The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 4: To California and Return — John Shaqi
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 4: To California and ReturnWard, Artemus
General
The Complete Works of Artemus Ward — Part 4: To California and Return
Ward, Artemus
American wit and humor
The Mormons, by the way, are preeminently an amusement-loving
people, and the Elders pray for the success of their theatre with
as much earnestness as they pray for anything else. The
congregation doesn't startle us. It is known, I fancy, that the
heads of the Church are to be absent to-day, and the attendance is
slim. There are no ravishingly beautiful women present, and no
positively ugly ones. The men are fair to middling. They will
never be slain in cold blood for their beauty, nor shut up in jail
for their homeliness.
There are some good voices in the choir to-day, but the orchestral
accompaniment is unusually slight. Sometimes they introduce a full
brass and string band in Church. Brigham Young says the devil has
monopolized the good music long enough, and it is high time the
Lord had a portion of it. Therefore trombones are tooted on
Sundays in Utah as well as on other days; and there are some
splendid musicians there. The Orchestra in Brigham Young's theatre
is quite equal to any in Broadway. There is a youth in Salt Lake
City (I forget his name) who plays the cornet like a North American
angel.
Mr. Stenhouse relieves me of any anxiety I had felt in regard to
having my swan-like throat cut by the Danites, but thinks my
wholesale denunciation of a people I had never seen was rather
hasty. The following is the paragraph to which the Saints
objected. It occurs in an "Artemus Ward" paper on Brigham Young,
written some years ago:
"I girded up my Lions and fled the Seen. I packt up my duds and
left Salt Lake, which is a 2nd Soddum and Germorer, inhabited by as
theavin' & onprincipled a set of retchis as ever drew Breth in eny
spot on the Globe."
I had forgotten all about this, and as Elder Stenhouse read it to
me "my feelings may be better imagined than described," to use
language I think I have heard before. I pleaded, however, that it
was a purely burlesque sketch, and that this strong paragraph
should not be interpreted literally at all. The Elder didn't seem
to see it in that light, but we parted pleasantly.
4.10. THE MOUNTAIN FEVER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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