Explore "The Humbugs of the World" by P.T. Barnum on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The whale, the angel fish, and the golden pigeon.
If the fact could be definitely determined, I think it would be discovered that in this "wide awake" country there are more persons humbugged by believing too little than too much. Many persons have such a horror of being taken in, or such an elevated opinion of their own acuteness, that they believe everything to be a sham, and in this way are continually humbugging themselves.