Eight-year-old to President Kennedy: "Save Santa!"

Eight-year-old Michelle holding Kennedy's letter in 1961

In 1961, after hearing her parents discussing possible Soviet nuclear tests at the North Pole, 
8-year-old Michelle Rochon grabbed a pencil and wrote a letter to U.S. President John F. Kennedy, asking him to sop nuclear testing for one special reason. Her letter, and the reply she received from the President, can be read below.






Dear Mr. Kennedy,

Please stop the Russians from bombing the North Pole because they will kill Santa Claus. I am 8 years old. I am in the third grade at Holy Cross School.

Yours truly,

Michelle Rochon

--------------------------

THE WHITE HOUSE

October 28, 1961

Dear Michelle:

I was glad to get your letter about trying to stop the Russians from bombing the North Pole and risking the life of Santa Claus. 

I share your concern about the atmospheric testing of the Soviet Union, not only for the North Pole but for countries throughout the world; not only for Santa Claus but for people throughout the world. 

However, you must not worry about Santa Claus. I talked with him yesterday and he is fine. He will be making his rounds again this Christmas. 

Sincerely, 

(Signed, 'John Kennedy')

Miss Michelle Rochon
Marine City, Michigan




(Source: The Letters of John F. Kennedy, published by Bloomsbury Press on October 29, 2013, via www.lettersofnote.com )

"Letter from Santa Claus" by Mark Twain

On Christmas morning of 1875, three-year-old Susie Clemens found this letter from "Santa Claus".  I'm guessing that her father Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) might have played "Santa's helper" that day. 

Palace of St. Nicholas.
In the Moon.
Christmas Morning.

My dear Susie Clemens:

I have received and read all the letters which you and your little sister have written me by the hand of your mother and your nurses; I have also read those which you little people have written me with your own hands—for although you did not use any characters that are in grown peoples' alphabet, you used the characters that all children in all lands on earth and in the twinkling stars use; and as all my subjects in the moon are children and use no character but that, you will easily understand that I can read your and your baby sister's jagged and fantastic marks without any trouble at all. But I had trouble with those letters which you dictated through your mother and the nurses, for I am a foreigner and cannot read English writing well. You will find that I made no mistakes about the things which you and the baby ordered in your own letters—I went down your chimney at midnight when you were asleep and delivered them all myself—and kissed both of you, too, because you are good children, well trained, nice mannered, and about the most obedient little people I ever saw. But in the letter which you dictated there were some words which I could not make out for certain, and one or two small orders which I could not fill because we ran out of stock. Our last lot of kitchen furniture for dolls has just gone to a very poor little child in the North Star away up, in the cold country above the Big Dipper. Your mama can show you that star and you will say: "Little Snow Flake," (for that is the child's name) "I'm glad you got that furniture, for you need it more than I." That is, you must write that, with your own hand, and Snow Flake will write you an answer. If you only spoke it she wouldn't hear you. Make your letter light and thin, for the distance is great and the postage very heavy.

There was a word or two in your mama's letter which I couldn't be certain of. I took it to be "trunk full of doll's clothes." Is that it? I will call at your kitchen door about nine o'clock this morning to inquire. But I must not see anybody and I must not speak to anybody but you. When the kitchen doorbell rings, George must be blindfolded and sent to open the door. Then he must go back to the dining room or the china closet and take the cook with him. You must tell George he must walk on tiptoe and not speak—otherwise he will die someday. Then you must go up to the nursery and stand on a chair or the nurse's bed and put your ear to the speaking tube that leads down to the kitchen and when I whistle through it you must speak in the tube and say, "Welcome, Santa Claus!" Then I will ask whether it was a trunk you ordered or not. If you say it was, I shall ask you what color you want the trunk to be. Your mama will help you to name a nice color and then you must tell me every single thing in detail which you want the trunk to contain. Then when I say "Good bye and a merry Christmas to my little Susie Clemens," you must say "Good bye, good old Santa Claus, I thank you very much and please tell that little Snow Flake I will look at her star tonight and she must look down here—I will be right in the west bay window; and every fine night I will look at her star and say, 'I know somebody up there and like her, too.'" Then you must go down into the library and make George close all the doors that open into the main hall, and everybody must keep still for a little while. I will go to the moon and get those things and in a few minutes I will come down the chimney that belongs to the fireplace that is in the hall—if it is a trunk you want—because I couldn't get such a thing as a trunk down the nursery chimney, you know.

