{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8528/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8528","id":"gutenberg_8528","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8528","summary":null,"tags":["Bible. Genesis -- History of Biblical events -- Fiction","Category: American Literature","Category: Humour","Category: Novels","Diary fiction","Eve (Biblical figure) -- Fiction","Humorous stories"],"text":"Produced by David Widger and Cindy Rosenthal\n\n\n\n\n\nEVE'S DIARY\n\n\nBy Mark Twain\n\n\nIllustrated by Lester Ralph\n\n\n\n\nTranslated from the Original\n\n\n\nPart 3.\n\n\n\n                 EXTRACT FROM ADAM'S DIARY\n\n\nPerhaps I ought to remember that she is very young, a mere girl and make\nallowances.  She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world is to\nher a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can't speak for delight\nwhen she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it and smell it\nand talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it. And she is\ncolor-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage, blue sky;\nthe pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains, the golden\nislands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon sailing\nthrough the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering in the\nwastes of space--none of them is of any practical value, so far as I can\nsee, but because they have color and majesty, that is enough for her,\nand she loses her mind over them. If she could quiet down and keep still\na couple minutes at a time, it would be a reposeful spectacle.  In that\ncase I think I could enjoy looking at her; indeed I am sure I could, for\nI am coming to realize that she is a quite remarkably comely creature\n--lithe, slender, trim, rounded, shapely, nimble, graceful; and once\nwhen she was standing marble-white and sun-drenched on a boulder, with\nher young head tilted back and her hand shading her eyes, watching the\nflight of a bird in the sky, I recognized that she was beautiful.\n\n\n\nMONDAY NOON.--If there is anything on the planet that she is not\ninterested in it is not in my list.  There are animals that I am\nindifferent to, but it is not so with her.  She has no discrimination,\nshe takes to all of them, she thinks they are all treasures, every new\none is welcome.\n\nWhen the mighty brontosaurus came striding into camp, she regarded it as\nan acquisition, I considered it a calamity; that is a good sample of the\nlack of harmony that prevails in our views of things. She wanted to\ndomesticate it, I wanted to make it a present of the homestead and move\nout.  She believed it could be tamed by kind treatment and would be a\ngood pet; I said a pet twenty-one feet high and eighty-four feet long\nwould be no proper thing to have about the place, because, even with the\nbest intentions and without meaning any harm, it could sit down on the\nhouse and mash it, for any one could see by the look of its eye that it\nwas absent-minded.\n\nStill, her heart was set upon having that monster, and she couldn't give\nit up.  She thought we could start a dairy with it, and wanted me to\nhelp milk it; but I wouldn't; it was too risky. The sex wasn't right,\nand we hadn't any ladder anyway.  Then she wanted to ride it, and look\nat the scenery.  Thirty or forty feet of its tail was lying on the\nground, like a fallen tree, and she thought she could climb it, but she\nwas mistaken; when she got to the steep place it was too slick and down\nshe came, and would have hurt herself but for me.\n\nWas she satisfied now?  No. Nothing ever satisfies her but\ndemonstration; untested theories are not in her line, and she won't have\nthem. It is the right spirit, I concede it; it attracts me; I feel the\ninfluence of it; if I were with her more I think I should take it up\nmyself.  Well, she had one theory remaining about this colossus: she\nthought that if we could tame it and make him friendly we could stand in\nthe river and use him for a bridge.  It turned out that he was already\nplenty tame enough--at least as far as she was concerned--so she tried\nher theory, but it failed:  every time she got him properly placed in\nthe river and went ashore to cross over him, he came out and followed\nher around like a pet mountain.  Like the other animals.  They all do\nthat.\n\n\n\nTuesday--Wednesday--Thursday--and today:  all without seeing him.  It is\na long time to be alone; still, it is better to be alone than unwelcome.\n\n\n\nFRIDAY--I HAD to have company--I was made for it, I think--so I made\nfriends with the animals.  They are just charming, and they have the\nkindest disposition and the politest ways; they never look sour, they\nnever let you feel that you are intruding, they smile at you and wag\ntheir tail, if they've got one, and they are always ready for a romp or\nan excursion or anything you want to propose. I think they are perfect\ngentlemen.  