EthicalDative

Mark Twain. HJN, drawing.

[In a letter to my mother I cite the following quotation from “God’s Fool,” the biography of Twain that I was reading. ]

I do seem to have a whole lot of interest in a lot of arts and things. The bill [a change to copyright law in 1906] is full of those that I have nothing to do with. But that is in line with my generous, liberal nature. I can’t help it. I feel toward those same people [the legislators] the same sort of charity of the man who arrived home at 2 o’clock in the morning from the club. He was feeling perfect satisfaction with life — was happy, was comfortable. There was his house weaving and weaving and weaving around. So he watched his chance, and by and by when the steps got in his neighborhood he made a jump and he climbed up on the portico. The house went on weaving. He watched his door, and when it came around his way again he climbed through it. He got to the stairs, went up on all fours. The house was so unsteady he could hardly make his way, but at last he got up and put his foot down on the top step, but his toe hitched on that step, and of course he crumpled all down and rolled all the way down the stairs and fetched up at the bottom with his arm around the newel post, and he said, “God pity a poor sailor out at sea on a night like this.”

(c) 2018 JMN.

Caution: Intemperate Dudgeon Ahead About Events From Long Ago Quoted Verbatim Except For Redactions

[Dear Mother,]

The other topic grabbed me almost as I was leaving Philadelphia. I picked up a hotel copy of the Inquirer and sort of skimmed the article about [Name] resigning as head of [Organization], which means, apparently, either “[Phrase]” or “[Phrase].” I re-read it and was so nauseated I had to tear it out to bring home. To me it epitomizes the contemptible dishonesty and cowardliness of the TV born-again money-hustlers. Here’s a man who fornicated, then paid a six-figure sum to keep it quiet. Look carefully at all the quotes from [Name] in the article. Does he take any responsibility anywhere? Does he express any sense of wrongdoing, or penitence?

I think where I began to be outraged was in trying to make sense of the literal language of the statement that he was “wickedly manipulated by treacherous former friends” who “conspired to betray me into a sexual encounter.” Now, having been caught, he realizes that “we ought to have exposed the blackmailers to the penalties of the law.” Then he makes a pathetic appeal to peoples’ sympathies by saying that “my and [Wife’s Name] physical and emotional resources have been so overwhelmed that we are presently under full-time therapy at a treatment center in California.” What craven [Epithet]! Poor, passive [Name] hideously victimized by Satan’s agents, then prostrated not by remorse but by paranoia and self-pity! We can probably look for him in six months back in front of the cameras fully redeemed and idolized by hordes of [Slang] who resent how negatively he was portrayed by the media.

(c) 1987 Correspondence, 2018, JMN.