The $30,000 Bequest, Mark Twain [best book club books for discussion TXT] 📗

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 could love him without those qualities.

He 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 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.

Forty 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; now 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.

***