All these days we have had such good times, and it hasn't\nbeen lonesome for me, ever.\n\nLonesome!  No, I should say not.  Why, there's always a swarm of them\naround--sometimes as much as four or five acres--you can't count them;\nand when you stand on a rock in the midst and look out over the furry\nexpanse it is so mottled and splashed and gay with color and frisking\nsheen and sun-flash, and so rippled with stripes, that you might think\nit was a lake, only you know it isn't; and there's storms of sociable\nbirds, and hurricanes of whirring wings; and when the sun strikes all\nthat feathery commotion, you have a blazing up of all the colors you can\nthink of, enough to put your eyes out.\n\nWe have made long excursions, and I have seen a great deal of the world;\nalmost all of it, I think; and so I am the first traveler, and the only\none.  When we are on the march, it is an imposing sight--there's nothing\nlike it anywhere.  For comfort I ride a tiger or a leopard, because it\nis soft and has a round back that fits me, and because they are such\npretty animals; but for long distance or for scenery I ride the\nelephant.  He hoists me up with his trunk, but I can get off myself;\nwhen we are ready to camp, he sits and I slide down the back way.\n\nThe birds and animals are all friendly to each other, and there are no\ndisputes about anything.  They all talk, and they all talk to me, but it\nmust be a foreign language, for I cannot make out a word they say; yet\nthey often understand me when I talk back, particularly the dog and the\nelephant.  It makes me ashamed. It shows that they are brighter than I\nam, for I want to be the principal Experiment myself--and I intend to\nbe, too.\n\nI have learned a number of things, and am educated, now, but I wasn't at\nfirst.  I was ignorant at first.  At first it used to vex me because,\nwith all my watching, I was never smart enough to be around when the\nwater was running uphill; but now I do not mind it. I have experimented\nand experimented until now I know it never does run uphill, except in\nthe dark.  I know it does in the dark, because the pool never goes dry,\nwhich it would, of course, if the water didn't come back in the night.\nIt is best to prove things by actual experiment; then you KNOW; whereas\nif you depend on guessing and supposing and conjecturing, you never get\neducated.\n\nSome things you CAN'T find out; but you will never know you can't by\nguessing and supposing:  no, you have to be patient and go on\nexperimenting until you find out that you can't find out.  And it is\ndelightful to have it that way, it makes the world so interesting. If\nthere wasn't anything to find out, it would be dull.  Even trying to\nfind out and not finding out is just as interesting as trying to find\nout and finding out, and I don't know but more so. The secret of the\nwater was a treasure until I GOT it; then the excitement all went away,\nand I recognized a sense of loss.\n\nBy experiment I know that wood swims, and dry leaves, and feathers, and\nplenty of other things; therefore by all that cumulative evidence you\nknow that a rock will swim; but you have to put up with simply knowing\nit, for there isn't any way to prove it--up to now. But I shall find a\nway--then THAT excitement will go.  Such things make me sad; because by\nand by when I have found out everything there won't be any more\nexcitements, and I do love excitements so! The other night I couldn't\nsleep for thinking about it.\n\nAt first I couldn't make out what I was made for, but now I think it was\nto search out the secrets of this wonderful world and be happy and thank\nthe Giver of it all for devising it.  I think there are many things to\nlearn yet--I hope so; and by economizing and not hurrying too fast I\nthink they will last weeks and weeks.  I hope so.  When you cast up a\nfeather it sails away on the air and goes out of sight; then you throw\nup a clod and it doesn't. It comes down, every time. I have tried it and\ntried it, and it is always so.  I wonder why it is?  Of course it\nDOESN'T come down, but why should it SEEM to? I suppose it is an optical\nillusion.  I mean, one of them is. I don't know which one.  It may be\nthe feather, it may be the clod; I can't prove which it is, I can only\ndemonstrate that one or the other is a fake, and let a person take his\nchoice.\n\nBy watching, I know that the stars are not going to last. I have seen\nsome of the best ones melt and run down the sky. Since one can melt,\nthey can all melt; since they can all melt, they can all melt the same\nnight.  