Vivia Hemphill - "Down the Mother Lode"

Ellsworth Huntington - "The Red Man's Continent, A Chronicle of Aboriginal America"

John Fox, Jr. - "The Heart Of The Hills"

Alfred de Musset - "Child of a Century, v3"

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




"Museum?" said I.

"Ah, that's it," said she.

"He can't have much practice," I said, "if he goes racing and chasing
over the country that way, like a run-away engine."

"He don't want it, Sir," she replied, "he is very well off. He says he
is one of the richest men in the country, for he don't spend half his
income, and that any man who does that is wealthy. He says he ain't a
doctor. Whether he is or not, I don't know; but he makes wonderful
cures. Nothing in the world makes him so angry as when anybody sends
for him that can afford a doctor, for he don't take pay. Now, this
morning he stormed, and raved, and stamped, and foamed at the mouth,
as if he was mad; he fairly swore, a thing I never heard him do
before; and he seized the hammer that he chips off stones with, and
threatened the man so who come for him, that he stood with the door in
his hand, while he begged him to go.

"'Oh, Sir,' said he, 'the Squire will die if you don't go.'

"'Let him die, then,' he replied, 'and be hanged. What is it to me? It
serves him right. Why didn't he send for Doctor Smith, and pay him?
Does he think I am a going to rob that man of his living? Be off, Sir,
off with you. Tell him I can't come, and won't come, and do you go for
a magistrate to make his will.'

"As soon as the man quitted the house, his fit left him.

"'Well," said he, 'Peter, I suppose we musn't let the man perish after
all; but I wish he hadn't sent for me, especially just now, for I want
to have a long talk with Mr Slick.'

"And he and father set off immediately through the woods."

"Suppose we beat up his quarters," said I, "Jessie. I should like to
see his house and collection, amazingly."

"Oh," said she, "so should I, above all things; but I wouldn't ask him
for the world. He'll do it for you, I know he will; for he says you
are a man after his own heart. You study nature so; and I don't know
what all, he said of you."

"Well, well," sais I, "old trapper as he is, see if I don't catch him.
I know how to bait the trap; so he will walk right into it. And then,
if he has anything to eat there, I'll show him how to cook it woodsman
fashion. I'll teach him how to dress a salmon; roast, boil, or bake.
How to make a bee-hunter's mess; a new way to do his potatoes camp
fashion; and how to dispense with kitchen-ranges, cabouses, or
cooking-stoves. If I could only knock over some wild-ducks at the lake
here, I'd show him a simple way of preparing them, that would make his
mouth water, I know. Truth is, a man that lives in the country ought
to know a little of everything a'most, and he can't be comfortable if
he don't. But dear me, I must be a movin."

So I made her a bow, and she made me one of her best courtseys. And I
held out my hand to her, but she didn't take it, though I see a smile
playin' over her face. The fact is, it is just as well she didn't, for
I intended to draw her--. Well, it ain't no matter what I intended to
do; and therefore it ain't no use to confess what I didn't realise.

"Truth is," said I, lingering a bit, not to look disappointed, "a
farmer ought to know what to raise, how to live, and where to save. If
two things are equally good, and one costs money, and the other only a
little trouble, the choice ain't difficult, is it?"

"Mr Slick," sais she, "are you a farmer?"

"I was bred and born on a farm, dear," sais I, "and on one, too, where
nothin' was ever wasted, and no time ever lost; where there was a
place for everything, and everything was in its place. Where peace and
plenty reigned; and where there was a shot in the locker for the
minister, and another for the poor, and--"

"You don't mean to say that you considered them game, did you?" said
she, looking archly.

"Thank you," sais I. "But now you are making game of me, Miss; that's
not a bad hit of yours though; and a shot for the bank, at the eend of
the year. I know all about farm things, from raisin' Indian corn down
to managing a pea-hen; the most difficult thing to regulate next to a
wife, I ever see."

"Do you live on a farm now?"

"Yes, when I am to home," sais I, "I have returned again to the old
occupation and the old place; for, after all, what's bred in the bone,
you know, is hard to get out of the flesh, and home is home, however
homely. The stones, and the trees, and the brooks, and the hills look
like old friends--don't you think so?"

"I should think so," she said; "but I have never returned to my home
or my people, and never shall." And the tears rose in her eyes, and
she got up and walked to the window, and said, with her back towards
me, as if she was looking at the weather: "The doctor has a fine day
for his journey; I hope he will return soon. I think you will like
him."

