Mark twain

          Mark twain

Mark Twain was the pen name of Samuel
Langhorne Clemens, a popular American writer. He
was famous for his humorous stories, novels and other
writings. His ready wit shone through everyday
conversations. Many anecdotes related to Mark Twain
are told and enjoyed even today.
It should be noted that he was a great defender of
human values like liberty, equality and fraternity. He
opposed wars and imperialism and supported the cause
of labourers and of the black people in his country,
America. Given below are some anecdotes from his life
and some quotations from his speeches and writings.
Mark Twain
ö What was Mark
Twain’s real
name ?
ö Where else are the
 human values of
 liberty, equality and
 fraternity mentioned
 in the book ? Find
 and copy the page
 in a beautiful hand.
Some Anecdotes
One day during a lecture tour, Mark Twain entered
a local barber shop for a shave. This, Twain told the
barber, was his first visit to the town.
“You’ve chosen a good time to come,” he declared.
“Oh?” Twain replied.
“Mark Twain is going to lecture here tonight.
You’ll want to go, I suppose?”
“I guess so...”
“Have you bought your ticket yet ?”
“No, not yet.”
“Well, it’s sold out, so you’ll have to stand.”
“Just my luck,” said Twain with a sigh.
“I always have to stand when that fellow lectures !”
Mrs Stowe was leaving for Florida one morning,
and Clemens (the young Mark Twain) ran over early
to say goodbye. On his return Mrs Clemens regarded
him disapprovingly:
“Why”, she said, “you haven’t on any collar and
tie.”
He said nothing, but went up to his room, did up
these items in a neat package, and sent it over to
Mrs Stowe by a servant, with a line:
‘Herewith receive a call from the rest of me.’ One day Henry Irving, in the midst of telling
Mark Twain a humorous story, abruptly stopped and
examined his friend’s face. “You haven’t heard this,
have you ?” he asked. Twain assured him that he had
not.
When, some time later, Irving again paused, and
again posed the question, Twain again reassured him.
Then, approaching the climax, Irving broke off once
more. “Are you quite sure you haven’t heard this?”
he demanded suspiciously.
“I can lie once,” Twain finally replied. “I can lie
twice for courtesy’s sake, but I draw the line there. I
can’t lie the third time at any price. I not only heard
the story, I invented it !”



Mark Twain once proposed a ‘Plan for the
Improvement of English Spelling’:
For example, in Year 1 that useless letter ‘c’
would be dropped to be replased either by ‘k’ or
‘s,’ and likewise, ‘x’ would no longer be part of
the alphabet.
The only kase in which ‘c’ would be retained
would be the ‘ch’ formation, which will be dealt
with later.
Year 2 might reform ‘w’ spelling, so that
‘which’ and ‘one’ would take the same konsonant,
wile Year 3 might well abolish ‘y’ replasing it
with ‘i’ and Iear 4 might fiks the ‘g/j’ anomali
wonse and for all.
Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue
iear bai iear with Iear 5 doing awai with useless
double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 or so modifaiing
vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist
konsonants. Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi
posibl to meik ius ov thi ridandant letez ‘c,’ ‘y’
and ‘x’ — bai now jast a memori in the maindz
ov ould doderez — tu riplais ‘ch,’ ‘sh,’ and ‘th’
rispektivli.
Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl
riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius
xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. One day during his tenure as the editor of a small
Missouri newspaper, Mark Twain received a letter
from a reader who had found a spider in his paper.
He wondered whether this portended good or bad luck.
“Finding a spider in your paper,” Twain replied,
“is neither good luck nor bad. The spider was merely
looking over our paper to see which merchant was
not advertising so that he could go to that store, spin
his web across the door, and lead a life of undisturbed
peace ever afterward.”
Mark Twain’s birth in November 1835 was
heralded by the return of Halley’s comet. Twain, who
often remarked upon this curiosity, came to think of
himself and the comet as ‘unaccountable freaks,’
cosmically linked: having come in together, he
declared, they would go out together.
In fact, Twain was proven right. On the night of
his death in April 1910, Halley’s comet once again
blazed through the sky...
• portended:
indicated,
foretold
Some Quotations
Ð April Fool’s Day - This is the day upon which
we are reminded of what we are on the other
three hundred and sixty-four.
Ð A man cannot be comfortable without his own
approval.
Ð A person with a new idea is a crank until the
idea succeeds.
Ð Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you
don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.
Ð All generalizations are false, including this one.
Ð Be careful about reading health books.
You may die of a misprint.
Ð Be careless in your dress if you will,
but keep a tidy soul.
Ð ‘Classic’ - A book which people praise
and don’t read.
Ð Humour is mankind’s greatest blessing.
Ð I am an old man and have known a great many
troubles, but most of them never happened.
Ð I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it
takes me as much as a week sometimes to make
it up.
Ð If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember
anything.
Ð It is better to deserve honours and not have them
than to have them and not deserve them.
Ð It is better to keep your mouth closed and let
people think you are a fool than to open it and
remove all doubt.
Ð It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction.
Fiction has to make sense.
Ð Whenever you find yourself on the side of the
majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Ð Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve
at a funeral? It is because we are not the person
involved.
Ð Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered
- either by themselves or by others.
Ð Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is
lightning that does the work.
Ð When I was younger I could remember anything,
whether it happened or not.
Ð When your friends begin to flatter you on how
young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting
old.