“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”

What does it mean?

When you meet people from other places, it becomes hard to keep unfair ideas about them. Twain jokes that many of his own countrymen badly need that lesson.

Key vocabulary

prejudice

an unfair opinion formed without knowledge

bigotry

strong, unfair dislike of people who are different

sorely

very much; badly

• “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter: 'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”– Mark Twain
• “I know grammar by ear only, not by note, not by the rules.”– Mark Twain
• “In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.”– Mark Twain
• “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”– Often attributed to Mark Twain