Browne

Charles Farrar (pseudonym, Artemus Ward) (1834-1867), an American humorist. He was born at Waterford, Maine, and died at Southampton, England. He learned the printer's trade, working on The Carpet Bag, a Boston comic weekly. He set the type for many of Saxe's humorous poems, and for Shillaber's Mrs. Partington's Gripsack. It is possible that this atmosphere of humor acted as an inspiration, for he soon started out, with a grotesque Panorama, as a comic lecturer. Successful from the first, he became the "dear delight of lecture halls." His works, in book form--Artemus Ward, his Book, Artemus Ward, his Travels among the Mormons, Artemus Ward, his Book of Goaks, Artemus Ward in London,--all have loss that which made his lectures irresistible, the personality of the lecturer. His manner was solemn--so naturally and simply solemn--as to be in itself mirth-provoking. Combined with this was a wit capable of giving to the commonplace some sudden turn or twist that would reveal a surprisingly comic side. Some of the witticisms of Artemus Ward are still current:

Always live within your income, if you have to borrow money to do it.

An occasional joke improves a comic paper.