MANIFEST DESTINY.
ANIFESS destiny iz the science ov going tew bust, or enny other place before yu git thare. I may be rong in this centiment, but that iz the way it strikes me; and i am so put together that when enny thing strikes me i immejiately strike back. Manifess destiny mite perhaps be blocked out agin as the condishun that man and things find themselfs in with a ring in their nozes and sumboddy hold ov the ring. I may be rong agin, but if i am, awl i have got tew sa iz i don’t kno it, and what a man don’t kno ain’t no damage tew enny boddy else. The tru way that manifess destiny had better be sot down iz the exact distance that a frog kan jump down hill with a striped snake after him; i don’t kno but i may be rong onst more, but if the frog don’t git ketched the destiny iz jist what he iz a looking for.
When a man falls into the bottom ov a well and makes up hiz minde tew stay thare, that ain’t manifess destiny enny more than having yure hair cut short iz; but if he almost gits out and then falls down in agin 16 foot deeper and brakes off hiz neck twice in the same plase and dies and iz buried thare at low water, that iz manifess destiny on the square. Standing behind a cow in fly time and gitting kicked twice at one time must feel a good deal like manifess destiny. Being about 10 seckunds tew late tew git an express train, and then chasing the train with yure wife, and an umbreller in yure hands, in a hot day, and not getting as near tew the train az you waz when started, looks a leetle like manifess destiny on a rale rode trak. Going into a tempranse house and calling for a leetle old Bourbon on ice, and being told in a mild way that “the Bourbon iz jist out, but they hav got sum gin that cost 72 cents a gallon in Paris,” sounds tew me like the manifess destiny ov most tempranse houses.
Mi dear reader, don’t beleave in manifess destiny until yu see it. Thare is such a thing az manifess destiny, but when it occurs it iz like the number ov rings on the rakoon’s tale, ov no great consequense onla for ornament. Man wan’t made for a machine, if he waz, it was a locomotiff machine, and manifess destiny must git oph from the trak when the bell rings or git knocked higher than the price ov gold. Manifess destiny iz a disseaze, but it iz eazy tew heal; i have seen it in its wust stages cured bi sawing a cord ov dri hickory wood. i thought i had it onse; it broke out in the shape ov poetry; i sent a speciment ov the disseaze tew a magazine; the magazine man wrote me next day az follers:
“Dear Sur: You may be a phule, but you are no poeck. Yures, in haste.”
LETTERS TO FARMERS.
