Only thus could one
become morally perfect!
Here, as in countless other places, Mark Twain throws over his ethical
suggestion--a suggestion, by contrast, of the very converse of his
literal words--the veil of paradox and exaggeration, of incongruity,
fantasy, light irony. Yet beneath this outer covering of art there is
a serious meaning that, like murder, will out. If demonstration were
needed that Mark Twain is sealed of the tribe of moralists, that is
amply supplied by that masterpiece, that triumph of invention,
construction, and originality, 'The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg'.
Here is a pure morality, daring in the extreme and incredibly original
in a world perpetually reiterating a saying already thousands of years
old, to the effect that there is nothing new under the sun. It is a
deliberate emendation of that invocation in the Lord's Prayer "Lead us
(not) into temptation." The shrieking irony of this trenchant parable,
its cynicism and heartlessness, would make of it an unendurable
criticism of human life--were it accepted literally as a representation
of society.
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