And then she came back and took her seat, as composed as if I had
never awakened those sad thoughts. Poor thing! I knew what was passing
in her mind, as well as if those eloquent tears had not touched my
heart. Somehow or another, it appears to me, like a stumblin' horse, I
am always a-striking my foot agin some stone, or stump, or root, that
any fellow might see with half an eye. She forced a smile, and said:

"Are you married, Sir?"

"Married," sais I, "to be sure I am; I married Flora."

"You must think me as innocent as she was, to believe that," she said,
and laughed at the idea. "How many children have you?"

"Seven," sais I:

"Richard R., and Ira C.,
Betsey Anne, and Jessie B.,
Sary D., Eugeen--E,
And Iren--ee."

"I have heard a great deal of you, Mr Slick," she said, "but you are
the queerest man I ever see. You talk so serious, and yet you are so
full of fun."

"That's because I don't pretend to nothin', dear;" sais I, "I am just
a nateral man. There is a time for all things, and a way to do 'em
too. If I have to freeze down solid to a thing, why then, ice is the
word. If there is a thaw, then fun and snow-ballin' is the ticket. I
listen to a preacher, and try to be the better for his argufying, if
he has any sense, and will let me; and I listen to the violin, and
dance to it, if it's in tune, and played right. I like my pastime, and
one day in seven is all the Lord asks. Evangelical people say he wants
the other six. Let them state day and date and book and page for that,
for I won't take their word for it. So I won't dance of a Sunday; but
show me a pretty gall, and give me good music, and see if I don't
dance any other day. I am not a droll man, dear, but I say what I
think, and do what I please, as long as I know I ain't saying or doing
wrong. And if that ain't poetry, it's truth, that's all."

"I wish you knew the doctor," said she; "I don't understand these
things, but you are the only man I ever met that talked like him, only
he hante the fun you have; but he enjoys fun beyond everything. I must
say I rather like him, though he is odd, and I am sure you would, for
you could comprehend many things he sais that I don't."

"It strikes me," sais I to myself, for I thought, puttin' this and
that together; "her rather likin' him, and her desire to see his
house, and her tryin' to flatter me that I talked like him; that
perhaps, like her young Gaelic friend's brother who dreamed of the
silver dollars, she might have had a dream of him."

So, sais I, "I have an idea, Jessie, that there is a subject, if he
talked to you upon, you could understand."

"Oh, nonsense," said she, rising and laughing, "now do you go on board
and get me your book; and I will go and see about dinner for the
Doc--for my father and you."

Well, I held out my hand, and said,

"Good-morning, Miss Jessie. Recollect, when I bring you the book that
you must pay the forfeit."

She dropt my hand in a minute, stood up as straight as a tragedy
actress, and held her head as high as the Queen of Sheby. She gave me
a look I shan't very easily forget, it was so full of scorn and pride.

"And you too, Sir," said she, "I didn't expect this of you," and then
left the room.

"Hullo!" sais I, "who's half-cracked now; you or the doctor? it
appears to me it's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other;" and I
took my hat, and walked down to the beach and hailed a boat.

About four I returned to the house, and brought with me, as I
promised, the "Clockmaker." When I entered the room, I found Jessie
there, who received me with her usual ease and composure. She was
trimming a work-bag, the sides of which were made of the inner bark of
the birch-tree, and beautifully worked with porcupine quills and moose
hair.

"Well," sais I, "that is the most delicate thing I ever saw in all my
born days. Creation, how that would be prized in Boston! How on earth
did you learn to do that?" sais I.

"Why," said she, with an effort that evidently cost her a struggle,
"my people make and barter them at the Fort at the north-west for
things of more use. Indians have no money."

It was the first time I had heard so distinct an avowal of her
American origin, and as I saw it brought the colour to her face, I
thought I had discovered a clue to her natural pride, or, more
properly, her sense of the injustice of the world, which is too apt to
look down upon this mixed race with open or ill-concealed contempt.
The scurvey opens old sores, and makes them bleed afresh, and an
unfeeling fellow does the same. Whatever else I may be, I am not that
man, thank fortune. Indeed, I am rather a dab at dressin' bodily ones,
and I won't turn my back in that line, with some simples I know of, on
any doctor that ever trod in shoe-leather, with all his compounds,
phials, and stipties.

