 Section 30 of the $30,000 bequest and other stories. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Anne Boullet. The $30,000 bequest and other stories by Mark Twain. Section 30, does the race of man love a Lord? Often a quite acidified remark becomes sanctified by use and petrified by custom. It is then a permanency. It's term of activity a geologic period. The day after the arrival of Prince Henry, I met an English friend and he rubbed his hands and broke out with a remark that was charged to the brim with joy. A joy that was evidently a pleasant self to an old sore place. Many a time I've had to listen without retort to an old saying that is irritatingly true and until now seem to offer no chance for a return jive. An Englishman does dearly love a Lord. But after this I shall talk back and say, How about the Americans? It is a curious thing, the currency that an idiotic saying can get. The man that first says it thinks he has made a discovery. The man he says it to thinks the same. It departs on its travels, is received everywhere with admiring acceptance and not only as a piece of rare and acute observation, but as being exhaustively true and profoundly wise. And so it presently takes its place in the world's list of recognized and established wisdoms. And after that no one thinks of examining it to see whether it is really entitled to its high honors or not. I call to mind instances of this in two well-established proverbs whose dullness is not surpassed by the one about the Englishman and his love for a Lord. One of them records the Americans' adoration of the almighty dollar. The other, the American millionaire's girl's ambition to trade cash for a title with a husband thrown in. It isn't merely the American that adores the almighty dollar, it is the human race. The human race has always adored the hat full of shells or the bale of calico or the half-bushel of brass rings or the handful of steel fish hooks or the house full of black wives or the zaraba full of cattle or the two score camels and asses or the factory or the farm or the block of buildings or the railroad bonds or the bank stock or the horticash or anything that stands for wealth and consideration and independence and can secure to the possessor that most precious of all things, another man's envy. It was a dull person that invented the idea that the Americans' devotion to the dollar is more strenuous than another's. Rich American girls do buy titles, but they did not invent that idea. It had been warm threadbare several hundred centuries before America was discovered. European girls still exploit it as briskly as ever. And when a title is not to be had for the money in hand, they buy the husband without it. They must put up the dot or there is no trade. The commercialization of brides is substantially universal, except in America. It exists with us to some little extent, but in no degree approaching a custom. The Englishman dearly loves the Lord. What is the soul and source of this love? I think the thing could be more correctly worded. The human race dearly envies a Lord. That is to say, it envies the Lord's place. Why? On two accounts, I think. It's power and his conspicuousness. Where conspicuousness carries with it a power which, by the light of our own observation and experience, we are able to measure and comprehend. I think our envy of the possessor is as deep and as passionate as is that of any other nation. No one can care less for a Lord than a back woodsman who has had no personal contact with Lords and has seldom heard them spoken of. But I will not allow that any Englishman has a profounder envy of a Lord, than has the average American who has lived long years in a European capital and fully learned how immense is the position the Lord occupies. Of any 10,000 Americans who eagerly gather at vast inconvenience to get a glimpse of Prince Henry, all but a couple hundred will be there out of an immense curiosity. They are burning up with desire to see a personage who is so much talked about. They envy him. But it is conspicuousness they envy mainly. Not the power that is lodged in his royal quality and position. For they have but a vague and spectral knowledge and appreciation of that. Though their environment and associations they have been accustomed to regard such things lightly and as not being very real. Consequently they are not able to value them enough to consumingly envy them. But whenever an American or other human being is in the presence for the first time of a combination of great power and conspicuousness which he thoroughly understands and appreciates his eager curiosity and pleasure will be well sodden with that other passion, envy, whether he suspects it or not. At any time on any day in any part of America you can confer a happiness upon any passing stranger by calling his attention to any other passing stranger and saying Did you see that gentleman going along there? It is Mr. Rockefeller. Watch his eye. It is a combination of power and conspicuousness which the man understands. When we understand rank we always like to rub against it. When a man is conspicuous we always want to see him. Also if he will pay as an attention we will manage to remember it. Also we will mention it now and then casually sometimes to a friend or if a friend is not handy we will make out with a stranger. Well then what is rank and what is conspicuousness? At once we think of kings and aristocracies of worldwide celebrities and soldierships, the arts, letters, etc. And we stop there but that is a mistake. Rank holds its court and receives its homage on every round of the latter from the emperor down to the rat catcher and distinction also exists on every round of the latter and commands its due of deference and envy. To worship rank and distinction is the dear and valued privilege of all the human race and it is freely and joyfully exercised in democracies as well as in monarchies and even to some extent among those creatures whom we impertently call the lower animals for even they have some poor little vanities and foibles though in this matter they are paupers as compared to us. A Chinese emperor has the worship of his 400 million subjects but the rest of the world is indifferent to him. A Christian emperor has the worship of his subjects and of a large part of the Christian world outside of his domains but he is a matter of indifference to all China. A king class A has an extensive worship a king class B has a less extensive worship class C class D class E get a steadily diminishing share of worship class L Sultan of Zanzibar class P Sultan of Zula and class W half king of Samoa get no worship at all outside their own little patch of sovereignty. Take the distinguished people along down each has his group of homage payers in the navy there are many groups they start with the secretary and the admiral and go down to the quartermaster and below for there will be groups among the sailors and each of these groups have a tar who is distinguished for his battles or his strength or his daring or his profanity and is admired and envied by his group the same with the army the same with the literary and journalistic craft the publishing craft the cod fishery craft standard oil US steel the class A hotel and the rest of the alphabet in that line the class A prize fighter and the rest of the alphabet in his line clear down to the lowest and obscured six-boy gang of little gamons with its one boy that can thrash the rest and to whom he is king of Samoa bottom of the royal race but looked up to with the most ardent admiration and envy there is something pathetic and funny and pretty about this human race's fondness for contact with power and distinction and for the reflected glory it gets out of it the king class A is happy in the state banquet and the military show which the emperor provides for him and he goes home and gathers the queen and the princelings around him in the privacy of the spare room and tells them all about it and says his imperial majesty put his hand upon my shoulder in the most friendly way just as friendly and familiar oh you can't imagine it and everyone's seeing him do it charming perfectly charming the king class G is happy in the coal collation and the police parade provided for him by the king class B and goes home and tells the family all about it and says and his majesty took me into his private cabinet for a smoke in a chat there we sat just as sociable and talking away and laughing and chatting just the same as if we had been born in the same bunk and all the servants in the anti-room could see us doing it oh it was too lovely for anything the king class Q is happy in the modest entertainment furnished him by the king class M and goes home and tells the household about it and is grateful and joyful over it as his predecessors in the god ear attentions that had fallen to their larger lot emperors, kings, artisans, peasants, big people, little people at the bottom we are all alike and all the same all just alike on the inside and when our clothes are off nobody can tell which of us is which we are unanimous in the pride we take in good and genuine compliments paid us and distinctions conferred upon us in attentions shown there is not one of us from the emperor down but is made like that do I mean attentions shown us by the guest? no, I simply mean flattering attentions let them come once they may we despise no source that can pay us a pleasing attention there is no source that is humble enough for that you have heard a dear little girl say to a frowsy and disreputable dog he came right to me and let me pat him on the head and he wouldn't let the others touch him and you have seen her eyes dance with pride in that high distinction you have often seen that if the child were a princess would that random dog be able to confer the light glory upon her with his pretty compliment? yes, and even in her mature life and seated upon a throne she would still remember it