UNCLE TOM’S CABIN. _Popular Illustrated Edition._ 12mo, $2.00.
THE SAME. _Illustrated Edition._ A new edition, from new plates, printed with red-line border. With an Introduction of more than 30 pages, and a Bibliography of the various editions and languages in which the work has appeared, by Mr. GEORGE BULLEN, of the British Museum. Over 100 illustrations. 8vo, $3.50.
THE SAME. _Popular Edition._ With Introduction, and Portrait of “Uncle Tom.” 12mo, $1.00.
DRED (sometimes called “Nina Gordon.”) 12mo, $1.50.
SAM LAWSON’S FIRESIDE STORIES. New and enlarged Edition. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.
MY WIFE AND I. New Edition. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.
WE AND OUR NEIGHBORS. New Edition. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.
POGANUC PEOPLE. New Edition. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.
The above eleven 12mo volumes, uniform, in box, $16.50.
A DOG’S MISSION, etc. New Edition. Illustrated. Small 4to, $1.25.
QUEER LITTLE PEOPLE. New Edition. Illustrated. Small 4to, $1.25.
LITTLE PUSSY WILLOW. New Edition. Illustrated. Small 4to, $1.25.
RELIGIOUS POEMS. Illustrated. 16mo, gilt edges, $1.50.
PALMETTO LEAVES. Sketches of Florida. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.50.
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., _Publishers_, BOSTON.
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BOSTON: HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. The Riverside Press, Cambridge. 1887.
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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.
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These words were spoken by my wife, as she sat gracefully on a roll of Brussels carpet which was spread out in flowery lengths on the floor of Messrs. Ketchem & Co.
Milton says that the love of fame is the last infirmity of noble minds. I think he had not rightly considered the subject. I believe that last infirmity is the love of getting things cheap! Understand me, now. I don’t mean the love of getting cheap things, by which one understands showy, trashy, ill-made, spurious articles, bearing certain apparent resemblances to better things. All really sensible people are quite superior to that sort of cheapness. But those fortunate accidents which put within the power of a man things really good and valuable for half or a third of their value what mortal virtue and resolution can withstand? My friend Brown has a genuine Murillo, the joy of his heart and the light of his eyes, but he never fails to tell you, as its crowning merit, how he bought it in South America for just nothing,—how it hung smoky and deserted in the back of a counting-room, and was thrown in as a makeweight to bind a bargain, and, upon being cleaned, turned out a genuine Murillo; and then he takes out his cigar, and calls your attention to the points in it; he adjusts the curtain to let the sunlight fall just in the right spot; he takes you to this and the other point of view; and all this time you must confess, that, in your mind as well as his, the consideration that he got all this beauty for ten dollars adds lustre to the painting. Brown has paintings there for which he paid his thousands, and, being well advised, they are worth the thousands he paid; but this ewe-lamb that he got for nothing always gives him a secret exaltation in his own eyes. He seems to have credited to himself personally merit to the amount of what he should have paid for the picture. Then there is Mrs. Crœsus, at the party yesterday evening, expatiating to my wife on the surprising cheapness of her point-lace set,—“Got for just nothing at all, my dear!” and a circle of admiring listeners echoes the sound. “Did you ever _hear_ anything like it? I never heard of such a thing in my life”; and away sails Mrs. Crœsus as if she had a collar composed of all the cardinal virtues. In fact, she is buoyed up with a secret sense of merit, so that her satin slippers scarcely touch the carpet. Even I myself am fond of showing a first edition of “Paradise Lost,” for which I gave a shilling in a London book-stall, and stating that I would not take a hundred dollars for it. Even I must confess there are points on which I am mortal.