March 2010
31 posts
The Raftsmen's Passage
“When I’m playful I use the meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for whales! I scatch my head with the lightning and purr myself to sleep ith the thunder! When I’m cold, I bile the Gul of Mexico and bathe in it’ when I’m hot I fan myself with an equinoctial storm; when I’m thirsty I reach up and suck a cloud dry like a sponge; when I range the earth hungry, famine follows in my tracks! Whoo-oop! Bow your neck and spread. I put my hand on the sun’s face and make it night in the earth; I bite a piece out of th emoon and hurry the seasons; I shake myself and crumble the mountains! Contemplate me through leather—don’t use the naked eye!…The boundless vastness of the great American desert is my enclosed property, and I bury my dead on my premises!”
-from the chapter Mark Twain left out of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
