Americanisms and Briticisms; with other essays on other isms

The third duty of the critic, after aiding the reader to choose the best and to understand it, is to help him to enjoy it. This is possible only when the critic's own enjoyment...

Now we have changed all that. In less than three-quarters of a century (a very short time in the history of a nation) our cuticle has toughened--perhaps the process was hastened...

There is no index to Miss Repplier's book, but I have found amusement in making out a hasty list of those from whom she quotes. I do not vouch for its completeness or for its ab...

That many readers should be bored by all of Zola's writing I can readily understand, for it is not always easy reading. That many more should be shocked by him is even more comp...

The point half-way between us and our adversary seems nearer to him; but this is an optical delusion, just as the jet of water in the centre of a fountain appears closer to the...

Even before the Revolution, when "the travelled American, the _petit-maitre_ of the colonies," so Hawthorne reminds us, was "the ape of London foppery, as the newspaper was the...

_My dear Lounsbury,--In reading over the proof-sheets of these pages, I have happened on your name more often than I thought I had written it, and yet not so often by once as I...

Far be it from me to appear as the defender of the "American spelling" which the British journalists denounce. This "American spelling" is less absurd than the British spelling...

When we come to 1891 we see that the list of theatres offering a dramatic entertainment in the English language has swollen to twenty-one, and we note that the variety shows and...

There are those who choose to speak of Mr. Bunner as a humorist, because he is the editor of _Puck_. He is a humorist, no doubt, and his humor will endure, for it is founded on...