"Ladies and gentlemen, how solemn and beautiful is the thought that the earliest pioneer of civilization is never the railroad, never the newspaper, never the missionary but whisky." "However, truth is the most valuable thing we have so let us economize it." "Well, I ought to thank you for attending the services this evening." "I nearly missed them myself." "I came by railroad." "It was one of those trains that gets tired every seven minutes." "Has to stop and rest for three quarters of an hour." "One of the passengers advised the conductor to take the cow catcher off the front end and put it on the rear" "because at the rate we were going, we were not going to catch any cows but there wasn't anything to prevent them from climbing aboard on the rear end." "If I have to go to heaven by railroad I shall go the other way." "There was a dog who came on board along in the early part of the morning and barked steadily at nothing 'til he died." "I'd never seen one of his kind before." "He was a long, low dog with very short legs something like parentheses turned the wrong way." "It is made on the plan of a bench, really and it seemed to be satisfied." "I didn't ask what kind of a dog it was or how it came to be deformed but the owner was obviously very fond of it." "He said it had taken prizes in dog shows." "Said people often stopped on the street to look at it." "Well, this did not seem strange to me." "Why, I could've told him that if you take a great, long, low dog like that and waddle him along the street anywhere in the world and not charge anything, people will stop and look at him." "If I were built like that I could take prizes myself." "I don't believe he was a dog at all." "He may have been on the verge of being a dog." "Wasn't a dog." "Well, I hope you won't mind if I smoke." "I can't see any harm in it so long as there are no children present." "I never began smoking, myself, 'til I was nine years old." "Even then I was not constant." "I was always ready to reform if I could see any profit in it" "but the only profit I could ever see in it was the heavenly pleasure of giving up the reform and going back to smoking again." "I come into this world asking for a light and I expect to go out of it blowing smoke rings." "Well, I think temperate temperance is best." "Intemperate temperance is apt to be troublesome." "When I was just a young man, studying for the gallows" "I went west on the overland stays to San Francisco." "I arrived there with a very bad cold" "A lady at the hotel advised me to drink a quart of whiskey every 24 hours and another friend recommended exactly the same thing." "That made a half a gallon." "I'd been drunk before but that was a masterpiece." "I went to bed early that night." "I had a terrible nightmare, dreamt I was baptized." "About two o'clock in the morning I had a WC call and I jumped up in the dark and ran out into the hall in my night shirt without a candle." "Then it occurred to me there was no WC on my floor." "Well, the hall was pitch dark but I.." "I groped along upstairs and found the WC there and then I started home." "I went upstairs and pawed along to what I thought was my room." "Then I remembered that I had gone upstairs when I shoulda gone.." "wait a minute, I wasn't so sure about that either." "My mind lost confidence and began to wander." "I was no longer sure what floor I was on." "I was lost." "The minute I realized that the rest of my mind went" "but a man can't stand still in a dark hall at two o'clock in the morning in his night shirt, looking like an envelope with no address on it." "He can't do that and feel content." "He's gotta go somewhere." "I groped up and down a couple of flights towards lighting the way with profanity." "You see, I couldn't go down to the ground floor and start fresh and count up because there was a ball going on down there." "Whole ball room full of young ladies, a dangerous place to get caught in clothed as I was and not in my right mind" "and pretty soon I heard those girls coming up to bed." "Well, I didn't know if I was on a WC floor or not but I scampered through the nearest door and prayed that it would be the right one." "It was." "I stood there in that humble shelter happy as a martyr when the fire won't burn." "I thought how glad I should be to live there always go out no more among life's troubles and dangers." "Several young ladies applied for admission but I was not receiving" "Thursdays being my day." "Well, when the house was dead and dark, I groped down to the ground floor and counted my way up home." "Then my temper got afire and I let 'er go and right in the midst of that great eruption an admiring female voice said" ""When you're through with your prayers, I'd like to know what you're doing in my room."" "Well, I was, uh.." "I was looking for a job out there in.." "in San Francisco but I was very particular about the kind of job I would get." "I didn't want to work" "so I became a newspaper reporter." "I hated to do it but I couldn't find honest employment." "I've often had to serve time that way." "When I was putting together my first book" "I did a stretch in Washington as a newspaper correspondent and every day I went over to the congress that grand, old, benevolent national asylum for the helpless" "and I reported on the inmates there." "It was very entertaining." "I had never seen a body of men with tongues so handy and information so uncertain but they could talk for a week without ever getting rid of an idea" "If one of those men had been present when the deity was on the point of saying "let there be light"" "we never would've had it." "Well, back then in San Francisco, I went up in the mountains that winter to hunt for gold." "P-hnuaah!" "I didn't find any gold but I heard Jim Blaine tell the remarkable