There has been an incident—an incident of a common sort—an incident of an exceedingly common sort—an incident of a sort which always troubles me, grieves me, and makes me weary of life and long to lie down in the peaceful grave and be at rest. Such incidents usually move me to try to find relief in the building of a maxim. It is a good way, because if you have luck you can get the venom out of yourself and into the maxim; then comfort and a healed spirit follow. Maxims are not easy to make; they do not come in right shape at the first call; they are creatures of evolution, of development; you have to try several plans before you get one that suits you, or even comes fairly near to suiting you. I have made four attempts at this maxim, to wit:

1. If it is so Ⓐtextual note funny you can’t tell it without laughing, don’t tell it: spare your listener.

2. If you can laugh at it yourself while you are telling it, you may know by that sign that it is not funny—to others.

3. When you laugh at your own funny things you are asking alms for their poverty.

4. When the hen has laid a joke she does the laughing herself. There be human beings that are as vulgar.

The relief is not perfect, but it will have to do. I do not feel as axiomatic as usual to-day.

That is a pleasant country—Bermuda—and close by and easy to get to. There is a fine modern steamer admirably officered; there is a table which even the hypercriticalⒶtextual note could [begin page 362] hardly find fault with—not even the hypercritical could find fault with the serviceⒶtextual note. On board thereⒶtextual note is constant communication with the several populations of the planet—if you want it—through the wireless telegraph, and the trip to Bermuda is made in two days. Many people flit to that garden in winter and spring, and heal their worn minds and bodies in its peaceful serenities and its incomparable climate, and it is strange that the people of our NorthernⒶtextual note coasts go there in mere battalions, instead of in armies. The place is beautiful to the eye; it is clothed in flowers; the roads and the boating are all that can be desired; the hotels are good; the waters and the land are brilliant with spirit-reviving sunshine; the people, whether white, black, or brown, are courteous and kindly beyond the utmost stretch of a New York imagination. If poverty and wretchedness exist, there is no visible evidence of it. There is no rush, no hurry, no money-getting frenzy, no fretting, no complaining, no fussing and quarreling; no telegrams, no dailyⒶtextual note newspapers, no railroads, no tramways, no subways, no trolleys, no L’s,Ⓐtextual note no TammanyⒺexplanatory note, no Republican party, no Democratic party, no graft, no office-seeking, no elections, no legislatures for sale; hardly a dog, seldom a cat, only one steam-whistle; not a saloon, nobody drunk; no W.C.T.U.Ⓔexplanatory note;Ⓐtextual note and there is a church and a school on every corner. The spirit of the place is serenity, repose, contentment, tranquillityⒶtextual note—a marked contrast to the spirit of America, which is embodied in the urgent and mannerlessⒶtextual note phrase “Come step lively,” a phrase which ought to be stamped on our coinage in place of “In God We TrustⒶtextual note.” The former expression is full of character, whereas the latter has nothing to recommend it but its bland and self-complacent hypocrisy.Ⓐtextual note

I think it must be the fret and fever of our American life that is responsible for our atrocious manners. No other civilized nation is so uncourteous, so hard, so ungentle, so ill-bred, as ours. We wear several impressive titles—conferred by ourselves, of course—whereby we publish to the world that we are the only free and independent nation; that our land is the special and particular land of the free and home of the brave, and so forth, and so on; but we cannot seem to get anybody outside of our frontiers to recognize these titles, except in a doubting and half-hearted way; whereas what we want, and urgently need, is a title which shall be accepted and ratified with enthusiasm by the rest of the Christian world—a title not claimable by any other nation, a title able to hold its own unchallenged in all weathers. I believe I could think up the right title if I had time. Naturally it would be a title claiming for us the distinction of being the UnpoliteⒶtextual note Nation, but in fairness I should be obliged to make one reserve, one exception—the cabmen of Boston. Boston is the most courteous of American cities, perhaps,Ⓐtextual note and I think it quite likely, at least possible, that of all Boston guilds the guild of cabmen stands about at the head in this regard. Anyway, with thirty-seven years’ experience to draw upon, I have never yet encountered an uncourteous Boston cabman. Of such is the kingdom of heaven, as I look at it. I am not claiming to be courteous myself, for in truth I am not. I am an American. I am as national as the eagle itself.

