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Directory of Mark Twain's maxims, quotations, and various opinions:

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LUMBAGO

My lumbago is not the ordinary kind. It is what is called private hotel lumbago. One gets it from the beds; they are unnecessarily firm. Their main interest is geological. They are old Silurian superimposed upon old red sandstone and still contain the print of prehistoric men. The English private hotel was once the best in the world, and is still the quietest, but its other merits are in decay. It is lingering along upon its bygone honorable reputation. It has more affectations than sincerities now. Many elderly English people still cling to it from inherited habit and arrested development, and rich Americans frequent it through ignorance and superstition. They find in its austere solemnity and Sabbath repose a delicate charm which makes up for its high charges and medieval inconveniences. Pretenders who cannot afford to live in _____ street affect the lumbago, because it conveys the impression that they live at _____'s.
- quoted in news story about a newly discovered manuscript titled "Mark Twain's Lumbago," The Washington Post, May 22, 1910, p. 10. Possibly written the summer of 1900.


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