story" "of his grandfather's old ram." "Now Jim Blaine had the kind of memory that was so good it defeated his every attempt to march a straight course." "Whenever he came across the name of a person or a thing that had nothing to do with his tale he would stop and tell all about it and as he plodded along, he always got further and further away from his" "grandfather's remarkable adventure" "UHU-Huaam!" "with the ram." "I found him sitting on an empty powder keg, smoking." "'Well, my grandfather got that old ram from a feller out in Siskiyou County and fetched him home and turned him loose in the meadow, and next morning, he went down to have a look at him and accidentally dropped a ten-cent piece in the grass" "and was a-stooping over fumbling in the grass to get it." "and the ram heeled up the slope, taking notice." "but my grandfather wasn't taking notice because he had his back to the ram, don't you see." "Well, now, Smith of Calaveras was standing there." "Wait a minute, now, it wasn't Smith of Calaveras." "No, no, no, he was a Baptist." "No, no, it was Smith of Tulare County, course it was." "I remember it now, perfectly clear." "Well, Smith of Tulare was standing there." "And, uh.." "uh, S- uh, Smith of Tulare was a-standing there." "Smith of Tulare was, uh..." "Well, Smith of Calaveras was a Baptist and.." "Wait a minute, now, let me.." "let me see." "The ram was up the slope and, uh.." "Well, grandfather was right here." "uh, bending over uh-h, fumbling in the grass and when the old ram see him in that attitude, he took it for an invitation and here he come down that slope thirty mile an hour with his eye full of business." "Well, now, you see, my grandfather's back being to him, hehehe.. and, uh.." "and, uh, him a-stooping over like that, why, o' course he, uh hehehe..hm.." "Why, sure it weren't Smith of Tulare" "No, no, no, it was, why, it was Smith of Sacramento" "Why, Smith of Tulare was just a nobody." "but Smith of Sacramento, why" "Smiths of Sacramento come of the best southern blood in United States." "Why, there weren't ever any better blood south of the line than them, uh.." "uh, Sacramento..uh, Smiths." "By, look at here." "One of 'em married a Whittaker." "What do you say to that?" "Mariah Whittaker, there was a girl for ya." "Just as good and sweet and lovely.." "..generous.." "Why, if she had a thing and you wanted it, you could have it." "Have it and welcome." "Why, she had a glass eye.." "and, um.." "she used to lend it to Flora-Anne Baxter that hadn't any" "who received company with, uh well now, Flora-Anne was pretty large and it didn't fit." "It was a number seven" "and, um.." "she was excavated for a fourteen." "That eye wouldn't lay still, don't you know." "every time she winked, it would roll over." "Oh, it was a beautiful eye." "Set it all up admirable because it was painted a lovely pale blue on the front side, don't you know." "and, uh.." "it was gilded on the back side." "Didn't match the other eye which is one of them browny, yellowy eyes" "tranquil and quiet, you know, the way them kind of eyes are but.." "that didn't matter, they worked together alright and, uh.." "plenty picturesque." "Why, when Flora-Anne come to get excited, that hand-made eye would give a whirl and go on a-whirling flashing first blue and then yellow and then blue and, uh.." "the other one would stand still." "Grown people didn't mind it but it most always made the children cry." "No, it was the Baptist." "Flora-Anne Baxter she married a Hagadorn" "Old Maryland eastern shore blood." "Ain't any better family in the United States than them, uh than them Hagadorns" "Sally little Sally, hm hm hm hm" "Sally Hagadorn, she married a missionary." "And, uh.." "they went off carrying the good news to the cannibals" "out in one of them way off islands around the world in the middle of the ocean somewheres" "and, um.." "they ate her." "yea uh.." "they ate her." "Ate him too." "Well, they was.." "they was dreadful sorry about it and, uh.." "Well, when their families sent down there to fetch for their things, why, they said so." "They said they were sorry and apologized." "and, uh.." "said it shouldn't happen again." "Said it was an accident." "Accident, that's foolishness." "for you." "Why, there ain't no such thing as an accident." "There ain't nothing happened in this world what was ordered just so by a higher and wiser power and it's always for a good purpose." "Why, you look at my Uncle Lem." "Now, what do you say to that?" "Well, you just look at my Uncle Lem and then talk to me about accidents" "Now, my uncle Lem and his dog was downtown one day and he was leaning up against a scaffold and sick or drunk or something and there was an Irishman with a horde of bricks up the ladder along about the third story," "and his foot slipped and down he come bricks and all and hit a stranger, fair and square, knocked the everlasting aspirations out of him." "Now then, people said it was an accident." "Well, there weren't no accident about it." "It was a special providence and had a mysterious and noble intention behind it." "The idea was to save the Irishman." "Why, if that stranger hadn't been there, the Irishman would've been killed." "People have said "Special providence?" "So, the dog was there." "Why didn't the Irishman fall on the dog?" "Why weren't the dog appointed?"" "Why, for a mighty good reason:" "the dog would've seen him a-coming." "Why, you can't depend on no dog to carry out a special providence." "Why you, you.." "Listen, now, you couldn't hit a dog with an Irishman because.." "Well, what was that dog's name?" "Jasper" "Mighty fine dog he was too." "He weren't no common dog." "He weren't no mongrel." "He was a composite." "My uncle Lem got him from the Wheelers." "I reckon you've heard of the Wheelers." "Ain't