Produced by Duncan Harrod, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
[Illustration: Mark Twain]
Edited by Thomas L. Masson
By
Fitzhugh Ludlow
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Danforth Marble
William Dean Howells
Samuel Minturn Peck
William Cullen Bryant
and others
1903
AGNES REPPLIER
A Plea for Humor
MARIETTA HOLLEY
An Unmarried Female
FITZHUGH LUDLOW
Selections from a Brace of Boys
ROBERT JONES BURDETTE
Rheumatism Movement Cure
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
An Aphorism and a Lecture
JOSHUA S. MORRIS
The Harp of a Thousand Strings
SEBA SMITH
My First Visit to Portland
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
The Mosquito
JOHN CARVER
Country Burial-places
DANFORTH MARBLE
The Hoosier and the Salt-pile
ANNE BACHE
The Quilting
FITZ-GREENE HALLECK
A Fragment
Domestic Happiness
CHARLES F. BROWNE ("Artemus Ward")
One of Mr. Ward's Business Letters
On "Forts"
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Without and Within
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Street Scenes in Washington
ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE
Mis' Smith
JAMES JEFFREY ROOHE
A Boston Lullaby
CHARLES GRAHAM HALPINE
Irish Astronomy
SAMUEL MINTURN PEOK
Bessie Brown, M. D.
ROBERT C. SANDS
A Monody
CAROLYN WELLS
The Poster Girl
JAMES GARDNER SANDERSON
The Conundrum of the Golf Links
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
The Minister's Wooing
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
Mrs. Johnson
ANONYMOUS
The Trout, the Cat and the Fox The British Matron
Agnes Repplier
More than half a dozen years have passed since Mr. Andrew Lang,startled for once out of his customary light-heartedness, askedhimself, and his readers, and the ghost of Charles Dickens—all threepowerless to answer—whether the dismal seriousness of the presentday was going to last forever; or whether, when the great wave ofearnestness had rippled over our heads, we would pluck up heart to bemerry and, if needs be, foolish once again. Not that mirth and follyare in any degree synonymous, as of old; for the merry fool, tooscarce, alas! even in the times when Jacke of Dover hunted for him inthe highways, has since then grown to be rarer than a phenix. He hascarried his cap and bells and jests and laughter elsewhere, and hasleft us to the mercies of the serious fool, who is by no means soseductive a companion. If the Cocquecigrues are in possession of theland, and if they are tenants exceedingly hard to evict, it isbecause of the encouragement they receive from those to whom weinnocently turn for help: from the poets, novelists and men ofletters whose duty it is to brighten and make glad our days.