Why read it? Twain records a journey from
Sample Ideas and Quotes:
“There were about eighty pony-riders in the saddle all the time, night and day, stretching in a long, scattering procession from Missouri to California, forty flying eastward, and forty toward the west, and among them making four hundred gallant horses earn a stirring livelihood and see a deal of scenery every single day in the year.” p. 576.
“In a second or two it becomes a horse and rider, rising and falling, rising and falling—sweeping toward us nearer and nearer—growing more and more distinct, more and more sharply defined—nearer and still nearer, and the flutter of the hoofs comes faintly to the ear—another instant a whoop and hurrah from our upper deck, a wave of the rider’s hand, but no reply, and man and horse burst past our excited faces, and go winging away like a belated fragment of a storm!” p. 576.
“…we had that absurd sense upon us, inseparable from travel at night in a close-curtained vehicle, the sense of remaining perfectly still in one place, notwithstanding the jolting and swaying of the vehicle, the trampling of the horses, and the grinding of the wheels.” p. 580.
“…for it was sleep set with a hair-trigger.” p. 580.
Brigham Young, reportedly: “I am not cruel, sir—I am not vindictive except when sorely outraged—but if I had caught him [the man who gave one of his 110 children a whistle], sir, so help me Joseph Smith, I would have locked him into the nursery till the brats whistled him to death.” p. 614.
Of the Mormon Bible: “…chloroform in print.” p. 617.
“If Joseph Smith composed this book [the Mormon Bible], the act was a miracle—keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate.” p. 617.
To be continued.
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