still recall it still speak of it with frank satisfaction that charming and lovable German princess and poet Carmen Silva, queen of Romania remembers yet that the flowers of the woods and fields talked to her when she was a girl and she sets it down in her latest book and that the squirrels conferred upon her and her father the valued compliment of not being afraid of them and once one of them, holding a nut between its sharp little teeth ran right up against my father it has the very note of he came right up to me and let me pat him on the head and when it saw itself reflected in his boot it was very much surprised and stopped for a long time to contemplate itself in the polished leather then it went its way and the birds she still remembers with pride that they came boldly into my room when she had neglected her duty and put no food on the windowsill for them she knew all the wild birds and forgets the royal crown on her head to remember with pride that they knew her also that the wasp and the bee were personal friends of hers and never forgot that gracious relationship to her injury never have I been stung by a wasp or a bee and here is that proud note again that sings in that little child's elation in being singled out among all the company of children for the random dogs honor conferring attentions even in the very worst summer for wasps when in lunching out of doors our table was covered with them and everyone else was stung they never hurt me when a queen whose qualities of mind and heart and character are able to add distinction to so distinguish a place as a throne remembers with grateful exaltation after 30 years honors and distinctions conferred upon her by the humble wild creatures of the forest we are helped to realize that complementary attentions homage distinctions are of no caste but are above all cast that they are a nobility conferring power apart we all like these things when the gate guard at the railway station passes me through unchallenged and examines other people's tickets I feel as the king class a felt when the emperor put the imperial hand on his shoulder everybody's seeing him do it and as the child felt when the random dog allowed her to pat his head and ostracize the others and as the princess felt when the wasps spared her and stung the rest and I felt just so four years ago in Vienna and remember it yet when the helmeted police shut me off with 50 others from a street which the emperor was to pass through and the captain of the squad turned and saw the situation and said indignantly to that guard can't you see it is the hair Mark Twain let him through it was four years ago but it will be four hundred before I forget the wind of self complacency that rose in me and strain my buttons when I mark the deference for me evoked in the faces of my fellow rabble and noted mingled with it a puzzled and resentful expression which said as plainly as speech could have worded it and who in the nation is the hair Mark Twain um got his will in how many times in your life have you heard this boastful remark I stood as close to him as I am to you I could have put out my hand and touched him we have all heard it many and many a time it was a proud distinction to be able to say those words it brought envy to the speaker a kind of glory and he passed in it and was happy through all his veins and who was it he stood so close to the answer would cover all the grades sometimes it was a king sometimes it was a renowned highwayman sometimes it was an unknown man killed in an extraordinary way and made suddenly famous by it always it was a person who was for the moment the subject of public interest of a village I was there and I saw myself that is a common and envy compelling remark it can refer to a battle to a handing to a coronation to the killing of jumbo by the railway train to the arrival of Jenny Lind at the battery to the meeting of the president and Prince Henry to the chase of a murderous maniac to the disaster in the tunnel to the explosion in the subway to a remarkable dogfight to a village church struck by lightning it will be said more or less casually by everybody in America who has seen Prince Henry do anything or try to the man who was absent and didn't see him to anything will scoff it is his privilege and he can make capital out of it too he will seem even to himself to be different from other Americans and better as his opinion of his superior Americanism grows and swells and concentrates and coagulates he will go further and try to belittle the distinction of those that saw the prince do things and will spoil their pleasure in it if he can my life has been embittered by that kind of person if you are able to tell of a special distinction that has fallen to your lot it gravels them they cannot bear it and they try to make believe that the thing you took for a special distinction was nothing of the kind and was meant in quite another way once I was received in private audience by an emperor last week I was telling a jealous person about it and I could see him wince under it see him bite see him suffer I revealed the whole episode to him with considerable elaboration and nice attention to detail when I was through he asked me what had impressed me most I said his majesty's delicacy they told me to be sure and back out from the presence and find the doorknob as best I could it was not allowable to face around now the emperor knew it would be a difficult ordeal for me because of lack of practice and so when it was time to part he turned with exceeding delicacy and pretended to fumble with things on his desk so I could get out in my own way without his seeing me it went home it was vitriol I saw the envy and disgruntlement rise in the man's face he couldn't keep it down I saw him try to fix up something in his mind to take the bloom off that distinction I enjoyed that for I judged that he had his work cut out for him he struggled along inwardly for quite a while then he said with a manner of a person who has to say something and hasn't anything relevant to say you said he had a handful of special brand cigars on the table yes I never saw anything to match them I had him again he had to fumble around in his mind as much as another minute before he could play then he said in as mean away as I ever heard a person say anything he could have been counting the cigars you know I cannot endure a man like that it is nothing to him how unkind he is so long as he takes the bloom off it is all he cares for an Englishman or other human being does dearly love a Lord or other conspicuous person it includes us all we love to be noticed by the conspicuous person we love to be associated with such or with a conspicuous event even in a seventh-rate fashion even in the forty-seventh if we cannot do better this accounts for some of our curious tastes in mementos it accounts for the large private trade in the Prince of Wales hair which chambermaids were able to drive in that article of commerce when the prince made the tour of the world in the long ago hair which probably did not always come from his brush since enough of it was marketed to refurnish a bald comet it accounts for the fact that the rope which lynches are negro in the presence of ten thousand Christian spectators is saleable five minutes later at two dollars an inch it accounts for the mournful fact that a royal personage does not venture to wear buttons on his coat in public we do love a Lord and by that term I mean any person whose situation is higher than our own the Lord of the group for instance a group of peers a group of millionaires a group of hoodlums a group of sailors a group of newsboys a group of saloon politicians a group of college girls no royal person has ever been the object of a more delirious loyalty and slavish adoration than is paid by the vast man he heard in its squalid idol in Wanage there is not a bifurcated animal in that menagerie that would not be proud to appear in a newspaper picture in his company at the same time there are some in that organization who would scoff at the people who have been daily pictured in the company with Prince Henry and would vigorously say that they would not consent to be photographed with him a statement which would not be true in any instance there are hundreds of people in America who would frankly say to you that they would not be proud to be photographed in a group with the prince if invited and some of these unthinking people would believe it when they said it yet in no instance would it be true we have a large population but we have not a large enough one by several millions to furnish that man he has not yet been begotten and in fact he is not begettable you may take any of the printed groups and there isn't a person in the dim background who isn't visibly trying to be vivid if it is a crowd of ten thousand ten thousand proud untamed Democrats horny-handed sons of toil and of politics and fliers of the eagle there isn't one who is trying to keep out of range there isn't one who isn't plainly meditating a purchase of the paper in the morning with the intention of hunting himself out in the picture and of framing and keeping it if he shall find so much of his person in it as his starboard ear we all love to get some of the drippings of conspicuousness and we will put up with a single humble drop if we can't get any more we may pretend otherwise in conversation but we can't pretend it to ourselves privately and we don't we do confess in public that we are the noblest work of God being moved to it by long habit and teaching and superstition but deep down in the secret places of our souls we recognize that if we are the noblest work the less said about it the better we of the north poke fun at the south for its fondness of titles a fondness of titles pure and simple regardless whether they are genuine or pinch-peck we forget that whatever a southerner likes the rest of the human race likes and that there is no law of preludiction