All my life, from boyhood up, I have had the habit of reading a certain set of anecdotes, written in the quaint vein of The World’s ingenious Fabulist, for the lesson they taught me and...

“The church was densely crowded that lovely summer Sabbath,” said the Sunday-school superintendent, “and all, as their eyes rested upon the small coffin, seemed impressed by the poor bl...

Some days ago a correspondent sent in an old typewritten sheet, faded by age, containing the following letter over the signature of Mark Twain: “Please do not use my name in any way. Pl...

One of the best men in Washington—or elsewhere—is RILEY, correspondent of one of the great San Francisco dailies. Riley is full of humor, and has an unfailing vein of irony, which makes...

Our esteemed friend, Mr. John William Bloke, of Virginia City, walked into the office where we are sub-editor at a late hour last night, with an expression of profound and heartfelt suf...

You have heard from a great many people who did something in the war; is it not fair and right that you listen a little moment to one who started out to do something in it, but didn’t? ...

Once or twice a year I get a letter of a certain pattern, a pattern that never materially changes, in form and substance, yet I cannot get used to that letter—it always astonishes me. I...

Good-bye! a kind good-bye, I bid you now, my friend, And though ’tis sad to speak the w… To destiny I bend And though it be decreed by Fate

A grand affair of a ball—the Pioneers’—came off at the Occidental some time ago. The following notes of the costumes worn by the belles of the occasion may not be uninteresting to the g...

When I say that I never knew my austere father to be enamoured of but one poem in all the long half century that he lived, persons who knew him will easily believe me; when I say that I...

In the early eighties Mark Twain learned to ride one of the old high-wheel bicycles of that period. He wrote an account of his experience, but did not offer it for publication. The form...

“MORAL STATISTICIAN.”—I don’t want any of your statistics; I took your whole batch and lit my pipe with it. I hate your kind of people. You are always ciphering out how much a man’s hea...

On the Erie Canal, it was, All on a summer’s day, I sailed forth with my parents Far away to Albany. From out the clouds at noon that d…

Genius, like gold and precious sto… is chiefly prized because of its r… Geniuses are people who dash of we… incomprehensible poems with astoni… and get booming drunk and sleep in…

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing...