Chapter XVIII: Part 18

Few poems have taken such remarkable hold of the public mind as Mr. Bryant’s “Thanatopsis.” It has proved a source of profound consolation to many an anxious mind. Yet it has been subjected to criticism which implies misapprehension of its purport and purpose. The young writer evidently did not propose to deal with the strictly religious side of the matter. His poem is what is called “A View of Death.” It addresses itself to those whose fears may be excited by the prospect of the act of dying. It offers those consolations which are appropriate to such a consideration of a particular theme. It is an expansion of the old idea that “it is as natural to die as to live.” It deals with death as a change pertinent to the human constitution, and to be encountered with philosophical resignation. Any distinct recognition of the life to come would have been foreign to its purpose. It must be read with a full recollection that its author was a believer in the blessings and glories of the future state, though his immediate purpose was to reassure those who regard the end of this life with unmanly timidity.

At the same time there is a suggestion of faith in the future which is an essential part of the poem. The reader is exhorted to live so wisely that when his summons comes he may approach the grave “sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust.” There may be those who find in these words only an exhortation to a dignified acquiescence in the inevitable; but considering that they were written by one who had been trained in the principles of Christianity, they were probably suggested to his mind by the general belief of mankind in immortality.

Thanatopsis has been misunderstood because of its entire freedom from hackneyed common-places. Death is most frequently treated by Christian writers from a distinctly Christian point of view. This is natural, and leaves no ground for disapprobation. There is no reason, however, why it should not be also philosophically considered, as it has been, indeed, by several eminent religious writers, and as it is occasionally in the Holy Scriptures themselves.

This beautiful poem is in no need of extenuation or excuse. The poet was writing upon the mortality, not the immortality of man. He took away no genuine religious consolations—he simply offered others which are not to be disregarded because they are almost entirely intellectual.

_Immortality_

In connection with the foregoing remarks, it is well to quote the following passage from Mr. Bryant’s poem. “Flood of Years”:

So they pass
From stage to stage along the shining course
Of that fair river broadened like a sea.
As its smooth eddies curl along their way,
They bring old friends together; hands are clasped
In joy unspeakable; the mother’s arms
Are again folded round the child she loved
And lost. Old sorrows are forgotten now
Or but remembered to make sweet the hour
That overpays them; wounded hearts that bled
Or broke are healed forever.

A gentleman who had been sorely bereaved was so struck by the unquestioning faith in immortality here expressed, that he wrote to Mr. Bryant, asking if the lines were to be understood as a statement of his own belief. Mr. Bryant instantly replied in the following note:

CUMMINGTON, MASS., Aug. 10, 1876.

Certainly I believe all that is said in the lines you have quoted. If
I had not, I could not have written them. I believe in the everlasting
life of the soul; and it seems to me that immortality would be but an
imperfect gift without the recognition in the life to come of those
who are dear to us here.

W. C. BRYANT.

_M. Guizot’s Confession of Faith_

In the _Christianisme du XIX. Siècle_ the following extract from M. Guizot’s will is printed:

“I die in the bosom of the Reformed Christian Church of France, in which I was born, and in which I congratulate myself on having been born. In remaining attached to her, I have always exercised that liberty of conscience which she allows to her adherents in their relations with God, and which she invoked for her own basis. I have inquired, I have doubted; I have believed in the sufficiency of the human mind to resolve the problems presented to it by the universe and by man, and in the power of the human will to govern man’s life in accordance with its law and its moral purpose. After having lived, acted, and reflected long, I have remained, and still remain, convinced that neither the universe nor man suffice either to explain or to govern themselves naturally by the mere force of fixed laws to which they are subject, and of human wills that are brought into play. It is my profound faith that God, who created the universe and man, governs, upholds, or modifies them either by general, and, as we may say, natural laws, or by special and, as we call them, supernatural acts, emanating, as do also the general laws, from His perfect and free wisdom and His infinite power, which it is given to us to acknowledge in their effects, but forbidden to understand in their essence and design. Thus I have returned to the convictions in which I was cradled. Still firmly attached to reason and liberty, which I have received from God, and which are my honor and my right in this world, though I have returned to feel myself a child under the hand of God, sincerely resigned to my large share of weakness and ignorance, I believe in God, and adore Him without seeking to comprehend Him. I recognize Him present and at work not only in the fixed system of the universe and in the inner life of the soul, but also in the history of human society, specially in the Old and New Testaments,—monuments of revelation and Divine action, by the mediation and sacrifice of our Saviour Jesus Christ for the salvation of the human race. I bow myself before the mysteries of the Bible and the Gospel, and I stand aloof from the discussion and the scientific solution by which men have tried to explain them. I trust that God will allow me to call myself a Christian; and I am convinced that in the light on which I am about to enter, we shall see clearly the purely human origin and the vanity of the greater part of our discussions here below on Divine things.”

