Exactly one century ago, died Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910),[3] better-known by his pen name Mark Twain. So, why not celebrate this with a few tidbits about him?
For example, the only known video showing Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) at home with his two daughters Clara and Jean:
YouTube link
But a brilliant writer like Mark Twain is worth more than a bad quality old movie. Far from being an actor, he was a writer and, thus, was able to delightfully write about anything at any time. For example, when he addresses a a snake oil peddler: “You, sir, are the scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link”.
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Dear Sir, Your letter is an insoluble puzzle to me. The handwriting is good and exhibits considerable character, and there are even traces of intelligence in what you say, yet the letter and the accompanying advertisements profess to be the work of the same hand. The person who wrote the advertisements is without doubt the most ignorant person now alive on the planet; also without doubt he is an idiot, an idiot of the 33rd degree, and scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link. It puzzles me to make out how the same hand could have constructed your letter and your advertisements. Puzzles fret me, puzzles annoy me, puzzles exasperate me; and always, for a moment, they arouse in me an unkind state of mind toward the person who has puzzled me. A few moments from now my resentment will have faded and passed and I shall probably even be praying for you; but while there is yet time I hasten to wish that you may take a dose of your own poison by mistake, and enter swiftly into the damnation which you and all other patent medicine assassins have so remorselessly earned and do so richly deserve. Adieu, adieu, adieu! Mark Twain |
I would love to be able to apply this myself to one of the modern spammers.
But Mark Twain was also man of a wider judgment: “Of all the creatures that were made, man is the most detestable… The only one, the solitary one, that possesses malice… He is the only creature that has a nasty mind.” Mark Twain
Happy Birthday!
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