"And Asa in the thirty-ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great; yet in his disease he sought not the Lord, but turned to the physicians--and Asa slept with his fathers." Bill Nye was a sturdy and persistent humorist of so good a sort that he never could help being humorous, yet there was never a sting in his jokes. Gentle raillery was the severest thing he ever attempted, and even this he did with so genial a smile and so merry an eye, that a word of his friendly chaffing was worth more than any amount of formal praise. Few of the great world's great despatches contained so much wisdom in so few words as Nye's historic wire from Washington: "My friends and money gave out at 3 A.M." Eugene Field, the lover of little children, and the self-confessed bibliomaniac, gives us still another sort of laugh--the tender, indulgent sort. Nothing could be finer than the gentle reminiscence of "Long Ago," a picture of the lost kingdom of boyhood, which for all its lightness holds a pathos that clutches one in the throat. And yet this writer of delicate and subtle humor, this master of tender verse, had a keen and nimble wit. An ambitious poet once sent him a poem to read entitled "Why do I live?" and Field immediately wrote back: "Because you sent your poem by mail." Laughter is one of the best medicines in the world, and though some people would make you force it down with a spoon, there is no doubt that it is a splendid tonic and awakens the appetite for happiness. Colonel Ingersoll wrote on his photograph which adorns my home: "To the man who knows that mirth is medicine and laughter lengthens life." Abraham Lincoln, that divinely tender man, believed that fun was an intellectual impetus, for he read Artemus Ward to his Cabinet before reading his famous emancipation proclamation, and laying down his book marked the place to resume. Joel Chandler Harris, whose delightful stories of negro life hold such a high place in American literature, told me a story of an old negro who claimed that a sense of humor was necessary to happiness in married life. He said: "I met a poor old darkey one day, pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with cooking utensils and household effects. Seeing me looking curiously at him, he shook his head and said: "'I cain't stand her no longer, boss, I jes' nash'ully cain't stand her no longer.' "'What's the matter, uncle?' I inquired.