What Bermuda can do for a person in three short days, in the way of soothing his spirit and setting him up physically, and in giving his life a new value by temporarily banishing the weariness and the sordidness out of it, is wonderful—if that is not too [begin page 363] strong a word, and I think it isn’t. Bronchitis disappears there in twenty-four hours; and it is the same with sore throatsⒶtextual note, and kindred ailments, and they do not return until the patient gets back home; yet Bermuda is neglected; not many Americans visit it. I suppose it is too near-byⒶtextual note. It costs too little trouble and exertion to get to it. It ought to be as far away as Italy; then we would seek it, no doubt, and be properly thankful for its existence. However, there is this much to be said for Americans: that when they go to Bermuda once, they are quite sure to go again; and some among the especially wise acquire the habit of it. I know one American who has spent nine seasons there. Consider this—if you are tired, and depressed, and half sick: you can reach that refuge inside of two days, and a week or two there will bring back your youth and the lost sunshine of your life, and stop your doctor’s bills for a year.

Dublin, New Hampshire, Summer-end, 1905. Ⓐtextual note

As concerns interpreting the DeityⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐtextual note ThisⒶtextual note line of hieroglyphs was for fourteen years the despair of all the scholars who labored over the mysteries of the Rosetta stone:

AfterⒶtextual note five years of study ChampollionⒶtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note translated it thus:

That was the twenty-fourth translation that had been furnished by scholars. For a time it stood. But only for a time. Then doubts began to assail it and undermine it, and the scholars resumed their labors. Three years of patient work produced eleven new translations; among them, this, by GrünfeldtⒶtextual note, was receivedⒶtextual note with considerable favor:

But the following rendering, by GospodinⒺexplanatory note, was received by the learned world with yet greater favor:

Seven years followed, in which twenty-one fresh and widelyⒶtextual note varying renderings were scored—none of them quite convincing. But now, at last, came RawlinsonⒺexplanatory note, the youngest of all the scholars, with a translation which was immediately and universally recognized as being the correct version, and his name became famous in a day. So famous, indeed, that even the children were familiar with it; and such a noise did the achievement itself [begin page 364] make that not even the noise of the monumental political event of that same year—the Flight from ElbaⒺexplanatory note—was able to smother it to silence. Rawlinson’s version reads as follows:

Here is another difficult text:

ItⒶtextual note is demotic—a style of Egyptian writing and a phase of the language which had perished from the knowledge of all men twenty-five hundredⒶtextual note years before the Christian era. But the scholars of our day have penetrated its secret. The above text baffled them, however, for twenty-two years, and in that time they framed forty-six versions of it before they hit upon the right one—which is this:

Our red Indians have left many records, in the form of pictures, upon our crags and boulders. It has taken our most gifted and painstaking students two centuries to get at the meanings hidden in these pictures; yet there are still two little lines of hieroglyphs among the figures grouped upon the Dighton RocksⒺexplanatory note which they have not succeeded in interpreting to their satisfaction. These:

The suggested solutions of this riddle are practically innumerable; they would fill a book.

Thus we have infiniteⒶtextual note trouble in solving man-made mysteries; it is only when we set out to discover the secrets of God that our difficulties disappear. It was always so. In antique Roman times it was the custom of the Deity to try to conceal His intentions in the entrails of birds, and this was patiently and hopefully continued century after century, although the attempted concealment never succeeded, in a single recorded instance. The augurs could read entrails as easily as a modern child can read coarse print. Roman history is full of the marvels of interpretation which these extraordinary men performed. These strange and wonderful achievements move our awe and compel our admiration. Those men could pierce to the marrow of a mystery instantly. IfⒶtextual note the Rosetta-stone idea had been introduced it would have defeated them, but entrails had no embarrassments for them. But entrails have gone out, now—entrails and dreams. It was at last found out that as hiding-places for the divine intentions they were inadequate.

