I have frequently been called a "chronic kicker," but do not object to the epithet. There's need of good lusty kickers, those whose No. 1 tootsie-wootsies are copper- toed, for the world is lull of devilish things that deserve to die. Lest any should accuse me of the awful sin of using slang, and thereby break my heart, I hasten to say that the Bible twice employs the word "kick" in the same sense that I used it here. In fact, a goodly proportion of our so-called slang is drawn from the same high source, being vinegar to the teeth of pietistical purists, but quite good enough for God. Some complain that I should build instead of tearing down, should preserve and not destroy. The complaint is well founded if it be wrong to attack falsehood, to exterminate the industrial wolves and social rottenness, to destroy the tares sown by the devil and give dollar wheat a chance to arise and hump itself. In determining what should be preserved and what destroyed, we may honestly disagree; but I think all will concede that what is notoriously untrue should be attacked, that we should wage uncompromising war on whatsoever maketh or loveth a lie. I think all will agree that this is pre-eminently an age of artificiality--that there is little genuine left in the land but the complexion of the ladies. Even that has been called in question by certain unchivalrous old bachelors, those unfortunates whom the ladies of Boston propose to expel from politics for dereliction of duty. Somehow an old bachelor always reminds me of a rainbow; not because he looks like one in the least, but rather because he's so utterly useless for all practical purposes. He also reminds me of a rainbow-chaser, because what he is compelled to admire is beyond his reach. When hope deferred hath made him heart-sick he begins to growl at the girls--and for the same reason that a mastiff barks at the moon. You will notice that a mastiff seldom barks much at anything he can get hold of and bite. . . .