you are so full of shyte flash that I need a pair of rubber wellingtons just to wade through it. do us a favor and shut the hell up before you show us how much a dumbf*** you really are. Legionnaire

What's up

somebody upset SAMBOlegionnaire?

At least T-dog's got humour. And has seen service.

and again dumbf***, there you pretending to know something. bet your daddy's real proud. Legionnaire

Sharon, one of my favorite Mark Twain quotes:   "I never did give a damn for a man who could only spell a word one way."   I have been to his grave site in Elmira N.Y. there are some of his quotes listed there as well.  

 

T-Dog

T Dog, my original degree was in literature.  It's been a long time since I was in college studying literature, but when I was, Twain was my favorite by far.  I would love to go to his grave site.  I'd also like to visit his home.  He was a character.  I think one of the reasons I like reading about Teddy Roosevelt is because he reminds me some of Twain.

 

One of my favorite stories about Twain is about when he joined the Confederate Volunteer Army and deserted when he heard the Union Army was getting near.  Then he went to California to prospect for gold and ended up sitting in a bar spinning yarns while his partner did the work at the mine. 

 

I don't know why I enjoy those stories.  It one said anyone else was an army deserter and sat in a bar while his partner did the work, it wouldn't be funny.  It would make that individual look like a real worm.  Somehow, with Twain it's different.  I don't know why.

Sharon, he married well &  almost destroyed his wife's family business & outlived his wife & all of his children & died a bitter broken man. 

 

T-Dog

Sharon, Elmira NY is also the home of the infamous yankee prison which housed rebel prisoners.   Some say as bad as Andersonville.

 

T-Dog

I know.  You can tell from his writings the change that occurred in him during his age of bitterness.  He always used irony but in his later writings it was bitter sarcasm in his irony.  Those were not fun stories to read about.  He suffered many tragedies.  He loved his wife very much.  He was devoted to her.  They lost a daughter, too.  In his later life, he adopted some girls as his honorary grandchildren.  Today, that would have been looked on with suspicion.  I don't remember what he called them.  He called them his.....something.

 

He felt that he wasn't being treated fairly by publishers and tried to do his own publishing and lost big time.  He was angry with the publishers to begin with and when he lost all his money trying to fight them.........well that didn't help his disposition.

 

Ironically, I even like some of his later writing.  I can't remember right now what that was.  I think when I was a teenager in college that I was a bit dissatisified with some things and I liked the bitter sarcasm.

Here's something he wrote the year his wife died.

 

The War Prayer

by Mark Twain

[1904]

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came--next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams--visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!

Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory--

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside--which the startled minister did--and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

"I come from the Throne--bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import--that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of--except he pause and think.

"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two--one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this--keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

"You have heard your servant's prayer--the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it--that part which the pastor--and also you in your hearts--fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle--be Thou near them! With them--in spirit--we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it--for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!"

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

a reversal of fortune.

 

 

I'm still trying to remember the pet name he called his "adopted" grand daughters.

It appears it might have been Angelfish from this extract

 

 If any grand daughter of mine told me about that sort of contact with an elderly man, I'd be most worried.

 

But he was a Sherman supporter. Never had the courage to fight , himself, though