[begin page 365]

“Some time or other.” It looks indefinite, but no matter, it happened, all the same; one needed only to wait, and be patient, and keep watch, then he would find out that the thunder-stroke had Caesar AugustusⒺexplanatory note in mind, and had come to give notice.

There were other advance-advertisements. One of them appeared just before Caesar Augustus was born, and was most poetic and touching and romantic in its feelings and aspects. It was a dream. It was dreamed by Caesar Augustus’s mother, and interpreted at the usual rates:

That was in the augur’s line, and furnished him no difficulties, but it would have taken Rawlinson and Champollion fourteen years to make sure of what it meant, because they would have been surprised and dizzy. It would have been too late to be valuable, then, and the bill for service would have been barred by the statute of limitations.

In those old Roman days a gentleman’s education was not complete until he had taken a theological course at the seminary and learned how to translate entrails. Caesar Augustus’s education received this final polish. All through his life, whenever he had poultry on the menu he saved the interiors and kept himself informed of the Deity’s plans by exercising upon those interiors the arts of augury.

“Indubitable” is a strong word, but no doubt it was justified, if the livers were really turned that way. In those days chicken livers were strangely and delicately sensitive to coming events, no matter how far off they might be; and they could never keep still, but would curl and squirm like that, particularly when vultures came, and showed interest in that approaching great event and in breakfast.

II.

We may now skip eleven hundred and thirty or forty years, which brings us down to enlightened Christian times and the troubled days of King Stephen of England. The augur has had his day and has been long ago forgotten; the ChristianⒶtextual note priest has fallen heir to his trade.

King Henry is dead; Stephen, that bold and outrageous person, comes flying over [begin page 366] from Normandy to steal the throne from Henry’s daughterⒺexplanatory note. He accomplished his crime, and Henry of Huntingdon, a priest of high degree, mourns over it in his ChronicleⒺexplanatory note. The Archbishop of Canterbury consecrated Stephen: “wherefore the Lord visited the Archbishop with the same judgment which he had inflicted upon him who struck Jeremiah the great priest: he died within a yearⒺexplanatory note.”

Stephen’s was the greater offence, but Stephen could wait; not so the Archbishop, apparently.

That was the result of Stephen’s Ⓐtextual note crime. These unspeakable conditions continued during nineteen years. Then Stephen died as comfortably as any man ever did, and was honorably buried. It makes one pity the poor Archbishop, and wish that he, too, could have been let off asⒶtextual note leniently. How did Henry of Huntingdon know that the Archbishop was sent to his grave by judgment of God for consecrating Stephen? He does not explain. Neither does he explain why StephenⒶtextual note was awarded a pleasanter death than he was entitled to, while the aged King Henry,Ⓐtextual note his predecessor, who had ruled England thirty-five years to H. H.’s and the people’s strongly-worded satisfaction,Ⓐtextual note was condemned to close his life in circumstances most distinctly unpleasant, inconvenient, and disagreeable:

This is probably the most uninspiring funeral that is set down in history. There is not a detail about it that is attractive. It is difficult to believe that we are reading about a king, there is something so humble, so unpretending, so unregal, about the whole spectacle, something so simply human and unconventional. We hear nothing of tears, of regret, of a sense of loss, of a reluctance to say farewell, we have only a picture of cold and perfunctory persons who are there by invitation, not by intrusion, and who have no wish to remain longer than courtesy requires. It is one of the saddest funerals there is any account of. There does not appear to have been any music; yet music would have tempered it, music would have made it beautiful, if they could have thought of anything

---

*TheⒶtextual note reader will please skip what now follows. M.T.Ⓐtextual note [begin page 367] appropriate to play. But I suppose there was no old music that would quite do, none that would be harmonious, and no time to think out any new music and compose it. It would be difficult, of course, and could take a good while, no doubt, on account of the conditions. It seems to have been just the funeral for Stephen Ⓐtextual note, and even at this far distant day it is matter of just regret that by an indiscretion the wrong man got it.

