Sundays with Mark Twain — (1906, Part 1 of 2)
Sundays with Mark Twain #98
1906, Part 1
1906.1.832) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Without a blush he will vote for an unclean boss if that boss is his party’s Moses, without compunction he will vote against the best man in the whole land if he is on the other ticket. Every year in a number of cities and States he helps put corrupt men in office, whereas if he would but throw away his Christian public morals, and carry his Christian private morals to the polls, he could promptly purify the public service and make the possession of office a high and honorable distinction.
Scripture: And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt. -- Exodus 3:7-10
Work; Date: Speech delivered January 22, 1906
Source: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/marktwaintaxesandmorals.htm
1906.2.833,834) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: ...they have always been trying to find a way of restoring me to the fold without damaging my pride. At last they found a way. They made me an honorary member. This handsome honor afforded me unlimited gratification, and I was glad to get back under such flattering conditions. (I don’t like that word, but let it go, I can’t think of the right one at the moment.) Then David Munro and the others put up the fatted calf for the lost sheep in the way of a dinner to me.
Scripture: But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put [it] on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on [his] feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill [it]; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. -- Luke 15:22-24
Scripture: My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace. -- Jeremiah 50:6
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of January 16, 1906
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1
1906.3.835) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Once, when Susy was seven, she sat breathlessly absorbed in watching a guest of ours adorn herself for a ball. The lady was charmed by this homage; this mute and gentle admiration; and was happy in it. And when her pretty labors were finished, and she stood at last perfect, unimprovable, clothed like Solomon in all his glory, she paused, confident and expectant, to receive from Susy’s tongue the tribute that was burning in her eyes. Susy drew an envious little sigh and said:
“I wish I could have crooked teeth and spectacles!”
Scripture: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. -- Matthew 6:29
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of February 5, 1906
Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19987/19987-h/19987-h.htm
1906.4.836) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: ...I never had a historical mind. Let it go. Whichever way it happened I am glad of it, and that is as much enthusiasm as I can get up for a person bearing my name. But I am forgetting the first Clemens—the one that stands furthest back toward the really original first Clemens, which was Adam.
Scripture: Thy first father hath sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against me. -- Isaiah 43:27
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of February 9, 1906
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1
1906.5.837) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: One day he delighted me with a joke which I afterwards used in a lecture in San Francisco, and from there it traveled all around in the newspapers. He said “If a man compel thee to go with him a mile, go with him Twain.”
Scripture: And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. -- Matthew 5:41
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of February 21, 1906
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1
1906.6.838) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: His whole utterance is merely a convention. Not a word of what he said came out of his heart. He knew perfectly well that to pen six hundred helpless and weaponless savages in a hole like rats in a trap and massacre them in detail during a stretch of a day and a half, from a safe position on the heights above, was no brilliant feat of arms—and would not have been a brilliant feat of arms even if Christian America, represented by its salaried soldiers, had shot them down with Bibles and the Golden Rule instead of bullets. He knew perfectly well that our uniformed assassins had not upheld the honor of the American flag, but had done as they have been doing continuously for eight years in the Philippines—that is to say, they had dishonored it.
Scripture: Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. -- Matthew 7:12
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of March 12, 1906
Source: https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/clemensmoromassacre.html
1906.7.839) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: I always recited the same five verses every Sunday. He was always satisfied with the performance. He never seemed to notice that these were the same five foolish virgins that he had been hearing about every Sunday for months.
Scripture: Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: -- Matthew 25:1-3
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of March 16, 1906
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1
1906.8.840) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Eight years ago I quite painstakingly and exhaustively explained Joseph, by the light of the 47th chapter of Genesis, in a North American Review article which has since been transferred to volume XXII of my Collected Works; then I turned my attention to other subjects, under the impression that I had settled Joseph for good and all and left nothing further for anybody to say about him. … I do not find that Joseph made loans to those distressed peasants and secured the loans by mortgage on their lands and animals, I seem to find that he took the land itself -- to the last acre, and the animals too, to the last hoof. And I do not get the impression that Joseph charged those starving unfortunates “only a fair market price for the food they received.” No, I get the impression that he skinned them of every last penny they had; of every last acre they had; of every last animal they had; then bought the whole nation’s bodies and liberties on a “fair market” valuation for bread and the chains of slavery. Is it conceivable that there can be a “fair market price,” or any price whatever, estimable in gold, or diamonds, or bank notes, or government bonds, for a man’s supremest possession -- that one possession without which his life is totally worthless -- his liberty?
