After that I was called the great somnambulist and men who had watermelon
conservatories shunned me. But it cured me of my somnambulism. I have
never tried to somnambule any more since that time.

There are other little incidents of my schooldays that come trooping up in
my memory at this moment, but they were not startling in their nature.
Mine is but the history of one who struggled on year after year, trying to
do better, but most always failing to connect. The boys of Boston would do
well to study carefully my record and then--do differently.




Recollections of Noah Webster.

Mr. Webster, no doubt, had the best command of language of any American
author prior to our day. Those who have read his ponderous but rather
disconnected romance known as "Websters Unabridged Dictionary, or How One
Word Led on to Another." will agree with me that he was smart. Noah never
lacked for a word by which to express himself. He was a brainy man and a
good speller.

It would ill become me at this late day to criticise Mr. Webster's great
work--a work that is now in almost every library, school-room and counting
house in the land. It is a great book. I do believe that had Mr. Webster
lived he would have been equally fair in his criticism of my books.

I hate to compare my own works with those of Mr. Webster, because it may
seem egotistical in me to point out the good points in my literary labors;
but I have often heard it said, and so do not state it solely upon my own