Whenever God punishes a man, Henry of Huntingdon knows why it was done, and tells us; and his pen is eloquent with admiration; but when a man has earned punishment and escapes, he does not explain. He is evidently puzzled, but he does not say anything. I think it is often apparent that he is pained by these discrepancies, but loyally tries his best not to show it. When he cannot praise, he delivers himself of a silence so marked that a suspicious person could mistake it for suppressed criticism. However, he has plenty of opportunities to feel contented with the way things go—his book is full of them.

But the English got the victory.

Offended at them for what? For committing those fearful butcheries? No, for that was the common custom on both sides, and not open to criticism. ThenⒶtextual note was it for doingⒶtextual note the butcheries “under cover of religion?” No, that was not it; religious feeling was often expressed in that fervent way all through those old centuries. The truth is, He was not offended at “them” at all; He was only offended at their King, who had been false to an oath. Then why did not He put the punishmentⒶtextual note upon the King instead of upon “them?” It is a difficult question. One can see by the Chronicle that the “judgments” fell rather customarily upon the wrong person, but Henry of Huntingdon does not explain why. Here is one that went true; the chronicler’s satisfaction in it is not hidden:Ⓐtextual note

This exultation jars upon me; not because of the death of the men, for they deserved that, but because it is death eternal, in white-hot fire and flame. It makes my flesh crawl. I have not known more than three men, or perhaps four, in my whole lifetime, whom I would rejoice to see writhing in those fires for even a year, let alone foreverⒶtextual note. I believe I would relent before the year was up, and get them out if I could. I could sit and watch a dog that I didn’t like, several years, but not forever. I often put a dog on the fire and hold him down with the tongs, and enjoy his yelps and moans and strugglings and supplications, but with a man it would be different, I think. I think that in the long run, if his wife and babies, who had not harmed me, should come crying and pleading, I couldn’t stand it; I know I should forgive him and let him go, even if he had violated a monastery. Henry of Huntingdon has been watchingⒶtextual note Godfrey and Marmion fry, nearly seven hundred and fifty years, now, but I couldn’t do it, I know I couldn’t. I am soft and gentle in my nature, and I should have forgiven them seventy and seven times, long ago. And I think God has; but this is only surmise,Ⓐtextual note and not authoritative, like Henry of Huntingdon’s interpretations. I could learn to interpret, but I have never tried, I get so little time.

All through his book Henry exhibits his familiarity with the intentions of God, and with the reasons for the intentions. Sometimes—very often, in fact—the act follows the intention after such a wide interval of time, that one wonders how Henry could fit one act out of a hundred to one intention out of a hundred and get the thing right, every time, when there was such abundant choice among acts and intentions. Sometimes a man offends the Deity with a crime, and is punished for it thirty years later; meantime he has committed a million other crimes: no matter, Henry can pick out the one that brought the worms. Worms were generally used in those days for the slaying of particularly wicked people. This has gone out, now, but in old times it was a favorite. It always indicated a case of “wrath.” For instance, . . . . .

theⒶtextual note just God avenging tzhildebrand’s perfidy, a worm grew in his vitals, which, gradually gnawing its way through his intestines, fattened on the abandoned man till, tortured with excruciatingⒶtextual note sufferings and venting himself in bitter moans, he was by a fitting punishment brought to his end;Ⓐtextual note (p. 400)Ⓔexplanatory note.

It was probably an alligator, but we cannot tell; we only know it was a particular breed, and only used to convey wrath. Some authorities think it was an ichthiosaurus, but there is much doubt. Anyway, it has gone out, now, thanks be.

