“ now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. ”
Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883). copy citation
| Author | Mark Twain |
|---|---|
| Source | Life on the Mississippi |
| Topic | goodness aspirations |
| Date | 1883 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/245/245-h/245-h.htm |
Context
“WHEN I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village {footnote [1. Hannibal, Missouri]} on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient. When a circus came and went, it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negro minstrel show that came to our section left us all suffering to try that kind of life; now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. These ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained.
Once a day a cheap, gaudy packet arrived upward from St. Louis, and another downward from Keokuk.” source
Once a day a cheap, gaudy packet arrived upward from St. Louis, and another downward from Keokuk.” source
