Sam came up one day with his
ten yellow tickets, and everybody knew he had not said a verse, but had
just got them by trading with the boys. But he received his Bible with
all the serious air of a diligent student!"
Mark Twain, save when in humorous vein, has never pretended that his
success was due to any marvellous qualities of mind, any indefatigable
industry, any innate energy and perseverance. I have good reason to
recall his favourite theory, which he was fond of expounding, to the
effect that circumstance is man's master. He likened circumstance to
the attraction of gravity; and declared that while it is man's privilege
to argue with circumstance, as it is the honourable privilege of the
falling body to argue with the attraction of gravity, it does no good:
man has to obey. Circumstance has as its working partner man's
temperament, his natural disposition. Temperament is not the creation
of man, but an innate quality; over it he has no authority; for its acts
he cannot be held responsible.
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