# Mark Twain, Mormonism, and Polygamy



## Scott

Interesting quote on polygamy from Mark Twain's Roughing It:



> Our stay in Salt Lake City amounted to only two days, and therefore we had no time to make the customary inquisition into the workings of polygamy and get up the usual statistics and deductions preparatory to calling the attention of the nation at large once more to the matter.
> 
> I had the will to do it. With the gushing self-sufficiency of youth I was feverish to plunge in headlong and achieve a great reform here"”until I saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically "œhomely" creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, "œNo"”the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind, not their harsh censure"”and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence."


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## CalsFarmer

So we should endorse polygamy because ugly women may not find a husband? 

Mark Twains observation was visual and I am sure did not include any intimate knowledge of the inner dynamics of the practice. I have read a lot of Mark Twain (Letters From The Earth, On Man and Beast etc) and I find this little rumination of his to be extremely and underhandledly sarcastic. Somehow I cannot picture Mark Twain with 'generous moisture' in his eyes.


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## PuritanCovenanter

> Then I was touched. My heart was wiser than my head. It warmed toward these poor, ungainly and pathetically "œhomely" creatures, and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, "œ*No"”the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity which entitles him to the kindly applause of mankind,* not their harsh censure"”and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence."



Sorry, but this sounds so funny.


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## Scott

I thought about posting it in the entertainment section. I heard a professor quote this is a history of religion in America class.


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## LadyFlynt

That's funny. I have this book, but haven't read it yet. Thanks for the heads up...and it is funny!


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## Contra_Mundum

I have a book of Twain's humor articles, _The Complete Humorous Sketches and tales of Mark Twain._ Not everything funny he wrote is in here (e.g. "The Literary Offenses of J.F. Cooper" is not here). But he does have a *great* piece on a grandiose 19th century church-building project, "A New Beecher Church". He seems mildly impressed with the project, if not bemused. Twain, the skeptic, was not much impressed with the average profession of religion. If he were alive today, he would no doubt say, "Indeed , there is nothing new under the sun."


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## Anton Bruckner

> _Originally posted by CalsFarmer_
> So we should endorse polygamy because ugly women may not find a husband?
> 
> Mark Twains observation was visual and I am sure did not include any intimate knowledge of the inner dynamics of the practice. I have read a lot of Mark Twain (Letters From The Earth, On Man and Beast etc) and I find this little rumination of his to be extremely and underhandledly sarcastic. Somehow I cannot picture Mark Twain with 'generous moisture' in his eyes.


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## Richard King

One of my most well read buddies has informed me that
Mark Twain is the one who said:

"The Book of Mormon is literary anesthesia."


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## crhoades

"Suppose you were an idiot ... And suppose you were a member of Congress... But I repeat myself."

-Mark Twain


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## Poimen

> _Originally posted by crhoades_
> "Suppose you were an idiot ... And suppose you were a member of Congress... But I repeat myself."
> 
> -Mark Twain


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