lodged in one people that is absent from another people there is no variety in the human race we are all children all children of the one atom and we love toys we can soon acquire that southern disease if someone will give it a start it already has a start in fact I have been personally acquainted with over 84,000 persons who at one time or another in their lives have served for a year or two on the staffs of our multitudinous governors and through that fatality have been generals temporarily and colonels temporarily and judge advocates temporarily but I have known only nine among them who could be hired to let the title go when it ceased to be legitimate I know thousands and thousands of governors who cease to be governors a way back in the last century but I am acquainted with only three who would answer your letter if you fail to call them governor in it I know acres and acres of men who have done time in the legislature in prehistoric days but among them is not half an acre whose resentment you would not raise if you address them as mister instead of on the first thing a legislature does is convene in an impressive legislative attitude and get itself photographed each member frames his copy and takes it to the woods and hangs it up in the most aggressively conspicuous place in his house and if you visit the house and fail to inquire what that accumulation is the conversation will be brought around to it by the after time legislator and he will show you a figure in it which in the course of years he has almost obliterated with the smut of his finger marks and say with a solemn joy it's me have you ever seen a country congressman enter the hotel breakfast room in Washington with his letters and sit at his table and let on to read them and wrinkle his brows and frown statesmen like keeping a furtive watch out over his glasses all the while to see if he is being observed and admired those same old letters which he fetches in every morning have you seen it have you seen him show off it is the site of the national capital except one a pathetic one that is the ex congressman the poor fellow whose life has been ruined by a two-year taste of glory and a fictitious consequence who has been superseded and ought to take his heartbreak home and hide it but cannot tear himself away from the scene of his lost little grandeur and so he lingers and still lingers year after year unconsidered sometimes snubbed ashamed of his fallen estate and valiantly trying to look otherwise dreary and depressed but counterfeiting breeziness and gaiety hailing with chummy familiarity which is not always welcomed the more fortunes who are still in place and were once his mates have you seen him he clings piteously to the one little shred that is left of his departed distinction the privilege of the floor and works it hard and gets what he can out of it that is the saddest figure I know of yes we do so love our little distinctions and then we lawfully scoff at a prince for enjoying his larger ones forgetting that if we only had his chance senator is not a legitimate title a senator has no more right to be addressed by it than have you or I but in several state capitals and in washington there are five thousand senators who would take very kindly to that fiction and who purr gratefully when you call them by it which you may do quite unrebuke then those same senators smile at the self-constructed majors and generals and judges of the south indeed we do love our distinctions get them how we may and we work them for all they are worth in prayer we call ourselves worms of the dust but it is only a sort of tacit understanding that the remark shall not be taken at par we worms of the dust oh no we are not that except in fact and we do not deal much in fact when we are contemplating ourselves as a race we do certainly love a lord let him be croaker or a duke or a prize fighter or whatever other person and shall chance to be the head of our group many years ago I saw a greasy youth in overall standing by the herald office with an expectant look in his face soon a large man passed out and gave him a pat on the shoulder that was what the boy was waiting for the large man's notice the pat made him proud and happy and the exaltation inside of him shown out through his eyes and his mates were there to see the pat and envy it and wish they could have that glory the boy belonged down seller in the press room the large man was king of the upper floors foreman of the composing room the light in the boy's face was worshiped the foreman was his lord head of his group the pat was an accolade it was as precious to the boy as it would have been if he had been an aristocrat's son and the accolade had been delivered by his sovereign with a sword the quintessence of the honor was all there there was no difference in values in truth there was no difference present except an artificial one close all the human race loves the lord that is loves to look upon or be noticed by the possessor of power or conspicuousness and sometimes animals born to better things and higher ideals descend to man's level in this matter in the Jardine des Plantes I have seen a cat that was so vain of being the personal friend of an elephant that I was ashamed of her end of does the race of man love a lord? section 31 of the $30,000 bequest and other stories this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Richard Kilmer the $30,000 bequest and other stories by Mark Twain section 31 extracts from Adam's Diary Monday this new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way it is always hanging around and following me about I don't like this I am not used to company I wish it would stay with the other animals cloudy today, wind in the east think we shall have rain we? where did I get that word? the new creature uses it Tuesday been examining the great waterfall it is the finest thing on the estate I think the new creature calls it Niagara Falls why? I am sure I do not know says it looks like Niagara Falls that is not a reason it is mere waywardness and imbecility I get no chance to name anything myself the new creature names everything that comes along before I can get in a protest and always the same pretext is offered it looks like the thing there is a dodo for instance says the moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it looks like a dodo it will have to keep that name no doubt it worries me to fret about it and it does no good anyway dodo? it looks no more like a dodo than I do Wednesday built me a shelter against the rain but could not have it to myself in peace the new creature intruded when I tried to put it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with and wiped it away with the back of its paws and made a noise such as some of the animals make when they are in distress I wish it would not talk it is always talking that sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature a slur but I do not mean it to be so I have never heard the human voice before and any new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn hush of these dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note and this new sound is so close to me it is right at my shoulder right at my ear first on one side and then on the other and I am used only to the sounds that are more or less distant from me Friday the naming goes recklessly on in spite of anything I can do I had a very good name for the estate and it was musical and pretty Garden of Eden privately I continue to call it that but not any longer publicly the new creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery and therefore has no resemblance to a garden says it looks like a park and does not look like anything but a park consequently without consulting me it has been new named Niagara Falls Park this is sufficiently high-handed it seems to me and already there is a sign up keep off the grass my life is not as happy as it was Saturday the new creature eats too much fruit we are going to run short most likely we again that is its word mine too now from hearing it so much good deal of fog this morning I do not go out in the fog myself this new creature does it goes out in all weathers and stumps right in with its muddy feet and talks it used to be so pleasant and quiet here Sunday pulled through this day is getting to be more and more trying it was selected and set apart last November as a day of rest I had already six of them per week before this morning found the new creature trying to claw apples out of that forbidden tree Monday the new creature says its name is Eve that is all right I have no objections says it is to call it by when I want it to come I said it was superfluous then the word evidently raised me in its respect and indeed it is a large good word and will bear repetition it says it is not an it it is a she this is probably doubtful yet it is all one to me what she is were nothing to me if she would but go by herself and not talk Tuesday she has littered the whole estate with excretable names and offensive signs this way to the whirlpool this way to goat island cave of the winds this way she says this park would make a tidy summer resort if there were any custom for it summer resort another invention of hers just words without any meaning what is a summer resort but it is best not ask her she has such a rage for explaining Friday she has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the falls what harm does it do says it makes her shudder I wonder why I have always done it always like the plunge and coolness I suppose it was what the falls were for they have no other use that I can see they must have been made for something she says they were only made for scenery like the rhinostris and the mastodon I went over the falls in a barrel not satisfactory to her went over in a tub still not satisfactory swam the whirlpool in the rapids in a fig leaf suit it got much damaged hence tedious complaints about my extravagance I am too much