Mark Twain's advice for good manners at a funeral

Do not criticize the person in whose honor the entertainment is given.

Make no remarks about his equipment. If the handles are plated, it is best to seem to not observe it.

If the odor of the flowers is too oppressive for your comfort, remember that they were not brought there for you, and that the person for whom they were brought suffers no inconvenience from their presence.

Listen, with as intense an expression of attention as you can command, to the official statement of the character and history of the person in whose honor the entertainment is given; and if these statistics should seem to fail to tally with the facts, in places, do not nudge your neighbor, or press your foot upon his toes, or manifest, by any other sign, your awareness that taffy is being distributed.

If the official hopes expressed concerning the person in whose honor the entertainment is given are known by you to be oversized, let it pass -- do not interrupt.

At the moving passages, be moved -- but only according to the degree of your intimacy with the parties giving the entertainment, or with the party in whose honor the entertainment is given. Where a blood relation sobs, an intimate friend should choke up, a distant acquaintance should sigh, a stranger should merely fumble sympathetically with his handkerchief. Where the occasion is military, the emotions should be graded according to military rank, the highest officer present taking precedence in emotional violence, and the rest modifying their feelings according to their position in the service.

Do not bring your dog.

---"At the Funeral."

Comments

[Mike]

What if your dog knew the decedent?

[Linkmeister]

I wonder if Twain really did observe a funeral complete with dog? I suppose back in the late 19th century it was entirely possible; I can't imagine it now. Surely Jessica Mitford would have mentioned it.

[Exiled in NJ]

When I lived upstate, my dog made her presence felt at the bank, where she would put her paws on the counter to make a biscuit withdrawal. She was welcomed at the Jiffy Lube, the anteroom at the post office and one or two other places of renown. I doubt that she had read Twain, for when we had a service for my wife, Farfel's 90 lbs of fur made their home in front of the table that held the baked ziti. It is hard to deny a large mop of a sheepdog.

[Pepper]

Isn't Twain the most delightful? Ah, I get all fangirl when I talk about Twain. Did you get that from "Mark Twain's Helpful Hints for Good Living: A Handbook for the Damned Human Race"? That's a fine compilation.

I named my blog after a Twain satire, "Journalism in Tennessee," which includes the line: "Now that is the way to write—peppery and to the point. Mush-and-milk journalism gives me the fan-tods."

[Samantha]

What does Mark Twain mean by "Do not bring your dog?" What's the meesage he is trying to say?

[Katie]

I think he's just being facetious with the "Do not bring your dog." part.

[christy]

I'm in highschool, and i have to write an essay this weekend about this peice. I was intstucted to analyze his attitude [obviously humorous, and rather carefee], how he createsd humor in the peice, and to consider items such as tone, diction, selection of detail, and the use of the unexpected [which im sure is the dog part]
any advice as to what to include?
im kinda in a stump.
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