Free eBooks - Humor
Total eBooks in selected subject: 176 on 18 pages.
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William Dean Howells
Not squirrels in the park aloneHis love and winter-kindness own.When Literary Fledglings tryTheir wings, in first attempt to fly,They flutter down to Franklin Square,Where Howells in his "Easy Chair"Like good Saint Francis scatters crumbsOf Hope, to each small bird that comes.And since Bread, cast upon the main,Must to the giver come again,I tender now, long overtime,This humble Crumb ... more...
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HUMOUR OF THE NORTH
THE BLUE NOSE
Let the Student of Nature in rapture descant,
On the Heaven's cerulean hue;
Let the Lover indulge in poetical rant,
When the eyes of his Mistress are blue.
But fill high your glasses—fill, fill to the brim,
I've a different toast to propose:
While such eyes, and such skies, still are beaming for him,
Here's a health to the jolly Blue Nose.
Let ... more...
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II—HOW TO OPEN A CONVERSATION
After the ceremony of introduction is completed the next thing to consider is the proper way to open a conversation. The beginning of conversation is really the hardest part. It is the social equivalent to "going over the top." It may best be studied in the setting and surroundings of the Evening Reception, where people stand upright and agonise, balancing a dish of ... more...
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(I) AN IRREDUCIBLE DETECTIVE STORY
HANGED BY A HAIR OR A MURDER MYSTERY MINIMISED
The mystery had now reached its climax. First, the man had been undoubtedly murdered. Secondly, it was absolutely certain that no conceivable person had done it.
It was therefore time to call in the great detective.
He gave one searching glance at the corpse. In a moment he whipped out a microscope.
"Ha! ha!" he said, as he ... more...
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Act I.—Behind the Beyond
THE curtain rises, disclosing the ushers of the theater still moving up and down the aisles. Cries of "Program!" "Program!" are heard. There is a buzz of brilliant conversation, illuminated with flashes of opera glasses and the rattle of expensive jewelry.
Then suddenly, almost unexpectedly, in fact just as if done, so to speak, by machinery, the lights all over the theater, ... more...
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RUDOLPH OF TRULYRURALANIA
When I state that I was own brother to Lord Burleydon, had an income of two thousand a year, could speak all the polite languages fluently, was a powerful swordsman, a good shot, and could ride anything from an elephant to a clotheshorse, I really think I have said enough to satisfy any feminine novel-reader of Bayswater or South Kensington that I was a hero. My brother's wife, ... more...
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Lang, Andrew
Lang, Andrew
Andrew Lang (March 31 1844 - July 20 1912) was a prolific Scots poet, novelist, and literary critic but is best known as the collector of folk and fairy tales.
His first publication was a volume of metrical experiments, The Ballads and Lyrics of Old France [1872], and this was followed at intervals by other volumes of dainty verse, Ballades in Blue China (1880, enlarged edition, 1888), Ballads and Verses Vain [1884], Rhymes a la Mode [1884], Grass of Parnassus [1888], Ban and Arriere Ban [1894], New Collected Rhymes [1905].
He collaborated with S.H. Butcher in a prose translation [1879] of the Odyssey, and with E Myers and Walter Leaf in a prose version ...
His first publication was a volume of metrical experiments, The Ballads and Lyrics of Old France [1872], and this was followed at intervals by other volumes of dainty verse, Ballades in Blue China (1880, enlarged edition, 1888), Ballads and Verses Vain [1884], Rhymes a la Mode [1884], Grass of Parnassus [1888], Ban and Arriere Ban [1894], New Collected Rhymes [1905].
He collaborated with S.H. Butcher in a prose translation [1879] of the Odyssey, and with E Myers and Walter Leaf in a prose version ...
HOW TO FAIL IN LITERATURE
What should be a man’s or a woman’s reason for taking literature as a vocation, what sort of success ought they to desire, what sort of ambition should possess them? These are natural questions, now that so many readers exist in the world, all asking for something new, now that so many writers are making their pens “in running to devour the way” over so ... more...
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EGYPTIAN ART.
Champollion, the famous explorer of Egyptian antiquities, holds the following language at the end of his fifteenth letter, dated at Thebes. "It is evident to me, as it must be to all who have thoroughly examined Egypt or have an accurate knowledge of the Egyptian monuments existing in Europe, that the arts commenced in Greece by a servile imitation of the arts in Egypt, much more advanced than ... more...
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TITIAN,—SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.
The name of this illustrious painter was Tiziano Vecellio or Vecelli, and he is called by the Italians, Tiziano Vecellio da Cadore. He was descended of a noble family; born at the castle of Cadore in the Friuli in 1477, and died in 1576, according to Ridolfi; though Vasari and Sandrart place his birth in 1480. Lanzi says he died in 1576, aged 99 years. He early showed a ... more...
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Anecdote I.
An elephant, from some motive of revenge, killed his cornack, or conductor. The man’s wife, who beheld the dreadful scene, took her two children, and threw them at the feet of the enraged animal, saying, “Since you have slain my husband, take my life also, as well as that of my children.” The elephant instantly stopped, relented, and as if stung with remorse, took up the ... more...
