I stepped outside my truck for a second to release some leaves and needles trapped under the wiper blade, and I got my clothes washed and laundered for free
I never quite know what I'll be reading about on Sunday mornings, and this is, without a doubt, one of your best historical finds. I have to say, though, that I didn't see besiegers in the description of the murderer, but Trump himself. With the paragraph that starts, "And who is the miracle-worker who has furnished to the world this spectacle?" and ends with, "Oh, if it were not so tragic how ludicrous it would be!" That's ALL Trump. It's as though Twain could see the future!
I also enjoyed the section describing people who WANT to be connected to tragedies and historical events, and recognized them all, from the people who can't *wait* to get in front of a microphone and say, "Oh, I knew him. He seemed so normal." to Lee Harvey Oswald's (Ruth Paine?) landlady giving tours of his bedroom! I remember reading passages like that where she'd have reporters in to see where the assassin slept. Thank the gods that I don't have that "gene." I've never had a desire for fame or notoriety, and honestly don't understand people who do, or have any interest in watching them do it -- "reality" shows are completely lost on me.
In addition, I sought out the entire piece, and the description of the funeral itself is Princess Diana. It's almost spooky how spot-on it is in its prescience. For example:
"Twice the Empress entered Vienna in state. The first time
was in 1854, when she was a bride of seventeen, and then she rode
in measureless pomp and with blare of music through a fluttering
world of gay flags and decorations, down streets walled on both
hands with a press of shouting and welcoming subjects; and the
second time was last Wednesday, when she entered the city in her
coffin and moved down the same streets in the dead of the night
under swaying black flags, between packed human walls again; but
everywhere was a deep stillness, now--a stillness emphasized,
rather than broken, by the muffled hoofbeats of the long
cavalcade over pavements cushioned with sand, and the low sobbing
of gray-headed women who had witnessed the first entry forty-four
years before, when she and they were young--and unaware!"
I love this: "He is at the bottom of the human ladder, as the accepted estimates of degree and value go: a soiled and patched young loafer, without gifts, without talents, without education, without morals, without character, without any born charm or any acquired one that wins or beguiles or attracts; without a single grace of mind or heart or hand that any tramp or prostitute could envy him; an unfaithful private in the ranks, an incompetent stone-cutter, an inefficient lackey; in a word, a mangy, offensive, empty, unwashed, vulgar, gross, mephitic, timid, sneaking, human polecat."
Substitute "he" with "they" and there you have it - a perfect description of the mob that attempted a coup and failed.
And his description of the motivation that prompts such behavior absolutely marks the orange BEAST perfectly!
Twain would be shedding tears of sorrow if he could see how, in today’s America, & especially his home state of Missouri, that ignoble assassin’s character has metastasized & appears to be the opposite of a starving madman & that of of gluttonous Cretan.
I was a psychology major at Tulane until I realized that Mark Twain knew more about humans than any psychologist. So I became an English major, then a Master, then a Doctor, and even so never feel I achieved Twain’s insight into human character. Thanks, GO, for finding this essay. I had not read it before, though I thought I’d read everything by Twain.
The great motivations of human behavior reduce ultimately to these: money, ideology, necessity, ego, and sex. MINES. We have moved as a society from sex (1960s-70s) as our primary motivation through an age of money to a new age of predominant ideology. Just yesterday, a group of cowards claiming to be Nazis (not a German speaker among them) defaced public property and hung banners in Austin, motivated by an ideology and ego they are not smart enough to understand. Twain could have had a field day with them. His voice is missed.
Wonderful piece, as always, Greg. The best part about research are the unexpected historical surprises.
“Holy biblical flood Batman!“
I stepped outside my truck for a second to release some leaves and needles trapped under the wiper blade, and I got my clothes washed and laundered for free
I never quite know what I'll be reading about on Sunday mornings, and this is, without a doubt, one of your best historical finds. I have to say, though, that I didn't see besiegers in the description of the murderer, but Trump himself. With the paragraph that starts, "And who is the miracle-worker who has furnished to the world this spectacle?" and ends with, "Oh, if it were not so tragic how ludicrous it would be!" That's ALL Trump. It's as though Twain could see the future!
I also enjoyed the section describing people who WANT to be connected to tragedies and historical events, and recognized them all, from the people who can't *wait* to get in front of a microphone and say, "Oh, I knew him. He seemed so normal." to Lee Harvey Oswald's (Ruth Paine?) landlady giving tours of his bedroom! I remember reading passages like that where she'd have reporters in to see where the assassin slept. Thank the gods that I don't have that "gene." I've never had a desire for fame or notoriety, and honestly don't understand people who do, or have any interest in watching them do it -- "reality" shows are completely lost on me.
In addition, I sought out the entire piece, and the description of the funeral itself is Princess Diana. It's almost spooky how spot-on it is in its prescience. For example:
"Twice the Empress entered Vienna in state. The first time
was in 1854, when she was a bride of seventeen, and then she rode
in measureless pomp and with blare of music through a fluttering
world of gay flags and decorations, down streets walled on both
hands with a press of shouting and welcoming subjects; and the
second time was last Wednesday, when she entered the city in her
coffin and moved down the same streets in the dead of the night
under swaying black flags, between packed human walls again; but
everywhere was a deep stillness, now--a stillness emphasized,
rather than broken, by the muffled hoofbeats of the long
cavalcade over pavements cushioned with sand, and the low sobbing
of gray-headed women who had witnessed the first entry forty-four
years before, when she and they were young--and unaware!"
Fantastic column, Greg, as always!
I love this: "He is at the bottom of the human ladder, as the accepted estimates of degree and value go: a soiled and patched young loafer, without gifts, without talents, without education, without morals, without character, without any born charm or any acquired one that wins or beguiles or attracts; without a single grace of mind or heart or hand that any tramp or prostitute could envy him; an unfaithful private in the ranks, an incompetent stone-cutter, an inefficient lackey; in a word, a mangy, offensive, empty, unwashed, vulgar, gross, mephitic, timid, sneaking, human polecat."
Substitute "he" with "they" and there you have it - a perfect description of the mob that attempted a coup and failed.
And his description of the motivation that prompts such behavior absolutely marks the orange BEAST perfectly!
Twain would be shedding tears of sorrow if he could see how, in today’s America, & especially his home state of Missouri, that ignoble assassin’s character has metastasized & appears to be the opposite of a starving madman & that of of gluttonous Cretan.
I was a psychology major at Tulane until I realized that Mark Twain knew more about humans than any psychologist. So I became an English major, then a Master, then a Doctor, and even so never feel I achieved Twain’s insight into human character. Thanks, GO, for finding this essay. I had not read it before, though I thought I’d read everything by Twain.
The great motivations of human behavior reduce ultimately to these: money, ideology, necessity, ego, and sex. MINES. We have moved as a society from sex (1960s-70s) as our primary motivation through an age of money to a new age of predominant ideology. Just yesterday, a group of cowards claiming to be Nazis (not a German speaker among them) defaced public property and hung banners in Austin, motivated by an ideology and ego they are not smart enough to understand. Twain could have had a field day with them. His voice is missed.