‘The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg’ is based on the devastating assumption that people are no better than their faults. In old age, Mark Twain had become obsessed with ‘the damned human race’ and the malevolence of God – ideas that were severely isolating and, ultimately, self-indulgent. He was finally incapable of that magnanimity that is the most difficult and the most necessary: forgiveness of human nature and human circumstance. Given human nature and human circumstance, our only relief is in this forgiveness, which then restores us to community and its ancient cycle of loss and grief,
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