts an end to their
sufferings; a punishment for wearing gold watches, a penalty for
pride. Jolly tars eh? oh yes, very jolly! it's a jolly sight, ain't
it, to see two hundred half-naked, mangled, and disfigured bodies on
the beach, as I did the other day?" and he gave a shudder at the
thought that seemed to shake the very chair he sat on. "It's lucky
their friends don't see them, and know their sad fate. They were lost
at sea! that is enough for mothers and wives to hear. The cry for
help, when there is none to save, the shriek of despair, when no hope
is left, the half-uttered prayer, the last groan, and the last
struggle of death, are all hushed in the storm, and weeping friends
know not what they lament."

After a short pause, he continued:

"That sight has most crazed me. What was it you asked? Oh, I have it!
you asked where he came from? From the lake, Peter, where he was
spawned, and where he returned you see, to die. You were spawned on
the shores of one of the bays of the Highlands of Scotland. Wouldn't
you like to return and lay your bones there, eh? From earth you came,
to earth you shall return. Wouldn't you like to go back and breathe
the air of childhood once more before you die? Love of home, Peter, is
strong; it is an instinct of nature; but, alas! the world is a
Scotchman's home--anywhere that he can make money. Don't the mountains
with their misty summits appear before you sometimes in your sleep?
Don't you dream of their dark shadows and sunny spots, their heathy
slopes and deep deep glens? Do you see the deer grazing there, and
hear the bees hum merrily as they return laden with honey, or the
grouse rise startled, and whirr away to hide itself in its distant
covert? Do the dead ever rise from their graves and inhabit again the
little cottage that looks out on the stormy sea? Do you become a child
once more, and hear your mother's voice, as she sings the little
simple air that lulls you to sleep, or watch with aching eyes for the
returning boat that brings your father, with the shadows of evening,
to his humble home? And what is the language of your dreams? not
English, French, or Indian, Peter, for they have been learned for
trade or for travel, but Gaelic, for that was the language of love.
Had you left home early, Mac, and forgotten its words or its sounds,
had all trace of it vanished from your memory as if it had never been,
still would you have heard it, and known it, and talked it in your
dreams. Peter, it is the voice of nature, and that is the voice of
God!"

"She'll tell her what she treams of sometimes," said McDonald, "she
treams of ta mountain dew--ta clear water of life."

"I will be bound you do," said the doctor, "and I do if you don't, so,
Peter, my boy, give me a glass; it will cheer my heart, for I have
been too much alone lately, and have seen such horrid sights, I feel
dull."

While Peter (who was a good deal affected with this reference to his
native land) was proceeding to comply with his request, he relapsed
into his former state of abstraction, and when the liquor was
presented to him, appeared altogether to have forgotten that he had
asked for it.

"Come, Toctor," said the host, touching him on the shoulder, "come,
take a drop of this, it will cheer you up; you seem a peg too low
to-day. It's the genuine thing, it is some the Governor, Sir Colin
Campbell, gave me."

"None the better for that, Peter, none the better for that, for the
rich give out of their abundance, the poor from their last cup and
their last loaf; one is the gift of station, the other the gift of the
heart."

"Indeed then, she is mistakened, man. It was the gift of as
true-hearted a Highlander as ever lived. I went to see him lately,
about a grant of land. He was engaged writing at the time, and an
officher was standing by him for orders, and sais he to me, 'My good
friend, could you call to-morrow? for I am very busy to-day, as you
see.' Well, I answered him in Gaelic that the wind was fair, and I was
anxious to go home, but if he would be at leisure next week I would
return again. Oh, I wish you had seen him, Doctor, when he heard his
native tongue. He threw down his pen, jumped up like a boy, and took
me by the hand, and shook it with all his might. 'Oh,' said he, 'I
haven't heard that for years; the sound of it does my heart good. You
must come again and see me after the steamer has left for England.
What can I do for you? So I told him in a few words I wanted a grant
of two hundred acres of land adjoining this place. And he took a
minute of my name, and of Skip Harbour, and the number of my lot, and
wrote underneath an order for the grant. 'Take that to the
Surveyor-General,' said he, 'and the next time you come to Halifax the
grant will be ready for you.' Then he rang the bell, and when the
servant came, he ordered him to fill a hamper of whiskey and take it
down to my vessel.'

"Did you get the grant?" said the stranger.

"Indeed she did," said Peter, "and when she came to read it, it was
for five instead of two hundred acres."

