The Portable Mark Twain

by Mark Twain

  TEN YEARS LATER.—They are boys; we found it out long ago. It was their coming in that small, immature shape that fooled us; we were not used to it. There are some girls now. Abel is a good boy, but if Cain had stayed a bear it would have improved him. After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside without her. At first I thought she talked too much; but now, I should be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass out of my life. Blessed be the chestnut that brought us near together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the sweetness of her spirit!

  FROM THE TRAGEDY OF PUDD’NHEAD WILSON (1894)

  FROM FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR (1897)

  Mark Twain had a longstanding affection for the maxim. Early in his career, he was content with parodies and burlesques of Franklinseque words of advice, but by the time he came to write the sayings purportedly excerpted from Pudd’nhead Wilson’s “Calendar,” he had declared bankruptcy and his aphorisms frequently turned biting and cynical. David Wilson, the “pudd’nhead,” is a character in the novel bearing his name, but this story of babies switched at birth, one black and the other white, has relatively little to do with him. He does solve the mystery of identity at the end of the novel, but whatever “tragedy” there is in the tale is not Wilson’s. Nevertheless, each chapter is rather gratuitously introduced with one or more of his maxims, though their thematic relation to the narrative events is questionable at best. Pudd’nhead Wilson plays no part in Following the Equator. Nevertheless, Twain revived the device for this book, perhaps merely to introduce levity into a subject that was not nearly so playful as his earlier travel narratives had been. Following the Equator is a record of his round-the-world lecture tour, though the fact he is lecturing at all is barely mentioned. Instead, Twain somewhat plays the role of cultural anthropologist. Most of the book casts a jaundiced eye on the effects of colonialism throughout the world, and if Twain is still a believer in the blessings of “civilization” and progress and not yet the card-carrying anti-imperialist he would become in later years, he is nevertheless superbly damning of the savagery of some of the supposedly enlightened colonizers. This is clear in the chapter from Following the Equator that follows.

  FROM The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894)

  “PUDD’NHEAD WILSON’S CALENDAR”

  There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.

  Tell the truth or trump—but get the trick.

  Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple’s sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.

  Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.

  Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principal one was that they escaped teething.

  There is this trouble about special providences—namely, there is so often a doubt as to which party was intended to be the beneficiary. In the case of the children, the bears, and the prophet, the bears got more real satisfaction out of the episode than the prophet did, because they got the children.

  Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

  Remark of Dr. Baldwin’s, concerning upstarts: We don’t care to eat toadstools that think they are truffles.

  Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

  Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man but coaxed down-stairs a step at a time.

  One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

  The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.

  Consider well the proportions of things. It is better to be a young June-bug than an old bird of paradise.

  Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.

  It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it.

  All say, “How hard it is that we have to die”—a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

  When angry, count four; when very angry, swear.

  There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author and the three form a rising scale of compliment: 1, to tell him you have read one of his books; 2, to tell him you have read all of his books; 3, to ask him to let you read the manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to his respect; No. 2 admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries you clear into his heart.

  As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.

  Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose misapplication of the word. Consider the flea!—incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage. Whether you are asleep or awake he will attack you, caring nothing for the fact that in bulk and strength you are to him as are the massed armies of the earth to a sucking child; he lives both day and night and all days and nights in the very lap of peril and the immediate presence of death, and yet is no more afraid than is the man who walks the streets of a city that was threatened by an earthquake ten centuries before. When we speak of Clive, Nelson, and Putnam as men who “didn’t know what fear was,” we ought always to add the flea—and put him at the head of the procession.

  When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.

  October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.

  The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart and not to be mentioned with commoner things. It is chief of this world’s luxuries, king by grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took; we know it because she repented.

  Nothing so need reforming as other people’s habits.

  Behold, the fool saith, “Put not all thine eggs in the one basket”—which is but a manner of saying, “Scatter your money and your attention”; but the wise man saith, “Put all your eggs in the one basket and—WATCH THAT BASKET.”

  If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

  We know all about the habits of the ant, we know all about the habits of the bee, but we know nothing at all about the habits of the oyster. It seems almost certain that we have been choosing the wrong time for studying the oyster.

