A smile on face of others is a reflection of the one on you.

“The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.”
-Samuel Tayor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” 1798.

That succinctly sums up MT’s 19th century assessment of the toxic conglomeration of bureaucrats, be they politicians, religious pretenders or school board administrators. He held them all in equal, slimy disdain.Undoubtedly if he were alive today he would be mortified at the proliferation of bureaucracies. He knew human nature; both the dark and light sides and while quick to castigate obstructionists and hypocrites, he nevertheless was equally quick to highlight joyous demeanor.

In his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, MT brings to surface the religious hypocrisy in American culture. In his backhanded genius he could chop down an oak before it knew it was struck. Without ever mentioning religion, his axe was swift and on target with comments like, “It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.” Accordingly he said, “No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon,” and considered, the Christian’s Bible “...a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes.” Of school boards? “God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.” Government? “Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”

On the other hand he revered humor and human kindness to warm the destitute spirit: “The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up,” and “Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”