Chapter I: Introduction: v

THE EPHEMERA: AN EMBLEM OF HUMAN LIFE 1

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790).

THE WHISTLE 4

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790).

DIALOGUE BETWEEN FRANKLIN AND THE GOUT 7

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790).

CONSOLATION FOR THE OLD BACHELOR 15

Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791).

JOHN BULL 21

Washington Irving (1783-1859).

THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 34

Washington Irving (1783-1859).

KEAN'S ACTING 47

Richard Henry Dana (1787-1879).

GIFTS 62

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882).

USES OF GREAT MEN 67

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882).

BUDS AND BIRD-VOICES 88

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864).

THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMPOSITION 99

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849).

BREAD AND THE NEWSPAPER 114

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894).

WALKING 128

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862).

ON A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION IN FOREIGNERS 166

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891).

PREFACE TO "LEAVES OF GRASS" 194

Walt Whitman (1819-1892).

AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE 213
Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911).

THACKERAY IN AMERICA 229
George William Curtis (1824-1892).

OUR MARCH TO WASHINGTON 241
Theodore Winthrop (1828-1861).

CALVIN (A Study of Character) 268
Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900).

FIVE AMERICAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO CIVILIZATION 280 Charles William Eliot (1834- ).