Scripture: And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the corn which they bought: and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house. And when money failed in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said, Give us bread: for why should we die in thy presence? for the money faileth. And Joseph said, Give your cattle; and I will give you for your cattle, if money fail. And they brought their cattle unto Joseph: and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses, and for the flocks, and for the cattle of the herds, and for the asses: and he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year. When that year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and said unto him, We will not hide it from my lord, how that our money is spent; my lord also hath our herds of cattle; there is not ought left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands: Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, that the land be not desolate. And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over them: so the land became Pharaoh’s. And as for the people, he removed them to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt even to the other end thereof. Only the land of the priests bought he not; for the priests had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them: wherefore they sold not their lands. Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land. And it shall come to pass in the increase, that ye shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones. And they said, Thou hast saved our lives: let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s servants. And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part; except the land of the priests only, which became not Pharaoh’s. -- Genesis 47:13-26
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of March 20, 1906
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1
1906.9.841) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: He was the strangest compound that ever got mixed in a human mould. Such a person as that is given to acting upon impulse and without reflection; that was Orion’s way. Everything he did he did with conviction and enthusiasm and with a vainglorious pride in the thing he was doing--and no matter what that thing was whether good, bad, or indifferent, he repented of it every time in sackcloth and ashes before twenty-four hours had sped. Pessimists are born, not made. Optimists are born, not made. But I think he was the only person I have ever known in whom pessimism and optimism were lodged in exactly equal proportions.
Scripture: And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days. -- Genesis 37:34
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of March 28, 1906
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 1
1906.12.842) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Without a blush he will vote for an unclean boss if that boss is his party’s Moses, without compunction he will vote against the best man in the whole land if he is on the other ticket.
Scripture: And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt. -- Exodus 3:7-10
Work; Date: Speech “Taxes and Morals”; January 22, 1906
Source: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/marktwaintaxesandmorals.htm
1906.13.843,844) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: An old and particular friend of mine unloaded a patent on me, price fifteen thousand dollars. It was worthless, and he had been losing money on it a year or two, but I did not know those particulars, because he neglected to mention them. He said that if I would buy the patent he would do the manufacturing and selling for me. So I took him up. Then began a cash outgo of five hundred dollars a month. That raven flew out of the ark regularly every thirty days, but it never got back with anything, and the dove didn’t report for duty. After a time, and half a time, and another time, I relieved my friend and put the patent into the hands of Charles L. Webster, who had married a niece of mine and seemed a capable and energetic young fellow. At a salary of fifteen hundred a year he continued to send the raven out monthly, with the same old result to a penny.
Scripture: And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark. And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. -- Genesis 8:6-11
Scripture: And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. -- Revelation 12:14
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of May 24, 1906
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 2
1906.14.845) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Webster throned himself in the rope walk and issued a summons to the sixteen general agents to come from the sixteen quarters of the United States and sign contracts. They came. They assembled. Webster delivered the law to them as from Mount Sinai.
Scripture: And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God. -- Exodus 31:18
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of May 29, 1906
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 2
1906.15.846) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: Webster was a good general agent, but he knew nothing about publishing, and he was incapable of learning anything about it. By and by I found that he had agreed to resurrect Henry Ward Beecher’s “Life of Christ.” I suggested that he ought to have tried for Lazarus, because that had been tried once and we knew it could be done.
Scripture: These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death: but they thought that he had spoken of taking of rest in sleep. 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. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on him. -- John 11:11-14,39-45
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of June 2, 1906
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 2
1906.16.847) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: During 1886, and the four succeeding years, while Webster was sitting on my financial nest and hatching ruin for me, I was assisting in the work at my end of the line, Hartford. I entered into an arrangement with a descendant of Judas Iscariot by the name of J.W. Paige, a natural liar and thief, to build a type-setting machine, I to furnish the money. Let us not dwell upon this. The machine was a failure.
