Produced by Duncan Harrod, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. [Illustration: Mark Twain] MASTERPIECES OF AMERICAN WIT AND HUMOR Edited by Thomas L. Masson Volume IV By Fitzhugh Ludlow Harriet Beecher Stowe Danforth Marble William Dean Howells Samuel Minturn Peck William Cullen Bryant and others 1903 CONTENTS AGNES REPPLIER A Plea for Humor MARIETTA HOLLEY An Unmarried Female FITZHUGH LUDLOW Selections from a Brace of Boys ROBERT JONES BURDETTE Rheumatism Movement Cure OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES An Aphorism and a Lecture JOSHUA S. MORRIS The Harp of a Thousand Strings SEBA SMITH My First Visit to Portland WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT The Mosquito JOHN CARVER Country Burial-places DANFORTH MARBLE The Hoosier and the Salt-pile ANNE BACHE The Quilting FITZ-GREENE HALLECK A Fragment Domestic Happiness CHARLES F. BROWNE ("Artemus Ward") One of Mr. Ward's Business Letters On "Forts" JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL Without and Within LOUISA MAY ALCOTT Street Scenes in Washington ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE Mis' Smith JAMES JEFFREY ROOHE A Boston Lullaby CHARLES GRAHAM HALPINE Irish Astronomy SAMUEL MINTURN PEOK Bessie Brown, M. D. ROBERT C. SANDS A Monody CAROLYN WELLS The Poster Girl JAMES GARDNER SANDERSON The Conundrum of the Golf Links HARRIET BEECHER STOWE The Minister's Wooing WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS Mrs. Johnson ANONYMOUS The Trout, the Cat and the Fox The British Matron Agnes Repplier A PLEA FOR HUMOR More than half a dozen years have passed since Mr. Andrew Lang, startled for once out of his customary light-heartedness, asked himself, and his readers, and the ghost of Charles Dickens--all three powerless to answer--whether the dismal seriousness of the present day was going to last forever; or whether, when the great wave of earnestness had rippled over our heads, we would pluck up heart to be merry and, if needs be, foolish once again. Not that mirth and folly are in any degree synonymous, as of old; for the merry fool, too scarce, alas! even in the times when Jacke of Dover hunted for him in the highways, has since then grown to be rarer than a phenix. He has carried his cap and bells and jests and laughter elsewhere, and has left us to the mercies of the serious fool, who is by no means so seductive a companion. If the Cocquecigrues are in possession of the land, and if they are tenants exceedingly hard to evict, it is because of the encouragement they receive from those to whom we innocently turn for help: from the poets, novelists and men of letters whose duty it is to brighten and make glad our days.