Europe and elsewhere, by Mark Twain [pseud.] [with an appreciation by Brander Matthews and an introduction by Albert Bigelow Paine]

EUROPE AND ELSEWHERE
against it. If you find that you can't control your
passions; if you feel that you have got to copper
something and can't help it, copper the Consensus.
It is the safest way-all history confirms it. If you
are young, you will, of course, have to put up, on one
side or the other, for you will not be able to restrain
yourself; but as for me, I am old, and I am going to
wait for a new deal.
P.S.-In the same number of the Times Doctor
Funk says: "Man may be as badly fooled by believing too little as by believing too much; the hardheaded skeptic Thomas was the only disciple who was
cheated." Is that the right and rational way to look
at it? I will not be sure, for my memory is faulty, but
it has always been my impression that Thomas was the
only one who made an examination and proved a fact,
while the others were accepting, or discounting, the
fact on trust-like any other Consensus. If that is so,
Doubting Thomas removed a doubt which must
otherwise have confused and troubled the world until
now. Including Doctor Funk. It seems to me that
we owe that hard-headed-or sound-headed-witness
something more than a slur. Why does Doctor
Funk examine into spiritism, and then throw stones
at Thomas. Why doesn't he take it on trust? Has
inconsistency become a jewel in Lafayette Place?
OLD-MAN-AFRAID-OF-THE-CONSENSUS.
Extract from Adam's Diary.-Then there was a
Consensus about it. It was the very first one. It
sat six days and nights. It was then delivered of the
verdict that a world could not be made out of
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