Dear Jeni,

Have you ever read Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad? Why were people back then so easily entertained?

A Postbellum Postulant

*********************************************************

Dear Post,

Yes, I have read Twain's fine book about American tourists.

People back then were easily entertained because they had not yet witnessed the monumental comic genius of Adam Sandler and Pee-wee Herman. If they had, they would never have appreciated such ridiculously diminutive, long-winded observations such as the one below.

"We were troubled a little at dinner to-day, by the conduct of an American, who talked very loudly and coarsely, and laughed boisterously where all others were so quiet and well-behaved. He ordered wine with a royal flourish, and said: 'I never dine without wine, sir,' (which was a pitiful falsehood,) and looked around upon the company to bask in the admiration he expected to find in their faces. All these airs in a land where they would as soon expect to leave the soup out of the bill of fare as the wine!--in a land where wine is nearly as common among all ranks as water! This fellow said: 'I am a free-born sovereign, sir, an American, sir, and I want everybody to know it!' He did not mention that he was a lineal descendant of Balaam's ass; but every body knew that without his telling it."

Signed,
an innocent Jeni