any better family in the United States than.." "than them, um.." "Wheelers." "Old man Wheeler, he worked in a carpet factory and, uh.." "One day he was meditating and dreaming around in the carpet factory." "and the machinery made a snatch at him." "and, uh.." "the first thing you know, Wheeler was meandering all over the factory" "going faster, well, you couldn't even see him." "You'd only hear him whizz when he went by." "Well, Wheeler got wove up." "into thirty-nine yards of the best three-ply carpeting." "His widow was sorry." "She was uncommonly sorry and, uh.." "and she'd done the best she could for him under the circumstances." "She took the whole piece." "thirty-nine yards and, uh.." "she wanted to give him.." "proper and honorable burial" "but she couldn't bear to roll him up" "so she.." "she took and spread him out, uh.." "full length, uh.." "She wanted to buy a tunnel for him, uh.." "but there weren't any tunnels for sale." "so she.." "oh, my sakes, god.." "she boxed him." "in a beautiful box and.." "and, uh.." "stood him on a pedestal" "on a hill and she painted on him:" "'To the loving memory of thirty-nine yards of the best.." "three-ply carpeting" "containing the mortal remains of.." "of Milton.." "G..." "Whee.." "whee.." "Wheeler.'" "Go thou and do likewise." "Well, at that point Jim Blaine always fell asleep so we never did find out what happened to his grandfather's old ram." "Well, poor, old Wheeler." "My sakes, why, have I had an uncle got himself killed in somewhat the same way once." "It was on the fourth of July and this uncle of mine, full of patriotism, opened his mouth to hurrah and a rocket went right down his throat." "I had another uncle too." "He was a spare uncle." "Went to visit a dentist a certain Dr. Tushmaker to have his tooth out." "Well, the dentist pulled and the tooth wouldn't come but my uncle's right leg come up." "Dentist said "What are you doing' that for?"" "My uncle said "Because I can't help it!"" "Dentist said "You come back at the end of the week." "I'll take care of you."" "Well, during the week, the dentist invented an instrument combining the properties of the screw, the lever, the wedge," "the hammer in the inclined plane." "Now, my uncle came back and sat in the chair." "One turn of the crank and out came the tooth." "Its roots were hooked under my uncle's right big toe." "and his whole skeleton was extracted with the tooth." "They had to send him home in a pillow case." "Well, I'm going to declare a ten-minute rest period now." "No, I won't make it ten, I'll make it.." "I'm going to declare a few minutes rest period now." "It's a terrible death to be talked to death." "so I pause every now and again to allow some people to escape and this is your first opportunity." "Well, I've been trying to throw variety into these services." "I recently wrote Andrew Carnegie requesting a hymn book." "'My dear Mr. Carnegie, I see by the papers that you are very prosperous." "I want to get a hymn book." "It costs two dollars." "I will bless you, god will bless you and it shall do a great deal of good." "Truly yours, Mark Twain." "P.S. don't send me the hymn book, send the two dollars.'" "Why, I wanted to select it myself." "I'm not lying to you." "I don't tell lies, I differ from George Washington." "I have a higher and grander standard of principle." "George could not tell a lie." "I can but I won't." "Oh, I used to tell lies but I've given it up." "The field is overrun with amateurs." "Why, when I look around me and contemplate the lumbering, slovenly lying of the present day, it grieves me to see a noble art so prostituted." "In my day a liar was a liar." "I don't mean to suggest that the custom of lying has suffered any decay." "It couldn't for the lie is eternal." "It is man's best and surest friend and it cannot perish from the earth while congress remains in session." "No, when I talk about the decay in the art of lying, I'm talking about the silent lie." "It requires no art, you simply keep still and conceal the truth." "For example, it would not be possible for a humane and intelligent person to invent a rational excuse for slavery and yet in those early days of the emancipation agitation" "in the north, those agitators got small help from anyone, argue and plead and pray as they might." "They could not break the universal stillness that reigned from pulpit and press all the way down to the bottom of society, the clammy" "stillness created and maintained by the lie of silent assertion, the silent assertion that there wasn't anything going on in which humane and intelligent people ought to be interested." "Well.." "when whole nations of people conspire to propagate gigantic, mute lies like that one in the interest of tyrannies and shams, why should we care to think about the trifling ones told by individuals?" "Why make them undesirable?" "Why not be honest and honourable and lie every chance we get?" "Why should we help the nation lie the whole day long and then object to telling one little, insignificant, private lie?" "In our own interest just for the refreshment of it, I mean and to take the rancid taste out of our mouth." "No, there's no art to the silent lying." "It is timid and shabby." "Well, I've been addressing my remarks to the young people in this audience." "The old ones are past saving but I earnestly hope the young ones will understand me." "and take heed." "I hope it and I doubt it." "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so stupid" "I could scarcely stand to have the old man around" "but by the time I got to be 21 I was astonished at how much he had learned in the last seven years" "Well, now I wanna bring you a selection from Huckleberry Finn." "Now, this is the book about a boy some of you have been boys" "and the rest of you have