_Thiers’s Faith_

The political testament of Thiers commences thus: “Faith in an immense and incomprehensible God has not left me for a moment of my life, and I wish it to be my first thought now while I turn my mind towards my end. I have always denied a personal God, a revenger endowed with all the vain splendors, and subject to the miserable passions of humanity. But I prostrate myself, confused by my littleness, before the immense uncreated cause of the Cosmos, and I confide in that provident and immutable justice which I see diffused and dominant through the whole creation.”

_Patrick Henry’s Legacy_

Patrick Henry left in his will the following important message:

“I have now disposed of all my property to my family; there is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion. If they had that, and I had not given them one shilling, they would be rich, and if they had not that, and I had given them all the world, they would be poor.”

_Goethe’s Last Words_

These are said to have been “Mehr Licht!” (more light), and they are often quoted as if they were regarded as worthy of a philosopher and great writer. They are commonly looked upon as having reference to increased enlightenment of the mind and soul only, which we must, or should, all of us desire and long for. Probably Goethe had nothing more in his mind than plain ordinary physical light. On the near approach of death, light, which in the case of old people has been for years gradually producing less and less impression on the sensorium, ceases, in many cases, to produce more than the faintest impression, and so the dying person imagines himself to be in the dark, and calls out for more light. And this, most likely, was the case with Goethe.

_A Rational View_

Here is a passage from the last letter traced by the hands of George Sand, which is singularly like to a saying of Goethe on his death-bed: “I am not one of those who shrink from submission to a great law and rebel against the end of universal life.” Is it not told of the great German that he broke a long silence by this wise and consolatory utterance: “After all, this death is so general a thing, it cannot be an evil thing.”

_Avoidance_

Dr. Charles F. Deems, the genial pastor of the Church of the Strangers, New York City, on reaching his seventieth birthday, thus briefly gave out the secret of his successful and happy life:

The world is wide
In time and tide,
And God is guide,
Then—do not hurry.

That man is blest
Who does his best
And leaves the rest,
Then—do not worry.

_A Scene at Old Hickory’s Death-bed_

Mrs. Wilcox was present at General Jackson’s death, one bright and beautiful Sabbath morning in the June of 1845, and she described it as a scene never to be forgotten. He bade them all adieu in the tenderest terms, and enjoined them, old and young, white and black, to meet him in heaven. All were in tears, and when he had breathed his last the outburst of grief was irrepressible. The congregation at the little Presbyterian Church on the plantation, which the general had built to gratify his deceased wife, the morning service over, came flocking to the mansion as his eyes were closing, and added their bewailment to the general sorrow.

Shortly after this mournful event Mrs. Wilcox encountered an old servant in the kitchen, who was sobbing as though her heart would break. “Ole missus is gone,” she brokenly said to the child, “and now ole massa’s gone; dey’s all gone, and dey was our best frens. An ole massa, not satisfied teachin’ us how to live, has now teached us how to die!”

The poor, unlettered creature did not know that she was paraphrasing one of the most beautiful passages in Tickell’s elegy upon the “Death of Addison”:

“He taught us how to live, and (oh, too high
The price for knowledge!) taught us how to die.”

