I am very fond of Mark Twain, and have been reading an endless fountain of awesome quotes, where I ran into this essay. I find it interesting on a number of levels, particularly his allusion at the end of the essay to the Jews propensity toward preternatural immortality. Twain has held a large influence on American culture for well over a 100 years. Typically, the reader needs to read Twain tongue in cheek, or at least not quite literally. What do you think? Twain also wrote this in regard to Zionism shortly after hearing Theodor Herzl in Austria.