Best American essays.

The way to wealth, by B. Franklin.
The whistle, by B. Franklin.
Defects of the original Confederation, by A. Hamilton.
Objects and powers of a Federal Union, by A. Hamilton.
On a national literature, by W. E. Channing.
The mutability of literature, by W. Irving.
The philosophy of composition, by E. A. Poe.
Compensation, by R. W. Emerson.
Growth: in man; in woman, by S. M. F. Ossoli.
Solitude, by H. D. Thoreau.
Fire-worship, by N. Hawthorne.
Defense of poetry, by H. W. Longfellow.
Table talk, by O. W. Holmes.
Romance, by H. B. Stowe.
Dream-culture, by H. W. Beecher.
At sea, by J. R. Lowell.
My chateaux, by G. W. Curtis.
Beside a city grate: anthracite, by D. G. Mitchell.
Christmas: juventus mundi; giving as a luxury, by C. D. Warner.
A theory of poetry, by H. Timrod.
From Bacon to Beethoven, by S. Lanier.