1878
1878.1.582,583) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Neither Howells nor I believe in hell or the divinity of the Savior, but no matter, the Savior is none the less a sacred Personage, and a man should have no desire or disposition to refer to him lightly, profanely, or otherwise than with the profoundest reverence.
Scripture: For he that is dead is freed from sin. -- Romans 6:7
Scripture: And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. -- John 17:3
Work; Date: Letter to Orion Clemens; March 23, 1878
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3195/3195-h/3195-h.htm
1878.2.584) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Across the chasm of the ages we take the oyster by the hand and call him brother; and back, and still further back, we go, and breathe the germ we cannot see, and know, in him, our truer Adam!
Scripture: And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. -- Genesis 3:20
Work; Date: Farewell Banquet for Bayard Taylor; April 4, 1878
Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=mkFgXWvUkVoC&pg=PA116&lpg=PA116&dq
1879
1879.1.585) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Well-good-bye, and a short life and a merry one be yours. Poor old Methusaleh, how did he manage to stand it so long?
Scripture: And all the days of Methusaleh were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died. -- Genesis 5:27
Work; Date: Letter to W. D. Howells; February 9, 1879
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3195/3195-h/3195-h.htm
1879.2.586) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: My sluggish soul needs a fierce upstirring, and if it would not get it when Grant enters the meeting place I must doubtless “lay” for the final resurrection.
Scripture: Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. -- Isaiah 26:19
Work; Date: Letter to W. D. Howells; October 9, 1879
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3195/3195-h/3195-h.htm
1880
1880.1.587) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: ...only to encounter the still more entrancing vision of catnip without number and without price...
Scripture: Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. – Isaiah 55:1
Work; Date: A Cat Tale; c. 1880
Source: Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays 1852-1890
1880.2.588) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Imagine this fact—I have even fascinated Mrs. Clemens with this yarn for youth. My stuff generally gets considerable damning with faint praise out of her, but this time it is all the other way. She is become the horseleech’s daughter and my mill doesn’t grind fast enough to suit her.
Scripture: The horseleech hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: – Proverbs 30:15
Work; Date: Letter to W. D. Howells; March 11, 1880
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3195/3195-h/3195-h.htm
1880.3.589) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Well, old practical joker, the corpse of Mr. X——has been here, and I have bedded it and fed it, and put down my work during 24 hours and tried my level best to make it do something, or say something, or appreciate something—but no, it was worse than Lazarus.
Scripture: Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. … Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days. – John 11:14,39
Work; Date: Letter to W. D. Howells; June 9, 1880
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3195/3195-h/3195-h.htm
1880.4.590) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: The idea that a baby doesn’t amount to anything! Why, one baby is just a house and a front yard full by itself. One baby can furnish more business than you and your whole Interior Department can attend to. He is enterprising, irrepressible, brimful of lawless activities. Do what you please, you can’t make him stay on the reservation. Sufficient unto the day is one baby. As long as you are in your right mind don’t you ever pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot. And there ain’t any real difference between triplets and an insurrection.
Scripture: Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. -- Matthew 6:34
Work; Date: Speech on “The Babies”; November 13, 1879
Source: http://www.online-literature.com/twain/3274/
1880.5.591) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Fifty years from now we shall all be dead, I trust, and then this flag, if it still survive (and let us hope it may), will be floating over a Republic numbering 200,000,000 souls, according to the settled laws of our increase. Our present schooner of State will have grown into a political leviathan--a Great Eastern. The cradled babies of to-day will be on deck.
Scripture: Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord [which] thou lettest down? -- Job 41:1
Work; Date: Speech on “The Babies”; November 13, 1879
Source: http://www.online-literature.com/twain/3274/
1880.6.592-596) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: The man of the 13th January is Adam; the crime of that date was the eating of the apple; the sorrowful spectacle of the 30th November was the expulsion from Eden; the grisly deed of the 16th June was the murder of Abel; the act of the 3d September was the beginning of the journey to the land of Nod; the 12th day of October, the last mountaintops disappeared under the flood.
Scripture: And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. -- Genesis 3:6
Scripture: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. -- Genesis 3:23,24
Scripture: And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. -- Genesis 4:8-10
Scripture: And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. -- Genesis 4:16
Scripture: And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. -- Genesis 7:17-20
Work; Date: An Ideal French Address; 1882
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3188/3188-h/3188-h.htm#link2H_4_0073
Note: Note: An odd thing about this set of dates (beyond the uncanny oddness of their alleged precision) is that Twain was born on the 30th of November, supposedly the date for the expulsion from Eden.