That sorrow will come--I know it. I mean to sit up every night\nand look at them as long as I can keep awake; and I will impress those\nsparkling fields on my memory, so that by and by when they are taken\naway I can by my fancy restore those lovely myriads to the black sky and\nmake them sparkle again, and double them by the blur of my tears.\n\n\n\nAfter the Fall\n\nWhen I look back, the Garden is a dream to me.  It was beautiful,\nsurpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and now it is lost, and\nI shall not see it any more.\n\nThe Garden is lost, but I have found HIM, and am content. He loves me as\nwell as he can; I love him with all the strength of my passionate\nnature, and this, I think, is proper to my youth and sex.  If I ask\nmyself why I love him, I find I do not know, and do not really much care\nto know; so I suppose that this kind of love is not a product of\nreasoning and statistics, like one's love for other reptiles and\nanimals.  I think that this must be so. I love certain birds because of\ntheir song; but I do not love Adam on account of his singing--no, it is\nnot that; the more he sings the more I do not get reconciled to it.  Yet\nI ask him to sing, because I wish to learn to like everything he is\ninterested in. I am sure I can learn, because at first I could not stand\nit, but now I can.  It sours the milk, but it doesn't matter; I can get\nused to that kind of milk.\n\nIt is not on account of his brightness that I love him--no, it is not\nthat.  He is not to blame for his brightness, such as it is, for he did\nnot make it himself; he is as God make him, and that is sufficient.\nThere was a wise purpose in it, THAT I know. In time it will develop,\nthough I think it will not be sudden; and besides, there is no hurry; he\nis well enough just as he is.\n\nIt is not on account of his gracious and considerate ways and his\ndelicacy that I love him.  No, he has lacks in this regard, but he is\nwell enough just so, and is improving.\n\nIt is not on account of his industry that I love him--no, it is not\nthat.  I think he has it in him, and I do not know why he conceals it\nfrom me.  It is my only pain.  Otherwise he is frank and open with me,\nnow.  I am sure he keeps nothing from me but this. It grieves me that he\nshould have a secret from me, and sometimes it spoils my sleep, thinking\nof it, but I will put it out of my mind; it shall not trouble my\nhappiness, which is otherwise full to overflowing.\n\nIt is not on account of his education that I love him--no, it is not\nthat.  He is self-educated, and does really know a multitude of things,\nbut they are not so.\n\nIt is not on account of his chivalry that I love him--no, it is not\nthat. He told on me, but I do not blame him; it is a peculiarity of sex,\nI think, and he did not make his sex.  Of course I would not have told\non him, I would have perished first; but that is a peculiarity of sex,\ntoo, and I do not take credit for it, for I did not make my sex.\n\nThen why is it that I love him?  MERELY BECAUSE HE IS MASCULINE, I\nthink.\n\nAt bottom he is good, and I love him for that, but I could love him\nwithout it.  If he should beat me and abuse me, I should go on loving\nhim.  I know it.  It is a matter of sex, I think.\n\nHe is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him and\nam proud of him, but I could love him without those qualities. If he\nwere plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should love him;\nand I would work for him, and slave over him, and pray for him, and\nwatch by his bedside until I died.\n\nYes, I think I love him merely because he is MINE and is MASCULINE.\nThere is no other reason, I suppose.  And so I think it is as I first\nsaid:  that this kind of love is not a product of reasonings and\nstatistics.  It just COMES--none knows whence--and cannot explain\nitself.  And doesn't need to.\n\nIt is what I think.  But I am only a girl, the first that has examined\nthis matter, and it may turn out that in my ignorance and inexperience I\nhave not got it right.\n\n\n\nForty Years Later\n\nIt is my prayer, it is my longing, that we may pass from this life\ntogether--a longing which shall never perish from the earth, but shall\nhave place in the heart of every wife that loves, until the end of time;\nand it shall be called by my name.\n\nBut if one of us must go first, it is my prayer that it shall be I; for\nhe is strong, I am weak, I am not so necessary to him as he is to me\n--life without him would not be life; how could I endure it? This prayer\nis also immortal, and will not cease from being offered up while my race\ncontinues.  I am the first wife; and in the last wife I shall be\nrepeated.\n\n\n\nAt Eve's Grave\n\nADAM:  Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden.","title":"Eve's Diary, Part 3","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":2677}