Letter from Mark Twain to a Snake Oil Salesman

[warrior1]

Nov. 20. 1905

J. H. Todd
1212 Webster St.
San Francisco, Cal.

Dear Sir,

Your letter is an insoluble puzzle to me. The handwriting is good and exhibits considerable character, and there are even traces of intelligence in what you say, yet the letter and the accompanying advertisements profess to be the work of the same hand. The person who wrote the advertisements is without doubt the most ignorant person now alive on the planet; also without doubt he is an idiot, an idiot of the 33rd degree, and scion of an ancestral procession of idiots stretching back to the Missing Link. It puzzles me to make out how the same hand could have constructed your letter and your advertisements. Puzzles fret me, puzzles annoy me, puzzles exasperate me; and always, for a moment, they arouse in me an unkind state of mind toward the person who has puzzled me. A few moments from now my resentment will have faded and passed and I shall probably even be praying for you; but while there is yet time I hasten to wish that you may take a dose of your own poison by mistake, and enter swiftly into the damnation which you and all other patent medicine assassins have so remorselessly earned and do so richly deserve.

Adieu, adieu, adieu!

[Richardo]

1. My favorite author

Thanks for this!

[lob1]

2. Mark Twain was the first stand up comedian. Later in life he appeared at

colleges and did monologues of quotes of his own works. They were hysterical.

[niyad]

3. k and r--we needed this, so THANK YOU

[CountAllVotes]

4. gotta love Mark Twain

another example of a true cat lover!! :D :D :D

:kick: & recommend!

[mopinko]

5. please post this in the health forum.

they will get a kick out of it there.

[L0oniX]

6. K & R for Samuel Clemens.

[malaise]

7. I adore Mark Twain

Here are some more - Letters from the Earth.
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/twainlfe.htm

[DKRC]

8. Love Twain

K&R

:kick:

[IDemo]

9. -->

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar

[Odin2005]

10. Twain was the best writer this country ever had.

He didn't take any BS.