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Ghost of Samuel Clemens here.
Who am I you ask?
Why you under-educated rascals, I'm the writer Mark Twain. I shouldn't get so aggrieved I guess.
My books are like water. Those of the great geniuses are wine. Fortunately everybody drinks water.
I shouldn't take on airs either I reckon. I should learn from the vegetable kingdom
where cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.
I am 179 years old this month.
It is the time of life when you arrive at a new and awful dignity;
when you may throw aside the decent reserves which have oppressed you for a lifetime and stand unafraid and unabashed upon your ghostly summit and look down and teach—unrebuked.
I achieved my earthly seventy years in the usual way:
by sticking strictly to a scheme of life which would kill anybody else.
The moral?
We can’t reach old age by another man’s road.
I hear much talk about the end of the world.
Children, if Doomsday does come, you want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.
Now, I have been called a pessimist (and nearly everything else you can conjure).
The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
Can you believe it?
My estate still pays this danged government taxes. You know the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector?
The taxidermist takes only your skin.
Of course, you shouldn't get mad at the government.
The government is made of men.
And what a sorrowful creature is Man. But then, what can you expect? Man is but a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
Oh, so some of you would want to have a bit of writerly wisdom? Here is something to chew on:
You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
As for how to reach the pinnacle of fine prose ... like with old age your path must be your own.
Don't follow in anyone's footsteps. You'll only wind up tripping over your own feet.
Even if you "succeed," you will only be a copy. Aim to be a first class you.
Love his final advice.
ReplyDeleteElephant's Child:
ReplyDeletePoliticians should take that advice to heart, right? :-)
Hi Roland - I may come over to Cincinnati for the extra 10 years!! We definitely need to tread our own path and be our own person ...
ReplyDeleteIf we do something do it well .. an essential maxim in life ... so we can be that first class us ... cheers Roland and congratulations to Mr MT for still paying his taxes! Hilary
I do like Mark Twain's advice, be true to ourselves. Although many of us try to fit someone else's ideal at one time or another.
ReplyDeleteHubs is scheduled to come home in three or four days. He had a weekend pass at home with me, which has gone well. I'm tired of him being in hospitals. . .
Keep yourself healthy, and drive carefully. It's rainy season here, too.