People may talk if they want, until they hear my footsteps in the hall. Then you tell them to keep quiet a little while till I go back up the chimney. Maybe you will not hear my footsteps at all—so you may go now and then and peep through the dining-room doors, and by and by you will see that thing which you want, right under the piano in the drawing room-for I shall put it there. If I should leave any snow in the hall, you must tell George to sweep it into the fireplace, for I haven't time to do such things. George must not use a broom, but a rag—else he will die someday. You must watch George and not let him run into danger. If my boot should leave a stain on the marble, George must not holystone it away. Leave it there always in memory of my visit; and whenever you look at it or show it to anybody you must let it remind you to be a good little girl. Whenever you are naughty and somebody points to that mark which your good old Santa Claus's boot made on the marble, what will you say, little sweetheart?

Goodbye for a few minutes, till I come down to the world and ring the kitchen door-bell.

Your loving 

Santa Claus

Whom people sometimes call "The Man in the Moon"






(Source: Posterity: Letters of Great Americans to Their Children via www.lettersofnote.com )

"Behind the Mounds: 'The Children of the Sun God' "

Moundville Archaeological Park is located in Moundville, Alabama. The Moundville archaeological site, occupied from around A.D. 1000 until A.D. 1450, was a large settlement of Mississippian culture on the Black Warrior River in west-central Alabama. The community took the form of a three hundred-acre village, containing twenty-six earthen mounds, built on a bluff overlooking the river.

The book Behind the Mounds by Lona Mae Wilson, published in 1963, tells the story of the Mounds as well as presenting other fascinating material about the them such as the poem below. 

 In April 1935, with the cooperation of the Hale County Schools, University of Alabama, and CCC Camp #444, the Hale County Historical Society presented on Mound B, the pageant, “Children of the Sun God”. (Below is the prologue to the pageant, which may be read in full in Behind the Mounds).

Moundville Archaeological Park, as seen from one of the largest mounds

 The Children of the Sun God

By Clara Powers and Sue Ellen Moore

  In the remote past so far distant

  That time itself seems without reckoning

  Great Hordes of people left their Northern

Asiatic shores

  To seek new homes across the strait

  We now call Bering.

  Their purpose must remain unknown:

  Possibly a warmer climate: perhaps more

fertile soil,

  Perchance to seek the “Fair God.”

  Sufficient it is for us

  That they came.

  Nor did the trek end on Alaskan

shores.

  Now, slow, aloof, remote

  The walls of the purple, blue

  Rockies darken their path.

  From afar the streams

  Flow south and east

  Making confluence with he great

Mississippi –

  “Father of waters” the Indians

  Have called him.

  The forest abode

  Rank beyond rank, unaltered, under

the sky.

  There was in this land no road,

  Nor path, nor trail

  Save where the bronzed moccasin

  Sought shelter frail.

  The forest kept

  Its secrets hidden behind a

rampart of dense trees

  Unhewn by axemen,

  Still in the rains of April, loud in

  The Autumn Breeze,

  By river, plain, or hill.

  

  Forth from that region they went

  To sun-set faced:

  They rode past marsh and plain

  Through forest of pine, somber

with rain;

  Through groves of oaks up-rooted

  By storms;

  Through swamp and over prairie,

  On and on.

  League after league, day upon

endless day

  Through more lofty mountains where

  The deer

  Browsed in the dreary dawn till

  The hills

Rolled off at last, --they saw

  An empty plain

  A pale, wild river snaking

  Over its heart

  Wide fields of burnt earth linking

  Sky to sky

  And here they rested by the Ohio.

  Year after year, the clouds sailed

  Up from the South

  To signal the winter’s going; through

  The blue skies

  The cardinal flitted northward year

  On year.

  Walking with thunder-shoes the

  Rains remote

  Came storming from the Gulf

  Athwart the trees.

  Under that various striving called life

  These people lived and moved

  And had their being—

  Birth, wooing, warring, death—

  All in their time.

  The rain across the corn! The

  Burial Mound

  Piled high; the joy, the grief,

  The hope, the fear!

  So it went, year on changeless

  Year.

  Then suddenly as the winter

  Once more changed

  Its face, and over the somber maze

  Of branches,

  There drifted tender lace of greening

  Spring.

  A loud, clear call to journey

  Far to South

  Was felt by those stout hearts.

