Contents Introduction The Ephemera: an Emblem of Human Life Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). The Whistle Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). Dialogue Between Franklin and the Gout Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). Consolation for the Old Bachelor Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791). John Bull Washington Irving (1783-1859). The Mutability of Literature Washington Irving (1783-1859). Kean's Acting Richard Henry Dana (1787-1879). Gifts Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). Uses of Great Men Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). Buds and Bird-voices Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864). The Philosophy of Composition Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). Bread and the Newspaper Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894). Walking Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862). On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners James Russell Lowell (1819-1891). Preface To "Leaves of Grass" Walt Whitman (1819-1892). Americanism in Literature Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911). Thackeray in America George William Curtis (1824-1892). Our March To Washington Theodore Winthrop (1828-1861). Calvin (A Study of Character) Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900). Five American Contributions To Civilization Charles William Eliot (1834- ). I Talk of Dreams William Dean Howells (1837- ). An Idyl of the Honey-bee John Burroughs (1837- ). Cut-off Copples's Clarence King (1842-1901). The Theatre Francais Henry James (1843- ). Theocritus on Cape Cod Hamilton Wright Mabie (1846- ). Colonialism in the United States Henry Cabot Lodge (1850- ). New York After Paris William Crary Brownell (1851- ). The Tyranny of Things Edward Sandford Martin (1856- ). Free Trade Vs. Protection in Literature Samuel McChord Crothers (1857- ). Dante and the Bowery Theodore Roosevelt (1858- ). The Revolt of the Unfit Nicholas Murray Butler (1862- ). On Translating the Odes of Horace William Peterfield Trent (1862- )."