hampered here what I need is a change of scene Saturday I escaped last Tuesday night and traveled two days and built me another shelter in a secluded place and obliterated my tracks as well as I could but she hunted me out by means of a beast which she has tamed and calls a wolf and came making that pitiful noise again and shedding that water out of the places she looks with I was obliged to return with her but will presently immigrate again when occasion offers she engages herself in many foolish things among others to study out why the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and flowers when as she says the sort of teeth they wear would indicate that they were intended to eat each other this is foolish because to do that would be to kill each other and that would introduce what as I understand is called death and death as I have been told has not yet entered the park which is a pity on some accounts Sunday pulled through Monday I believe I see what the week is for it is to give time to rest up from the weariness of Sunday it seems a good idea she has been climbing that tree again clotted her out of it she said nobody was looking seems to consider that a sufficient justification for chancing any dangerous thing told her that the word justification moved her admiration and envy to I thought it is a good word Tuesday she told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body this is at least doubtful if not more than that I have not missed any rib she is much trouble about the buzzard says grass does not agree with it is afraid she can't raise it thinks it was intended to live on the Cade flesh the buzzard must get along the best it can with what is provided we cannot overturn the whole scheme to accommodate the buzzard Saturday she fell in the pond yesterday when she was looking at herself in it what she is always doing she nearly strangled and said it was most uncomfortable this made her sorry for the creatures which live in there what she calls fish for she continues to fasten name onto things that don't need them and don't come when they are called by them which is a matter of no consequence to her she is such a numbskull anyway so she got a lot of them out and brought them in last night and put them in my bed to keep warm but I have noticed them now and then all day and I don't see that they are any happier there then they were before only quieter when night comes I shall throw them outdoors I will not sleep with them again for I find them clammy and unpleasant to lie among when a person hasn't anything on Sunday pulled through Tuesday she has taken up with a snake now the other animals are glad for she was always experimenting with them and bothering them and I am glad because the snake talks and this enables me to get a rest Friday she says the snake advises her to try the fruit of the tree and says the result will be a great and fine and noble education I told her there would be another result too it would introduce death into the world that was a mistake it had been better to keep the remark to myself it only gave her an idea she could save the sick buzzard and furnish meat to the despondent lions and tigers I advised her to keep away from the tree she said she wouldn't I foresee trouble will immigrate Wednesday I have had a variegated time I escaped last night and rode a horse all night as fast as he could go hoping to get clear of the park and hide in some other country before the trouble should begin but it was not to be about an hour after Saab as I was riding through a flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing slumbering or playing with each other according to their want all of a sudden they broke into a tempest of frightful noises and in one moment the plain was a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its neighbor I knew what it meant Eve had eaten that fruit and death was come into the world the tigers ate my house paying no attention when I ordered them to desist and they would have eaten me if I had stayed which I didn't but went away in much haste I found this place outside the park and was fairly comfortable for a few days but she has found me found me out and has named the place Tawanda says it looks like that in fact I was not sorry she came for there are but meager pickings here and she brought some of those apples I was obliged to eat them I was so hungry it was against my principles but I find that principles have no real force except when one is well-fed she came curtained in bows and bunches of leaves and when I asked her what she meant by such nonsense and snatched them away and threw them down she tittered and blushed I had never seen a person titter and blushed before and to me it seemed unbecoming and idiotic she said I would soon know how it was myself this was correct hungry as I was I laid down the apple half-eaten certainly the best one I ever saw considering the lateness of the season and raid myself in the discarded bows and branches and then spoke to her with some severity and ordered her to go and get some more and not make a spectacle of herself she did it and after this we crept down to where the wild beast battle had been and collected some skins and I made her patch together a couple of suits proper for public occasions they are uncomfortable it is true but stylish and that is the main point about clothes I find she is a good deal of a companion I see I should be lonesome and depressed without her now that I have lost my property another thing she says it is ordered that we work for our living hereafter she will be useful I will superintend ten days later she accuses me of being the cause of our disaster she says with apparent sincerity and truth that the serpent assured her that the forbidden fruit was not apples it was chestnuts I said I was innocent then for I had not eaten any chestnuts she said the serpent informed her that chestnut was a figurative term meaning an aged and moldy joke I turned pale at that for I have made many jokes to pass the weary time and some of them could have been of that sort though I had honestly supposed that they were new when I made them she asked me if I had made one just at the time of the catastrophe I was obliged to admit that I had made one to myself though not out loud it was this I was thinking about the falls and I said to myself how wonderful it is to see that vast body of water tumble down there then in an instant a bright thought flashed into my head and I let it fly saying it would be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble up there and I was just about to kill myself with laughing at it when all nature broke loose in war and death and I had to flee from my life there she said with triumph that is just it the serpent mentioned that very jest and called it the first chestnut and said it was co-evil with the creation alas I am indeed to blame would that I were not witty oh that I had never had that radiant thought next year we have named it Cain she caught it while I was up country trapping on the north shore of the eerie caught it in the timber a couple of miles from our dugout or it might have been for she isn't certain which it resembles us in some ways and maybe a relation that is what she thinks but this is an error in my judgment the difference in size warrants the conclusion that it is a different and a new kind of animal a fish perhaps though when I put it in the water to see it sank and she plunged in and snatched it out before there was an opportunity for the experiment to determine the matter I still think it is a fish but she is indifferent about what it is and will not let me have it to try I do not understand this the coming of the creature seems to have changed her whole nature and made her unreasonable about experiments she thinks more of it than she does of any of the other animals but is not able to explain why her mind is disordered everything shows it sometimes she carries the fish in her arms half the night when it complains and wants to get to the water at such times the water comes out of the places in her face that she looks out of and she pats the fish on the back and makes soft sounds with her mouth to soothe it and betrays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways I have never seen her do like this with any other fish and it troubles me greatly she used to carry the young tigers around so and play with them before we lost our property but it was only play she never took on about them like this when their dinner disagreed with them Sunday she doesn't work Sundays but lies around all tired out and likes to have the fish wallow over her and she makes full noises to amuse it and pretends to chew its paws and that makes it laugh I have not seen a fish before that could laugh this makes me doubt I've come to like Sunday myself super intending all week tires the body so there ought to be more Sundays in the old days they were tough but now they come handy Wednesday it isn't a fish I cannot quite make out what it is it makes curious devilish noises when not satisfied and says Google when it is it is not one of us for it doesn't walk it is not a bird for it doesn't fly it is not a frog for it doesn't hop it is not a snake for it doesn't crawl I feel sure it is not a fish though I cannot get a chance to find out whether it can swim or not it merely lies around and mostly on its back with its feet up I have not seen any other animal do that before I said I believed it was an enigma but she only admired the word without understanding it in my judgment it is either an enigma or some kind of bug if it dies I will take it apart and see what its arrangements are I never had a thing perplex me so three months later the perplexity augments instead of diminishing I sleep but little it has ceased from lying around and goes about on its four legs now yet it differs from the other four legged animals in that its front legs are unusually short consequently this causes the main part of its