| As an active privilege, it ranks with
the privilege of committing murder; we may exercise it if we are willing
to take the consequences. - "The Privilege of the Grave," published in Who is Mark Twain? |
 Detail from "Rush City" poster by Gus Heege. "A Dose of Pepper Causes the Orator to Loose His Voice" from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division |
Sometimes my feelings are so hot that I have to take to the pen
and pour them out on paper to keep them from setting me afire inside; then all
that ink and labor are wasted, becaue I can't print the result.I have just finished
an article of this kind, and it satisfies me entirely. It does my weather-beaten
soul good to read it, and admire the trouble it would make for me and the family.
I will leave it behind, and utter it from the grave. There is free speech there,
and no harm to the family.
- "The Privilege of the Grave," published in Who is Mark Twain?
In America--as elsewhere--free speech is confined to the dead.
- Notebook, 1904
_____
WHO
IS MARK TWAIN?
available from amazon.com
contains the full text of "The Privilege of the Grave"
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