Sundays with Mark Twain — (1902 - 1904)
Sundays with Mark Twain #97
1902
1902.1.803) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: We of the North poke fun at the South for its fondness of titles – a fondness for titles pure and simple, regardless of whether they are genuine or pinchbeck. ... We are all children, all children of the one Adam, and we love toys.
Scripture: Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. -- Romans 5:12-14
Work; Date: Does the Race of Man Love a Lord?; 1902
Source: http://www.online-literature.com/twain/3263/
1902.2.804) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Choate’s—co-respondent—made out a bill for $500 for his services, so called. But Choate told him he had better leave the matter to him, and the next day he collected the bill for the services and handed the Hebrew $5000, saying, “That’s your half of the loot,” and inducing that memorable response: “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”
Scripture: King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds. -- Acts 26:27-29
Work; Date: Speech “The Dinner to Mr. Choate”; November 24, 1902
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3188/3188-h/3188-h.htm#link2H_4_0040
1902.3.805) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: But the aunts were obdurate in their righteousness, and said the law that visited the sins of the parent upon the child was by all right and reason reversible; and therefore it was but just that the innocent mother of a sinning child should suffer her rightful share of the grief and pain and shame which were the allotted wages of the sin.
Scripture: Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. -- Exodus 34:7
Work; Date: Was It Heaven? Or Hell?; December, 1902
Source: http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/wihoh.html
1902.4.806) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Come, let us reason together. Let us examine details. When you two were in the sick-room raising that riot, what would you have done if you had known I was coming?
Scripture: Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. -- Isaiah 1:18
Work; Date: Was It Heaven? Or Hell?; December, 1902
Source: http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/wihoh.html
1902.5.807) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: For liars a place is appointed. There they burn in the fires of hell from everlasting unto everlasting. Repent!
Scripture: But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. -- Revelation 21:8
Work; Date: Was It Heaven? Or Hell?; December, 1902
Source: http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/wihoh.html
1902.6.808) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: During substantially the whole of her short life of five or six years the queen lives in the Egyptian darkness and stately seclusion of the royal apartments, with none about her but plebeian servants, who give her empty lip-affection in place of the love which her heart hungers for; who spy upon her in the interest of her waiting heirs, and report and exaggerate her defects and deficiencies to them; who fawn upon her and flatter her to her face and slander her behind her back; who grovel before her in the day of her power and forsake her in her age and weakness.
Scripture: And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thinke hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt. -- Exodus 10:21
Work; Date: The Bee; c. 1902
Source: http://www.twainquotes.com/Bee-essay.html
1903
1903.1.809) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: If a man and wife are drowned at sea, and there is no proof as to which died first, the law—in some European countries and in two of our States—decides that it was the wife. She is the weaker vessel.
Scripture: Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. -- 1 Peter 3:7
Work; Date: Why Not Abolish It?; May 2, 1903
Source: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays: 1891-1910
1903.2.810,811) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: It was foreseen that man would have to have the oyster. Therefore the first preparation was made for the oyster. Very well, you cannot make an oyster out of whole cloth, you must make the oyster’s ancestor first. This is not done in a day. You must make a vast variety of invertebrates, to start with—belemnites, trilobites, jebusites, amalekites, and that sort of fry, and put them to soak in a primary sea, and wait and see what will happen. Some will be a disappointment–the belemnites, the ammonites and such; they will be failures, they will die out and become extinct, in the course of the 19,000,000 years covered by the experiment, but all is not lost, for the amalekites will fetch the home-stake; they will develop gradually into encrinites, and stalactites, and blatherskites, and one thing and another as the mighty ages creep on and the Archaean and the Cambrian Periods pile their lofty crags in the primordial seas, and at last the first grand stage in the preparation of the world for man stands completed, the Oyster is done.
Scripture: The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan. -- Numbers 13:29
Scripture: Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. -- Ezra 9:1
Work; Date: Was the World Made for Man?; 1903
Source: https://todayinsci.com/T/Twain_Mark/WasTheWorldMadeForMan.htm
1903.3.812) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: I was seven years old when I came so near going to Heaven that time. I do not know why I did not go; I was prepared. This was habit. I had been sick a considerable part of those seven years, and had naturally formed the custom of being prepared. Religion was made up almost exclusively of fire and brimstone in those days, and this furnished a motive for preparation which none but the very thoughtless neglected. To be honest, I will acknowledge that I sometimes neglected it myself; but it was only when I was well.
Scripture: And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, ... -- Revelation 20:10
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation; 1903
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1
1903.4.813) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: On a very cold winter’s night I lectured for the benefit of an English or American church-charity in a hall that was as hot as the Hereafter.
Scripture: And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.-- Luke 16:23
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation; 1903
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1
1904
1904.1.814) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: I would not give the assassination of one personal friend for a whole massacre of those others. And, to my mind, one relative or neighbor mixed up in a scandal is more interesting than a whole Sodom and Gomorrah of outlanders gone rotten. Give me the home product every time.
Scripture: Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. -- Genesis 19:24,25
Work; Date: Italian Without A Master; January 2, 1904
Source: https://www.classicshorts.com/stories/ItalianMaster.html
1904.2.815) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Of course it is a family that speaks languages. This occurs at their table—I know it by experience: It is Babel come again.
Scripture: And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. -- Genesis 11:1-9
Work; Date: Letter to Richard Watson Gilder; May 12, 1904
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3197/3197-h/3197-h.htm
1904.3.816) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Joan’s old generals, her secretary, several aged relations and other villagers of Domrémy, surviving judges and secretaries of the Rouen and Poitiers Processes—a cloud of witnesses, some of whom had been her enemies and persecutors,--came and made oath and testified;
Scripture: Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, – Hebrews 12:1
Work; Date: Saint Joan of Arc; December 1904
Source: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, & Essays: 1891-1910
1904.4.817) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Angelo speaks French—a French which he could get a patent on, because he invented it himself; a French which no one can understand, a French which resembles no other confusion of sounds heard since Babel, a French which curdles the milk. He prefers it to his native Italian.
Scripture: Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. – Genesis 11:9
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation; 1904
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1
1904.5.818) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: I am practising. I am preparing. Some day I shall be ready for him, and not in ineffectual French, but in his native tongue. I will seethe this kid in its mother’s milk.
Scripture: The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk. – Exodus 23:19
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation; 1904
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1
