Humor Books

William Dean HowellsNot 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... more...

A man of kind and noble mindWas H. Gustavus Hyde.’Twould be amiss to add to thisAt present, for he died,In full possession of his senses,The day before my tale commences.One half his gold his four-year-oldSon Paul was known to win,And Beatrix, whose age was six,For all the rest came in,Perceiving which, their Uncle Ben didA thing that people said was splendid.For by the hand he took them, andRemarked... more...

ON THE POSSESSION OF A SENSE OF HUMOR "Man," says Hazlitt, "is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be." The sources, then, of laughter and tears come very close together. At the difference between things as they are and as they ought to be we laugh, or we weep; it would depend,... more...

INTRODUCTION It is a curious fact that of that class of literature to which Munchausen belongs, that namely of Voyages Imaginaires, the three great types should have all been created in England. Utopia, Robinson Crusoe, and Gulliver, illustrating respectively the philosophical, the edifying, and the satirical type of fictitious travel, were all written in England, and at the end of the eighteenth... more...

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...

BREITMANN AND THE TURNERS BY CHARLES GODFREY LELANDHans Breitmann choined de ToornersNovemper in de fall,Und dey gifed a boostin' benderAll in de Toorner Hall.Dere coomed de whole GesangvereinMit der Liederlich Aepfel Chor,Und dey blowed on de drooms und stroomed on de fifesTill dey couldn't refife no more.Hans Breitmann choined de Toorners,Dey all set oop some shouts,Dey took'd him into... more...

INTRODUCTION The two Analytical Studies, Physiology of Marriage and Petty Troubles of Married Life, belong quite apart from the action of the Comedie Humaine, and can only be included therein by virtue of a special dispensation on the part of their author, who made for them an eighth division therein, thus giving them a local habitation and a name. Although they come far down in the list of titles,... 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...

WOUTER VAN TWILLER It was in the year of our Lord 1629 that Mynheer Wouter Van Twiller was appointed Governor of the province of Nieuw Nederlandts, under the commission and control of their High Mightinesses the Lords States General of the United Netherlands, and the privileged West India Company. This renowned old gentleman arrived at New Amsterdam in the merry month of June, the sweetest month in all... more...

PART I. A Sublime Elopement IT WAS clearly a runaway match—never indeed was such a sublime elopement. The four horses were coal-black, with blood-red manes and tails; and they were shod with rubies. They were harnessed to a basaltic car by a single rein of flame. Waving his double-pronged trident in the air, the god struck the blue breast of Cyane, and the waters instantly parted. In rushed the wild... more...