In a gineral way, they know just as much about their business as a
donkey does of music, and yet both of them practise all day. They
don't make no improvements. They are like the birds of the air, and
the beasts of the forest. Swallows build their nests year after year
and generation after generation in the identical same fashion, and
moose winter after winter, and century after century, always follow in
each other's tracks. They consider it safer, it ain't so laborious,
and the crust of the snow don't hurt their shins. If a critter is such
a fool as to strike out a new path for himself, the rest of the herd
pass, and leave him to worry on, and he soon hears the dogs in
pursuit, and is run down and done for. Medical men act in the same
manner.

Brother Eldad, the doctor, used to say to me when riggin' him on the
subject:

"Sam, you are the most conceited critter I ever knew. You have picked
up a few herbs and roots, that have some virtue in them, but not
strength enough for us to give a place to in the pharmacopia of
medicine."

"Pharmacopia?" sais I, "why, what in natur is that? What the plague
does it mean? Is it bunkum?"

"You had better not talk on the subject," said he, "if you don't know
the tarms."

"You might as well tell me," sais I, "that I had better not speak
English if I can't talk gibberish. But," sais I, "without joking, now,
when you take the husk off that, and crack the nut, what do you call
the kernel?"

"Why," sais he, "it's a dispensary; a book containin' rules for
compoundin' medicines."

"Well then, it's a receipt-book, and nothin' else, arter all. Why the
plague can't you call it so at once, instead of usin' a word that
would break the jaw of a German?"

"Sam," he replied, "the poet says with great truth,


"'A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.'"


"Dear, dear," said I, "there is another strange sail hove in sight, as
I am alive. What flag does 'Pierian' sail under?"

"The magpies," said he, with the air of a man that's a goin' to hit
you hard. "It is a spring called Pierus after a gentleman of that
name, whose daughters, that were as conceited as you be, were changed
into magpies by the Muses, for challenging them out to sing. All
pratin' fellows like you, who go about runnin' down doctors, ought to
be sarved in the same way."

"A critter will never be run down," said I, "who will just take the
trouble to get out of the way, that's a fact. Why on airth couldn't
the poet have said Magpian Spring, then all the world would understand
him. No, the lines would have had more sense if they had run this way:


"'A little physic is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or drink not of the doctor's spring.'"


Well, it made him awful mad. Sais he, "You talk of treating wounds as
all unskilful men do, who apply balsams and trash of that kind, that
half the time turns the wound into an ulcer; and then when it is too
late the doctor is sent for, and sometimes to get rid of the sore, he
has to amputate the limb. Now, what does your receipt book say?"

"It sais," sais I, "that natur alone makes the cure, and all you got
to do, is to stand by and aid her in her efforts."

"That's all very well," sais he, "if nature would only tell you what
to do, but nature leaves you, like a Yankee quack as you are, to
guess."

"Well," sais I, "I am a Yankee, and I ain't above ownin' to it, and so
are you, but you seem ashamed of your broughtens up, and I must say I
don't think you are any great credit to them. Natur, though you don't
know it, because you are all for art, does tell you what to do, in a
voice so clear you can't help hearing it, and in language so plain you
can't help understandin' it. For it don't use chain-shot words like
'pharmacopia' and 'Pierian,' and so on, that is neither Greek nor
Latin, nor good English, nor vulgar tongue. And more than that, it
shows you what to do. And the woods, and the springs, and the soil is
full of its medicines and potions. Book doctrin' is like book farmin',
a beautiful thing in theory, but ruination in practice."

"Well," said he, with a toss of his head, "this is very good stump
oratory, and if you ever run agin a doctor at an election, I shouldn't
wonder if you won it, for most people will join you in pullin' down
your superiors."

That word superiors grigged me; thinks I, "My boy, I'll just take that
expression, roll it up into a ball, and shy it back at you, in a way
that will make you sing out 'Pen and ink,' I know. Well," sais I,
quite mild (I am always mild when I am mad, a keen razor is always
smooth), "have you any other thing to say about natur?"

"Yes," sais he, "do you know what healin' by the first intention is,
for that is a nateral operation? Answer me that, will you?"

"You mean the second intention, don't you?" sais I.

"No," he replied, "I mean what I say."

"Well, Eldad," sais I, "my brother, I will answer both. First about
the election, and then about the process of healin', and after that we
won't argue no more, for you get so hot always, I am afraid you will
hurt my feelins. First," sais I, "I have no idea of runnin' agin a
doctor either at an election or elsewhere, so make yourself quite easy
on that score, for if I did, as he is my superior, I should be sure to
get the worst of it."

"How," said he, "Sam?" lookin' quite pleased, seein' me kinder knock
under that way.