  Courage was theirs and undying faith

  That kindles other’s courage, makes

  It new.

  Out of the night they came

  Out of the North

  “Paddle to paddle spoke”

  Into the heart of the South

  Trailing the lilies past

  From the wild Ohioan lees

  To where magnolia swamps

  Lift to the balmy sky

  Their challiced buds of green.

  Here they paused

  On Warrior’s sunny shores

  To build these Mounds—

  Homes they were—and temples

  Their worship to fulfill.

For more information on Moundville Archaeological Park, click here.

"Parents: Too Much Halloween Candy? Call On The Sugar Fairy"

Children receive a ton of candy at Halloween.  Natural, organic versions of candy would be better, but still a lot of sugar is a lot of sugar.  We all know that sugar is not healthy and can be addictive.  Many candy manufacturers use GMO-derived ingredients from GMO corn and soy, as well as artificial flavours and colours.  They also use a ton of un-natural chemicals - BOO!  But it’s hard to refuse children when their friends are having fun trick-or-treating.  Here’s a good way to keep your children from gorging themselves on a bag full of unhealthy, refined sugar, bad (and GMO-laced) candy.  Some parents already call upon a Sugar Sprite or Switch Witch at Halloween to exchange candy for toys, books, or movies, here’s my version:

Among all the supernatural beings of the North Pole, there exists a Sugar Fairy (or Sugar Plum Fairy, or Treats Fairy, or Candy Fairy).  It is the Sugar Fairy’s job to create the sweetest Christmas treats, the candy cane.  She also creates a lot of the other sweet treats of the holidays, such as Christmas cookies.  But she is mainly known for her power to transform, or ‘recycle’, sugar into anything a child wants. But how does she do this?

The Sugar Fairy decided that children get so much candy at Halloween and that having that much sugar was not good for them, even once a year.  So she decided that she could recycle all that candy into Christmas treats, like a candy cane or Christmas cookie, as well as magically into toys and other gifts.  She could also transform it into food and help for other children around the globe.

So the Sugar Fairy sends out a letter to all the parents of the world:  After Halloween is over, they should place any candy into a special bowl before they go to bed.  The next morning the Sugar Fairy will leave a note, money, gift card, etc in exchange for the candy that had been in the bowl. Sometimes the Sugar Fairy might leave "Goodie Points" to go toward a special item or trip. (A note would instruct the parent to purchase a specific toy, movie, or book; or indicate the number of "Goodie Points" earned) 

When Christmas comes, the Sugar Fairy will ride with Santa to distribute candy canes and other Christmas treats.  But sometimes, she is so thankful she will leave goodies and little gifts for days before Christmas. When Christmas arrives, an occasional organic candy cane or cookie might be okay.  Christmas cookies can be made with organic, unrefined ingredients.  They can also contain dried fruit and nuts.

"Mark Twain Reviews Ambrose Bierce: 'The Laugh Is Too Expensive'"

Ambrose Bierce

Samuel Clemens

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) was asked in 1874 by his publisher 

to write a review of the book  Nuggets and Dust Panned Out in California by Dod Grille,  

written by Ambrose Bierce.   The publisher, Chatto & Windus, 

knew that Bierce and Clemens had known each other since the 1860s, and figured a quotable review by Clemens might boost lagging sales of the book.  They got a review, just not one they expected.  And, needless to say, Clemens and Bierce remained friends.

Farmington Avenue,
Hartford

4/8/74

Gentlemen:

"Dod Grile" (Mr. Bierce) is a personal friend of mine, & I like him exceedingly — but he knows my opinion of the "Nuggets & Dust," & so I do not mind exposing it to you. It is the vilest book that exists in print — or very nearly so. If you keep a "reader," it is charity to believe he never really read that book, but framed his verdict upon hearsay.

Bierce has written some admirable things — fugitive pieces — but none of them are among the "Nuggets." There is humor in Dod Grile, but for every laugh that is in his book there are five blushes, ten shudders and a vomit. The laugh is too expensive.

Ys truly

Samuel L. Clemens





(Source: Boston Public Library, via Lettersofnote.com)

"The Mind...Can Never Again Be Washed Clean"

Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain

In 1905,  Brooklyn Public Library ordered that all copies of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn be banned from the children's department, due to their characters' "coarseness, deceitfulness and mischievous practices." Asa Don Dickinson, a librarian, wrote to Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain to inform him of the ban.  Mr Clemens responded with his signature wit.