However, one thing we do know; and that is, that that worm had been dueⒶtextual note years and years. Robert F.Ⓐtextual note had violated a monastery once; he had committed unprintable crimesⒺexplanatory note since, and theyⒶtextual note had been permitted—under disapproval—but the ravishment of the monastery had not been forgotten nor forgiven, and the worm came at last.

Why were these reforms put off in this strange way? What was to be gained by it? Did Henry of Huntingdon really know his facts, or was he only guessing? Sometimes I am [begin page 369] half persuaded that he is only a guesser, and not a good one. The divine wisdom must surely be of a better quality than he makes it out to be.

Five hundred years before Henry’s time some forecasts of the Lord’s purposes were furnished by a pope, who perceived, by certain perfectly trustworthy signs furnished by the Deity for the information of His familiars, that the end of the world was

. . . . aboutⒶtextual note to come. But as this end of the world draws near, many things are at hand which have not before happened, as changes in the air, terrible signs in the heavens, tempests out of the common order of the seasons, wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes in various places; all which will not happen in our days, but after our days all will come to passⒺexplanatory note.Ⓐtextual note

StillⒶtextual note, the end was so near that these signs were “sent before in order that we may be careful for our souls and be found prepared to meet the impending judgmentⒺexplanatory note.”

That was thirteenⒶtextual note hundred years ago. This is really no improvement upon the work of the Roman augurs. Has the trade of interpreting the Lord’s matters gone out, discouraged by the time-worn fact that nobody succeeds at it? No, it still flourishes; there was never a century nor a country that was short of experts who knew the Deity’s mind and were willing to reveal it. Whenever there has been an opportunity to attribute to Him reasonings and conduct which would make a half-witted human being ridiculous, there has always been an expert ready and glad to take advantage of it. Quotation from newspaper several months old:

So God’s plowshareⒶtextual note has got started at last. But is there any occasion to flyⒶtextual note into ecstasies of admiration over it? The villainies, the slaughters and the tyrannies which have so suddenly dawned upon the Deity and excited His Brooklyn interpreter to such an indecorous degree have been known to the very cats for three hundred years. If these villainies are wrong, they were wrong three centuries ago; if they are worth the Deity’s attention now, they were worth it three centuries ago; if they are legitimate matter to [begin page 370] rouse the divine wrath now, they were not otherwise three centuries ago; if it is fine and great to stamp out these tyrannies now, it would have been infinitely finer and greater to do it three centuries ago; if it is matter for high Brooklyn commendation that the deep miseries of the hungry and oppressed Russian millionsⒺexplanatory note have awakened pity at last, it should be matter for high Brooklyn regret that it was not awakened at the start, instead of away down at this late day, after more than four hundred billionⒶtextual note of those poor creatures have been oppressed into their graves.

Brooklyn praise is half slanderⒺexplanatory note. No, it is more than that, it is whole slander. To charge upon a man—and not a smart man at that—such a devastating record of immortal stupidities as this, would subject the utterer of the charge to a criminal libel suit, and quite properly, but any one can slander the Deity who has been lawfully consecrated to that work. But not you, and not me. We should be accused of irreverence.

All this noise about an army and a plow,—belated—all this inflamed jubilation over a mixed military and agricultural expedition which is only just now getting started when it is already three centuries overdue.Ⓐtextual note It would not do for a person to praise me for being three centuries late at a fire with my hook and ladder company; I should not like it.

In view of the fact that it takes the Rawlinsons, the Champollions and the Indian experts years and years to dig the meaning out of the modestest little batch of hieroglyphs; and that in interpreting the intentions of God the Roman augurs never scored a single demonstrable success; and that from their day to ours all attempts by men to lay bare to us the mind of the Deity have as signally failed, it seems to me that now is a good time for the interpreting-trade to take a rest. If it goes on trying (in its way) to magnify the wisdom of God, there will come a time by and by when there will not be any left to magnify.

Mark Twain.Ⓐtextual note