MARK TWAIN

He was preparing at this time to rewrite Cap-
tain Ned Wakeman's Visit to Heaven, based, as
he always said, on a dream told him by Capt.
Wakeman, whom he had first met on the ship
on which he sailed from San Francisco to Nica-
ragua in 1866. He had met Wakeman again in
1868, on the way to San Francisco, and had
written then a rough draught of story.

Have all sorts of heavens—have a gate for each sort.

One gate where they receive a barkeeper with artillery
salutes, swarms of angels in the sky and a noble torch-
light procession. He thinks he is the lion of Heaven. Pro-
cession over, he drops at once into awful obscurity, but
the roughest part of it is that he has to do 3 weeks
penance—day and night he must carry a torch and shout
himself hoarse, to do honor to some poor scrub that he
wishes had gone to hell.

Wakeman is years and years in darkness between solar
systems.

Noble system, truly, where a man like R. H. Dana
can't be confirmed, and where a person like Jones, whose
proper place is shyster in a Tombs court, is sent to the
U. S. Senate; where it is impossible to reward the most
illustrious and fittest citizens with the presidency.

Look at the list:

Polk, Tyler, Pierce, etc. and almost Tilden, with the
suit pending for swindling the revenue. Half the nation
voted for him.

This beggarly congress of ignorance and frauds. The
back-pay gang of thieves.

Congregational singing reminds one of nothing but the
dental chair.

130