Mark #&@*# Twain

The next few weeks, I fear, will see but spotty blogging, as work and travel trouble my schedule. So as not to risk throwing you entirely on your own resources amid the blasts of the bleak midwinter, I'll put up at least a few posts here and there quoting from writers' letters. For more than a year now, I've been including a quote from a writer's letter at the start of the weekly publicity roundup I send out at the office, so I've got a good backlog of fun quotes to draw from.

So let's begin, with a postscript to a letter that Mark Twain sent to his brother on December 29, 1888. The letter was a tad intemperate, berating the brother for running through money like water and not following Twain's advice:

P. S. Don’t imagine that I have lost my temper, because I swear. I swear all the time, but I do not lose my temper. And don’t imagine that I am on my way to the poorhouse, because I am not; or that I am uneasy, for I am not; or that I am uncomfortable or unhappy—for I never am. I don’t know what it is to be unhappy or uneasy, and I am not going to learn how, at this late date.

The letter, let us be clear, was absolutely brimful of swears.