CONTENTS IMAGINARY INTERVIEWS The Restoration of the Easy Chair by Way of Introduction A Year of Spring and a Life of Youth Sclerosis of the Tastes The Practices and Precepts of Vaudeville Intimations of Italian Opera The Superiority of Our Inferiors Unimportance of Women in Republics Having Just Got Home New York To the Home-comer's Eye Cheapness of the Costliest City on Earth Ways and Means of Living in New York The Quality of Boston and the Quantity of New York The Whirl of Life in Our First Circles The Magazine Muse Comparative Luxuries of Travel Qualities Without Defects A Wasted Opportunity A Niece's Literary Advice To Her Uncle A Search for Celebrity Practical Immortality on Earth Around a Rainy-day Fire The Advantages of Quotational Criticism Reading for a Grandfather Some Moments With the Muse A Normal Hero and Heroine Out of Work OTHER ESSAYS Autumn in the Country and City Personal and Epistolary Addresses Dressing for Hotel Dinner The Counsel of Literary Age to Literary Youth The Unsatisfactoriness of Unfriendly Criticism The Fickleness of Age The Renewal of Inspiration The Summer Sojourn of Florindo and Lindora To Have the Honor of Meeting A Day at Bronx Park