THE HERO In the year —— there dwelt on Hampstead Heath a small thin gentleman of fifty-eight, gentle disposition, and independent means, whose wits had become somewhat addled from reading the writings and speeches of public men. The castle which, like every Englishman, he inhabited was embedded in lilac bushes and laburnums, and was attached to another castle, embedded, in deference to our national dislike of uniformity, in acacias... more...

CHAPTER I. WHY HE CHEWSES A PERFESSHUN.—HYFALUTIN PROLOG, WITH SUMBARE POSSIBILITIES.—PROSPECTUS OF THE "DAILY BUSTER." Mister Diry: I've been intending ever since I got home from Yourope, to begin ritin' in a diry, but I ain't had no time, cos my chum Jimmy and me has been puttin' in our days havin' fun. I've got to give all that sorter thing up now, cos I've accepted a persisshun in a onherabel perfesshun, and wen I get to be a... more...

THERE is certainly no style of writing requiring so much modest assurance as autobiography; a position which, I am confident, neither Lord Cherbury, nor Vidocq, or any other mortal blessed with an equal developement of the organ of self-esteem, can or could deny. HOME, ("sweet home,")—in his Douglas—gives, perhaps, one of the most concise and concentrated specimens extant, of this species of composition. With what an imposing air... more...

WATTY WILLIAMS was a studious youth, with a long nose and a short pair of trowsers; his delight was in the green fields, for he was one of those philosophers who can find sermons in stones, and good in everything. One day, while wandering in a meadow, lost in the perusal of Zimmerman on Solitude, he was suddenly aroused from his reverie by a loud "Moo!" and, turning about, he descried, to his dismay, a curly-fronted bull making towards him. Now,... more...

SCENE I. "Walked twenty miles over night: up before peep o' day again got a capital place; fell fast asleep; tide rose up to my knees; my hat was changed, my pockets picked, and a fish ran away with my hook; dreamt of being on a Polar expedition and having my toes frozen."   O! IZAAK WALTON!—Izaak Walton!—you have truly got me into a precious line, and I certainly deserve the rod for having, like a gudgeon, so... more...

PREFACE. Again it come to pass, in the fulness of time, that my companion, Josiah Allen, see me walk up and take my ink stand off of the manteltry piece, and carry it with a calm and majestick gait to the corner of the settin' room table devoted by me to literary pursuits. And he sez to me: "What are you goin' to tackle now, Samantha?" And sez I, with quite a good deal of dignity, "The Cause of Eternal Justice, Josiah Allen." "Anythin' else?"... more...

INTRODUCTION This series of papers was begun in March, 1888. A single number was printed, when it was interrupted the course of events, and not resumed until nearly years later, in January, 1890. The plan of the series was not formed in my mind when I wrote the number. In returning to my task I found that my original plan had shaped itself in the underground laboratory of my thought so that some changes had to be made in what I had written. As I... more...

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 fair-minded persons. It is to this... more...

Times has changed, says Maw to herself, says she. Things ain't like what they used to be. Time was when I worked from sunup to sundown, and we didn't have no daylight-saving contraptions on the old clock, neither. The girls was too little then, and I done all the work myself—cooking, sweeping, washing and ironing, suchlike. I never got to church Sundays because I had to stay home and get the Sunday dinner. Like enough they'd bring the... more...

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 the Frenchman delight in his... more...