Free eBooks - Humor
Total eBooks in selected subject: 176 on 18 pages.
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FOREWORD
A SMALL phial, I doubt not, could contain the attar of the epigrammatic literature of all time. Few of the perfumes of this diminutive form of wit and satire have survived. Pretty and scented vaporings, most of the thousands and thousands of them, that have died on the air of the foibles of their day.
Yet how the pungent ones can persist! The racy old odors, which are as new as now, that still hover ... more...
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chapter i
Extra! Extra! All About The Great Reduction!
The way I look at this thing is this way: If something happens to you and by writing about it you can make a bit of money and at the same time be a benefactor to the race, then why not? Does not the philanthropic aspect of the proposition more than balance off the mercenary side? I hold that it does, or at least that it should, in the estimation of all ... more...
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THEPIRATE'S POCKET BOOK
This book you hold in your hand belonged once to a very celebrated Pirate.
He was so celebrated that the newspapers—of that time—always said nice things about him, and always knew what he was doing before he did himself. As he was a very truthful man, he did the things, so that the editors might not get into trouble.
Which was kind.
By which I do not mean that he was ... more...
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CHAPTER I
I met Renniker the other day at the club. He is a man who knows everything—from the method of trimming a puppy's tail for a dog-show, without being disqualified, to the innermost workings of the mind of every European potentate. If I want information on any subject under heaven I ask Renniker.
"Can you tell me," said I, "the most God-forsaken spot in England?"
Renniker, being in a flippant ... more...
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DOES THE YOUNG MAN KNOW EVERYTHING WORTH KNOWING?
I am told that American professors are "mourning the lack of ideals" at Columbia University—possibly also at other universities scattered through the United States. If it be any consolation to these mourning American professors, I can assure them that they do not mourn alone. I live not far from Oxford, and enjoy the advantage of occasionally listening ... more...
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PROEM.
We are coming to the rescue,Just a hundred strong;With fun and pun and epigram,And laughter, wit, and song;
With badinage and repartee,And humor quaint or bold,And stories that are stories,Not several æons old;
With parody and nondescript,Burlesque and satire keen,And irony and playful jest,So that it may be seen
That women are not quite so dull:We come—a merry throng;Yes, we're ... more...
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AN ESSAY UPON WIT.
The Inclinations of Men, in this their degenerate State, carry them with great Force to those voluptuous Objects, that please their Appetites and gratify their Senses; and which not only by their early Acquaintance and Familiarity, but as they are adapted to the prevailing Instincts of Nature, are more esteem'd and pursu'd than all other Satisfactions. As those inferior Enjoyments, that ... more...
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LORD MANSFIELD AND HIS COACHMAN.
The following is an anecdote of the late Lord Mansfield, which his lordship himself told from the bench:—He had turned off his coachman for certain acts of peculation, not uncommon in this class of persons. The fellow begged his lordship to give him a character. "What kind of character can I give you?" says his lordship. "Oh, my lord, any character your lordship pleases ... more...
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Thackeray, William Makepeace
Thackeray, William Makepeace
Novelist, son of Richmond Thackeray, who held various important appointments in the service of the East India Company, and who belonged to an old and respectable Yorkshire family, was born at Calcutta, and soon after the death of his father, which took place in 1816, sent home to England. After being at a school at Chiswick, he was sent to the Charterhouse School, where he remained from 1822–26, and where he does not appear to have been very happy. Meanwhile in 1818 his mother had married Major H.W.C. Smythe, who is believed to be, in part at any rate, the original of Colonel Newcome. In 1829 he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained for a year ...
(The necessity of a work on Snobs, demonstrated from History, and proved by felicitous illustrations:—I am the individual destined to write that work—My vocation is announced in terms of great eloquence—I show that the world has been gradually preparing itself for the WORK and the MAN—Snobs are to be studied like other objects of Natural Science, and are a part of the Beautiful (with a ... more...
