Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) THE OXFORD BOOK OF AMERICAN ESSAYS CHOSEN BY BRANDER MATTHEWS Professor in Columbia University Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters NEW YORK OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH: 35 WEST 32ND STREET LONDON, TORONTO, MELBOURNE, AND BOMBAY HUMPHREY MILFORD 1914 _ALL RIGHTS RESERVED_ _Copyright_, 1914 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS AMERICAN BRANCH CONTENTS PAGE 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- ).