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REMARKS


By BILL NYE.

(EDGAR W. NYE.)


   Ah Sin was his name;
   And I shall not deny,
   In regard to the same,
   What the name might imply:
   But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
   As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.
   --Bret Harte.


With over one hundred and fifty illustrations,
by J.H. SMITH.


[Illustration]

[Illustration: Bill Nye]


DIRECTIONS.

This book is not designed specially for any one class of people. It is
for all. It is a universal repository of thought. Some of my best
thoughts are contained in this book. Whenever I would think a thought
that I thought had better remain unthought, I would omit it from this
book. For that reason the book is not so large as I had intended. When
a man coldly and dispassionately goes at it to eradicate from his work
all that may not come up to his standard of merit, he can make a large
volume shrink till it is no thicker than the bank book of an outspoken
clergyman.

This is the fourth book that I have published in response to the
clamorous appeals of the public. Whenever the public got to clamoring
too loudly for a new book from me and it got so noisy that I could not
ignore it any more, I would issue another volume. The first was a red
book, succeeded by a dark blue volume, after which I published a green
book, all of which were kindly received by the American people, and,
under the present yielding system of international copyright, greedily
snapped up by some of the tottering dynasties.

But I had long hoped to publish a larger, better and, if possible, a
redder book than the first; one that would contain my better thoughts,
thoughts that I had thought when I was feeling well; thoughts that I
had emitted while my thinker was rearing up on its hind feet, if I may
be allowed that term; thoughts that sprang forth with a wild whoop and
demanded recognition.

This book is the result of that hope and that wish. It is my greatest
and best book. It is the one that will live for weeks after other books
have passed away. Even to those who cannot read, it will come like a
benison when there is no benison in the house. To the ignorant, the
pictures will be pleasing. The wise will revel in its wisdom, and the
housekeeper will find that with it she may easily emphasize a statement
or kill a cockroach.

The range of subjects treated in this book is wonderful, even to me. It
is a library of universal knowledge, and the facts contained in it are
different from any other facts now in use. I have carefully guarded,
all the way through, against using hackneyed and moth-eaten facts. As a
result, I am able to come before the people with a set of new and
attractive statements, so fresh and so crisp that an unkind word would
wither them in a moment.

I believe there is nothing more to add, except that I most heartily
endorse the book. It has been carefully read over by the proof-reader
and myself, so we do not ask the public to do anything that we were not
willing to do ourselves.

I cannot be responsible for the board of orphans whose parents read this
book and leave their children in destitute circumstances.

Bill Nye



CONTENTS.

