Eve's Diary, Complete
Mark Twain imagines the first woman discovering the world and herself in this sly, tender parody of the Adam and Eden myth. Written as a diary, the story follows Eve from her first moments of consciousness through her growing attachment to Adam, rendered in deceptively simple prose that somehow captures the entire comedy and tragedy of love between two people who don't have a clue what they're doing. She observes the animals, explores the garden, and tries desperately to understand this peculiar man she's been paired with. The humor lands through her earnest naivety and the gentle absurdity of watching innocence encounter experience. By the end, when the perspective shifts to Adam, the effect is quietly devastating: we've seen the same relationship through her eager, curious eyes and suddenly see it through his bewildered, devoted ones. It's a short work, barely fifty pages, but it contains the entire mystery of human connection.
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X-Ray
“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.””
— Mark Twain
“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.””
— Mark Twain
“No great nation is ever conquered until it has destroyed itself. Deforestation and the abuse of the soil, the depletion of precious metals, the migration of trade routes, the disturbance of economic life by political disorder, the corruption of democracy and the degeneration of dynasties, the decay of morals and patriotism, the decline or deterioration of the population, the replacement of citizen armies by mercenary troops, the human and physical wastage of fratricidal war, the guillotining of ability by murderous revolutions and counterrevolutions”
— Mark Twain
“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 some day. 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”
— Mark Twain
“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.””
— Mark Twain