person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air and that is not attractive it is built much as we are but its method of traveling shows that it is not of our breed the short front legs and long hind ones indicate that it is of the kangaroo family but it is a marked variation of that species since the true kangaroo hops whereas this one never does still it is a curious and interesting variety and has not been cataloged before as I discovered it I have felt justified in securing the credit of the discovery by attaching my name to it and hence have called it kangaroo and adonemus it must have been a young one when it came before it has grown exceedingly since it must be five times as big now as it was then and when discontented it is able to make from twenty two to thirty eight times the noise it made at first coercion does not modify this but has the contrary effect for this reason I discontinued the system she reconciles it by persuasion and by giving it things which she has previously told me she wouldn't give it and as already observed I was not at home when it first came and she told me she found it in the woods it seems odd that it should be the only one yes it must be so for I have worn myself out these many weeks trying to find another one to add to my collection and for this to play with for surely then it would be quieter and we could tame it more easily but I find none nor any vestige of any and strangest of all no tracks it has to live on the ground it cannot help itself therefore how does it get about without leaving a track I have said a dozen traps but they do no good I catch all small animals except that one animals that merely go into the trap out of curiosity I think to see what the milk is there for they never drink it three months later the kangaroo still continues to grow which is very strange and perplexing I never knew one to be so long getting its growth it is fur on its head now not like kangaroo fur but exactly like our hair except that it is much finer and softer and instead of being black is red I am like to lose my mind over the capricious and harassing developments of this unclassified zoological freak if I could catch another one but that is hopeless it is a new variety and the only sample this is plain but I caught a true kangaroo and brought it in thinking that this one being lonesome would rather have that for company than have no kin at all or any animal it could feel a nearness to or to get sympathy from in its for long condition here among strangers who do not know its ways or habits or what to do to make it feel that it is among friends but it was a mistake it went into such fits at the site of the kangaroo that I was convinced it had never seen one before I pity the poor noisy little animal but there is nothing I can do to make it happy if I could tame it but that is out of the question the more I try the worse I seem to make it it grieves me to the heart to see it in its little storms of sorrow and passion I wanted to let it go but she wouldn't hear of it that seemed cruel and not like her and yet she may be right it may be lonelier than ever for since I cannot find another one how could it five months later it is not a kangaroo no for it supports itself by holding to her fingers and this goes a few steps on its hind legs and then falls down it is probably some kind of bear and yet it has no tail as yet and no fur except upon its head it still keeps on growing that is a curious circumstance for bears get their growth earlier than this bears are dangerous since our catastrophe and I shall not be satisfied to have this one prowling about the place much longer without a muzzle on I have offered to get her a kangaroo if she would let this one go but it did no good she is determined to run us into all sorts of foolish risks she was not like this before she lost her mind the fortnight later I examined its mouth there's no danger yet it has only one tooth it has no tail yet it makes more noise now than it ever did before and mainly at night I have moved out but I shall go over mornings to breakfast and see if it has more teeth if it gets a mouthful of teeth it will be time for it to go tail or no tail for a bear does not need a tail in order to be dangerous four months later I have been off hunting and fishing a month up in the region that she calls buffalo I don't know why unless it is because there are not any buffaloes there meantime the bear has learned the paddle around all by itself on its hind legs and says papa and mama it is certainly a new species this resemblance to words may be purely accidental of course and may have no purpose or meaning but even in that case it is still extraordinary and is a thing which no other bear can do this imitation of speech taken together with general absence of fur and entire absence of tail sufficiently indicates that this is a new kind of bear the further study of it will be exceedingly interesting meantime I will go off on a far expedition among the forests of the north and make an exhaustive search there must certainly be another one somewhere and this one will be less dangerous when it has company of its own species I will go straight away but I will muzzle this one first three months later it has been a weary weary hunt yet I have had no success in the meantime without stirring from the home estate she's caught another one I never saw such luck I might have hunted these woods a hundred years I never would have run across the thing next day I have been comparing the new one with the old one and it is perfectly plain that they are of the same breed I was going to stuff one of them from my collection but she is prejudiced against it for some reason or other so I have relinquished the idea though I think it is a mistake it would be an irreparable loss to science if they should get away the old one is tamer than it was and can laugh and talk like a parrot having learned this no doubt from being with the parrot so much and having the imitative faculty in a high developed degree I shall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot and yet I ought not to be astonished for it has already been everything else it could think of since those first days when it was a fish the new one is as ugly as the old one was at first and has the same sulfur and raw meat complexion and the same singular head without any fur on it she calls it Able ten years later there are boys we found it out long ago it was there coming in the small immature shape that puzzled us we were not used to it there are some girls now Able 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 it 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 End of Extracts from Adam's Diary Recording by Richard Kilmer Rio Medina, Texas Section 32 of the $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories by Mark Twain Section 32, Eve's Diary Translated from the original Saturday I am almost a whole day old now I arrived yesterday that is as it seems to me and it must be so for if there was a day before yesterday I was not there when it happened or I should remember it it could be of course that it did happen and that I was not noticing very well I will be very watchful now and if any day before yesterday's happen I will make a note of it it will be best to start right and not let the record get confused for some instinct tells me that these details are going to be important to the historian someday for I feel like an experiment I feel exactly like an experiment it would be impossible for a person to feel more like an experiment than I do and so I am coming to feel convinced that that is what I am an experiment just an experiment and nothing more then if I am an experiment am I the whole of it? no I think not I think the rest of it is part of it I am the main part of it but I think the rest of it has its share in the matter is my position assured or do I have to watch it and take care of it? the latter perhaps some instinct tells me that eternal vigilance is the price of supremacy that is a good phrase I think for one so young everything looks better today than it did yesterday in the rush of finishing up yesterday the mountains were left in a ragged condition and some of the plains were so cluttered with rubbish and remnants that the aspects were quite distressing noble and beautiful works of art should not be subjected to haste and this majestic new world is indeed a most noble and beautiful work and certainly marvelously near to being perfect notwithstanding the shortness of the time there are too many stars in some places and not enough in others but that can be remedied presently no doubt the moon got loose last night and slid down and fell out of the scheme a very great loss it breaks my heart to think of it there isn't another thing among the ornaments and decorations that is comparable to it for beauty and finish it should have been fastened better if we can only get it back again but of course there is no telling where it went to and besides whoever gets it will hide it I know it because I would do it myself I believe I can be honest in all other matters but I already begin to realize that the core and center of my nature is love of the beautiful a passion for the beautiful and that it would not be safe to trust me with a moon that belonged to another person and that person didn't know I had it I could give up a moon that I found in the daytime because I should be afraid someone was looking but if I found it in the dark I am sure I should find some kind of an excuse for not saying anything about it for I do love moons they are so pretty and so romantic I wish we had five or six I would never go to bed I should never get tired lying on the moss bank and looking up at them stars are good too I wish I could get some to put in my hair but I suppose I never can you would be surprised to find how far off they are for they do not look at when they first showed last night I tried to knock some down with a