"Good!" said the other. "Come, I like that. Fill me another glass and
I will drink his health."

"Well done, old boy!" said I to myself, "you know how to carry your
sentimentality to market anyhow. Doctor, doctor! So you are a doctor,"
sais I to myself, "are you? Well, there is something else in you than
dough pills, and salts, and senna, at any rate, and that is more than
most of your craft have, at all events. I'll draw you out presently,
for I never saw a man with that vein of melancholy in him, that didn't
like fun, providin' his sadness warn't the effect of disease. So
here's at you; I'll make the fun start or break a trace, I know."

Cutler and I had been talking horse when he came in; a sort of talk I
rather like myself, for I consait I know a considerable some about it,
and ain't above getting a wrinkle from others when I can. "Well," sais
I, "Capting, we was a talking about horses when the doctor came in."

"Captain," said the doctor, turning round to Cutler, "Captain, excuse
me, Sir, how did you reach the shore?"

"In the boat," said Cutler.

"Ah!" said the other with animation, "was all the crew saved?"

"We were in no danger whatever, Sir; my vessel is at anchor in the
harbour."

"Ah," replied the doctor, "that's fortunate, very fortunate;" and
turned again to the fire, with an air, as I thought, of
disappointment, as if he had expected a tale of horror to excite him.

"'Well, Mr Slick," said the captain, "let us hear your story about the
horse that had a thousand virtues and only one vice."

At the sound of my name, the stranger gave a sudden start and gazed
steadily at me, his eyebrows raised in the extraordinary manner that I
have described, something like the festoon of a curtain, and a smile
playing on his face as if expecting a joke and ready to enter into it,
and enjoy it. All this I observed out of the corner of my eye, without
appearing to regard him or notice his scrutiny.

Sais I, "when I had my tea-store in Boston, I owned the fastest
trotting horse in the United States; he was a sneezer, I tell you. I
called him Mandarin--a very appropriate name, you see, for my
business. It was very important for me to attract attention. Indeed,
you must do it, you know, in our great cities, or you are run right
over, and crushed by engines of more power. Whose horse is that? Mr
Slick's the great tea-merchant. That's the great Mandarin, the fastest
beast in all creation--refused five thousand dollars for him, and so
on. Every wrapper I had for my tea had a print of him on it. It was
action and reaction, you see. Well, this horse had a very serious
fault that diminished his value in my eyes down to a hundred dollars,
as far as use and comfort went. Nothing in the world could ever induce
him to cross a bridge. He had fallen through one when he was a colt,
and got so all-fired frightened he never forgot it afterwards. He
would stop, rear, run back, plunge, and finally kick if you punished
him too hard, and smash your waggon to pieces, but cross he never
would. Nobody knew this but me, and of course I warn't such a fool as
to blow upon my own beast. At last I grew tired of him and determined
to sell him; but as I am a man that always adheres to the truth in my
horse trades, the difficulty was, how to sell him and not lose by him.
Well, I had to go to Charleston, South Carolina, on business, and I
took the chance to get rid of Mr Mandarin, and advertised him for
sale. I worded the notice this way:

"'A gentleman, being desirous of quitting Boston on urgent business
for a time, will dispose of a first-rate horse, that he is obliged to
leave behind him. None need apply but those willing to give a long
price. The animal may be seen at Deacon Seth's livery stables.'

"Well, it was soon known that Mandarin was for sale, and several
persons came to know the lowest figure. 'Four thousand dollars,' said
I, 'and if I didn't want to leave Boston in a hurry, six would be the
price.'

"At last young Mr Parker, the banker's son from Bethany, called and
said he wouldn't stand for the price, seeing that a hundred dollars
was no more than a cord of wood in his pocket (good gracious, how the
doctor laughed at that phrase!), but would like to inquire a little
about the critter, confidential like.

"'I will answer any questions you ask,' I said, candidly.

"'Is he sound?'

"'Sound as a new hackmetack trenail. Drive it all day, and you can't
broom it one mite or morsel.'

"'Good in harness?'

"'Excellent.'

"'Can he do his mile in two fifteen?'

"'He has done it.'

"'Now between man and man,' sais he, 'what is your reason for selling
the horse, Slick? for you are not so soft as to be tempted by price
out of a first chop article like that.'

"'Well, candidly,' sais I, 'for I am like a cow's tail, straight up
and down in my dealing, and ambition the clean thing.'"

