Page:Sketches by Mark Twain.djvu/87

Rh secret place was found some more in process of construction, with this untranslatable legend on a thin flimsy material, lying by:

'' ' Jones, if you don't want to be discharged from the Musseum, make the next primeaveal weppons more —you couldn't even fool one of these sleapy old syentiffic grannys from the Coledge with the last ones. And mind you the animles you carved on some of the Bone Ornaments is a blame sight too good for any primeaveal man that was ever fooled.—Varnum, Manager.''"

"Back of the burial place was a mass of ashes, showing that Man always had a feast at a funeral—else why the ashes in such a place? and showing, also, that he believed in God and the immortality of the soul—else why these solemn ceremonies?

"To sum up.—We believe that Man had a written language. We know that he indeed existed at one time, and is not a myth; also, that he was the companion of the cave bear, the mastodon, and other extinct species; that he cooked and ate them and likewise the young of his own kind; also, that he bore rude weapons, and knew something of art; that he imagined he had a soul, and pleased himself with the fancy that it was immortal. But let us not laugh; there may be creatures in existence to whom we and our vanities and profundities may seem as ludicrous."