  Even popularity can be overdone. In Rome, along at first, you are full of regrets that Michelangelo died, but by and by you only regret that you didn’t see him do it.

  July 4. Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so.

  Gratitude and treachery are merely the two extremities of the same procession. You have seen all of it that is worth staying for when the band and the gaudy officials have gone by.

  Thanksgiving Day. Let all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks, now, but the
turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji.

  Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

  It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse-races.

  Even the clearest and most perfect circumstantial evidence is likely to be at fault, after all, and therefore ought to be received with great caution. Take the case of any pencil sharpened by any woman: if you have witnesses you will find she did it with a knife, but if you take simply the aspect of the pencil you will say she did it with her teeth.

  He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.

  April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.

  It is often the case that the man who can’t tell a lie thinks he is the best judge of one.

  October 12, the Discovery. It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

  FROM Following the Equator (1897)

  “PUDD’NHEAD WILSON’S NEW CALENDAR”

  A man may have no bad habits and have worse.

  When in doubt, tell the truth.

  It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right.

  A dozen direct censures are easier to bear than one morganatic compliment.

  Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.

  He was as shy as a newspaper is when referring to its own merits.

  Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

  It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

  It is your human environment that makes climate.

  Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.

  We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.

  There are those who scoff at the school-boy, calling him frivolous and shallow. Yet it was the school-boy who said, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”

  The timid man yearns for full value and demands a tenth. The bold man strikes for double value and compromises on par.

  We can secure other people’s approval if we do right and try hard, but our own is worth a hundred of it and no way has been found out of securing that.

  Truth is stranger than fiction—to some people, but I am measurably familiar with it.

  Truth is stranger than Fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.

  There is a Moral Sense and there is an Immoral Sense. History shows us that the Moral Sense enables us to perceive morality and how to avoid it, and that the Immoral Sense enables us to perceive immorality and how to enjoy it.

  The English are mentioned in the Bible: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

  It is easier to stay out than get out.

  Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead.

  It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practise either of them.

  Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.

  Nothing is so ignorant as a man’s left hand, except a lady’s watch.

  Be careless in your dress if you must but keep a tidy soul.

  There is no such thing as “the Queen’s English.” The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares.

  “Classic.” A book which people praise and don’t read.

  There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one: keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.

  Man is the Only Animal that blushes. Or needs to.

  The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession, what there is of it.

  Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.

  When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.

  Nature makes the locust with an appetite for crops; man would have made him with an appetite for sand.

  The spirit of wrath—not the words—is the sin; and the spirit of wrath is cursing. We begin to swear before we can talk.

  The man with a new idea is a Crank until the idea succeeds.

  Let us be grateful to Adam our benefactor. He cut us out of the “blessing” of idleness and won for us the “curse” of labor.

  Let us not be too particular. It is better to have second-hand diamonds than none at all.

  The Autocrat of Russia possesses more power than any other man in the earth, but he cannot stop a sneeze.

  There are several good protections against temptations but the surest is cowardice.

  Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwep is pronounced Jackson.

  To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do.

  Prosperity is the best protector of principle.

  By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.

  Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man’s, I mean.

  There is an old-time toast which is golden for its beauty, “When you ascend the hill of prosperity may you not meet a friend.”

  Each person is born to one possession which outvalues all his others—his last breath.

  Hunger is the handmaid of genius.

  The old saw says, “Let a sleeping dog lie.” Right. Still, when there is much at stake it is better to get a newspaper to do it.

  It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you to the heart, the one to slander you and the other to get the news to you.

  If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill came always together, who would escape hanging?

  Simple rules for saving money: To save half, when you are fired by an eager impulse to contribute to a charity, wait and count forty. To save three-quarters, count sixty. To save it all, count sixty-five.

  Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

  He had had much experience of physicians, and said “the only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d druther not.”

  The man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin of the statue that wears a fig-leaf.

  Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either.

  Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

  True irreverence is disrespect for another man’s god.

  Do not undervalue the headache. While it is at its sharpest it seems a bad investment, but when relief begins the unexpired remainder is worth four dollars a minute.

  There are eight hundred and sixty-nine different forms of lying, but only one of them has been squarely forbidden. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.