Dawn O’Porter

Mr. and Mrs. McGregor drive away in a gig, as seen by little Benjamin Bunny. He hops along toward his aunt’s house, where she is a widow with four small children named Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail, and Peter.

Mark Twain’s 1906 novel “What Is Man?” is a conversation between a young man and an elderly man who has seen too much of the world. It incorporates notions of fate and free choice, as well as psychological egoism.

On stage, Roebuck Ramsden, an old man of money and affairs, emerges. The maid, dressed in a beautiful mourning suit, announces Octavius Robinson, a young poet. Ramsden cautions the young poet about his companion, John Tanner.

Simon, a shoemaker without a home or land, lived in a peasant’s hut with his wife and children, earning his livelihood through his labor. Work was cheap, but bread was expensive, and he spent his earnings on food.