pole but it didn't reach which astonished me then I tried clods till I was all tired out but I never got one it was because I am left handed and cannot throw good even when I aimed at the one I wasn't after I couldn't hit the other one though I did make some close shots for I saw the black blood of the clod sail right into the midst of the golden clusters forty or fifty times just barely missing them and if I could have held out a little longer maybe I could have got one so I cried a little which was natural I suppose for one of my age and after I was rested I got a basket and started for a place on the extreme rim of the circle where the stars were close to the ground and I could get them with my hands which would be better anyway because I could gather them tenderly then and not break them but it was farther than I thought and at last I had to give it up I was so tired I couldn't drag my feet another step and besides they were sore and hurt me very much I couldn't get back home it was too far and turning cold but I found some tigers and nestled in among them and was most adorably comfortable and their breath was sweet and pleasant because they live on strawberries I had never seen a tiger before but I knew them in a minute by the stripes if I could have one of those skins it would make a lovely gown today I am getting better ideas about distances I was so eager to get hold of every pretty thing that I giddily grabbed for it sometimes when it was too far off and sometimes when it was about six inches away but seemed a foot alas with thorns between I learned the lesson also I made an axiom all out of my own head my very first one the scratched experiment shuns the thorn I think it is a very good one for one so young I followed the other experiment around yesterday afternoon at a distance to see what it might be for if I could but I was not able to make out I think it is a man I had never seen a man but it looked like one and I feel sure that that is what it is I realize that I feel more curiosity about it than about any of the other reptiles if it is a reptile and I suppose it is for it has frowsy hair and blue eyes and looks like a reptile it has no hips it tapers like a carrot when it stands it spreads itself apart like a derrick so I think it is a reptile though it may be architecture I was afraid of it at first and started to run every time it turned around for I thought it was going to chase me but by and by I found it was only trying to get away so after that I was not timid anymore but tracked it along several hours about 20 yards behind which made it nervous and unhappy at last it was a good deal worried and climbed a tree I waited a good while then gave it up and went home today the same thing over I've got it up the tree again Sunday it is up there yet resting apparently but it is a subterfuge Sunday isn't the day of rest Saturday is appointed for that it looks to me like a creature that is more interested in resting than in anything else it would tire me to rest so much it tires me just to sit around and watch the tree I do wonder what it is for I never see it do anything they returned to the moon last night and I was so happy I think it is very honest of them it slid down and fell off again but I was not distressed there is no need to worry when one has that kind of neighbors they will fetch it back I wish I could do something to show my appreciation I would like to send them some stars for we have more than we can use I mean I not we for I can see that the reptile cares nothing for such things it has low tastes and is not kind when I went there yesterday evening in the gloaming it had crept down and was trying to catch the little speckled fishes that lay in the pool and I had to clot it to make it go up the tree again and let them alone I wonder if that is what it is for hasn't it any heart hasn't it any compassion for those little creatures can it be that it was designed and manufactured for such un-gentle work it has the look of it one of the clods took it back of the ear and it used language it gave me a thrill for it was the first time I had ever heard speech except my own I did not understand the words but they seemed expressive when I found it could talk I felt a new interest in it for I love to talk I talk all day and in my sleep too and I am very interesting but if I had another to talk to I could be twice as interesting and would never stop if desired if this reptile is a man it isn't an it is it that wouldn't be grammatical would it I think it would be he I think so in that case one would parse it thus nominative he dative him possessive his in well I will consider it a man and call it he until it turns out to be something else this will be handier than having so many uncertainties next week Sunday all the week I tagged around after him and tried to get acquainted I had to do the talking because he was shy but I didn't mind it he seemed pleased to have me around and I used the social bill we a good deal because it seemed to flatter him to be included Wednesday we are getting along very well indeed now and getting better and better acquainted he does not try to avoid me anymore which is a good sign and shows that he likes to have me with him that pleases me and I study to be useful to him in every way I can so as to increase his regard during the last day or two I have taken all the work of naming things off his hands and this has been a great relief to him for he has no gift in that line and is evidently very grateful he can't think of a rational name to save him but I do not let him see that I am aware of his defect whenever a new creature comes along I name it before he has time to expose himself by an awkward silence in this way I have saved him many embarrassments I have no defect like this the minute I set eyes on an animal I know what it is I don't have to reflect a moment the right name comes out instantly just as if it were an inspiration as no doubt it is for I am sure it wasn't in me half a minute before I seem to know just by the shape of the creature and the way it acts what animal it is when the dodo came along he thought it was a wildcat I sighed in his eye but I saved him and I was careful not to do it in a way that could hurt his pride I just spoke up in a quite natural way of pleasing surprise and not as if I was dreaming of conveying information and said well I do declare if there isn't the dodo I explained without seeming to be explaining how I know it for a dodo and although I thought maybe he was a little peaked that I knew the creature when he didn't it was quite evident that he admired me that was very agreeable and I thought of it more than once with gratification before I slept how little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it Thursday my first sorrow yesterday he avoided me and seemed to wish I would not talk to him I could not believe it and thought there was some mistake for I loved to be with him and loved to hear him talk and so how could it be that he could feel unkind toward me when I had not done anything but at last it seemed true so I went away and sat lonely in the place where I first saw him the morning that we were made and I did not know what he was and was indifferent about him but now it was a mournful place and every little thing spoke of him and my heart was very sore I did not know why very clearly for it was a new feeling I had not experienced it before and it was all a mystery and I could not make it out but when night came I could not bear the lonesomeness and went to the new shelter which he has built to ask him what I had done that was wrong and how I could mend it and get back his kindness again but he put me out in the rain and it was my first sorrow Sunday it is pleasant again now and I am happy but those were heavy days I do not think of them when I can help it I tried to get him some of those apples but I cannot learn to throw straight I failed but I think the good intention pleased him they are forbidden and he says I shall come to harm but so I come to harm through pleasing him why shall I care for that harm? Monday this morning I told him my name hoping it would interest him but he did not care for it it is strange if he should tell me his name I would care I think it would be pleasanter in my ears than any other sound he talks very little perhaps it is because he is not bright and is sensitive about it and wishes to conceal it it is such a pity that he should feel so for brightness is nothing it is in the heart that the values lie I wish I could make him understand that a loving good heart is riches and riches enough and that without it intellect is poverty although he talks so little he has quite a considerable vocabulary this morning he used a surprisingly good word he evidently recognized himself that it was a good one for he worked it in twice afterward casually it was good casual art still it showed that he possesses a certain quality of perception without a doubt that seed can be made to grow if cultivated where did he get that word I do not think I have ever used it no he took no interest in my name I tried to hide my disappointment but I suppose I did not succeed I went away and sat on the moss bank with my feet in the water it is where I go when I hunger for companionship someone to look at someone to talk to it is not enough that lovely white body painted there in the pool but it is something and something is better than utter loneliness it talks when I talk it is sad when I am sad it comforts me with its sympathy it says do not be downhearted you poor friendless girl I will be your friend it is a good friend to me and my only one it is my sister that first time that she forsook me I shall never forget that never never my heart was lead in my body I said she was all I had and now she is gone in my despair I said break my heart I cannot bear my life anymore and hid my face in my hands and there was no solace for me and when I took them away after a little