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

EUROPE AND ELSEWHERE

my brain is turned by my troubles and that I am
become wicked. I am as I am; I did not make
myself.
They drove us out. Drove us out into this harsh
wilderness, and shut the gates against us. We that
had meant no harm. It is three months. We were
ignorant then; we are rich in learning, now-ah,
how rich! We know hunger, thirst, and cold; we
know pain, disease, and grief; we know hate, rebellion, and deceit; we know remorse, the conscience
that prosecutes guilt and innocence alike, making
no distinction; we know weariness of body and spirit,
the unrefreshing sleep, the rest which rests not, the
dreams which restore Eden, and banish it again with
the waking; we know misery; we know torture and
the heartbreak; we know humiliation and insult;
we know indecency, immodesty, and the soiled
mind; we know the scorn that attaches to the transmitted image of God exposed unclothed to the day;
we know fear; we know vanity, folly, envy, hypocrisy; we know irreverence; we know blasphemy;
we know right from wrong, and how to avoid the
one and do the other; we know all the rich product
of the Moral Sense, and it is our possession. Would
we could sell it for one hour of Eden and white
purity; would we could degrade the animals with it!
We have it all-that treasure. All but death.
Death.... Death. What may that be?
Adam comes.
"Well?"
"He still sleeps."
That is our second-born-our Abel.
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