The Letter:

Sheepshead Bay Branch
Brooklyn Public Library
1657 Shore Road
Brooklyn-New York,

Nov. 19th, '05

Dear Sir:

I happened to be present the other day at a meeting of the children's librarians of the Brooklyn Public Library. In the course of the meeting it was stated that copies of "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn" were to be found in some of the children's rooms of the system. The Sup't of the Children's Dep't—a conscientious and enthusiastic young woman—was greatly shocked to hear this, and at once ordered that they be transferred to the adults' department. Upon this I shamefacedly confessed to having read "Huckleberry Finn" aloud to my defenseless blind people, without regard to their age, colour, or previous condition of servitude. I also reminded them of Brander Matthews' opinion of the book, and stated the fact that I knew it almost at heart, having got more pleasure from it than from any book I have ever read, and reading is the greatest pleasure I have in life. My warm defense elicited some further discussion and criticism, from which I gathered that the prevailing opinion of Huck was that he was a deceitful boy who said "sweat" when he should have said "perspiration." The upshot of the matter was that there is to be further consideration of these books at a meeting early in January which I am especially invited to attend. Seeing you the other night at the performance of "Peter Pan" the thought came to me that you (who know Huck as well as I—you can't know him better or love him more—) might be willing to give me a word or two to say in witness of his good character though he "warn't no more quality than a mud cat."

I would ask as a favour that you regard this communication as confidential, whether you find time to reply to it or not; for I am loath for obvious reasons to bring the institution from which I draw my salary into ridicule, contempt or reproach.

Yours very respectfully,

Asa Don Dickinson.
(In charge Department for the Blind and Sheepshead Bay Branch, Brooklyn Public Library.)

His Reply:

21 Fifth Avenue,
November 21, 1905

Dear Sir:

I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn for adults exclusively, and it always distresses me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed access to them. The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean; I know this by my own experience, and to this day I cherish an unappeasable bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again this side of the grave. Ask that young lady—she will tell you so.

Most honestly do I wish I could say a softening word or two in defence of Huck's character, since you wish it, but really in my opinion it is no better than those of Solomon, David, Satan, and the rest of the sacred brotherhood.

If there is an unexpurgated Bible in the Children's Department, won't you please help that young woman remove Huck and Tom from that questionable companionship?

Sincerely yours,

S. L. Clemens

I shall not show your letter to anyone—it is safe with me.

 (Source: Mark Twain's Autobiography, Part 2)

"Twenty Steps to Overcome 'Low-Spirits' "

 Essayist and clergyman Sydney Smith sent his good friend, Lady Georgiana Morpeth the following letter to help her overcome her depression:

Foston, Feb. 16th, 1820

Dear Lady Georgiana,

Nobody has suffered more from low spirits than I have done—so I feel for you.

1st. Live as well as you dare.
2nd. Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75° or 80°.
3rd. Amusing books.
4th. Short views of human life—not further than dinner or tea.
5th. Be as busy as you can.
6th. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you.
7th. And of those acquaintances who amuse you.
8th. Make no secret of low spirits to your friends, but talk of them freely—they are always worse for dignified concealment.
9th. Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce upon you.
10th. Compare your lot with that of other people.
11th. Don't expect too much from human life—a sorry business at the best.
12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy sentimental people, and every thing likely to excite feeling or emotion not ending in active benevolence.
13th. Do good, and endeavour to please everybody of every degree.
14th. Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue.
15th. Make the room where you commonly sit, gay and pleasant.
16th. Struggle by little and little against idleness.
17th. Don't be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice.
18th. Keep good blazing fires.
19th. Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion.
20th. Believe me, dear Georgiana, your devoted servant, Sydney Smith

(Source, via lettersofnote.com: The Selected Writings of Sydney Smith; Image of Sydney Smith: Replica by Henry Perronet Briggs, oil on canvas, 1840 (1833) NPG 1475 © National Portrait Gallery, London.)

Visit www.lettersofnote.com, and read some amazing history. 

Support, help, and resources for depression here.

Now for Something Completely Different: The Dam Blue Red Bull

 When I read it I imagined a Monty Python skit, but you can't really make this stuff up. 

 It's pretty much self-explanatory.  Just a slice of country life. 

