Mark Twain on Mothers

MOTHER

     "I was always told that I was a sickly and precarious and tiresome and uncertain child,"  Mark Twain informed his biographer Paine, "and lived mainly on allopathic medicines during the first seven years of my life.  I asked my mother about this, in her old age--she was was in her eighty-seventh year--and said: 'I suppose that during all that time you were uneasy about me?' "
     "Yes, the whole time,"  said she.
     "Afraid I wouldn't live?"
     After a reflective pause--ostensibly to think out the facts--"No--afraid you would."

MOTHER-IN-LAW

     Mark Twain taught that there are two types of humor, conscious humor and unconscious humor.  He used the following mother-in-law joke as an example of unconscious humor.
           A man receives a telegram telling him that his mother-in-law is dead and asking, "Shall we embalm, bury, or cremate her?"
           He wired back, "If these fail, try dissection."
"Now the unconscious humor of this,"  Mark Twain explained, "was that he thought they'd try all of the three means suggested, anyway."

MORALS

     Mark Twain often described himself as a "professional moralist."  In a speech in London in June 1899, he told of the turning point in his moral development.  It was one day in his youth when he stole a watermelon out of a farmer's wagon while the farmer was waiting on another customer:  " 'stole' is a harsh term, I withdrew--I retired that watermelon--and I retired with it."  Much to his chagrin, the watermelon turned out to be unripe.
     "The minute I saw it was green I was sorry, and began to reflect--reflection is the beginning of reform. . . .I said to myself  'What ought a boy to do who has stolen a green watermelon?  What would George Washington do, the father of his country, the only American who could not tell a lie?  What would he do?  There is only one right, high, noble thing for any boy to do who has stolen a watermelon of that class; he must make restitution; he must restore that stolen property to its rightful owner.'  I said i would do it when I made that good resolution.  I felt it would be a noble, uplifting obligation.  I rose up spiritually stronger and refreshed.  I carried that watermelon back--what was left of it--and restored it to the farmer, and made him give me a ripe one in its place."

Always do right.  This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.   (from a note to the Young People's Society, 1901)

The Moral Sense teaches us what is right, and how to avoid it--when unpopular.   (from an essay "The United States of Lyncherdom,"  published in 1923)

No brute ever does a cruel thing--that is the monopoly of those with the Moral Sense.   (from "The Mysterious Stranger," published in 1916)

A man should not be without morals;  it is better to have bad morals than none at all.   (from an 1894 notebook)

It is not best that we use our morals week days;  it gets them out of repair for Sundays.  (from an 1898 notebook)