NEW YORK (AP) - December 13, 2008
"We have charity for what the dead say. We may disapprove of
what they say, but we do not insult them, we do not revile them, as
knowing they cannot now defend themselves. If they should speak,
what revelations there would be!" Twain observed in "The
Privilege of the Grave," an essay written in 1905, and long
unpublished, that will appear in the issue of The New Yorker that
comes out Monday.
"Now there is hardly one of us but would dearly like to reveal
these secrets of ours; we know we cannot do it in life, then why
not do it from the grave, and have the satisfaction of it?"
The essay is part of the Mark Twain archive at the University of
California-Berkeley.
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