Ajax by John Steuart Curry, 1937 at Smithsonian American Art Museum

To the Superintendent, Atlantic City Railroad, Sept. 1896

Dear sir,

On the 15th yore trane that was going to Atlanta ran over mi bull at 30 mile post.

He was in my Pastur
You orter see him

Yore ruddy trane took a peece of hyde outer his belly between his nable and his poker at least fute square and took his bag most off and he lost is seeds. I don’t believe hi is going to be any more use as a bull.

I wish you would tell the President he is ded, for he is as good as ded ever since he was hit by yore trane.

Yours respectfully

A.T. Harris

P.S.—Be sure and report him as ded as he has nothing left but his poker. He was a red bull but he stand around in these days looking dam blue.

(Source (via http://www.lettersofnote.com): The Oxford Book of Letters; Image via Wikimedia.)

 Go to www.lettersofnote.com for more letters of note, I recommend it. 

Benjamin Franklin Rewrites the Lord's Prayer

Traditional Version of the Lord’s Prayer (King James Version)

Our Father which art in heaven,

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil

Franklin’s New Version of the Lord's Prayer

Heavenly Father,

May all revere thee,

And become thy dutiful Children and faithful Subjects.

May thy Laws be obeyed on Earth as perfectly as they are in Heaven.

Provide for us this day as thou hast hitherto daily done.
Forgive us our trespasses, and enable us likewise to forgive those that offend us.

Keep us out of Temptation, and deliver us from Evil. 

Franklin Portrait by Joseph-Siffred Duplessis, c. 1785

January 1, 1768

Reasons for the Change of Expression

Old Version: Our Father which art in Heaven

New Version: Heavenly Father, is more concise, equally expressive, and better modern English.

Old Version:  Hallowed be thy Name. This seems to relate to an Observance among the Jews not to pronounce the proper or peculiar Name of God, they deeming it a Profanation so to do. We have in our Language no proper Name for God; the Word God being a common or general Name, expressing all chief Objects of Worship, true or false. The Word hallowed is almost obsolete: People now have but an imperfect Conception of the Meaning of the Petition. It is therefore proposed to change the Expression into New. May all revere thee.

Old Version: Thy Kingdom come. This Petition seems suited to the then Condition of the Jewish Nation. Originally their State was a Theocracy: God was their King. Dissatisfied with that kind of Government, they desired a visible earthly King in the manner of the Nations round them. They had such King's accordingly; but their Happiness was not increas'd by the Change, and they had reason to wish and pray for a Return of the Theocracy, or Government of God. Christians in these Times have other Ideas when they speak of the Kingdom of God, such as are perhaps more adequately express'd by New Version: And become thy dutiful Children and faithful Subjects.

Old Version: Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven 

More explicitly, New Version: May thy Laws be obeyed on Earth as perfectly as they are in Heaven.

Old Version: Give us this Day our daily Bread. Give us what is ours, seems to put in a Claim of Right, and to contain too little of the grateful Acknowledgment and Sense of Dependance that becomes Creatures who live on the daily Bounty of their Creator. Therefore it is changed to New Version: Provide for us this Day, as thou hast hitherto daily done.

Old Version: Forgive us our Debts as we forgive our Debtors - Matthew

Forgive us our Sins, for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us - Luke.

Offerings were due to God on many Occasions by the Jewish Law, which when People could not pay, or had forgotten as Debtors are apt to do, it was proper to pray that those Debts might be forgiven. Our Liturgy uses neither the ‘Debtors’ of Matthew, nor the ‘indebted’ of Luke, but instead of them speaks of those that trespass against us. Perhaps the Considering it as a Christian Duty to forgive Debtors, was by the Compilers thought an inconvenient Idea in a trading Nation. There seems however something presumptious in this Mode of Expression, which has the Air of proposing ourselves as an Example of Goodness fit for God to imitate. We hope you will at least be as good as we are; you see we forgive one another, and therefore we pray that you would forgive us. Some have considered it in another Sense, Forgive us as we forgive others; i.e. If we do not forgive others we pray that thou wouldst not forgive us. But this being a kind of conditional Imprecation against ourselves, seems improper in such a Prayer; and therefore it may be better to say humbly and modestly

 New Version: Forgive us our Trespasses, and enable us likewise to forgive those that offend us. This instead of assuming that we have already in and of ourselves the Grace of Forgiveness, acknowledges our Dependance on God, the Fountain of Mercy, for any Share we may have of it, praying that he would communicate of it to us.

