It seems as if the conscious humorists, the professional funny writers, had the shortest lease of literary life. They play their little comic parts before a well-disposed but restless audience which is already impatiently waiting for some other "turn." One of them makes a hit with a song or story, just as a draughtsman for a Sunday colored supplement makes a hit with his "Mutt and Jeff." For a few months everybody smiles and then comes the long oblivion. The more permanent American humor has commonly been written by persons who were almost unconscious, not indeed of the fact that they were creating humorous characters, but unconscious of the effort to provoke a laugh. The smile lasts longer than the laugh. Perhaps that is the secret. One smiles as one reads the delicate sketches of Miss Jewett. One smiles over the stories of Owen Wister and of Thomas Nelson Page. The trouble, possibly, with the enduring qualities of the brilliant humorous stories of "O. Henry" was that they tempt the reader to laugh too much and to smile too little. When one reads the _Legend of Sleepy Hollow_ or _Diedrich Knickerbocker's History of New York_, it is always with this gentle parting of the lips, this kindly feeling toward the author, his characters and the world. A humorous page which produces that effect for generation after generation, has the stamp of literature. One may doubt whether even the extraordinary fantasies of Mark Twain are more successful, judged by the mere vulgar test of concrete results, than the delicate humor of Charles Lamb. Our current newspaper and magazine humor is in no respect more fascinating than in its suggestion as to the permanent effectiveness of its comic qualities. Who could say, when he first read Mr. Finley P. Dunne's "Mr. Dooley" sketches, whether this was something that a whole nation of readers would instantly and instinctively rejoice over, would find a genial revelation of American characteristics, would recognize as almost the final word of kindly satire upon our overworked, over-excited, over-anxious, over-self-conscious generation?