"Straight up and down!" said the doctor aloud to himself; 'straight up
and down like a cow's tail.' Oh Jupiter! what a simile! and yet it
ain't bad, for one end is sure to be in the dirt. A man may be the
straight thing, that is right up and down, like a cow's tail, but hang
me if he can be the clean thing anyhow he can fix it." And he
stretched out his feet to their full length, put his hands in his
trowsers pocket, held down his head, and clucked like a hen that is
calling her chickens. I vow I could hardly help bustin' out a larfin
myself, for it warn't a slow remark of hisn, and showed fun; in fact,
I was sure at first he was a droll boy.

"Well, as I was a sayin', sais I to Mr Parker, 'Candidly, now, my only
reason for partin' with that are horse is, that I want to go away in a
hurry out of Boston clear down to Charleston, South Carolina, and as I
can't take him with me, I prefer to sell him."

"'Well,' sais he, 'the beast is mine, and here is a cheque for your
money.'

"'Well,' sais I, 'Parker, take care of him, for you have got a
fust-rate critter. He is all sorts of a horse, and one that is all I
have told you, and more too, and no mistake.'

"Every man that buys a new horse, in a general way, is in a great
hurry to try him. There is sumthin' very takin' in a new thing. A new
watch, a new coat, no, I reckon it's best to except a new spic and
span coat (for it's too glossy, and it don't set easy, till it's worn
awhile, and perhaps I might say a new saddle, for it looks as if you
warn't used to ridin', except when you went to Meetin' of a Sabbaday,
and kept it covered all the week, as a gall does her bonnet, to save
it from the flies); but a new waggon, a new sleigh, a new house, and
above all a new wife, has great attractions. Still you get tired of
them all in a short while; you soon guess the hour instead of pullin'
out the watch for everlastin'. The waggon loses its novelty, and so
does the sleigh, and the house is surpassed next month by a larger and
finer one, and as you can't carry it about to show folks, you soon
find it is too expensive to invite them to come and admire it. But the
wife; oh, Lord! In a general way, there ain't more difference between
a grub and a butterfly, than between a sweetheart and wife. Yet the
grub and the butterfly is the same thing, only, differently rigged
out, and so is the sweetheart and wife. Both critters crawl about the
house, and ain't very attractive to look at, and both turn out so fine
and so painted when they go abroad, you don't scarcely know them agin.
Both, too, when they get out of doors, seem to have no other airthly
object but to show themselves. They don't go straight there and back
again, as if there was an end in view, but they first flaunt to the
right, and then to the left, and then everywhere in general, and yet
nowhere in particular. To be seen and admired is the object of both.
They are all finery, and that is so in their way they can neither sit,
walk, nor stand conveniently in it. They are never happy, but when on
the wing."

"Oh, Lord!" said the doctor to himself, who seemed to think aloud; "I
wonder if that is a picture or a caricature?"

Thinks I, "old boy, you are sold. I said that a purpose to find you
out, for I am too fond of feminine gender to make fun of them. You are
a single man. If you was married, I guess you wouldn't ask that are
question."

But I went on. "Now a horse is different, you never get tired of a
good one. He don't fizzle out1 like the rest. You like him better and
better every day. He seems a part of yourself; he is your better half,
your 'halter hego' as I heard a cockney once call his fancy gall.


1 Fizzle out. To prove a failure.


"This bein' the case, as I was a sayin', as soon as a man gits a new
one, he wants to try him. So Parker puts Mandarin into harness, and
drives away like wink for Salem, but when he came to the bridge, the
old coon stopt, put forward his ears, snorted, champed his bit, and
stamped his fore feet. First Parker coaxed him, but that did no good,
and then he gave him the whip, and he reared straight up on eend, and
nearly fell over into his waggon. A man that was crossing over at the
time took him by the head to lead him, when he suddenly wheeled half
round, threw him in the mud, and dragged him in the gutter, as he
backed up agin the side walk all standin'. Parker then laid on the
whip, hot and heavy; he gave him a most righteous lickin'. Mandarin
returned blow for blow, until he kicked the waggon all to flinders.

"Well, I must say that for his new owner, he was a plucky fellow, as
well as Mandarin, and warn't agoin' to cave in that way. So he takes
him back to the livery stables, and puts him into another carriage,
and off he starts agin, and thinkin' that the horse had seen or smelt
sumthen at that bridge to scare him, he tries another, when the same
scene was acted over again, only he was throwed out, and had his
clothes nearly tore off. Well, that afternoon, up comes Parker to me,
choking with rage.

