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Twain, Mark, 1835-1910

"The 30,000 Dollar Bequest and Other Stories"


A. Not the child of poverty, Gracia, or the heir of glory and peace,
but of fate. Remember, I have wealth more than wit can number; I have
had power more than kings could emcompass; yet the world seems a desert;
all nature appears an afflictive spectacle of warring passions.
This blind fatality, that capriciously sports with the rules
and lives of mortals, tells me that the mountains will never again
send forth the water of their springs to my thirst. Oh, that I
might be freed and set at liberty from wretchedness! But I fear,
I fear this will never be.
G. Why, Amelia, this untimely grief? What has caused the sorrows
that bespeak better and happier days, to those lavish out such
heaps of misery? You are aware that your instructive lessons
embellish the mind with holy truths, by wedding its attention
to none but great and noble affections.
A. This, of course, is some consolation. I will ever love my own
species with feelings of a fond recollection, and while I am
studying to advance the universal philanthropy, and the spotless
name of my own sex, I will try to build my own upon the pleasing
belief that I have accelerated the advancement of one who whispers
of departed confidence.

And I, like some poor peasant fated to reside
Remote from friends, in a forest wide.
Oh, see what woman's woes and human wants require,
Since that great day hath spread the seed of sinful fire.


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