_Imperator Augustus_

Is this the man by whose decree abide
The lives of countless nations, with the trace
Of fresh tears wet upon the hard, cold face?
He wept because a little child had died.
They set a marble image by his side,
A sculptured Eros, ready for the chase;
It wore the dead boy’s features, and the grace
Of pretty ways that were the old man’s pride.
And so he smiled, grown softer now, and tired
Of too much empire, and it seemed a joy
Fondly to stroke and pet the curly head,
The smooth, round curls so strongly like the dead,
To kiss the white lips of his marble boy,
And call by name his little heart’s-desired.

_Mary Stuart’s Prayer_

Of the English versions of the prayer of Mary, Queen of Scots, two of the best are as follows. The first is from Swinburne’s tragedy, “Mary Stuart”:

O Lord, my God,
I have trusted in Thee;
O Jesu, my dearest One,
Now set me free.
In prison’s oppression,
In sorrow’s obsession,
I weary for Thee.
With sighing and crying,
Bowed down in dying.
I adore Thee, I implore Thee, set me free.

The next has been attributed to Denis Florence McCarthy, an Irish poet:

Lord God, all my hope is
In Thee, only Thee!
O Jesu, my Saviour,
Now liberate me!
In chains that have bound me,
In pains that surround me,
Still longing for Thee;
Here kneeling, appealing,
My misery feeling,
Adoring, imploring,
Oh, liberate me!

_Into the World and Out_

Into the world he looked with sweet surprise.
The children laughed so when they saw his eyes.

Into the world a rosy hand in doubt
He reached;—a pale hand took the rosebud out.

“And that was all,—quite all?” Ho, surely! But
The children cried so when his eyes were shut.

_Patientia_

Toil on, O troubled brain,
With anxious thoughts and busy scenes opprest,
Ere long release shall reach thee. A brief pain!
Then—rest!

Watch still, O heavy eyes,
A little longer must ye vigil keep;
And lo! your lids shall close at morning’s rise
In sleep.

Throb yet, O aching heart,
Still pulse the flagging current without cease;
When you a few hours more have played your part,
Comes Peace.

Bear up, then, weary soul!
Short is the path remaining to be trod—
Lay down the fleshy shroud and touch the goal—
Then—God!
TOM. HOOD.

A friend of John Adams, our second President, called upon him one day towards the close of his life, to inquire after his health. “I am not well,” he replied; “I inhabit a weak, frail, decayed tenement, open to the winds, and broken in upon by the storms; and what is worse, _from all I can learn, the landlord does not intend to repair_.”

Faith, Hope, and Love were questioned what they thought
Of future glory, which religion taught:
Now Faith believed it firmly to be true,
And Hope expected so to find it, too:
Love answered smiling with a conscious glow,
“Believe? Expect? I know it to be so.”

Mountford says in “Euthanasy”:

“Faith, hope, and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love. And in that there is all comfort for them that hope to meet again. Love! Why should we doubt it will have its objects? for that faith will have its, we are sure; and love is greater than faith. If there is a heaven for our faith, there are friends in it for our love. I have known those who have grown holy through thoughts of the dead. We are saved by hope, and some of us by the special hope of being with our friends again. So that if there is salvation by hope, our friends whom we so hope for we shall certainly have again. We are not to sorrow for the dead as those that have no hope; now this implies our knowing our friends hereafter; because our grief is for their having been taken from us, and not for their having been taken into happiness.”

_Death_

Death is the one consoler, true and tried;
The goal of life, the hope we last retain,
Which, like some rare elixir, charms our pain
And heartens us to march till eventide;
The streaks of morning which the clouds divide
Athwart the tempest, snow, and driving rain;
The inn toward which the wayworn travellers strain,
Certain to find rest there, whate’er betide:
An angel holding in his sovereign hand
Sleep, and the guerdon of ecstatic dreams,
That smooths the couch and shuts the weary eyes:
The prisoner’s key; the leper’s healing streams;
The beggar’s purse; the exile’s fatherland;
The open portico to unknown skies.
BAUDELAIRE, _Fleurs du Mal_.

* * * * *

The man hath reached the goal and won the prize,
Who lives with honor, and who calmly dies
With name unstained, in fond remembrance kept,
By friends, by kindred, and by country wept;
Blending, when life is but a faded spell,
An angel’s welcome with the world’s farewell!

