I have come to live this winter in New York City and by good fortune I have found rooms on a pleasant park. This park, which is but one block in extent, is so set off from the thoroughfares that it bears chiefly the traffic that is proper to the place itself. Grocery carts jog […]

My grandfather’s farm lay somewhere this side of the sunset, so near that its pastures barely missed the splash of color. But from the city it was a two hours’ journey by horse and phaeton. My grandfather drove. I sat next, my feet swinging clear of the lunchbox. My brother had the outside, a place […]

Are you of that elect who, at certain seasons of the year–perhaps in March when there is timid promise of the spring or in the days of October when there are winds across the earth and gorgeous panic of fallen leaves–are you of that elect who, on such occasion or any occasion else, feel stirrings […]

Reader, if by chance you have the habit of writing–whether they be sermons to hurl across your pews, or sonnets in the Spring–doubtless you have moments when you sit at your desk bare of thoughts. Mother Hubbard’s cupboard when she went to seek the bone was not more empty. In such plight you chew your […]

Book reviewers nowadays direct their attention, for the most part, to the worthy books and they habitually neglect those that seem beneath their regard. On a rare occasion they assail an unprofitable book, but even this is often but a bit of practice. They swish a bludgeon to try their hand. They only take their […]

Having written lately against the dog, several acquaintances have asked me to turn upon the cat, and they have been good enough to furnish me with instances of her faithlessness. Also, a lady with whom I recently sat at dinner, inquired of me on the passing of the fish, whether I had ever properly considered […]

Once in a while I dream that I come upon a person who is reading a book that I have written. In my pleasant dreams these persons do not nod sleepily upon my pages, and sometimes I fall in talk with them. Although they do not know who I am, they praise the book and […]

Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!Spring, the sweet Spring! If by any chance you have seen a man in a coat with sagging pockets, and a cloth hat of the latest fashion but two–a hat which I may say is precious to him (old friends, old wine, old hats)–emerging from his house just short of noon, do […]

In what pleasurable mystery would we live were it not for maps! If I chance on the name of a town I have visited, I locate it on a map. I may not actually get down the atlas and put my finger on the name, but at least I picture to myself its lines and […]

It sounds like the tinkle of triviality to descend from the stern business of this present time to write of night-caps: And yet while the discordant battles are puffing their cheeks upon the rumbling bass pipes, it is relief if there be intermingled a small, shrill treble–any slightest squeak outside the general woe. There was […]

Reader, if by fortunate chance you have a son of tender years–the age is best from the sixth to the eleventh summer–or in lieu of a son, a nephew, only a few years in pants–mere shoots of nether garments not yet descending to the knees–doubtless, if such fortunate chance be yours, you went on one […]

Yesterday I was on the roof with the tinman. He did not resemble the tinman of the “Wizard of Oz” or the flaming tinman of “Lavengro,” for he wore a derby hat, had a shiny seat, and smoked a ragged cigar. It was a flue he was fixing, a thing of metal for the gastronomic […]

In old literature life was compared to a journey, and wise men rejoiced to question old men because, like travelers, they knew the sloughs and roughnesses of the long road. Men arose with the sun, and toddled forth as children on the day’s journey of their lives, and became strong to endure the heaviness of […]

Several months ago I had occasion to go through a deserted “mansion.” It was a gaunt building with long windows and it sat in a great yard. Over the windows were painted scrolls, like eyebrows lifted in astonishment. Whatever was the cause of this, it has long since departed, for it is thirty years since […]

It is rash business scuttling your own ship. Now as I am in a way a practical person, which is, I take it, a diminutive state of hard-headedness, any detraction against hard-headedness must appear as leveled against myself. Gimlet in hand, deep down amidships, it would look as if I were squatted and set on […]

To any one of several editors. Dear Sir: I paid a visit to your city several days since and humored myself with ambitious thoughts in the contemplation of your editorial windows. I was tempted to rap at your door and request an audience but modesty held me off. Once by appointment I passed an hour […]