the Forty-fourth District, rule the roast? Isn't Mrs. SIMPLE the pattern
Woman of the Swell-Front avenue? Who so charming as Widow MILKWATER? Common
sense might have done once, but that was when the world was younger and yet
more old-fashioned. It isn't available now. Rust never shines. Out upon it,
or let it get out. The best place, I would suggest, is out of town--and in
the woods. Strangers always make people feel uncomfortable.

Need I hint just now that it is Lent? Lent is suggestive. It suggests some
of my best books. Books are the best of friends. They are honest. They say
what they feel, and feel what they say. Like other blessings, too, they
often take to wings and fly; and it proves to be a fly that never returns.
A good book is a joy forever. The only sad thing about it is, that it keeps
lent all the time--not so much piously as profanely. Am I my brother's
keeper? No. But my brother is quite too often a keeper of mine--of mine own
choice authors. The best of friends are, of course--like the best of
steaks--rather rare. Like honest men they count only one in ten
thousand--an extremely small per cent in a commercial point of view.
Books--what should we do without them? What may we not do with them, if it
were not for the season of Lent?

I am something of a politician. My friends do not think I am. But they are
prejudiced--friends always are. I go, on principle, for the greatest good
of the greatest number. You know that humble, initial figure. I confess to
a love of loaves and fishes. A nice French loaf, and a delicious salmon in
the suburbs of green peas--who wouldn't be a politician about that time? I
have run for office--and at least half a dozen times. But, bless you, I
never caught it. Some big, burly, brainless cur of a fellow was always
ahead of me. Very queer in politics--the less the head the more one gets
ahead. A head is little or nothing; but face, cheek, assurance--such is
much; is every thing. What are politics but audacity? what professions of