Scripture: Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. -- John 12:4-6
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of June 2, 1906
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 2
1906.17.848) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: To Adam is forbidden the fruit of a certain tree--and he is gravely informed that if he disobeys he shall die.
Scripture: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. -- Genesis 2:16,17
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of June 19, 1906
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 2
1906.18.849) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: The earthly half requires us to be merciful, and sets us an example by inventing a lake of fire and brimstone in which all of us who fail to recognize and worship Him as God are to be burned through all eternity.
Scripture: And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. -- Revelation 20:10-15
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of June 19, 1906
Source: https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/10/08/religion-autobiography-of-mark-twain-volume-2/
1906.19.850) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: We are required to forgive our brother seventy times seven times, and be satisfied and content if on our death-bed, after a pious life, our soul escape from our body before the hurrying priest can get to us and furnish it a pass with his mumblings and candles and incantations.
Scripture: Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. -- Matthew 18:21,22
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of June 19, 1906
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 2
1906.20.851,852) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: We are told that the two halves of our God are only seemingly disconnected by their separation; that in very fact the two halves remain one, and equally powerful, notwithstanding the separation. This being the case, the earthly half--who mourns over the sufferings of mankind and would like to remove them, and is quite competent to remove them at any moment He may choose--satisfies Himself with restoring sight to a blind person, here and there, instead of restoring it to all the blind; cures a cripple, here and there, instead of curing all the cripples; furnishes to five thousand famishing persons a meal, and lets the rest of the millions that are hungry remain hungry--and all the time He admonishes inefficient man to cure these ills which God Himself inflicted upon him, and which He could extinguish with a word if He chose to do it, and thus do a plain duty which He had neglected from the beginning and always will neglect while time shall last. He raised several dead persons to life. He manifestly regarded this as a kindness. If it was a kindness it waa not just to confine it to a half a dozen persons. He should have raised the rest of the dead. I would not do it myself, for I think the dead are the only human beings who are really well off--but I merely mention it, in passing, as one of those curious incongruities with which our Bible history is heavily overcharged.
Scripture: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me. -- Matthew 11:5,6
Scripture: And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying, This is a desert place, and the time is now past; send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals. But Jesus said unto them, They need not depart; give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, We have here but five loaves, and two fishes. He said, Bring them hither to me. And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the fragments that remained twelve baskets full. And they that had eaten were about five thousand men, beside women and children. -- Matthew 14:15-21
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of June 19, 1906
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 2
1906.21.853) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: ...--the testimony of but one human being, the Virgin herself, a witness not disinterested, but powerfully interested; a witness incapable of knowing the fact as a fact, but getting all that she supposed she knew about it at second-hand,--at second-hand from an entire stranger, an alleged angel, who could have been an angel, perhaps, but also could have been a tax collector. It is not likely that she had ever seen an angel before, or knew their trade-marks. He was a stranger. He brought no credentials.
Scripture: And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her. -- Luke 1:26-38
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of June 20, 1906
Source: Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 2
1906.22.854) Quote, Reference, or Allusion: There is one notable thing about our Christianity: bad, bloody, merciless, money-grabbing and predatory as it is -- in our country particularly, and in all other Christian countries in a somewhat modified degree -- it is still a hundred times better than the Christianity of the Bible, with its prodigious crime -- the invention of Hell. Measured by our Christianity of to-day, bad as it is, hypocritical as it is, empty and hollow as it is, neither the Deity nor His Son is a Christian, nor qualified for that moderately high place. Ours is a terrible religion. The fleets of the world could swim in spacious comfort in the innocent blood it has spilt.
Scripture: And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration. ... And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth. -- Revelation 17:4,5,6,18
Work; Date: Autobiographical Dictation of June 20, 1906
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/570197-there-is-one-notable-thing-about-our-christianity-bad-bloody
