Of All Things. Robert Benchley

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664651594

Table of Contents

       PREFACE

       OF ALL THINGS!

       I

       II

       III

       IV

       V

       VI

       VII

       VIII

       IX

       X

       XI

       XII

       XIII

       XIV

       XV

       XVI

       XVII

       XVIII

       XIX

       CAST OF CHARACTERS

       XX

       XXI

       XXII

       TABLOID EDITIONS

       THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE

       HARPER'S MAGAZINE

       THE SATURDAY EVENING POST

      TO

       HENRY BESSEMER

      Without whose tireless patience, unswerving industry and inexhaustible zeal the Bessemer steel converter would never have become a reality, this book is affectionately dedicated by

      THE AUTHOR.

      These sketches appeared originally in Vanity Fair, The New York Tribune Sunday Magazine, Collier's Weekly, Life, and Motor Print, all but two of these magazines immediately afterward having either discontinued publication or changed hands. To those which are old enough to remember, and to the new managements of the others, the author offers grateful acknowledgment for permission to reprint the material in this book. (As a matter of fact, permission was never asked, but they probably won't mind anyway.)

PREFACE

       Table of Contents

      When, in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

      We hold these truths to be self-evident—that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their own future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

      R.C.B.