MR LOWELL AS A REJECTED CONTRIBUTOR.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 989, 26 January 1883, Page 4

MR LOWELL AS A REJECTED CONTRIBUTOR.

A correspondent of the Boston Transcript declares that Mr James Russell Lowell once made up his mind to play a joke upon the Atlantic, and to that end wrote an article called the “ Essence of American Humour,’ which was said by his friends to whom he read it to be among the best of his writings. “ He employed some one to copy it,” says the correspondent, “ and signed it “ W. Perry Paine,” and sent it to the Atlantic, with the request that, as it was a maiden effort, the editor would give an opinion in writing to the said Paine. Ho waited a fortnight, but hearing nothing from his paper, when being in Boston, he ..dropped into the office of the Atlantic, and, meeting James T. Fields, adroitly turned the conversation upon humour, and remarked it was singular so little was written upon the subject Fields replied, “We get a great deal of manuscript on humour, but it is so poor that we cannot use it. I threw into the waste-basket the other day a long screed christened the “ Essence of American Humouur,” which should have been styled the Essence of Nonsense,” for a more absurd farrago of stuff I have never seen.” Lowell, much to the surprise of the editor, burst into a roar of laughter, and informed Mr Fields of the authorship of the article. The editor turned all colours, and swore it was one of Lowell’s jokes. i; lndeed it is,” responded Lowell, “ and the best joke I ever played, I never thought highly of my scribbling, but I didn’t believe it was the most ridiculous farrago of stuff you had ever seen. By way of self-defence Fields declared he did not read the thing, but that he did not believe that a man who signed his first name with the initial and the second full could write for the Atlantic. That was about as ingenious an excuse as he could make for his partiality.”