Produced by Chuck Greif, Broward County Libraries and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: frontispiece] FROM THE EASY CHAIR BY GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS SECOND SERIES [Illustration: colophon] NEW YORK HARPER AND BROTHERS MDCCCXCIV Copyright, 1893, by HARPER & BROTHERS. Copyright, 1894, by HARPER & BROTHERS. _All rights reserved._ CONTENTS. PAGE THE NEW YEAR 1 THE PUBLIC SCOLD 10 NATIONAL NOMINATING CONVENTION 16 BRYANT'S COUNTRY 23 _The Game of Newport_ 31 THE LECTURE LYCEUM 39 TWEED 47 COMMENCEMENT 60 THE STREETS OF NEW YORK 69 THE MORALITY OF DANCING 76 THE HOG FAMILY 81 THE ENLIGHTENED OBSERVER 88 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 94 HENRY WARD BEECHER 110 THE GOLDEN AGE 119 SPRING PICTURES 126 PROPER AND IMPROPER 130 BELINDA AND THE VULGAR 137 DECAYED GENTILITY 142 THE PHARISEE 149 LADY MAVOURNEEN ON HER TRAVELS 155 GENERAL SHERMAN 162 THE AMERICAN GIRL 166 ANNUS MIRABILIS 174 STATUES IN CENTRAL PARK 186 THE GRAND TOUR 193 "EASY DOES IT, GUVNER" 203 SISTE, VIATOR 208 CHRISTENDOM _vs._ CHRISTIANITY 216 FRANCIS GEORGE SHAW 222 THE NEW YEAR. IN Germany on _Sylvesterabend_--the eve of Saint Sylvester, the last night of the year--you shall wake and hear a chorus of voices singing hymns, like the English waits at Christmas or the Italian _pifferari_. In the deep silence, and to one awakening, the music has a penetrating and indefinable pathos, the pathos that Richter remarked in all music, and which our own Parsons has hinted delicately-- "Strange was the music that over me stole, For 'twas born of old sadness that lives in my soul."