#AmericanWriters
When I say that I never knew my austere father to be enamoured of but one poem in all the long half century that he lived, persons who knew him will easily believe me; when I say that I...
All things change except barbers, the ways of barbers, and the surroundings of barbers. These never change. What one experiences in a barber’s shop the first time he enters one is what ...
A few months ago I was nominated for Governor of the great state of New York, to run against Mr. John T. Smith and Mr. Blank J. Blank on an independent ticket. I somehow felt that I had...
q|AT THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY’S SEVENTY-FIRST ANNUAL DINNER, NEW YORK CITY The next toast was: “The Oldest Inhabitant—The Weather of New England.” To this Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) ...
The death of Jean Clemens occurred early in the morning of December 24, 1909. Mr. Clemens was in great stress of mind when I first saw him, but a few hours later I found him writing ste...
This Man Rogers happened upon me and introduced himself at the town of ––––, in the South of England, where I stayed awhile. His stepfather had married a distant relative of mine who wa...
The Bombola faints in the hot Bow… Where fierce Mullengudgery’s smot… Far from the breezes of Coolgardi… Burn ghastly and blue as the day e… And Murriwillumba complaineth in…
q|Political Economy is the basis of all good government. The wisest men of all ages have brought to bear upon this subject the— [Here I was interrupted and informed that a stranger wish...
As soon as I had learned to speak the language a little, I became greatly interested in the people and the system of government. I found that the nation had at first tried universal suf...
Good-bye! a kind good-bye, I bid you now, my friend, And though ’tis sad to speak the w… To destiny I bend And though it be decreed by Fate
I was feeling blithe, almost jocund. I put a match to my cigar, and just then the morning’s mail was handed in. The first superscription I glanced at was in a handwriting that sent a th...
Being told I would be expected to talk here, I inquired what sort of talk I ought to make. They said it should be something suitable to youth-something didactic, instructive, or somethi...
In the appendix to Croker’s Boswell’s Johnson one finds this anecdote: CATO’S SOLILOQUY.—One day Mrs. Gastrel set a little girl to repeat to him [Dr. Samuel Johnson] Cato’s Soliloquy, w...
Consider that a conversation by telephone—when you are simply sitting by and not taking any part in that conversation—is one of the solemnest curiosities of modern life. Yesterday I was...
When I was twenty-seven years old, I was a mining-broker’s clerk in San Francisco, and an expert in all the details of stock traffic. I was alone in the world, and had nothing to depend...