Humor Books

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,... more...

"Marriage is not an institution of nature. The family in the east is entirely different from the family in the west. Man is the servant of nature, and the institutions of society are grafts, not spontaneous growths of nature. Laws are made to suit manners, and manners vary. "Marriage must therefore undergo the gradual development towards perfection to which all human affairs submit." These... more...

BERNARD BLACKMANTLE{*} TO THE REVIEWERS. "But now, what Quixote of the age would careTo wage a war with dirt, and fight with air?" Messieurs the Critics, After twelve months of agreeable toil, made easy by unprecedented success, the period has at length arrived when your high mightinesses will be able to indulge your voracious appetites by feeding and fattening on the work of death. Already... more...

CHAPTER I Once upon a time, more years ago than anybody can remember, before the first hotel had been built or the first Englishman had taken a photograph of Mont Blanc and brought it home to be pasted in an album and shown after tea to his envious friends, Switzerland belonged to the Emperor of Austria, to do what he liked with. One of the first things the Emperor did was to send his friend Hermann... 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,... 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,... more...

HEARTICULTURE One cannot begin too early, and January is the time for looking over the ground and planning the arrangement of the Heart Garden. Outside of the Hothouse few flowers are to be seen in January. The most noticeable of these is the Common Turnleaf or Resolution Plant, a sort of Neverlasting Flower. The Turnleaf abounds during the early days of January, but disappears as the month progresses.... more...

I. After the New Jersey Election, 1865. Saint’s Rest(wich is in the State uv Noo Gersey),November, 9, 1865. Never wuz I in so pleasant a frame uv mind as last night. All wuz peace with me, for after bein buffeted about the world for three skore years, at last it seemed to me ez tho forchune, tired uv persekootin a unforchnit bein, hed taken me into favor. I hed a solemn promise from the Demekratic... more...

A RIPPLE OF DISSENSION AND WHAT CAME OF IT. I was about to be married. My numerous charms and attractions had won the affections of a young man who was equally charming with myself. We were sitting on a luxurious divan and he held my milk-white hand in his. I do not make that statement as a startling announcement of an unusual occurrence, but simply as a matter of fact. We had been conversing about the... more...

In the warm sun of the southern morning the great plantation lay as though half-asleep, dozing and blinking at the advancing day. The plantation house, known in all the country side as the Big House, rested calm and self-confident in the middle of a wide sweep of cleared lands, surrounded immediately by dark evergreens and the occasional primeval oaks spared in the original felling of the forest. Wide... more...