GOLDSMITH'S FRIEND ABROAD AGAIN

by Mark Twain



NOTE.--No experience is set down in the following letters which had to be
invented. Fancy is not needed to give variety to the history of a
Chinaman's sojourn in America. Plain fact is amply sufficient.


LETTER I

SHANGHAI, 18--.
DEAR CHING-FOO: It is all settled, and I am to leave my oppressed and
overburdened native land and cross the sea to that noble realm where all
are free and all equal, and none reviled or abused--America! America,
whose precious privilege it is to call herself the Land of the Free and
the Home of the Brave. We and all that are about us here look over the
waves longingly, contrasting the privations of this our birthplace with
the opulent comfort of that happy refuge. We know how America has
welcomed the Germans and the Frenchmen and the stricken and sorrowing
Irish, and we know how she has given them bread and work, and liberty,
and how grateful they are. And we know that America stands ready to
welcome all other oppressed peoples and offer her abundance to all that
come, without asking what their nationality is, or their creed or color.
And, without being told it, we know that the, foreign sufferers she has
rescued from oppression and starvation are the most eager of her children
to welcome us, because, having suffered themselves, they know what
suffering is, and having been generously succored, they long to be