Mark Twain Quotes

"Sanford Greeves was at Mrs Brooks's last night—a good, well-behaved, gentle-natured, fair & honorable young man, of little force and very harmless. It is well his good angel saved him from matrimony. Figuratively speaking, Emma would have made him climb a tree in less than six months. How she would have lorded it over him! Why they were utterly unfitted for each other, & I cannot see what ever bred their love. He is so meek, and she so—so—so otherwise as you might say. They got ready for mating, several centuries too soon, as nearly as I can make it out, after ciphering all through the Book of Revelations. Now, if they could only have been patient, & waited for the Millennium,—when "the lion & the lamb shall lie down together" It would have been all right, then—but not in the nineteenth century."

Samuel L. Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain (1835—1910)
1869; A 33 year-old Clemens, writing to future Mother-in-Law Olivia Lewis Langdon, has a bit of fun at the expense of a not-very-suitably matched couple. The woman, Emma Sayles, was a friend of Twain's future wife Olivia 'Livy' Langdon. Alas, Emma and poor, meek Sanford had recently canceled their matrimonial plans. Love that reference to Y2K, by the way, when surely "the lion & the lamb shall lie down together."

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