Old Version: And lead us not into Temptation. The Jews had a Notion, that God sometimes tempted, or directed or permitted the Tempting of People. Thus it was said he tempted Pharaoh; directed Satan to tempt Job; and a false Prophet to tempt Ahab, &c. Under this Persuasion it was natural for them to pray that he would not put them to such severe Trials. We now suppose that Temptation, so far as it is supernatural, comes from the Devil only; and this Petition continued, conveys a Suspicion which in our present Conceptions seems unworthy of God, Therefore might be altered to New Version: Keep us out of Temptation.

Source(s):
The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, The Packard Humanities Institute.

Twain to Keller: "...All Ideas Are Second-Hand..."

When she was 11-years-old, Helen Keller wrote a story called The Frost King.  The story was published in The Goodson Gazette, a journal on deaf-blind education. Keller was accused of plagiarism after someone accused her story of being very similar to Margaret Canby’s Frost Fairies.  There was then a tribunal to discover if she had knowingly plagiarized Canby’s story.  Ultimately, young Keller was acquitted.  However, it had been discovered that Keller had been read the story when she was very young by using finger spelling.  However, some came to Keller’s defense saying that she had adapted her own story out of the story by Canby.  Anne Sullivan said, “all use of language is imitative, and one's style is made up of all other styles that one has met.”  Margaret Canby herself stated that Keller's version was superior to her own.  Keller never wrote fiction again.

Mark Twain read about the event in Keller’s autobiography, and sent the following letter of support:

Riverdale-on-the-Hudson

St. Patrick's Day, '03

Dear Helen,—

I must steal half a moment from my work to say how glad I am to have your book, and how highly I value it, both for its own sake and as a remembrance of an affectionate friendship which has subsisted between us for nine years without a break, and without a single act of violence that I can call to mind. I suppose there is nothing like it in heaven; and not likely to be, until we get there and show off. I often think of it with longing, and how they'll say, "There they come—sit down in front!" I am practicing with a tin halo. You do the same. I was at Henry Roger's last night, and of course we talked of you. He is not at all well;—you will not like to hear that; but like you and me, he is just as lovely as ever.

I am charmed with your book—enchanted. You are a wonderful creature, the most wonderful in the world—you and your other half together—Miss Sullivan, I mean, for it took the pair of you to make a complete and perfect whole. How she stands out in her letters! her brilliancy, penetration, originality, wisdom, character, and the fine literary competencies of her pen—they are all there.

Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that "plagiarism" farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily use by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men—but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington's battle, in some degree, and we call it his; but there are others that contributed. It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite—that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.

Then why don't we unwittingly reproduce the phrasing of a story, as well as the story itself? It can hardly happen—to the extent of fifty words except in the case of a child; its memory-tablet is not lumbered with impressions, and the actual language can have graving-room there, and preserve the language a year or two, but a grown person's memory-tablet is a palimpsest, with hardly a bare space upon which to engrave a phrase. It must be a very rare thing that a whole page gets so sharply printed on a man's mind, by a single reading, that it will stay long enough to turn up some time or other to be mistaken by him for his own. No doubt we are constantly littering our literature withdisconnected sentences borrowed from books at some unremembered time and now imagined to be our own, but that is about the most we can do. In 1866 I read Dr. Holmes's poems, in the Sandwich Islands. A year and a half later I stole his dedication, without knowing it, and used it to dedicate my "Innocents Abroad" with. Then years afterward I was talking with Dr. Holmes about it. He was not an ignorant ass—no, not he; he was not a collection of decayed human turnips, like your "Plagiarism Court;" and so when I said, "I know now where I stole it, but whom did you steal it from," he said, "I don't remember; I only know I stole it from somebody, because I have never originated anything altogether myself, nor met anyone who had."

To think of those solemn donkeys breaking a little child's heart with their ignorant rubbish about plagiarism! I couldn't sleep for blaspheming about it last night. Why, their whole lives, their whole histories, all their learning, all their thoughts, all their opinions were one solid rock of plagiarism, and they didn't know it and never suspected it. A gang of dull and hoary pirates piously setting themselves the task of disciplining and purifying a kitten that they think they've caught filching a chop! Oh, dam—

But you finish it, dear, I am running short of vocabulary today.

Every lovingly your friend,

Mark

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(Source: www.lettersofnote.com; Mark Twain's Letters, Vol. 2 of 2; Image: Mark Twain, via.)