there she was again white and shining and beautiful and I sprang into her arms that was perfect happiness I had known happiness before but it was not like this which was ecstasy I never doubted her afterward sometimes she stayed away maybe an hour maybe almost the whole day but I waited and did not doubt I said she is busy or she is gone on a journey but she will come and it was so she always did at night she would not come if it was dark for she was a timid little thing but if there was a moon she would come I am not afraid of the dark but she is younger than I am she was born after I was many and many are the visits I have paid her she is my comfort and my refuge when my life is hard and it is mainly that Tuesday all the morning I was at work improving the estate and I purposely kept away from him in the hope that he would get lonely and calm but he did not at noon I stopped for the day and took my recreation by flitting all about with the bees and the butterflies and reveling in the flowers those beautiful creatures that catch the smile of God out of the sky and preserve it I gathered them and made them into reeds and garlands and clothed myself in them while I ate my luncheon apples of course then I sat in the shade and wished and waited but he did not come but no matter nothing would have come of it for he does not care for flowers he called them rubbish and cannot tell one from another and thinks it is superior to feel like that he does not care for me he does not care for flowers he does not care for the painted sky it even tied is there anything he does care for except building shacks to coop himself up in from the good clean rain and thumping the melons and sampling the grapes and fingering the fruit on the trees to see how those properties are coming along I laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in it with another one in order to carry out a scheme that I had and soon I got an awful fright a thin transparent bluish film rose out of the hole and I dropped everything and ran I thought it was a spirit and I was so frightened but I looked back and it was not coming so I leaned against a rock and rested and panted and let my limbs go on trembling until they got steady again then I crept wearily back alert, watching and ready to fly if there was occasion and when I was come near I parted the branches of a rose bush and peeped through wishing the man was about I was looking so cunning and pretty but the sprite was gone I went there and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole I put my finger in to feel it and said ouch and took it out again it was a cruel pain I put my finger in my mouth and by standing first on one foot and then the other and grunting I presently eased my misery then I was full of interest and began to examine I was curious to know what the pink dust was suddenly the name of it occurred to me though I had never heard of it before it was fire I was as certain of it as a person could be of anything in the world so without hesitation I named it that fire I had created something that didn't exist before I had added a new thing to the world's unaccountable properties I realized this and was proud of my achievement and was going to run and find him and tell him about it thinking to raise myself in his esteem but I reflected and did not do it no, he would not care for it he would ask what it was good for and what could I answer for if it was not good for something but only beautiful, merely beautiful so I sighed and did not go for it wasn't good for anything it could not build a shack it could not improve melons it could not hurry a fruit crop it was useless it was a foolishness and a vanity he would despise it and say cutting words but to me it was not despicable I said oh, you fire, I love you, you dainty pink creature for you are beautiful and that is enough and was going to gather it to my breast but refrained then I made another maxim out of my head though it was so nearly like the first one that I was afraid it was only a plagiarism the burnt experiment shuns the fire I wrought again and when I had made a good deal of fire dust I emptied it into a handful of dry brown grass intending to carry it home and keep it always in play with it but the wind struck it and it sprayed up and spat out at me fiercely and I dropped it and ran when I looked back the blue spirit was towering up and stretching and rolling away like a cloud and instantly I thought of the name of it smoke though upon my word I had never heard of smoke before soon brilliant yellow and red flares shot up through the smoke and I named them in an instant flames and I was right too though these were the very first flames that had ever been in the world they climbed the trees then flashed splendidly in and out of the vast and increasing volume of tumbling smoke and I had to clap my hands and laugh and dance in my rapture it was so new and strange and so wonderful and so beautiful he came running and stopped engaged and said not a word for many minutes then he asked what it was ah it was too bad that he should ask such a direct question I had to answer it of course and I did I said it was fire if it annoyed him that I should know and he must ask that was not my fault I had no desire to annoy him after a pause he asked how did it come another direct question and it also had to have a direct answer I made it the fire was traveling farther and farther off he went to the edge of the burned place and stood looking down and said what are these fire coals he picked up one to examine it but changed his mind and put it down again then he went away nothing interests him but I was interested there were ashes gray and soft and delicate and pretty I knew what they were at once and the embers I knew the embers too I found my apples and raked them out and was glad for I am very young and my appetite is active but I was disappointed they were all burst open and spoiled spoiled apparently but it was not so they were better than raw ones fire is beautiful someday it will be useful I think Friday I saw him again for a moment last Monday at nightfall but only for a moment I was hoping he would praise me for trying to improve the estate for I had meant well and had worked hard but he was not pleased and turned away and left me he was also displeased on another account I tried once more to persuade him to stop going over the falls that was because the fire had revealed to me a new passion quite new and distinctly different from love grief and those others which I had already discovered fear and it is horrible I wish I had never discovered it it gives me dark moments and spoils my happiness and it makes me shiver and tremble and shudder but I could not persuade him for he has not discovered fear yet and so he could not understand me end of Eve's Diary section 33 of the $30,000 bequest and other stories this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the $30,000 bequest and other stories by Mark Twain section 33 extract from Adam's Diary perhaps I ought to remember that she is very young a mere girl and make allowances she is all interest, eagerness, vivacity the world is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy she can't speak for delight when she finds a new flower she must pet it and caress it and smell it and talk to it and pour out endearing names upon it and she is color mad brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss green foliage, blue sky the pearl of the dawn the purple shadows on the mountain the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset the pallid moon sailing through the shredded cloud rack the star jewels glittering in the wastes of space none of them is of any practical value so far as I can see but because they have color and majesty that is enough for her and she loses her mind over them if she could quiet down and keep still a couple of minutes at a time it would be a reposeful spectacle in that case I think I could enjoy looking at her indeed I am sure I could for I'm coming to realize that she is a quite remarkably comely creature lithe slender trim rounded shapely nimble graceful and once when she was standing marble white and sun drenched on a boulder with her young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes watching the flight of a bird in the sky I recognized that she was beautiful Monday noon if there is anything on the planet that she is not interested in it is not in my list there are animals that I'm indifferent to but it is not so with her she has no discrimination she takes to all of them she thinks they are all treasures every new one is welcome when the mighty barontosaurus came striding into camp she regarded it as an acquisition I considered it a calamity this is a good sample of the lack of harmony that prevails in our view of things she wanted to domesticate it I wanted to make it a present of the homestead and move out she believed it could be tamed by kind treatment and would be a good pet I said a pet 21 feet high and 84 feet long would be no proper thing to have about the place because even with the best intentions and without meaning any harm it could sit down on the house and mash it for anyone could see by the look of its eye that it was absent-minded still her heart was set upon having that monster and she couldn't give it up she thought we could start a dairy with it and wanted me to help milk it but I wouldn't it was too risky the sex wasn't right and we hadn't any ladder anyway then she wanted to ride it and look at the scenery 30 or 40 feet of its tail was lying on the ground like a fallen tree and she thought she could climb it but she was mistaken when she got to the steep place it was too slick and down she came and would have hurt herself but for me was she satisfied now? no nothing ever satisfies her but demonstration untested theories are not in her line and she won't have them it is the right spirit I concede it it attracts me I feel the influence of it if