CHARLES F. BROWNE.
(ARTEMUS WARD).
RTEMUS WARD first revealed to the world that humor is a characteristic trait of the Yankee, and he was the first to succeed in producing a type of comic literature distinctively American, purely the product of his original genius.
It is impossible to analyze his jokes or to tell why they are irresistibly funny, but it would be generally admitted that his best things are as much creations of genius as masterpieces of art are.
He was one of the kindest and most generous of men; he used his keen wit to smite evil customs and to satirize immoral deeds, and he went through his short life enjoying above everything to make people laugh and to laugh himself, but with all his play of wit there was a tinge of melancholy in his nature and a tendency to do the most unexpected things, a tendency which he never tried to control. He was born in Waterford, Maine, in 1834, and he came honestly by a view of humor from his father’s side. He had only a most meagre school education, and at fourteen he set himself to learn the printer’s trade, becoming one of the best typesetters in the country.
He drifted from place to place and finally became one of the staff of the “Commercial” at Toledo, Ohio, where he first displayed his peculiar richness of humor in his news reports. In 1857 he became local editor of the “Plain-Dealer” in Cleveland, and it was here his sketches were first signed Artemus Ward, a name which he took from a peculiar character who called on him once in his Cleveland office. He is described at this time as being in striking degree gawky and slouchy, with yellowish, straight hair, a loose swaggering gait, and strangely ill-fitting clothes, though as his popularity and position rose he took on more cultivated manners and grew very particular regarding his dress.