CHAPTER XVII

Notes 1883

MAN'S delight upon reaching an enchanted country
where the rivers were all wines and liquors and water
was sold and drunk as a costly luxury. He soon found
himself falling into habits of watery dissipation and car-
ing nothing for the other things—too cheap and abundant.
Moral—make no Maine laws.

A good many of his notes were written while
riding on a rough train or in a carriage and are
scarcely legible.

As already set down (in the Foreword) Mark
Twain's judgment as to the value of his own
ideas was unreliable. He was likely to mistake
banalities for choice humor. As an example here
is a memorandum for a story he hoped to write
—one of a thousand-and-one such things. Some-
times, alas, he wrote them.

Write the Second Advent, with full details—lots of Irish
disciples—Paddy Ryan for Judas and other disciples. Star
in the East. People want to know how wise men could see
it move while sober. John interviewed.

It was about this time that Mark Twain in-
vented a history game—a game by which all
dates, successions, etc. were to be taught as the
game progressed. It was at first only a game of
kings—the length of the reign—but it expanded
and expanded—as his ideas were likely to do,
167