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"There are things which some people never attempt during their whole lives, but one of these is not poetry. Poetry attacks all human beings sooner or later, and, like the measles, is mild or violent according to the age of the sufferer." Mark Twain, Column, Buffalo Express (18 August 1869) (as quoted in Mark Twain: His Words, Wit, and Wisdom 214 (R. Kent Rasmussen ed., 1997)).