had a good deal to do with boys." "Now, Huckleberry Finn is the story of a boy who lived a great many years ago in the Mississippi river valley." "He was ignorant, unwashed, insufficiently fed but he had as good a heart as ever any boy had." "and he was the only really independent person, boy or man, in the community." "and for this reason, I suppose he was continually happy." "Now, in this book Huckleberry tells his own story, all by himself." "'You don't know about me without you've read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." "That book was made by a Mr. Mark Twain and he told the truth mainly." "Well, there are some things he stressed but mainly he told the truth." "Aww, that ain't nothing." "Well, I never seen anybody but lied one time or another" "Well now, there was Aunt Polly or the widowed Douglas." "The widow, she took me for her son and allowed she would sivilize me." "She cried over me and called me a pooor, lost, lamb." "She called me a lot of other names too but she never meant no harm by it." "Well, then she dressed me up in some of them new clothes and I couldn't do nothing but sweat and sweat and feel all cramped up." "Pretty soon I wanted to smoke but the way it is she wouldn't let me." "She said it was a mean practice and weren't clean and I should try not to do it anymore." "ain't that just the way with some people though?" "They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it." "She took snuff too." "'Course I was alright 'cause she'd done it herself." "Well, then her sister, Miss Watson the terrible, slim, old maid with goggles on she was all the time sayin' "Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry." "Don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberry, sit up straight." "Can't you try to behave?"" "Then she told me all about the bad place and I said I wish I was there." "She got mad then but I never meant no harm, all I wanted was a change." "all I wanted was to go somewheres, I warn't particular." "She said she was gonna live so as to go to the good place." "Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I made up my mind I wouldn't try for it." "Well, I'd been going to school along about four or five months" "I learned to reeead and write and say the multiplication table up to six times seven is thirty-five." "I don't reckon I could get any further than that if I was to live forever." "And then one night I lit my candle and went up to my room and there sat Pap." "His own self." "He tore into me something awful for dressing up and putting on airs and going to school and then he catch me and tuck me up the river to a little log cabin over on the Illinois shore." "I never got no chance to run off." "Pap, he was so handy with his hick'ry." "I couldn't hardly stand it." "I was all over welts." "Once, Pap, he'd been drunk over in town." "He come back and says how folks was saying there was going to be another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for my guardian and then he got to cussing." "Says he'd like to see the widow get me." "Whenever his liquor begun to work he most always went for the govment." "This time he says" ""Call this a govment, why, just look at it and see what it's like" "Why, here's the law a-standing, ready to take a man's son away from him man's own son, which he's had all the trouble and all the anxiety" "and all the expense of raising." "Just as that man's got that son all raised up, ready to go to work and do suthin' for him" "and give him a rest, why, the law up and goes for him." "they call that govment!" "Why, a man can't get his rights in a govment like this." "Why, looky here." "There was a free nigger over there from Ohio" "mulatter, most as white as a white man." "He had on the whitest shirt you ever see and the shiniest hat." "he had a gold watch and a chain." "What do you think?" "Why, they said he was a P'fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything." "That ain't the wust." "They said he could vote when he was at home." "Well, that let me out." "Thinks I, what's this country a-coming to?" "Why, it was 'lection day, and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn't too drunk to get there." "when they told me there was a state in this country where they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out." "I says I'll never vote ag'in as long as I live." "Them's the very words I said;" "you all heard me" "and the country may rot for all of me." "Oooh!" "I'll never vote ag'in as long as I live."" "ol' Pap, he was carrying on so he never noticed where his old limber legs was taking him and he went head over heels over a tub of salt pork and barked both shins." "Rest of his speech was all the hottest kind of language" "Then he let out all of a sudden with his left foot and fetched that tub a rattling kick." "But it warn't good judgment that was a boot that had a couple of his toes leaking out of the front end of it." "Well, I run off from Pap pretty soon after that." "I hid out on Jackson's Island." "That's where I met Miss Watson's Jim." "He says he run off too." "Well, uh.." "I promised I wouldn't tell on him." "I know that I'd done wrong." "I know folks would despise me and call me a low-down Ab'litionist but I didn't care, I warn't going back there ag'in anyway" "Jim and me, we found half a section of log-raft." "We went off down that river together." "We run nights and laid up and hid day times." "We'd just let that raft float wherever the current wanted it to." "It's lovely to live on a raft." "We'd lay on our backs and smoke our pipes looking away into the sky." "Not a cloud in it." "Sky looks ever so deep when you lay on your back in the moonshine." "I never knowed it before and how far a body can hear on the water such nights" "I'd go to sleep." "Sometimes