The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims' Progress • Paragraph 1548
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Esau found Jacob rich, beloved by wives and children, and traveling in state, with servants, herds of cattle and trains of camels--but he himself was still the uncourted outcast this brother had made him. After thirteen years of romantic mystery, the brethren who had wronged Joseph, came, strangers in a strange land, hungry and humble, to buy “a little food”; and being summoned to a palace, charged with crime, they beheld in its owner their wronged brother; they were trembling beggars--he, the lord of a mighty empire! What Joseph that ever lived would have thrown away such a chance to “show off?” Who stands first--outcast Esau forgiving Jacob in prosperity, or Joseph on a king's throne forgiving the ragged tremblers whose happy rascality placed him there?