"Why dod drot it," sais I, "Eldad, if I was such a born fool as to run
agin a doctor, his clothes would fill mine so chock full of asafoetida
and brimstone, I'd smell strong enough to pysen a poll-cat. Phew! the
very idea makes me sick; don't come any nearer, or I shall faint. Oh,
no, I shall give my superiors a wide berth, depend upon it. Then,"
sais I, "secondly, as to healin' by the first intention, I have heard
of it, but never saw it practised yet. A doctor's first intention is
to make money, and the second is to heal the wound. You have been kind
enough to treat me to a bit of poetry, now I won't be in your debt, so
I will just give you two lines in return. Arter you went to
Philadelphia to study, Minister used to make me learn poetry twice a
week. All his books had pencil marks in the margin agin all the tid
bits, and I had to learn more or less of these at a time according to
their length; among others I remember two verses that just suit you
and me.


"'To tongue or pudding thou hast no pretence,
Learning thy talent is, but mine is SENSE.'"


"Sam," said he, and he coloured up, and looked choked with rage,
"Sam."

"Dad," sais I, and it stopped him in a minute. It was the last
syllable of his name, and when we was boys, I always called him Dad,
and as he was older than me, I sometimes called him Daddy on that
account. It touched him, I see it did. Sais I, "Dad, give me your
daddle, fun is fun, and we may carry our fun too far," and we shook
hands. "Daddy," sais I, "since I became an author, and honorary
corresponding member of the Slangwhanger Society, your occupation and
mine ain't much unlike, is it?"

"How?" said he.

"Why, Dad," sais I, "you cut up the dead, and I cut up the livin."

"Well," sais he, "I give less pain, at any rate, and besides, I do
more good, for I make the patient leave a legacy to posterity, by
furnishing instruction in his own body."

"You don't need to wait for dissection for the bequest," said I, "for
many a fellow after amputation has said to you, 'a-leg-I-see.' But why
is sawing off a leg an unprofitable thing? Do you give it up? Because
it's always bootless."

"Well," said he, "why is an author the laziest man in the world? Do
you give that up? Because he is most of his time in sheets."

"Well, that is better than being two sheets in the wind," I replied.
"But why is he the greatest coward in creation in hot weather? Because
he is afraid somebody will quilt him."

"Oh, oh," said he, "that is an awful bad one. Oh, oh, that is like
lead, it sinks to the bottom, boots, spurs, and all. Oh, come, that
will do, you may take my hat. What a droll fellow you be. You are the
old sixpence, and nothin' will ever change you. I never see a feller
have such spirits in my life; do you know what pain is?"

"Oh," sais I, "Dad," and I put on a very sad look, "Daddy," sais I,
"my heart is most broke, though I don't say anythin' about it. There
is no one I can confide in, and I can't sleep at all. I was thinkin'
of consultin' you, for I know I can trust you, and I am sure your kind
and affectionate heart will feel for me, and that your sound,
excellent judgment will advise me what is best to be done under the
peculiar circumstances."

"Sam," said he, "my good fellow, you do me no more than justice," and
he took my hand very kindly, and sat down beside me. "Sam, I am very
sorry for you. Confide in me; I will be as secret as the grave. Have
you consulted dear old Minister?"

"Oh, no," said I, "Minister is a mere child."

"True, true, my brother," said he, "he is a good worthy man, but a
mere child, as you say. Is it an affair of the heart, Sam?"

"Oh, no," sais I, "I wish it was, for I don't think I shall ever die
of a broken heart for any one, it don't pay."

"Is it a pecuniary affair?"

"No, no, if it was it might be borne, an artful dodge, a good
spekelation, or a regular burst would soon cure that."

"I hope it ain't an affair of law," said he, lookin' frightened to
death, as if I had done something dreadful bad.

"No, I wish it was, for a misnomer, an alibi, a nonjoinder, a
demurrer, a nonsuit, a freemason or a know-nothin' sign to a juror, a
temperance wink, or an orange nod to a partisan judge, or some cussed
quirk or quibble or another, would carry me through it. No, it ain't
that."

"What is it then?"

"Why," sais I, a bustin' out a larfin, "I am most dead sometimes with
the jumpin' toothache."

"Well, well," said he, "I never was sold so before, I vow; I cave in,
I holler, and will stand treat."

That's the way we ended our controversy about wounds.