Jim wouldn't wake me when it was my turn to stand watch." "He often done that." "Then when I woke up along about day break" "He'd be sitting there with head down betwixt his knees, moaning and mourning." "Oh, I never took notice nor let on but I knowed what it was for." "He was thinking about his wife and children way up yonder and he was feeling low and homesick;" "'cause, you see, he had never been away from home before in his life." "I do reckon he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their'n." "Don't seem natural but I reckon it's so." "We kept looking for Cairo, down at the foot of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in." "We said we'd sell the raft and get on a steeeamboat and go way up the Ohio amongst the free states and then be out of trouble." "Jim, he said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom." "He says how the first thing he'd do when he got to a free state, he would go to work saving up money and never spend a single cent." "and when he got enough, he would buy his uh.." "h-he would buy he would buy his.." "he would buy his wife which is owned on a farm near Miss Watson." "and.." "then they would both go to work and buy the two children" "and if their master wouldn't sell them he'd get an Ab'litionist to go and steal them." "Well, it most froze me to hear such talk." "Well, Jim, he wouldn't ever dared talk such talk in his life before, coming right out flat-footed and saying that he would steal his children   children which was owned by a man I didn't even know;" "man who hadn't ever done me no harm." "You see, I begun to get it through my head that he WAS most free   and who was to blame for it?" "ME." "It had never come down to me before what this thing was that I was a-doing." "My conscience got to stirring me up hotter and hotter and finally I says to it, "Aww, let up on me, will ya?" "I'll paddle ashore at the first light and tell."" "Pretty soon one showed." "Jim, he got all excited 'cause he thought it was Cairo but I says "No, uh, let me paddle ashore in the canoe and see, Jim." "It might not be, you know." "Well, then he got the canoe ready for me and give me the paddle and and I shove out" "and when I was about fifty yards off he calls out:" ""Dah you goes, de ole true Huck;" "de on'y white genlman dat ever kep' his promise to ole Jim."" "Well, I just felt sick." "Here I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says that, it just kinda seemed to take the tuck right out of me." "I warn't right down certain whether I was glad I started or whether I warn't." "I says to myself," "I GOT to do it " " I can't get OUT of it." "Right then along comes a skiff with two men in it with guns, and they stopped and I stopped and one of them says:" ""What's that yonder?"" ""A piece of raft,"" ""Do you belong on it?"" ""Yes, sir."" ""Any men on it?"" ""Only one, sir."" ""Well, there's five niggers run off to-night up yonder, around the head of the bend." "Is your man white or black?"" ""He's white."" "They went off." "Well," "I knowed I'd done wrong." "Well, I guess it warn't no use for me to learn to do right;" "well, if I'd have gone to Sunday school and learned how to behave" "I'd have knowed what to do but, well, you see, a body that don't get STARTED right when he's little just ain't got no show." "Then I says to myself, hold on;" "if you'd a done right and give Jim up, would you feel better than you do now?" "Well, no, I says, I'd feel bad -- I'd feel the same way I do right now." "Well, then, says I, what's the use in you learning to do right when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?" "Well, I was stuck." "I couldn't answer that." "So I just shoved the whole thing right out of my head." "and I said I would take up wickedness again, which is in my line, being brung up to it and for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery and if that meant I was going to hell" "then I would just go to hell.'" "Well, it's a comical invention, the human race, any way you look at it but sometimes it does seem a shame that Noah and his party did not miss the boat." "You've probably noticed that the human race is a curiosity." "Originally, man started out a little lower than the angels and he's been getting a little lower ever since." "To place him properly at the present time, he stands somewhere between the angels and the French." "Oh, man is a marvel, he is." "He's invented himself a heaven and emptied into it all the nations of the earth, all in one common jumble and all of them on an equality absolute." "They have to be brothers." "They have to mix together and pray together and harp and hosanna together, whites, negroes, jews, everybody." "There's no distinctions." "And yet, down here on earth, all the nations hate each other and fight each other and every one of them persecutes the jew." "And yet, every pious person adores that heaven and wants to get into it." "He really does." "Now, isn't that marvelous?" "And when he's in a holy rapture he thinks he thinks that if he could only get up there he would take that whole populace to his heart, and hug, and hug, and hug!" "I wonder if God invented man because he was disappointed in the monkey." "Training and association can accomplish strange miracles sometimes." "In my schoolboy days I had no aversion to slavery" "I was not aware that there was anything wrong about it." "Local paper said nothing against it." "Local pulpit taught us that God approved of it that it was a holy thing." "and the doubter need only look in the Bible if he wished to settle his mind." "And then the texts were read aloud to us to make the matter sure." "If there were passages in the Bible, which disapproved of slavery, they were not quoted by our pastors." "I wonder how they could lie so." "Result of