"'Slick,' said he, 'that is the greatest devil of a horse I ever see.
He has dashed two carriages all to shivereens, and nearly tuckard the
innerds out of me and another man. I don't think you have acted
honestly by me.'

"'Parker,' said I, 'don't you use words that you don't know the
meanin' of, and for goodness gracious sake don't come to me to teach
you manners, I beseech you, for I am a rough schoolmaster, I tell you.
I answered every question you asked me, candidly, fair and square, and
above board.'

"'Didn't you know,' said he, 'that no living man could git that horse
across a bridge, let him do his darndest?'

"'I did,' said I, 'know it to my cost, for he nearly killed me in a
fight we had at the Salem Pike.'

"'How could you then tell me, Sir, your sole reason for parting with
him was, that you wanted to leave Boston and go to Charleston?'

"'Because, Sir,' I replied, 'it was the literal truth. Boston, you
know as well as I do, is almost an island, and go which way you will,
you must cross a bridge to get out of it. I said I wanted to quit the
city, and was compelled to leave my horse behind. How could I ever
quit the place with that tormented beast? And warn't I compelled to
leave him when Old Scratch himself couldn't make him obey orders? If I
had a waited to leave town till he would cross a bridge, I should have
had to have waited till doomsday.'

"He scratched his head and looked foolish. 'What a devil of a sell,'
said he. 'That will be a standing joke agin me as long as I live.'

"'I don't see that,' said I, 'if you had been deceived, you might have
called it a sell, but you bought him with your eyes and ears open, and
a full knowledge of the truth. And, after all, where will you go to
better yourself? for the most that can be said is, you have got a
critter with a thousand virtues and but one vice.'

"'Oh, get out!' said he, 'and let me alone.' And he walked off, and
looked as sheepish as you please."

"'Oh dear!" said the doctor; "oh dear." And he placed his hands on his
ribs, and walked round the room in a bent position, like a man
affected with colic, and laughed as if he was hysterical, saying, "Oh
dear! Oh, Mr Slick, that's a capital story. Oh, you would make a new
man of me soon, I am sure you would, if I was any time with you. I
haven't laughed before that way for many a long day. Oh, it does me
good. There is nothing like fun, is there? I haven't any myself, but I
do like it in others. Oh, we need it. We need all the counterweights
we can muster to balance the sad relations of life. God has made sunny
spots in the heart; why should we exclude the light from them?"

"Stick a pin in that, Doctor," says I, "for it's worth rememberin' as
a wise saw."

He then took up his wallet, and retired to his room to change his
clothes, saying to himself, in an under-tone: "Stick a pin in it. What
a queer phrase; and yet it's expressive, too. It's the way I preserve
my insects."

The foregoing conversation had scarcely terminated, when Peter's
daughters commenced their preparations for the evening meal. And I
confess I was never more surprised than at the appearance of the older
one, Jessie. In form and beauty she far exceeded the pilot's high
encomiums. She was taller than American women generally are; but she
was so admirably proportioned and well developed, you were not aware
of her height, till you saw her standing near her sister. Her motions
were all quiet, natural, and graceful, and there was an air about her,
that nothing but the native ease of a child of the forest, or highbred
elegance of fashionable life, can ever impart. She had the delicate
hands and small feet peculiar to Indian women. Her hair was of the
darkest and deepest jet, but not so coarse as that of the aborigines;
whilst her large black eyes were oval in shape, liquid, shaded by long
lashes, and over-arched by delicately-pencilled brows. Her neck was
long, but full, and her shoulders would have been the envy of a London
ball-room. She was a perfect model of a woman.

It is true she had had the advantage, when young, of being the
companion of the children of the Governor of the Fort, and had been
petted, partially educated, and patronised by his wife. But neither he
nor his lady could have imparted what it is probable neither
possessed, much polish of manner or refinement of mind. We hear of
nature's noblemen, but that means rather manly, generous, brave
fellows, than polished men. There are however splendid specimens of
men, and beautiful looking women, among the aborigines. Extremes meet;
and it is certain that the ease and grace of highly civilised life do
not surpass those of untutored nature, that neither concedes nor
claims a superiority to others. She was altogether of a different
stamp from her sister, who was a common-looking person, and resembled
the ordinary females to be found in savage life. Stout, strong, and
rather stolid, accustomed to drudge and to obey, rather than to be
petted and rule; to receive and not to give orders, and to submit from
habit and choice. One seemed far above, and the other as much below,
the station of their father. Jessie, though reserved, would converse
if addressed; the other shunned conversation as much as possible.