* * * * *

Bronson Alcott rested his argument for immortality on the ground of the family affections. “Such strong ties,” he reasoned, “could not have been made merely to be broken.” Let us share his faith, and believe that they are not broken.

INDEX

❦

AMERICANA, 9
American Indians, The, 18
Authorship of the Declaration, 23
Cabots, The, 12
Constitutional Convention, 34
Division of Legislative Authority, 36
Eminent Domain—National Sovereignty, 25
Erikson and Columbus, 11
First Legislative Assembly, 21
Foreknowledge, 10
Gun flints wanted, 31
Icelandic Sagas, The, 10
Landing of the Pilgrims, 19
Master Spirit of the Revolution, 32
Name America, The, 13
Norse Adventures, The, 9
Progress toward Position as a World Power, 16
Signing of the Declaration, 22
What it cost to discover America, 16

BREVITIES, 593

CLEVER HITS OF THE HUMORISTS, 276
According to Agreement, 284
Botanical Misnomer, 288
Business Economy, 289
Caderousse’s Wager, 283
Christmas Chimes, 295
Completing a Stanza, 289
Democritus at Belfast, 293
Double X, 282
Frankness, 282
His Station, 281
Identified, 277
Killarney Echo, 280
Love of Specie-s, 281
Mark Twain convinced, 285
Met the Emergency, 282
Mistaken Vanity, 276
Motto for a Tavern Sign, 286
Nestling Shuttlecock, 296
New Light, A, 286
Not interchangeable, 288
Not Rousseau, 281
Preferred Beverage, 277
Pulpit Wager, 285
Remedy, The, 288
Rhus Toxicodendron, 285
Schweininger’s Thrust, 287
Seeing is Believing, 280
Significant Change, 287
Similar Privilege, 283
Toast, A, 276
Uncivil Retort, 278
Very Long Bill, 279
Whittier’s Impromptu, 279
Xanthippe vindicated, 290

COMICAL BLUNDERS, 331
Aaron and Hur, 347
Alleged Danger of Rapid Movement, 346
“Beats,” not Turnips, 342
Before Railroads, 354
Betting on the Lord’s Prayer, 339
Both Sides, 335
Contradictory Phraseology, 339
Couldn’t fool him, 333
Desirable Uniformity, 351
Direct Information, 351
Disinfecting a Telegram, 331
Economy of Nature, 349
Exchanging Errors, 339
False Doctrine, 350
Faux Pas, 341
German Pickwick, 344
Gibson’s Venus, 334
Great Mind, A, 338
Half-Truths, 337
Happening of the Unexpected, 337
Happy Thought, A, 332
Help from Above, 350
Highgate, 334
Hopeless Case, 335
Individuals, 340
Infelicities, 340
John the Baptist, 344
Minding One’s Business, 351
Misplaced Zeal, 353
Mistranslation, 352
Not a Chiropodist, 345
One Form of Vanity, 342
Poor Children, 350
Psoriasis, 338
Quakerese, 343
Question of Capacity, 336
Reasonable Excuse, 343
Sending a Postscript, 343
Stiefel, 332
“Sufficient” Guide-post, 341
Twenty Dunkards, 347
Unexpected Reception, 336
Unfamiliar Familiarity, 346
Wrong Man made a Count, 331
Wrong Word, 355

ENIGMAS, 514
Archbishop Whately’s, 514
Arithmetical Puzzle, 517
Charades, 518
Fox’s, 514
Fugitive Sigh, 516
Genealogical Puzzle, 520
Hallam’s, 514
Macaulay’s, 515
Marigold, 520
Mitchell’s, 515
Palindromic, 516
Richard Porson’s, 516
Seward’s, 515
Sir Hilary’s Prayer, 521
What becomes of the Pins, 517