practice, no doubt" "and the serene confidence of a Christian with four aces." "When I was a boy I saw a brave gentleman deride and insult a lynching mob and drive it away." "for the truth is that no mob has any sand in it in the presence of a man known to be splendidly brave." "But where shall such brave men be found?" "If physically brave men would do, why, that'd be easy." "They could be had by the cargo." "But morally brave men and women" "who can face up to churchgoing gangs of hooded murderers." "Don't seem to be very many morally brave people left in stock." "We appear to be in a condition of profound poverty there." "What we really need is some starters." "But where shall we get them?" "Advertise?" "Very well, then, let's advertise." "Meanwhile, there's another plan." "Why don't we import American missionaries from China, and send them into the lynching field." "Well there are 1,511 American missionaries out there converting two Chinamen apiece per annum" "against an uphill birth rate of 33,000 pagans per day." "Now, if we can offer our missionaries as rich a field at home at lighter expense and quite satisfactory in the matter of danger, why shouldn't they come back and give us a trial?" "Why, those Chinese people are universally conceited to be honest, industrious, honorable " " why don't we give those poor things a rest, huh;" "besides, every convert runs the risk of catching our civilization." "Ought to think twice before we encourage a risk like that;" "for, once civilized, China can never be uncivilized again." "Not been thinking about that." "O kind missionary," "O compassionate missionary, leave China!" "come home and convert these Christians!" "Oh, what a hell of a heaven it's going to be when all those hypocrites assemble there." "Man is really the most interesting jackass there is." "It's his idea, you see, that the deity sits up nice to admire him." "He's the creator's pet." "Now, you may wonder why." "Well, because of his intellect." "Man is the reasoning animal" "such is the claim" "Though I do think that's open to dispute." "Well, I've been studying this reasoning animal for years now and I find the results humiliating." "Well, for example, I experimented with a cat and a dog, taught them to be friends, then I put them in a cage." "I introduced a rabbit." "In an hour they were friends." "Then I added a fox, a goose, a squirrel," "some doves, a kangaroo, and finally, a monkey." "They lived together in peace." "Well next, I caught an Irish Catholic and put him in a cage" "and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Presbyterian," "and then a Turk from Constantinople;" "a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas;" "a Buddhist from China;" "and finally, a Salvation Army Colonel." "Why, when I come back, there wasn't a specimen left alive." "These reasoning animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a higher court." "Because because, you see, man is also the religious animal." "He's the only one that's got the true religion   several of them." "He loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight" "Why, he's made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven." "The other animals have no religion, you know." "Going to be left out, in the.." "I wonder why." "Seems questionable taste." "Man is the only patriot." "He sets himself apart in his own country under his own flag and sneers at the other nations, keeps uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people's countries and keep them from grabbing slices of his" "with the result that there's not an acre of ground on the globe that's in possession of its rightful owner." "And in the intervals between campaigns, he washes the blood from his hands and works for the brotherhood of man" "with his mouth." "Man is the only animal that deals in the atrocity of war." "He's the only one that for sordid wages goes forth in cold blood to exterminate his own kind." "He has a motto for this:" "Our Country, right or wrong!" "Any man who fails to shout it is a traitor!" "Only the others are patriots." "Say, who is "the Country"?" "Is it the government?" "In a republic, the government is merely a servant, a temporary one." "Its function is to obey orders, not originate them." "only when a republic's life is in danger should a man uphold his government when it's wrong." "Otherwise, the nation has sold its honor for a phrase." "And if that phrase needs help it gets another one:" ""Even though the war be wrong, we are in it." "We must fight it out:" "we cannot retire without dishonor."" "Why, not even a burglar could have said that better." "Man is the only animal" "that blushes or needs to." "Well, you just have to remember that man was made at the end of the week's work." "Well, I'm going to declare another rest period now, while I go back and have a smoke." "When you come back I wanna tell you a ghost story." "So I'm going to warn all the nervous people to leave now if you haven't left already 'cause this ghost story scares me half to death." "So I'll see you strong hearts in about two minutes." "When I was a boy in Hannibal, on the river, we used to spend part of every year on my uncle's farm and there was another uncle on that farm, a middle-aged slave by the name of Uncle Dan'l," "who's sympathies were wide and warm, and every night before going to bed, we children used to gather together on Uncle Dan'l's hearth and hear him tell those immortal tales as Uncle Remus," "Joel Harris got together into book by and by and charmed the world with and I can still remember the creepy joy that quivered through me." "When the times of the ghost story was reached, we used to sit there on the floor with our knees hunched up, hugging them, watching the flames shooting up the chimney, watching the shadows