hope everlasting
peace bliss except inventor
of the telephone
In 1890, the Editors or somebody at the New York Evening World, reached out to some of the literary notables of the time, Oliver Wendall Holmes, James Whitcomb Riley and others, requesting a thought or two about Christmas.
The responses were printed in the Newspaper on Christmas Day, 1890 under the slug lines:
GREETING TO ALL
Sweet Singers Send Words of Cheer to the People
Christmas Sentiments from Men and Women of Renown
Gathering of Well-Wishers from All Over the Land.
Mark Twain sent in this response.
“It is my heart-warm and world-embracing Christmas hope and aspiration that all of us –
the high,
the low,
the rich,
the poor,
the admired,
the despised,
the loved,
the hated,
the civilized,
the savage –
may-eventually be gathered together in heaven of everlasting rest and peace and bliss-
except the inventor of the telephone.”
This, again, was in 1890.
Alexander Graham Bell got his first patent 1874.
It took just 14 years …
The thin end of the wedge.
The camels nose under the tent door.
The slippery slope.
The tip of the iceberg.
The Pandoras Box of all Pandora’s boxes.
No Haiku For You 