Mark Twain Addresses ‘The Stately Matron Named Christendom’
A salutation-speech from the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth, taken down in short-hand by Mark Twain.
I bring you the stately matron named Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored, from pirate raids in Kiaochow, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Philippines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking glass.
Give her the glass; it may from error free her
When she shall see herself as others see her.
– original salutation published in the Minneapolis Journal, 29 December 1900. The final two lines were added for cards distributed by the New England Anti-Imperialist League.