EVASIONS OF AMBIGUITY, 322
Acknowledgment, 323
Artful Dodger, 323
Butchers, The, 327
Deceiver, A, 324
Difference, A, 324
Divine Service, 325
Doubtful Compliment, 325
Erskine’s Pleasantry, 329
Greek Lexicographers, 322
Judge like Solomon, 326
King or Pretender, 325
Legal Question, 326
Meeting the Difficulty, 327
Mortuary Word-Play, 330
Religion of Wise Men, 322
Rouge, 324
Shifting Responsibility, 329
Tough Witness, 328
Which?, 324

EVEN HOMER SOMETIMES NODS, 362
Balboa, 370
Bishop Ken’s Doxology, 371
Bret Harte’s Astronomy, 364
Byron’s Greek, 372
Cassio or Iago?, 367
Cenotaph, 370
Chinese Cycle, 363
Collins _vs._ Prior, 369
Dante as a Naturalist, 367
Gladstone’s Heber, 369
In Time of Peace, 368
Johnson’s Error, 366
Jugurtha, 362
Milton as a Botanist, 366
Milton’s Italian, 366
Mistakes of our Best Writers, 373
Racine _vs._ Voltaire, 363
St. Paul to the Ephesians, 371
Triple Error, 372
Watts _vs._ Cowper, 364
Wolseley’s Mistake, 365

FACETIÆ, 223
Admissible Explanation, 228
Already had One, 223
Ask Papa, 224
Berners Street Hoax, 242
Canard, 226
Cardinal’s Curse, 241
Coldblooded Criticism, 234
Companion Pictures, 236
Compliant Courts, 237
Eye of the Fly, 225
Graduate, The, 233
High Art Advertising, 227
High Diddle Diddle, 245
Jack and Jill, 244
Juxtaposition, 236
Legal Dilemma, 238
Mary’s Little Lamb, 245
Meeting, The, 246
Mr. Evarts’s Jocularity, 230
Mock Heroics, 234
Modern Judge on Portia, 237
Niagara, 236
Old Cock, The, 223
Poet-Farmer in a Fix, 231
Point of View, 244
Relative Size, 240
Second- or Third-Rate, 229
Sothern’s Practical Joke, 227
Too mild, 224
Unwilling Willingness, 235
Venerable Joke, 232
Vicissim, 244
Virgil’s Æneid dissected, 239
Worse than Worst, 231
Wounded Amazon, 239
Yale’s Way, 226

FALSITIES AND FALLACIES, 383
Anglo-Saxon as a Race Term, 413
Bacon Humbug, 398
Burning of Rome, 411
Don’t give up the Ship, 388
False Ascription, 383
Finding of Moses, 386
Good Old Times, 393
Guillotin, 416
Historic Phrase Disputed, 387
L. E. L. assumes a Virtue, 410
Lentulus Letter, 384
Maelstrom, 388
Mummy Wheat, 413
Penn Treaty, 391
Pocahontas, 390
Scott’s Fabrications, 385
Shakespeare’s Defiance of Historical Fact, 394
Specific Gravity, 389
Stratford-on-Avon, 406
William Tell, 386

FAMOUS BEAUTIES, 567
Cleopatra, 567
Diana of Poitiers, 572
Eugénie, 579
Isabella, 571
Mary Stuart, 574
Ninon de l’Enclos, 573
Phryne, 568
Pompadour, 576

FEMALE POISONERS, 583

FINIS CORONAT OPUS, 604
At Last, 612
Auld Lang Syne, 613
Avoidance, 623
Burial Places of Europe, 604
Death, 628
Faith, Hope and Love, 627
Goethe’s Last Words, 622
Guizot’s Confession of Faith, 620
Immortality, 619
Imperator Augustus, 624
In a Rose Garden, 614
Into the World and out, 626
Mary Stuart’s Prayer, 625
No Repairs, 627
Now I lay me, 615
Old Hickory’s Death-bed, 624
Patientia, 626
Patrick Henry’s Legacy, 622
Thanatopsis, 618
Thiers’s Faith, 622