I were with her more I think I should take it up myself well she had one theory remaining about this colossus she thought that if we could tame it and make him friendly we could stand in the river and use him for a bridge it turned out that he was already plenty tame enough at least as far as she was concerned so she tried her theory but it failed every time she got him properly placed in the river and went ashore to cross over him he came out and followed her around like a pet mountain like the other animals they all do that Friday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and today all without seeing him it is a long time to be alone still it is better to be alone than unwelcome I had to have company I was made for it I think so I made friends with the animals they are just charming and they have the kindest disposition and the politest ways they never look sour they never let you feel that you are intruding they smile at you and wag their tail if they've got one and they are always ready for a romp or an excursion or anything you want to propose I think they are perfect gentlemen all these days we have had such good times and it hasn't been lonesome for me ever lonesome no I should say not why there's always a swarm of them around sometimes as much as four or five acres you can't count them and when you stand on a rock in the midst and look out over the furry expanse it is so modelled and splashed and gay with color and frisking sheen and sun flash and so rippled with stripes that you might think it was a lake only you know it isn't and there's storms of sociable birds and hurricanes of worrying wings and when the sun strikes all that feathery commotion you have a blazing up of all the colors you can think of enough to put your eyes out we have made long excursions and I have seen a great deal of the world almost all of it I think and so I am the first traveler and the only one when we are on the march it is an imposing sight there's nothing like it anywhere for comfort I ride a tiger or a leopard because it is soft and has a round back that fits me and because they are such pretty animals but for long distance or for scenery I ride the elephant he hoists me up with his trunk but I can get off myself when we are ready to camp he sits and I slide down the back way the birds and animals are all friendly to each other and there are no disputes about anything they all talk and they all talk to me but it must be a foreign language for I cannot make out a word they say yet they often understand me when I talk back particularly the dog and the elephant it makes me ashamed it shows that they are brighter than I am for I want to be the principal experiment myself and I intend to be too I have learned a number of things and I'm educated now but I wasn't at first I was ignorant at first at first it used to vex me because with all my watching I was never smart enough to be around when the water was running uphill but now I do not mind it I have experimented and experimented until now I know it never does run uphill except in the dark I know it does in the dark because the pool never goes dry which it would of course if the water didn't come back in the night it is best to prove things by actual experiment then you know whereas if you depend on guessing and supposing and conjecturing you never get educated some things you can't find out but you will never know you can't by guessing and supposing no you have to be patient and go on experimenting until you find out that you can't find out and it is delightful to have it that way it makes the world so interesting if there wasn't anything to find out it would be dull even trying to find out and not finding out is just as interesting as trying to find out and finding out and I don't know but more so the secret of the water was a treasure until I got it then the excitement all went away and I recognized a sense of loss by experiment I know that wood swims and dry leaves and feathers and plenty of other things therefore by all that cumulative evidence you know that a rock will swim but you have to put up with simply knowing it for there isn't any way to prove it up to now but I shall find a way then that excitement will go such things make me sad because by and by when I have found out everything there won't be any more excitements and I do love excitements so the other night I couldn't sleep for thinking about it at first I couldn't make out what I was made for but now I think it was to search out the secrets of this wonderful world and be happy and thank the giver of it all for devising it I think there are many things to learn yet I hope so and by economizing and not hurrying too fast I think they will last weeks and weeks I hope so when you cast up a feather it sails away on the air and goes out of sight then you throw up a clot and it doesn't it comes down every time I have tried it and tried it and it is always so I wonder why it is of course it doesn't come down but why should it seem to I suppose it is an optical illusion I mean one of them is I don't know which one it may be the feather it may be the clot I can't prove which it is I can only demonstrate that one or the other is a fake and let a person take his choice by watching I know that the stars are not going to last I have seen some of the best ones melt and run down the sky since one can melt they can all melt since they can all melt they can all melt the same night that sorrow will come I know it I mean to sit up every night and look at them as long as I can keep awake and I will impress those sparkling fields on my memory so that by and by when they are taken away I can by my fancy restore those lovely myriads to the black sky and make them sparkle again and double them by the blur of my tears after the fall when I look back the garden is a dream to me it was beautiful surpassingly beautiful enchantingly beautiful and now it is lost and I shall not see it anymore the garden is lost but I have found him and I'm content he loves me as well as he can I love him with all the strength of my passionate nature and this I think is proper to my youth and sex if I ask myself why I love him I find I do not know and do not really much care to know so I suppose that this kind of love is not a product of reasoning and statistics like one's love for other reptiles and animals I think that this must be so I love certain birds because of their song but I do not love Adam on account of his singing no it is not that the more he sings the more I do not get reconciled to it yet I ask him to sing because I wish to learn to like everything he is interested in I am sure I can learn because at first I could not stand it but now I can it sours the milk but it doesn't matter I can get used to that kind of milk it is not on account of his brightness that I love him no it is not that he is not to blame for his brightness such as it is for he did not make it himself he is as God made him and that is sufficient there was a wise purpose in it that I know in time it will develop though I think it will not be sudden and besides there is no hurry he is well enough just as he is it is not on account of his gracious and considerate ways and his delicacy that I love him no he has lacks in this regard but he is well enough just so and is improving it is not on account of his industry that I love him no it is not that I think he has it in him and I do not know why he conceals it from me it is my only pain otherwise he is frank and open with me now I am sure he keeps nothing from me but this it grieves me that he should have a secret from me and sometimes it spoils my sleep thinking of it but I will put it out of my mind it shall not trouble my happiness which is otherwise full to overflowing it is not on account of his education that I love him no it is not that he is self-educated and does really know a multitude of things but they are not so it is not on account of his chivalry that I love him no it is not that he told on me but I do not blame him it is a peculiarity of sex I think and he did not make his sex of course I would not have told on him I would have perished first but that is a peculiarity of sex too and I do not take credit for it for I did not make my sex then why is it that I love him merely because he is masculine I think at bottom he is good and I love him for that but I could love him without it if he should beat me and abuse me I should go on loving him I know it it is a matter of sex I think he is strong and handsome and I love him for that and I admire him and am proud of him but I should love him without those qualities if he were plain I should love him if he were a wreck I should love him and I would work for him and slave over him and pray for him and watch by his bedside until I died yes I think I love him merely because he is mine and is masculine there is no other reason I suppose and so I think it is as I first said that this kind of love is not a product of reasonings and statistics it just comes none knows whence and cannot explain itself and it doesn't need to it is what I think but I am only a girl the first that has examined this matter and it may turn out that in my ignorance and inexperience I have not got it right 40 years later it is my prayer it is my longing that we may pass from this life together a longing which shall never perish from the earth but shall have place in the heart of every wife that loves until the end of time and it shall be called by my name but if one of us must go first it is my prayer that it shall be I for he is strong I am weak I am not so necessary to him as he is to me life without him would not be life how could I endure it this prayer is also immortal and will not cease from being offered up while my race continues I am the first wife and in the last wife I shall be repeated at Eve's grave Adam wheresoever she was there was Eden end of extract from Adam's diary end of the $30,000 bequest and other stories by Mark Twain