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The Case For The Ephemeral
I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of th…
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Cockneys And Their Jokes
A writer in the Yorkshire Evening Post is very angry indeed with my performances in this column. His precise terms of reproach are, “Mr. G.…
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The Fallacy Of Success
There has appeared in our time a particular class of books and articles which I sincerely and solemnly think may be called the silliest eve…
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On Running After One’s Hat
I feel an almost savage envy on hearing that London has been flooded in my absence, while I am in the mere country. My own Battersea has be…
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The Vote And The House
Most of us will be canvassed soon, I suppose; some of us may even canvass. Upon which side, of course, nothing will induce me to state, bey…
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Conceit And Caricature
If a man must needs be conceited, it is certainly better that he should be conceited about some merits or talents that he does not really p…
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Patriotism And Sport
I notice that some papers, especially papers that call themselves patriotic, have fallen into quite a panic over the fact that we have been…
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An Essay On Two Cities
A little while ago I fell out of England into the town of Paris. If a man fell out of the moon into the town of Paris he would know that it…
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French And English
It is obvious that there is a great deal of difference between being international and being cosmopolitan. All good men are international.…
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The Zola Controversy
The difference between two great nations can be illustrated by the coincidence that at this moment both France and England are engaged in d…
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Oxford From Without
Some time ago I ventured to defend that race of hunted and persecuted outlaws, the Bishops; but until this week I had no idea of how much p…
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Woman
A correspondent has written me an able and interesting letter in the matter of some allusions of mine to the subject of communal kitchens.…
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The Modern Martyr
The incident of the Suffragettes who chained themselves with iron chains to the railings of Downing Street is a good ironical allegory of m…
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On Political Secrecy
Generally, instinctively, in the absence of any special reason, humanity hates the idea of anything being hidden—that is, it hates the idea…
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Edward Vii. And Scotland
I have received a serious, and to me, at any rate, an impressive remonstrance from the Scottish Patriotic Association. It appears that I re…
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Thoughts Around Koepenick
A famous and epigrammatic author said that life copied literature; it seems clear that life really caricatures it. I suggested recently tha…
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The Boy
I have no sympathy with international aggression when it is taken seriously, but I have a certain dark and wild sympathy with it when it is…
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Limericks And Counsels Of Perfection
It is customary to remark that modern problems cannot easily be attacked because they are so complex. In many cases I believe it is really…
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Anonymity And Further Counsels
The end of the article which I write is always cut off, and, unfortunately, I belong to that lower class of animals in whom the tail is imp…
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On The Cryptic And The Elliptic
Surely the art of reporting speeches is in a strange state of degeneration. We should not object, perhaps, to the reporter’s making the spe…
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The Worship Of The Wealthy
There has crept, I notice, into our literature and journalism a new way of flattering the wealthy and the great. In more straightforward ti…
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Science And Religion
In these days we are accused of attacking science because we want it to be scientific. Surely there is not any undue disrespect to our doct…
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The Methuselahite
I Saw in a newspaper paragraph the other day the following entertaining and deeply philosophical incident. A man was enlisting as a soldier…
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Spiritualism
I Have received a letter from a gentleman who is very indignant at what he considers my flippancy in disregarding or degrading Spiritualism…
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The Error Of Impartiality
The refusal of the jurors in the Thaw trial to come to an agreement is certainly a somewhat amusing sequel to the frenzied and even fantast…
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Phonetic Spelling
A correspondent asks me to make more lucid my remarks about phonetic spelling. I have no detailed objection to items of spelling-reform; my…
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Humanitarianism And Strength
Somebody writes complaining of something I said about progress. I have forgotten what I said, but I am quite certain that it was (like a ce…
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Wine When It Is Red
I suppose that there will be some wigs on the green in connection with the recent manifesto signed by a string of very eminent doctors on t…
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Demagogues And Mystagogues
I once heard a man call this age the age of demagogues. Of this I can only say, in the admirably sensible words of the angry coachman in “P…
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The “Eatanswill Gazette”
The other day some one presented me with a paper called the Eatanswill Gazette. I need hardly say that I could not have been more startled…
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Fairy Tales
Some solemn and superficial people (for nearly all very superficial people are solemn) have declared that the fairy-tales are immoral; they…
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Tom Jones And Morality
The two hundredth anniversary of Henry Fielding is very justly celebrated, even if, as far as can be discovered, it is only celebrated by t…
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The Maid Of Orleans
A considerable time ago (at far too early an age, in fact) I read Voltaire’s “La Pucelle,” a savage sarcasm on the traditional purity of Jo…
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A Dead Poet
With Francis Thompson we lose the greatest poetic energy since Browning. His energy was of somewhat the same kind. Browning was intellectua…
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Christmas
There is no more dangerous or disgusting habit than that of celebrating Christmas before it comes, as I am doing in this article. It is the…