But he may say what he likes. I consider myself rather a dab at
healing bodily ones. As to those of the heart, I haven't had the
experience, for I am not a father confessor to galls, and of course
ain't consulted. But it appears to me clergymen don't know much about
the right way to treat them. The heart is a great word. In itself it's
nothin' but a thing that swells and contracts, and keeps the blood a
movin; a sort of central post-office that communicates with all the
great lines and has way stations to all remote parts. Like that, there
is no sleep in it day or night. Love, hope, fear, despair,
disappointment, ambition, pride, supplication, craft, cant, fraud,
piety, speculation, secrets, tenderness, bitterness, duty,
disobedience, truth, falsehood, gratitude, humbug, and all sorts of
such things, pass through it or wait till called for; they "are thar."
All these are dispersed by railways, expresses, fast and slow coaches,
and carriers. By a figure of speech all these things are sumtotalized,
and if put on paper, the depository is called the post-office, and the
place where they are conceived and hatched and matured, the heart.

Well, neither the one nor the other has any feeling. They are merely
the edifices respectively designed for these operations. The thing and
its contents are in one case called the heart; but the contents only
of the other are called the mail. Literally therefore the heart is a
muscle, or some such an affair, and nothing more; but figuratively it
is a general term that includes, expresses, and stands for all these
things together. We talk of it therefore as a living, animated,
responsible being that thinks for itself, and acts through its agents.
It is either our spiritual part, or something spiritual within us.
Subordinate or independent of us--guiding or obeying us--influencing
or influenced by us. We speak of it, and others treat it, as separate,
for they and we say our heart. We give it, a colour and a character;
it may be a black heart or a base heart; it may be a brave or a
cowardly one; it may be a sound or a weak heart also, and a true or a
false one; generous or ungrateful; kind or malignant, and so on.

It strikes me natur would have been a more suitable word; but poets
got hold of it, and they bedevil everything they touch. Instead of
speaking of a critter's heart therefore, it would to my mind have been
far better to have spoke of the natur of the animal, for I go the
whole hog for human natur. But I suppose nobody would understand me if
I did, and would say I had no heart to say so. I'll take it therefore,
as I find it--a thing having a body or substance that can be hurt, and
a spirit that can be grieved.

Well, as such, I don't somehow think ministers in a general way know
how to treat it. The heart, in its common acceptation, is very
sensitive and must be handled gently; if grief is there, it must be
soothed and consoled, and hope called in to open views of better
things. If disappointment has left a sting, the right way is to show a
sufferer it might have been wuss, or that if his wishes had been
fulfilled, they might have led to something more disastrous. If pride
has been wounded, the patient must be humoured by agreeing with him,
in the first instance, that he has been shamefully used (for that
admits his right to feel hurt, which is a great thing); and then he
may be convinced he ought to be ashamed to acknowledge it, for he is
superior to his enemy, and in reality so far above him it would only
gratify him to think he was of consequence enough to be hated. If he
has met with a severe pecuniary loss in business, he ought to be told
it's the fortune of trade; how lucky he is he ain't ruined, he can
afford and must expect losses occasionally. If he frets over it, it
will hurt his mercantile credit, and after all, he will never miss it,
except in a figure in the bottom of his balance-sheet, and besides,
riches ain't happiness, and how little a man can get out of them at
best; and a minister ought to be able to have a good story to tell
him, with some point in it, for there is a great deal of sound
philosophy in a good anecdote.

He might say, for instance: "Did you ever hear of John Jacob Astor?"

"No, never."

"What not of John Jacob Astor, the richest man in all the unevarsal
United States of America? The man that owns all the brown and white
bears, silver-gray and jet-black foxes, sables, otters, stone martins,
ground squirrels, and every created critter that has a fur jacket,
away up about the North Pole, and lets them wear them, for furs don't
keep well, moths are death on 'em, and too many at a time glut the
market; so he lets them run till he wants them, and then sends and
skins them alive in spring when it ain't too cold, and waits till it
grows again?"

"No, never," sais the man with the loss.

"Well, if you had been stript stark naked and turned loose that way,
you might have complained. Oh! you are a lucky man, I can tell you."

"Well," sais old Minus, "how in the world does he own all them
animals?"

"If he don't," sais preacher, "perhaps you can tell me who does; and
if nobody else does, I think his claim won't be disputed in no court
under heaven. Don't you know him? Go and see him. He will make your
fortune as he has done for many others. He is the richest man you ever
heard of. He owns the Astor House Hotel to New York, which is bigger
than some whole towns on the Nova Scotia coast." And he could say that
with great truth, for I know a town that's on the chart, that has only
a court-house, a groggery, a jail, a blacksmith's shop, and the wreck
of a Quebec vessel on the beach.