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Twain, Mark, 1835-1910

"Mark Twain's Speeches"


Every day of the three hundred and sixty-five the only pages of the
world's countless newspapers that are read by all the human beings and
angels and devils that can read, are these pages that are built out of
Associated Press despatches. And so I beg you, I beseech you--oh, I
implore you to spell them in our simplified forms. Do this daily,
constantly, persistently, for three months--only three months--it is all
I ask. The infallible result?--victory, victory all down the line. For
by that time all eyes here and above and below will have become adjusted
to the change and in love with it, and the present clumsy and ragged
forms will be grotesque to the eye and revolting to the soul. And we
shall be rid of phthisis and phthisic and pneumonia and pneumatics, and
diphtheria and pterodactyl, and all those other insane words which no man
addicted to the simple Christian life can try to spell and not lose some
of the bloom of his piety in the demoralizing attempt. Do not doubt it.
We are chameleons, and our partialities and prejudices change places with
an easy and blessed facility, and we are soon wonted to the change and
happy in it.


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