Both father and daughters seemed mutually attached to each other, and
their conversation was carried on with equal facility in Indian,
French, Gaelic, and English, although Peter spoke the last somewhat
indifferently. In the evening a young man, of the name of Fraser, with
his two sisters, children of a Highland neighbour, came in to visit
the McDonalds, and Peter producing his violin, we danced jigs and
reels, in a manner and with a spirit not often seen but in Ireland or
Scotland. The doctor, unable to withstand the general excitement,
joined in the dances with as much animation as any of us, and seemed
to enjoy himself amazingly.

"Ah, Mr Slick," said he, patting me on the shoulder, "this is the true
philosophy of life. But how is it with your disposition for fun, into
which you enter with all your heart, that you have such a store of
'wise saws.' How in the world did you ever acquire them? for your time
seems to have been spent more in the active pursuits of life than in
meditation. Excuse me, I neither undervalue your talent nor power of
observation, but the union does not seem quite natural, it is so much
out of the usual course of things."

"Well," sais I, "Doctor, you have been enough in the woods to know
that a rock, accidentally falling from a bank into a brook, or a
drift-log catching cross-ways of the stream, will often change its
whole course, and give it a different direction; haven't you? Don't
you know that the smallest and most trivial event often contains
colouring matter enough in it to change the whole complexion of our
life? For instance, one Saturday, not long before I left school, and
when I was a considerable junk of a boy, father gave me leave to go
and spend the day with Eb Snell, the son of our neighbour old Colonel
Jephunny Snell. We amused ourselves catching trout in the mill-pond,
and shooting king-fishers, about the hardest bird there is to kill in
all creation, and between one and the other sport, you may depend we
enjoyed ourselves first-rate. Towards evenin' I heard a most an awful
yell, and looked round, and there was Eb shoutin' and screamin' at the
tip eend of his voice, and a jumpin' up and down, as if he had been
bit by a rattlesnake.

"'What in natur is the matter of you, Eb?' sais I. 'What are you a
makin' such an everlastin' touss about?' But the more I asked, the
more he wouldn't answer. At last, I thought I saw a splash in the
water, as if somebody was making a desperate splurging there, and I
pulled for it, and raced to where he was in no time, and sure enough
there was his little brother, Zeb, just a sinkin' out of sight. So I
makes a spring in after him in no time, caught him by the hair of his
head, just as he was vamosing, and swam ashore with him. The
bull-rushes and long water-grass was considerable thick there, and
once or twice I thought in my soul I should have to let go my hold of
the child, and leave him to save my own life, my feet got so tangled
in it; but I stuck to it like a good fellow, and worked my passage out
with the youngster.

"Just then, down came the women folk and all the family of the Snells,
and the old woman made right at me, as cross as a bear that has cubs,
she looked like a perfect fury.

"'You good-for-nothin' young scallowag,' said she, 'is that the way
you take care of that poor dear little boy, to let him fall into the
pond, and get half drowned?'

"And she up and boxed my ears right and left, till sparks came out of
my eyes like a blacksmith's chimney, and my hat, which was all soft
with water, got the crown knocked in in the scuffle, and was as flat
as a pancake.

"'What's all this,' sais Colonel Jephunny, who came runnin' out of the
mill. 'Eb,' sais he, 'what's all this?'

"Well, the critter was so frightened he couldn't do nothin', but jump
up and down, nor say a word, but 'Sam, Sam!'

"So the old man seizes a stick, and catchin' one of my hands in his,
turned to, and gave me a most an awful hidin'. He cut me into ribbons
a'most.

"'I'll teach you,' he said, 'you villain, to throw a child into the
water arter that fashin.' And he turned to, and at it agin, as hard as
he could lay on. I believe in my soul he would have nearly killed me,
if it hadn't a been for a great big nigger wench he had, called Rose.
My! what a slashin' large woman, that was; half horse, half alligator,
with a cross of the mammoth in her. She wore a man's hat and jacket,
and her petticoat had stuff enough in it to make the mainsail of a
boat. Her foot was as long and as flat as a snow shoe, and her hands
looked as shapeless and as hard as two large sponges froze solid. Her
neck was as thick as a bull's, and her scalp was large and woolly
enough for a door-mat. She was as strong as a moose, and as ugly too;
and her great-white pointed teeth was a caution to a shark.