IN FORMER YEARS
Gracian—1938
Confucian Analects—1939
Excerpts from Plato—1940
The Consent of the Governed—1941
Boz On America—1942
Toward A Better Land I Know—1943
Shakespeare—1944
Again, Gracian—1945
Charburough—1946
Publilius Syrus—1947
I am never more tickled than when I laugh at myself. —Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Greetings!
At the holiday season for the past nine years, I have shared with my friends some few gleanings from my literary acquaintances. Almost without exception my choice has fallen on the timeless thoughts of some provocative sage who lived many centuries ago, but this year’s selections, although equally timeless, are not ancient. They are from the writings of a man on my own doorstep, right here in Hartford—one of the greatest of the great observers of human nature, who is known the world over as Mark Twain.
Hearing his name always brings back memories of a childhood trip I took on a Mississippi River packet. I remember that as we glided slowly down those historic waters, my curiosity was caught by a member of the crew who was throwing a long line with lead into the water and pulling it out, again and again, loudly calling: “full twain”—“half twain”—and finally, “mark twain”.
In the midst of so much strange and wonderful activity, the leadman’s call of “mark twain” was pleasantly familiar to my young ears, as I had just been reading “Huck Finn” and “Tom Sawyer”. With considerable small boy importance, I asked the crew if they knew that a famous writer was called Mark Twain. It was then I learned that my favorite author was really named Samuel Langhorne Clemens. I shall never forget the subsequent happy days of the trip, during which the men regaled me with adventure stories of the river and the man who made the river famous.
I wonder now if the Mississippi River, with its shifting river bed, its trickiness, and unpredictable qualities, was not a decisive factor in shaping the adaptable, shifting personality of Samuel Clemens.
Never was anyone more aware than he of the immutability of man’s persistence in playing tricks upon himself. Never was anyone more observant of man’s querulousness at super...