The translators of foreign tongues choose first the philosophy, the fiction or the serious poetry of the other nations, leaving the humor, if any there be, to hang unplucked on the tree of knowledge.
So the foreign material is scant, but the high spots are touched as far as could be found convenient.
The Outline stops at the year 1900. Humor since then is too close to be viewed in proper perspective.
But the present Outliner mainly hopes to show how, with steady footstep, from the Caveman to the current comics Humor has followed the Flag.
C. W.
New York,
April, 1923.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
All rights on poems and prose in this volume are reserved by the authorized publisher, the author, or the holder of copyright, with whom special arrangements have been made for including such material in this work. The editor expresses thanks for such permission as indicated below.
D. Appleton & Company: For “To a Mosquito” by William Cullen Bryant; “Tushmaker’s Tooth-Puller” by G. H. Derby; and for “The Sad End of Brer Wolf” by Joel C. Harris, from Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings.