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438 Letter Read at a Dinner
about handling a ship, and he at once made an end of him. He found that a very foul private secretary had been engineered through a sham trial, so he destroyed him. He discovered that the congress which pretended to prodigious virtue was very anxious to investigate an ambassador who had dishonored the country abroad, but was equally anxious to prevent the appointment of any spotless man to a similar post; that this congress had no God but party; no system of morals but party policy; no vision but a bat's vision; and no reason or excuse for existing anyhow. Therefore he massacred that congress to the last man.
When he had finished his great work, he said, in his figurative way, " Lo, I have destroyed all the reptiles in Ireland."
St. Patrick had no politics; his sympathies lay with the right — that was politics enough. When he came across a reptile, he forgot to inquire whether he was a democrat or a republican, but simply exalted his staff and "let him have it." Honored be his name — I wish we had him here to trim us up for the centennial. But that cannot be. His staff, which was the symbol of real, not sham reform, is idle. However, we still have with us the symbol of Truth — George Washington's little hatchet — for I know where they've buried it.
Yours truly,
Mark Twain. |
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the END. |
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