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Twain, Mark, 1835-1910

"Sketches New and Old"

Let the public do itself the honor
to read my experience in doctoring a cold, as herein set forth, and then
follow in my footsteps.
When the White House was burned in Virginia City, I lost my home, my
happiness, my constitution, and my trunk. The loss of the two first
named articles was a matter of no great consequence, since a home without
a mother, or a sister, or a distant young female relative in it, to
remind you, by putting your soiled linen out of sight and taking your
boots down off the mantelpiece, that there are those who think about you
and care for you, is easily obtained. And I cared nothing for the loss
of my happiness, because, not being a poet, it could not be possible that
melancholy would abide with me long. But to lose a good constitution and
a better trunk were serious misfortunes. On the day of the fire my
constitution succumbed to a severe cold, caused by undue exertion in
getting ready to do something. I suffered to no purpose, too, because
the plan I was figuring at for the extinguishing of the fire was so
elaborate that I never got it completed until the middle of the following
week.
The first time I began to sneeze, a friend told me to go and bathe my
feet in hot water and go to bed.


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