MARK TWAIN

turies ago, and that the family have had a right to it ever
since. We can get that far without any trouble, but there
the allegory fails; for the bees would attack the bears
every day for a thousand years. You can make a man
understand how time turns a wrong into a right, but you
can't make a bee understand—in his present undeveloped
stage. What the bee lacks is the thrill of awe. He will get
that by and by, then he will be a very good Englishman.

Let us take the present male sovereigns of the earth—
and strip them naked. Mix them with 500 naked mechan-
ics, and then march the whole around a circus ring, charg-
ing suitable admission, of course,—and desire the audience
to pick out the sovereigns.

They couldn't. You would have to paint them blue. You
can't tell a king from a cooper except you differentiate
their exteriority.

What is the chicfest privilege remaining to nobility?
That you shall not laugh at it. No other class is exempt
If you would know how vast a privilege it is, observe that
to accord it to any thing, or being, or idea, is to give it
eternal life.

No god and no religion can survive ridicule. No church,
no nobility, no royalty or other fraud, can face ridicule in
a fair field and live. !

There are in Connecticut, at this moment and in all
countries, children and disagreeable relatives chained in
cellars, ail sores, welts, worms and vermin.—Cases come
to light every little while—two recent cases in our state.
This is to suggest that the thing in man which makes him
cruel to a slave is in him permanently and will not be
rooted out for a million years. To admit that slavery
exists in any country is to admit that you may describe
any form of brutal treatment which you can imagine and

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