I've always loved this essay. It's a great example of good-natural ribbing that manages to make humor out of the eccentricities of something (a language, in thi

I've always loved this essay. It's a great example of good-natural ribbing that manages to make humor out of the eccentricities of something (a language, in this case) while making it clear that the people who like that thing are fine people. Mark Twain doesn't really hate the German language nor think anything but the best of Germans --- and it comes across in the essay. I'm not sure whether we can still write essays like this today.