MARK TWAIN'S THANKSGIVING

http://www.amazon.com/GHOST-WRITERS-IN-THE-SKY-ebook/dp/B006Z1MAP6/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&qid=1385570981&sr=8-20&keywords=roland+yeomans

 

Mark Twain, ghost, here:
 

Thanksgiving Day.

 

Let us all give humble, hearty and sincere thanks, now.
 

Of course the turkeys take a somewhat dim view of the day.

 

 

Let them move to Fiji I say.

Why on the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use politicians. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji.
 

Every year every person in America concentrates all his thoughts upon one thing:

 

 

the cataloguing of his reasons for being thankful to the Deity for the blessings conferred upon him

 

and upon the human race during the expiring 12 months.

This is well and as it should be; but it is too one-sided.


No one seems to think of the Deity’s side of it;


apparently no one concerns himself to inquire how much or how little He has to be thankful for during the same period.
 

Apparently no one has had good feeling enough to wish He might have a happy Thanksgiving day too.

 

There is nothing right about this. Do you suppose everything has gone to His satisfaction during the year?

Do you believe He is as sweepingly thankful as our nation is going to try and act on this day?
 

One is justified in fearing that the Deity’s Thanksgiving Day is not as rosy as ours will appear


when the Thanksgiving sentiments blossom in our greeting cards and journals.
 

And since all these blessings for which we are thankful come from Him,


might he not voice His displeasure by not so freely handing them out in the future?

Don’t thank me for this thought. 


It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble; and it’s the little things that smoothes people’s roads the most, down here below.
 

Thought.

It is curious—the space-annihilating power of thought.

For just one second, all that goes to make the me in me is back in a Missourian village, on the other side of the globe,

 

vividly seeing again these forgotten pictures of one hundred fifty years ago, and wholly unconscious of all things but those.

And in the next second I am back in Roland’s apartment....

Back to boyhood—one hundred fifty years. Back to ghosthood again—another one hundred  fifty years.

And a flight equal to the circumference of the globe and all the whimsy of H.G. Wells—

Done in two seconds by the watch!

A man’s private thought can never be a lie; what he thinks, is to him the truth, always. 

 

We should take care what we tell ourselves, for we believe our fears when we should believe our dreams.

Life does not consist mainly—or even largely—of facts and happenings.


It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one’s head.

But not to worry --

The world will not stop and think—it never does, it is not its way. Its way is to generalize from a single example.

Today make your example something for which those around you are thankful.

Now, I am off for some Thanksgiving steak!  Pilgrims, you eat your Thanksgiving dinner, and I will eat mine!
 

So, children, what do you think of this year's Thanksgiving, and what will you do to celebrate it?