Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Why I like Mark Twain

From the memoirs and letters of Grace King:

Mr. Clemens repeated two of Joe Twichell's jokes, which were witty of him, Mark--Joe is a temperance minister visiting an old woman in his congregation, she offered him some splendid home made wine. He refused--"You know I'm a teetotaler." "So am I" said she, "but I'm not a fool."

The country here is all wild about the American board of Missions, which recently had a meeting to determine whether to preach to the savages probation or not. I don't know whether you have kept up with it or not. Well after a long contest, they decided by a vote of 80, against 53 that there should be no probation after death, & that the ancestors of the savages had to burn, nolens volens. So Clemens came in with the paper this morning with "News! News! Hell's elected by thirty majority."

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