In a message dated 4/16/00 7:43:12 PM Central Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<<
 His experience as a Confederate soldier was brief and inglorious. Hardly had
 he enlisted before he was captured. Released on parole, he broke the parole
 and returned to the ranks, and soon was recaptured. He was in imminent peril,
 for recognition meant immediate and ignominious execution, but he got away,
 and determined never to take the risk again
  >>

Isn't that Twain speaking of himself, in his own autobiography?

~~~eric
" I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us
with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use."
--Galileo Galilei