FIRST THINGS, 125
Anæsthesia, 132
Anno Domini, 143
Anthracite, 133
Auld Kirk, 140
Bank-notes, 143
Beer, 140
Billiards, 147
Boston “Merchantman”, 148
Boycott, 139
Cardinal’s Red Hat, 154
Cheap Postage, 147
Coffee, 146
College Papers, 129
Damnatus, 129
Dark Horse, 157
Degree of M.D., 150
Dollar, 149
Emblematic Eagle, 137
Equal Mark, 154
Erasure, 142
Eve’s Mirror, 145
First American Book, 128
First Blood of the Revolution, 125
First Christian Hymn, 152
First Duel in New England, 126
First Gold found in California, 158
First Marriage in American Colonies, 125
First Person cremated in America, 127
First Riddle, 138
First United States Bank, 165
Flag of the United States, 162
Gringo, 142
Honeymoon, 141
John Bull, 138
Machine Politics, 132
Marriage in Church, 149
Millions for Defence, 131
Mother Goose and Mary’s Lamb, 152
National Political Conventions, 163
Oldest Buildings, 126
Oldest Declaration, 143
Oldest Living Things, 166
Old Hickory, 137
Old Proverb, An, 155
Old-time Journalism, 127
Order of the Garter, 146
Petroleum, 134
Photography, 135
Pioneer Furrier, 128
Postage Stamps, 148
Punctuation, 144
Sleeping-cars, 144
Stereoscope, 156
Suspension Bridge, 130
Theatrical Deadhead, 148
Thimble, 142
Title of Reverend, 150
Umbrella, 153
Virginia Abolitionist, 130
Vivisection, 139

FLASHES OF REPARTEE, 247
Bearding the Lion, 257
Best for her, 254
Boomerang, A, 252
Condemned Jester, 261
Courteous Retort, 256
Date of Possession, 250
Decay’s Effacement, 253
Declined with Thanks, 256
Distinction with a Difference, 257
Divine Knowledge, 259
Each his Own Way, 251
Ecclesiastical Tit-for-tat, 254
Even Chances, 255
Fitting Answers, 247
Force and Argument, 260
Future Provision, 257
Hereditary Transmission, 247
Last Chance, 259
Left-handed Compliments, 248
Like Topsy, 249
Limitation of Authority, 248
Marjorie, 262
Marriage in Heaven, 260
Maternity, 250
Meeting an Emergency, 255
Nature’s Painting, 252
No Jury then and there, 251
Not beyond Reach, 248
Old Dominion, 250
Opposite Effects, 249
Quaint Reproof, 259
Quick-witted Damsel, 255
Relationship, 253
Sumner’s Legal Learning, 258
Walk _vs._ Conversation, 258
Woman’s Revenge, A, 254

FORECASTS, 187
Emancipation, 194
Foreshadowing of the Germ Theory, 191
French Revolution, 195
Great Fire of London, 193
Moons of Mars, 187
Panama Canal, 190
Plague of London, 194
Reformation, The, 195
Sic Vos non Vobis, 187
Stenography, 192
Suez Canal, 189
Telephone, 191
White Lady, 196

HITS OF THE SATIRISTS, 299
American Eagle, 303
Bancroft as a Historian, 305
Battle Prayer, 299
Beaconsfield, 301
Burns’s Impromptu, 302
Carlyle as a Masquerader, 321
Compliments to Boswell, 305
Drama as an Instrumentality, 304
Forbidden Fruit, 305
Imitation of the Commentators, 317
Junius on the Duke of Bedford, 313
Lardner’s Mistaken Prediction, 306
Lawyers and Playwrights, 307
Pens dipped in Gall, 311
Plain Speaking, 310
Prince Regent, 303
Puffery Extraordinary, 301
Ruskin on the Bicycle, 316
Samuel Rogers, 312
Satire, 321
Serious Interruption, 316
Silly Newspaper Queries, 300
Stanhope, 310
Statesman as a Scientist, 306
Sylvan Reverie, 318
Thanks for Victory, 299
Wordsworth’s Horse, 318

HONEYED PHRASE OF COMPLIMENT, 550

IDEAL PHYSICAL PROPORTIONS, 560
Grecian and American Standards, 562
Perfect Woman nobly planned, 560
Venus de Medici, 564

