So I sent it to General Joseph R. Hawley, who was then in the House,
and he said he would present it. But he did not do it. I think
he explained that when he came to read it he was afraid of it:
it was too serious, to gushy, too sentimental--the House might take it
for earnest.
We ought to have carried out our monument scheme; we could
have managed it without any great difficulty, and Elmira would
now be the most celebrated town in the universe.
Very recently I began to build a book in which one of the minor
characters touches incidentally upon a project for a monument to Adam,
and now the TRIBUNE has come upon a trace of the forgotten jest of
thirty years ago. Apparently mental telegraphy is still in business.
It is odd; but the freaks of mental telegraphy are usually odd.
A HUMANE WORD FROM SATAN
[The following letter, signed by Satan and purporting to come from him,
we have reason to believe was not written by him, but by Mark Twain.
--Editor.]
TO THE EDITOR OF HARPER'S WEEKLY:
Dear Sir and Kinsman,--Let us have done with this frivolous talk.
The American Board accepts contributions from me every year:
then why shouldn't it from Mr. Rockefeller? In all the ages,
three-fourths of the support of the great charities has been
conscience-money, as my books will show: then what becomes of
the sting when that term is applied to Mr. Rockefeller's gift?
The American Board's trade is financed mainly from the graveyards.
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