I may have mentioned before that my desert-island book is the Library of America single-volume compilation of Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad (1869) and Roughing It (1872). This volume has so much to recommend it that one hesitates to single out any particular item, but I just randomly picked it up and the following came immediately to hand:

The few chapters [n.b. of the Apocrypha] relating to the infancy of the Saviour contain many things which seem frivolous and not worth preserving. A large part of the remaining portions of the book read like good Scripture, however. There is one verse that ought not to have been rejected, because it so evidently prophetically refers to the general run of Congresses of the United States:

"199. They carry themselves high, and as prudent men; and though they are fools, yet would seem to be teachers."

I have set these extracts down, as I found them.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.