LEGENDARY LORE, 417
Acadia, 441
Amulets and Talismans, 451
Chien d’Or, 446
Christmas Observances, 454
Circassian Legend, 437
Grouchy at Waterloo, 438
Ilium Fuit, 417
Iron Maiden, 432
Letter M, 430
Macaulay in Role of Pickpocket, 419
Marred Destiny, A, 417
Marseillaise, The, 434
Maximilian at Queretaro, 447
Minister’s Messenger, A, 420
Mystery of the Dauphin, 425
Robinson Crusoe, 418
Shakespeare and Burbage, 436
Sistine Madonna, 428
Thieves’ Market, 449
Tobacco in Diplomacy, 422
Value of Practical Knowledge, 433
What Language did Jesus speak?, 457
Wolfe at Quebec, 443

MAZES OF OBSCURITY, 554

MISCELLANEA CURIOSA, 197
Age of Niagara Falls, 204
Ant’s Habits, The, 213
As you read it, 208
Bismarck in the Language of the Spirits, 204
Bolingbroke’s Favorite Desk, 198
Bottled Tears, 207
Caroline Herschel’s Many Years, 214
Circumstantial Evidence, 209
City in Darkness, 217
Constitution of the Early Churches, 214
Cromwell’s Grace, 202
Distant World, A, 205
Flowering Dogwood, 199
Fourth of March, 198
Franklin’s Brown Coat, 211
Graffiti at Pompeii, 218
He couldn’t have shot him, 202
Hero Worship, 212
Home, Sweet Home, 215
Importance of Punctuation, 207
Itemized Bill, 220
Jack Sprat, 211
Latin Pronunciation, 221
Little Beggar’s Charity, 210
Long Name, A, 212
Loyalty to Prince, Disloyalty to Self, 197
Marriage in Undress, 216
Matter of Form, A, 206
None such, 213
Ocean Depths, 203
Offensiveness punished, 200
Pleasant Reading, 203
Powwow, 199
Premonitory Caution, 201
Prevention better than Cure, 222
Queer Parliamentary Enactment, 197
Quis Custodiet ipsos Custodes?, 213
Realism, 201
Ropes made of Women’s Hair, 200
Singular Expedient, 197
Sources of History, 212
Story of Witchcraft, 208
Superstition, 220
Sweet Auburn, 206
Tools of the Pyramid Builders, 205

MISQUOTATION, 380

MISSING THE POINT OF THE JOKES, 356

OUR HISTORIC CHARACTERS, 47
Franklin, 53
Grant at Appomattox, 71
Hamilton, 55
Jackson, 63
Jefferson, 58
Last Words, 77
Lincoln at Gettysburg, 68
Marshall, 61
Washington, 47
Webster, 65

OUR LANGUAGE, 90
Alliterative Tribute to Swinburne, 101
Alphabet, The, 90
Alphabetical Fancies, 102
Americanisms, 92
Aspirate, The, 100
Changes in Pronunciation, 110
Collects, The, 107
Compressing the Alphabet, 101
Dream of a Spelling-Bee, 95
Either and Neither, 108
Guess, 123
If, 109
Index Expurgatorius, 112
Its, 107
Legal Verbosity, 106
Lingua Anglicana, 90
Longest Words, The, 95
Message from England, 123
Metaphorical Conceits, 118
Palindromes, 103
Perplexing Word, A, 98
Philological Contrarieties, 99
Phonetic Changes, 91
Power of Short Words, 105
Proper Names, 111
Rough, 108
Spelling Exercises, 93
Spelling Lesson, 94
Stilted Scientific Phraseology, 116
Trifles, 97
Verbal Conceits, 99
Vulcan, 101
Words that will not be put down, 110
Words Wrong, Pronunciation Right, 104

OUR NATIONAL AIRS, 39
An Air of Twelve Nations, 39
Hail, Columbia!, 40
Red, White, and Blue, 43
Star-spangled Banner, 41
Yankee Doodle, 44

