Figured you guys might get a kick out of this:

"I like Gottschalk well enough. He probably gets as much out of the piano as there is in it. But the frozen fact is, that all that he does get out of it is "tum, tum." He gets "tum, tum," out of the instrument thicker and faster than my landlady's daughter, Mary Ann; but, after all, it simply amounts to "tum, tum." As between Gottschalk and Mary Ann, it is only a question of quantity; and so far as quantity is concerned, he beats her three to one.
The piano may do for love-sick girls who lace themsleves to skeletons, and lunch on chalk, pickles and slate pencils. But give me the banjo. Gottschalk compared to Sam Pride or Charley Rhoades, is as a Dashaway cocktail to a hot whisky punch. When you want genuine music -- music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whisky...when you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!"
- Mark Twain from "Enthusiastic Eloquence," San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle, 23 June, 1865

Wonderful! Wonderful!

Im paraphrasing this and it's not my unique thougt but prior to Mark Twain American Authors modeled their writting style on recognized European authors and it was he, Mark Twain that departed from the standard and established the American Author with his unique style as an equally acceptable art form.
I love him as is one of my heroes.
Glad to see he is still being read by young people.
I keep a little pocket book with many of his quotes on top of my desk and whenever I need to improve my disposition or make sense out of chaos I turn to any page and come out the better for it.
I have read that he played a banjo and cant remember if someone or a museum ended up with the instrument.