“ a man who sees his people robbed and oppressed by soulless tax-gatherers, but speaks no word to save them ”
Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad (1869). copy citation
| Author | Mark Twain |
|---|---|
| Source | The Innocents Abroad |
| Topic | tax words |
| Date | 1869 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3176/3176-h/3176-h.htm |
Context
“a man who sits upon a throne—the beck of whose finger moves navies and armies—who holds in his hands the power of life and death over millions—yet who sleeps, sleeps, eats, eats, idles with his eight hundred concubines, and when he is surfeited with eating and sleeping and idling, and would rouse up and take the reins of government and threaten to be a sultan, is charmed from his purpose by wary Fuad Pacha with a pretty plan for a new palace or a new ship—charmed away with a new toy, like any other restless child; a man who sees his people robbed and oppressed by soulless tax-gatherers, but speaks no word to save them; who believes in gnomes and genii and the wild fables of The Arabian Nights, but has small regard for the mighty magicians of to-day, and is nervous in the presence of their mysterious railroads and steamboats and telegraphs;”
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