OUR WONDERLANDS, 78

PARALLEL PASSAGES, 462

PROTOTYPES, 168
Ancestry, 172
Best Service, The, 171
Bill of Fare, 172
Chestnut, 175
Christmas-Tree, 184
Cinderella, 173
Crossing the Bar, 174
Expressive Phrase, 176
Figaro, 169
Fourth Estate, 174
Guilds of London, 180
Malaprops, The, 169
Mark Twain’s Plagiary, 171
Monteith, 182
Milton’s Indebtedness, 176
Ne Sutor, 174
Next to Godliness, 177
Overstrained Politeness, 177
Pen and Sword, 170
Platform, 186
Punchinello, 178
Rip Van Winkle, 182
Setting up to knock down, 180
Shallows and Deeps, 185
Standing Egg, 179
Shylock, 168
Workmen’s Strikes, 179

STRETCHES OF POETIC LICENSE, 374
Barbara Frietchie, 374
Bird Song, 379
Hymn of Moravian Nuns, 376
Roman Sentry, 377
Sheridan’s Ride, 375
Sunflower, 378

TOASTS AND MOTTOES, 596
American Commonwealth, 597
Army, 598
Christian Charity, 601
City, 599
Erskine’s, 603
Flag of our Union, 598
Good-night, 603
Independence Day, 596
Law, 599
Medicine, 600
Modern Transportation, 602
Navy, 598
Our Country, 596
Our Dead, 603
Pilgrim Fathers, 596
President of the United States, 597
Press, 602
Pulpit, 599
Sexual Affinity, 601
Temperance, 602
Woman, 600

VOICES FROM GOD’S ACRE, 523
Alford, 524
André, 530
Arthur Winter, 538
Bayard Taylor, 543
Beust, 529
Bismarck, 546
Blue and Gray, 525
Booth, 524
Cheyne, 530
Condell and Heminge, 535
Corwin, 533
Croly, 523
Eleanor Gwyn, 533
George Eliot, 526
Grateful Memory, 544
Harriet Mill, 526
Harvard, 529
Hibernicism, 533
Horace, 523
Husbandman, 548
Huxley, 530
Indian Apostle, 531
In Mt. Auburn, 538
Johnson, 528
Keats, 543
Klaes, 534
Lady Mansel, 537
Little Ruth, 537
Longfellow and Brooks, 540
Palgrave, 540
Plato, 523
Prince Christian, 532
Queen Elizabeth, 527
Salvino Armato, 535
Santa Croce, 545
Scott, 527
Shakespeare’s Doctor, 536
Short Epitaphs, 544
Sir John Franklin, 542
Stevenson, 531
Webster, 524

WIT OF THE EPIGRAMMATISTS, 496
Appropriate Petition, 503
Bacon and Shakespeare, 499
Bar Sinister, 512
Better Late than Never, 510
Bulwer Lytton, 501
Busy Bee, 513
Changed Conditions, 509
Communism, 513
Complimentary, 501
Contrast, 504
Crier, 502
Debtor and Creditor, 507
Distinction with a Difference, 509
Division of Labor, 504
Double Prize, 502
Dryness, 507
Ended in Smoke, 507
Expectancy, 503
Fitness, 500
Four Georges, 496
Four Kinds, 510
Friend in Need, 512
Gamester’s Marriage, 509
Gay with One Leg, 498
Ghosts, 509
Glen Urquhart, 511
Hic, Hæc, Hoc, 501
History, 499
Horse-Breaker and Gray Mare, 505
Huijgens, 508
Jenner’s Quacks, 498
Jowett, 496
Keenness of Edge, 503
Ladies, The, 497
Lis et Victoria Mutua, 505
Loud Snoring, 499
Mackintosh, 506
Never cut themselves, 498
None missing, 510
Not conclusive, 503
Not distinguishable, 512
Pretty Girl who lent a Candle, 511
Quodcunque Infundis Acescit, 511
Retaliation, 512
Revenons à nos Moutons, 504
Sarcastic, 497
Spirits, 513
Three Sportive Fishers, 508
Two Watering Places, 511
Washington, 506
War and Peace, 502
Welsh Poets, 500
Whewell, 496
Why no Last Will, 508
Winning Team, 513

WORD-TWISTING BY THE PUNSTERS, 263

THE END

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.