About Geology
About Portraits
A Bright Future for Pugilism
Absent Minded
A Calm
Accepting the Laramie Postoffice
A Circular
A Collection of Keys
A Convention
A Father's Advice to his Son
A Father's Letter
A Goat in a Frame
A Great Spiritualist
A Great Upheaval
A Journalistic Tenderfoot
A Letter of Regrets
All About Menials
All About Oratory
Along Lake Superior
A Lumber Camp
A Mountain Snowstorm
Anatomy
Anecdotes of Justice
Anecdotes of the Stage
A New Autograph Album
A New Play
An Operatic Entertainment
Answering an Invitation
Answers to Correspondents
A Peaceable Man
A Picturesque Picnic
A Powerful Speech
Archimedes
A Resign
Arnold Winkelreid
Asking for a Pass
A Spencerian Ass
Astronomy
A Thrilling Experience
A Wallula Night
B. Franklin, Deceased
Biography of Spartacus
Boston Common and Environs
Broncho Sam
Bunker Hill
Care of House Plants
Catching a Buffalo
Causes for Thanksgiving
Chinese Justice
Christopher Columbus
Come Back
Concerning Book Publishing
Concerning Coroners
Crowns and Crowned Heads
Daniel Webster
Dessicated Mule
Dogs and Dog Days
Doosedly Dilatory
"Done It A-Purpose"
Down East Rum
Dr. Dizart's Dog
Drunk in a Plug Hat
Early Day Justice
Eccentricities of Genius
Eccentricity in Lunch
Etiquette at Hotels
Every Man His Own Paper-Hanger
Extracts from a Queen's Diary
Farming in Maine
Favored a Higher Fine
Fifteen Years Apart
Flying Machines
General Sheridan's Horse
George the Third
Great Sacrifice of Bric-a-Brac
Habits of a Literary Man
"Heap Brain"
History of Babylon
Hours With Great Men
How Evolution Evolves
In Acknowledgment
Insomnia in Domestic Animals
In Washington
"I Spy"
I Tried Milling
John Adams
John Adams' Diary
John Adams' Diary, (No. 2.)
John Adams' Diary, (No. 3.)
Knights of the Pen
Letter from New York
Letter to a Communist
Life Insurance as a Health Restorer
Literary Freaks
Lost Money
Lovely Horrors
Man Overbored
Mark Antony
Milling in Pompeii
Modern Architecture
More Paternal Correspondence
Mr. Sweeney's Cat
Murray and the Mormons
Mush and Melody
My Dog
My Experience as an Agriculturist
My Lecture Abroad
My Mine
My Physician
My School Days
Nero
No More Frontier
On Cyclones
One Kind of Fool
Our Forefathers
Parental Advice
Petticoats at the Polls
Picnic Incidents
Plato
Polygamy as a Religious Duty
Preventing a Scandal
Railway Etiquette
Recollections of Noah Webster
Rev. Mr. Hallelujah's Hoss
Roller Skating
Rosalinde
Second Letter to the President
She Kind of Coaxed Him
Shorts
Sixty Minutes in America
Skimming the Milky Way
Somnambulism and Crime
Spinal Meningitis
Spring
Squaw Jim
Squaw Jim's Religion
Stirring Incidents at a Fire
Strabismus and Justice
Street Cars and Curiosities
Taxidermy
The Amateur Carpenter
The Approaching Humorist
The Arabian Language
The Average Hen
The Bite of a Mad Dog
The Blase Young Man
The Board of Trade
The Cell Nest
The Chinese God
The Church Debt
The Cow Boy
The Crops
The Duke of Rawhide
The Expensive Word
The Heyday of Life
The Holy Terror
The Indian Orator
The Little Barefoot Boy
The Miner at Home
The Newspaper
The Old South
The Old Subscriber
The Opium Habit
The Photograph Habit
The Poor Blind Pig
The Sedentary Hen
The Silver Dollar
The Snake Indian
The Story of a Struggler
The Wail of a Wife
The Warrior's Oration
The Ways of Doctors
The Weeping Woman
The Wild Cow
They Fell
Time's Changes
To a Married Man
To an Embryo Poet
To Her Majesty
To The President-Elect
Twombley's Tale
Two Ways of Telling It
Venice
Verona
"We"
What We Eat
Woman's Wonderful Influence
Woodtick William's Story
Words About Washington
Wrestling With the Mazy
"You Heah Me, Sah!"


[Illustration: WE WERE NOT ON TERMS OF INTIMACY.]




My School Days.

Looking over my own school days, there are so many things that I would
rather not tell, that it will take very little time and space for me to
use in telling what I am willing that the carping public should know about
my early history.

I began my educational career in a log school house. Finding that other
great men had done that way, I began early to look around me for a log
school house where I could begin in a small way to soak my system full of
hard words and information.

For a time I learned very rapidly. Learning came to me with very little
effort at first. I would read my lesson over once or twice and then take
my place in the class. It never bothered me to recite my lesson and so I
stood at the head of the class. I could stick my big toe through a
knot-hole in the floor and work out the most difficult problem. This
became at last a habit with me. With my knot-hole I was safe, without it I
would hesitate.

A large red-headed boy, with feet like a summer squash and eyes like those
of a dead codfish, was my rival. He soon discovered that I was very
dependent on that knot-hole, and so one night he stole into the school
house and plugged up the knot-hole, so that I could not work my toe into
it and thus refresh my memory.

Then the large red-headed boy, who had not formed the knot-hole habit went
to the head of the class and remained there.

After I grew larger, my parents sent me to a military school. That is
where I got the fine military learning and stately carriage that I still
wear.

My room was on the second floor, and it was very difficult for me to leave
it at night, because the turnkey locked us up at 9 o'clock every evening.
Still, I used to get out once in a while and wander around in the
starlight. I did not know yet why I did it, but I presume it was a kind of
somnambulism. I would go to bed thinking so intently of my lessons that I
would get up and wander away, sometimes for miles, in the solemn night.

One night I awoke and found myself in a watermelon patch. I was never so
ashamed in my life. It is a very serious thing to be awakened so rudely
out of a sound sleep, by a bull dog, to find yourself in the watermelon
vineyard of a man with whom you are not acquainted. I was not on terms of
social intimacy with this man or his dog.