prancing around the walls," "looking suspiciously in all the dark corners, listening to the wind whistle around the edge of the house we'd be frightened to death before he'd ever begin." "and then he'd tell us a story of the golden arm." "'Once 'pon a time dey wuz a monstus mean man, en he live 'way out on de prairie all 'lone by himself, cep'd he had a wife." "En bimeby she died, en he tuck en toted her way out dah in de prairie en buried her." "Well, she had a golden arm   all solid gold, from de shoulder down." "Oh, he wuz pow'ful mean, dat man -- pow'ful;" "en dat night he couldn't sleep, caze he want dat golden arm so bad." "When it come midnight he couldn't stand it no mo';" "so he git up, he did, en he tuck his lantern en he shove out through de storm en dug her up en he got dat golden arm;" "en den he bent his head down 'gainst de wind, en he plowed en plowed en plowed through de snow." "And den all of a sudden he stop" ""My lan', what's dat."" "En he listen en de wind say" "en den, way back yonder where de grave is, he hear a voice " " he hear a voice all mix' up with de storm en de wind   you can't hardly tell 'em apart and that voice say," "W-h-o   g-o-t   m-y -- g-o-l-d-e-n   arm?" "" "En den he commence to shiver en shake, en he say, "Oh, my!" "Oh, my lan'!"" "en de win' blow de lantern out, en de snow en sleet blow in his face en mos' choke him, en he start a-plowin' knee-deep towards home mos' dead, he so sk'yerd en den bimeby" "he hear dat voice ag'in, en dis time it's a-comin' after him!" ""W-h-o's -- g-o-t -- m-y g-o-l-d-e-n -- arm?"" "When he gits to de pasture he hear it ag'in   closter now, en comin'!" " comin' back dah in de dark en de storm" "When he git to de house he run up-stairs en he jump in bed en he kiver up, head and ear, en he lay dah shiverin' en shakin'" "En bimeby.." "he hear dat voice ag'in en dis time.." "hit's right outside de house!" "Who's got my golden arm!" "den he hear" "hit's a-comin' up de stairs!" "Then he hear the latch open, en he know dat it's in de room!" "den he know dat it's stannin' by de bed!" "den he know dat it's bending' down over him - he cain't skasely git his breath, he so sk'yerd" "en den he seem to feel suthin c-o-l-d, right down 'gainst his head!" "En den dat voice say, right in his ear " " "W-h-o's   g-o-t   m-y   g-o-l-d-e-n arm?"" ""You've got it!"'" "uhHuHUam!" "Then that wicked old rascal would send us up to bed." "I remember how very dark that room was in the dark of the moon." "I can remember the raging of the rain on the roof summer nights and how pleasant it was to lie and listen to it." "and enjoy the white splendor of the lightning and the majestic booming and crashing of the thunder." "We were all good Presbyterian boys when the weather was doubtful along outside of the front fence ran the country road." "Dusty in the summer time and a good place for snakes." "When there were house snakes or garters, we carried them home and put them in Aunt Patsy's work basket" "for a surprise." "She was prejudiced against snakes and always when she took the basket into her lap and they began to climb out of it, it disordered her mind." "Our school teacher, Miss Harr" "was a stern, old New England warrior with eyes that turned like pivot-guns." "She could whirl one eye rearwards and the other forwards." "like a senator." "I didn't think I could ever learn to like her except on a raft at sea" "with no other provisions in sight." "When I was a boy helping to inhabit that little Missouri town," "my comrades and I had one permanent ambition, to be a steamboatman." "Boy after boy managed to go on the river and by and by I ran away too." "I said I never would come home again till I was a pilot and could come in glory." "I loved that profession." "Far better than any I've followed since." "I took a measureless pride in it" "for a pilot on a steamboat in those days was the only unfettered and entirely independent human being that walked on the earth." "The pilot-house was a sumptuous glass temple offering a princely view of the great Mississippi, rolling its mile wide tide along, shining in the sun." "On the four o'clock watch mornings," "I could see the summer sunrise on the river." "That was enchanting." "First the eloquence of silence, then the haunting sense of loneliness, isolation, remoteness from the worry and bustle of the world." "The dawn creeps in stealthily." "Solid walls of black forest soften to grey and vast stretches of the river open up and reveal themselves." "The water is glass smooth." "Then a bird pipes up and when the light has become a little stronger, you have one of the fairest and softest pictures imaginable." "You have the intense green of the massed and crowed foliage near by and you see it paling shade by shade in front of you." "And all this stretch of river is a mirror." "Well, that's all beautiful but when the sun gets well up and distributes a pink flush here and a powder of gold yonder and a purple haze where it will yield the best effect, you grant that you have seen something that is worth" "remembering." "I hoped to follow the river the rest of my days and die at the wheel when my mission was ended." "But by and by the war came and commerce on the river ceased and my occupation was gone so I had to seek another livelihood." "I joined the Confederacy, served for two weeks," "deserted, and the Confederacy fell." "So I went west to hunt for gold." "I was going to be a millionaire." "'Course, I expected to find the gold just laying around on the ground, waiting for me to shovel it in but I struck a disappointment there." "As like so many other pipe dreams in my life, it's all based on rumor." "When I got out there, I found I'd just been" "Drunk on the smell of somebody else's cork." "I found you had to dig for the gold with a