Axidava

The Fool

G. K. Chesterton

For many years I had sought him, and at last I found him in a club. I had been told that he was everywhere; but I had almost begun to think that he was nowhere. I had been assured that there were millions of him; but before my late discovery I inclined to think that there were none of him. After my late discovery I am sure that there is one; and I incline to think that there are several, say, a few hundreds; but unfortunately most of them occupying important positions. When I say “him,” I mean the entire idiot.

(more…)

The Reminiscences Of Mr. Apricot

Stephen Leacock

“Rather a cold day, isn’t it?” I said as I entered the club.

The man I addressed popped his head out from behind a newspaper and I saw it was old Mr. Apricot. So I was sorry that I had spoken.

(more…)

A Crown Of Sorrows

A. A. Milne

There is something on my mind, of which I must relieve myself. If I am ever to face the world again with a smile I must share my trouble with others. I cannot bear my burden alone.

(more…)

Colored Concert Troupes

George W. Peck

Sometimes it seems as though the colored people ought to have a guardian appointed over them. Now, you take a colored concert troupe, and though they may have splendid voices, they do not know enough to take advantage of their opportunities. People go to hear them because they are colored people, and they want to hear old-fashioned negro melodies, and yet these mokes will tackle Italian opera and high toned music that they don’t know how to sing.

(more…)

On The Weather

Jerome K. Jerome

Things do go so contrary-like with me. I wanted to hit upon an especially novel, out-of-the-way subject for one of these articles. “I will write one paper about something altogether new,” I said to myself; “something that nobody else has ever written or talked about before; and then I can have it all my own way.” And I went about for days, trying to think of something of this kind; and I couldn’t.

(more…)

A Foul Odor

Many-As-One

I was en route to the coffee shop this morning when I caught a whiff of a foul odor.

(more…)

This Strenuous Age

Stephen Leacock

Something is happening, I regret to find, to the world in which we used to live. The poor old thing is being “speeded up.” There is “efficiency” in the air. Offices open at eight o’clock. Millionaires lunch on a baked apple. Bankers eat practically nothing. A college president has declared that there are more foot pounds of energy in a glass of peptonized milk than in—something else, I forget what. All this is very fine. Yet somehow I feel out of it.

(more…)

A Story About Cheese

Jerome K. Jerome

I remember a friend of mine, buying a couple of cheeses at Liverpool.  Splendid cheeses they were, ripe and mellow, and with a two hundred horse-power scent about them that might have been warranted to carry three miles, and knock a man over at two hundred yards.

(more…)

The Witcher 3: Wild Waste Of Time

Many-As-One

The Witcher 3 is fantastically time-consuming.

You spend a good chunk of the game going from point A to point B, spellbound by an illusory sense of achievement. You travel by foot, which is slow, or by riding your retarded horse Roach, which is not fast enough. Sure, you can fast travel, but in order to do that you have to reach a signpost: more walking or riding; more brain-dead gameplay.

(more…)

An Apology For Bad Pianists

J. B. Priestley

Ignoring those musical labourers who are paid so much per hour, at cinemas and dance-halls, to make some sort of rhythmical sound, all pianists, I think, may be divided into four classes.

(more…)

Malignant Mirrors

Robert Benchley

As a rule, I try not to look into mirrors any more than is absolutely necessary. Things are depressing enough as they are without my going out of my way to make myself miserable.

(more…)

The Agonies Of Writing A Musical Comedy

P. G. Wodehouse

The trouble about musical comedy, and the reason why a great many otherwise kindly and broadminded persons lie in wait round the corner with sudden scowls, their whole being intent on beating it with a brick the moment it shows its head, is that, from outside, it looks too easy.

(more…)

On Lying Awake At Night

Stewart Edward White

About once in so often you are due to lie awake at night. Why this is so I have never been able to discover. It apparently comes from no predisposing uneasiness of indigestion, no rashness in the matter of too much tea or tobacco, no excitation of unusual incident or stimulating conversation.

(more…)

The Noble Savage

Charles Dickens

To come to the point at once, I beg to say that I have not the least belief in the Noble Savage.  I consider him a prodigious nuisance, and an enormous superstition.  His calling rum fire-water, and me a pale face, wholly fail to reconcile me to him.  I don’t care what he calls me.  I call him a savage, and I call a savage a something highly desirable to be civilised off the face of the earth. 

(more…)

The Plague Of Music

Mrs. John Lane

Yesterday as I strolled through this little Hampshire village, I passed a woman with a baby in her arms, followed by a chubby boy of about three, whose little trousers had only just emerged from the petticoat stage. He lingered behind his mother, and drew across his pursed-up lips and his puffed-out red cheeks the instrument called a mouth harmonica, and drank in rapturously his own celestial harmonies.

(more…)

The Census

Artemus Ward

The Sences taker in our town bein taken sick he deppertised me to go out for him one day, and as he was too ill to giv me informashun how to perceed, I was consekently compelled to go it blind.

(more…)

Chewing Gum

Charles Dudley Warner

In language that is unfortunately understood by the greater portion of the people who speak English, thousands are saying on the first of January, a far-off date that it is wonderful any one has lived to see—“Let us have a new deal!”

(more…)

The Massacre By Needle And Sewing-Machine

Thomas De Witt Talmage

Very long ago the needle was busy. It was considered honorable for women to toil in olden time. Alexander the Great stood in his palace showing garments made by his own mother. The finest tapestries at Bayeux were made by the Queen of William the Conqueror. Augustus the Emperor would not wear any garments except those that were fashioned by some member of his royal family. So let the toiler everywhere be respected!

(more…)

A Model Dialogue

Stephen Leacock

In which is shown how the drawing-room juggler may be permanently cured of his card trick.

(more…)

Borrowing A Match

Stephen Leacock

You might think that borrowing a match upon the street is a simple thing. But any man who has ever tried it will assure you that it is not, and will be prepared to swear to the truth of my experience of the other evening.

(more…)

A Social Curse – The Man Who Interrupts

Bill Nye

I do not, as a rule, thirst for the blood of my fellow-man. I am willing that the law should in all ordinary cases take its course, but when we begin to discuss the man who breaks into a conversation and ruins it with his own irrelevant ideas, regardless of the feelings of humanity, I am not a law and order man. The spirit of the “Red Vigilanter” is roused in my breast and I hunger for the blood of that man.

(more…)