long-handled shovel." "I had no use for a long-handled shovel." "Oh, I was willing to sit by and admire while other people used one." "I would even shout encouragement at them too when I wasn't busy catching flies." "Oh, I loved to catch flies;" "didn't require any talent, all you had to do was grab." "If I didn't get the fly I was after, I'd get another one." "It was all the same to me, I had no partialities." "Whichever fly I got was the one I wanted." "Well, that California 'get rich quick' disease of my youth spread like wildfire" "It produced a civilization, which has destroyed the simplicity and repose of life, its poetry, its soft, romantic dreams and visions, and replaced them with a money fever, sordid ideals," "vulgar ambitions, and the sleep which does not refresh." "I has created over nine-thousand useless luxuries and turned them into necessities and satisfied nothing." "It has dethroned God and set up a shekel in his place." "Oh, the dreams of our youth.." "..how beautiful they are;" "and how perishable." "Well, last year I celebrated my seventieth escape from the gallows." "I am approaching the threshold of age." "In 1977," "I shall be 142 years old." "I'm gonna leave my skull to Cornell University so the scientists can examine it and send me a report." "people" "People have called me a pessimist in my old age but I'm not." "I am an optimist who did not arrive." "I've had a good life, I've travelled," "I've seen all the foreign countries I care to see except heaven and hell and I have only a vague curiosity about one of them." "Though, I would like to see my old ancestor," "Satan." "I have no special regard for Satan but I think I can claim to have no prejudice against him." "May even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show." "All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him but we never hear his side." "We have only the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict." "Now, to my mind this is irregular." "It is un-English;" "it is un-American;" "it is French." "Without that precedent, Dreyfus could never have been condemned of course Satan has some case, that goes without saying." "May be a poor one, but that can be said about any of us." "Soon as I can get at the facts I intend to undertake his rehabilitation myself, if I can find an unpolitic publisher." "We may not pay him reverence, for that would be indiscreet, but we can at least respect his talents." "Any man who has for untold centuries maintained the imposing position of spiritual head of four fifths of the human race," "and political head of the whole of it, must have executive abilities." "But I should like to meet him." "I'd rather meet him and shake him by the tail than any other statesman on the planet." "I probably will." "I remember once saying to our pastor, Joe Twitchell that I hope to be cremated and he just looked at me and said," ""Oh, I wouldn't worry about that if I had your chances."" "I've heard a good deal all my life about heaven and hell and as near as I can figure it, if a man goes to heaven, he will put in all his time improving himself." "He will study, and study, and study, and progress, and progress, and progress, and if that isn't hell, I don't know what is." "Well, now it's time to go." "My feet are tired and your.." "you are tired." "You know, in the last year, since my seventieth birthday, I have received hundreds of letters from all conditions of people, men, women, and children, and there was in them compliments, praise," "and above all and better than all, there is in them a note of affection." "Compliment as well, praise as well, but affection, that is the last and final and most precious reward that any man can win, whether by character or achievement." "I am very grateful to have that reward." "Many and many a year ago I gathered an incident from" "Dana's Two Years Before the Mast" "It was like this:" "There was a self-important little skipper of a coasting sloop engaged in the dried apple and kitchen-furniture trade, and he was always hailing every ship that came in sight." "He did it just to air his small grandeur and to hear himself talk." "One day, a majestic Indiaman came plowing by with course on course of canvas towering into the skies, her decks and yards swarming with sailors, her hull burdened to the Plimsoll line with a rich freightage of precious spices" "lading the breezes with gracious and mysterious odors of the Orient." "It was a noble spectacle." "Well, of course the little captain popped into the shrouds and squeaked out a hail," ""Ship ahoy!" "What ship is that?" "And whence and whither?"" "and the answer came back in a deep and thunderous bass through the speaking-trumpet," ""The Begum of Bengal one-hundred and forty-two days out from Canton homeward bound!" "What ship is that?"" "Well, it just crushed that poor little creature's vanity flat, and he squeaked back most humbly," ""Only the Mary Ann, fourteen hours out from Boston, bound for Kittery Point with nothing in particular!"" "Ohoho, what an eloquent word that "only,"" "to express the depths of his humbleness" "Well now, that is just my case." "In just one hour of the twenty-four--not more" "I pause and reflect in the stillness of the night, and then I am humble and then I am properly meek, and during that little while I am only the Mary Ann, fourteen hours out, cargoed with vegetables and" "tinware;" "but during all the twenty-three hours my vain self-complacency rides high on the white crests of approval, and then I am a stately Indiaman, plowing the great seas beneath a cloud of canvas and laden with the kindest words that have ever been vouchsafed to any" "wandering alien in this world, I think;" "and I am the Begum of Bengal" "seventy years out, homeward bound." "Thank you and goodnight."