Directory of Mark Twain's maxims, quotations, and various opinions:
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LORDS
All the human race loves a lord--that is,
loves to look upon or be noticed by the possessor of Power or Conspicuousness;
and sometimes animals, born to better things and higher ideals, descend
to man's level in this matter. In the Jardin des Plantes I have seen a cat
that was so vain of being the personal friend of an elephant that I was
ashamed of her.
- "Does the Race of Man Love A Lord"
AI image created by Barbara Schmidt
The story of the cat and elephant's "Strange Companionship"
is from Innocents Abroad, Chapter 11.
The boon companion of the colossal elephant was a common cat! This
cat had a fashion of climbing up the elephant’s hind legs and roosting
on his back. She would sit up there, with her paws curved under her
breast, and sleep in the sun half the afternoon. It used to annoy the
elephant at first, and he would reach up and take her down, but she
would go aft and climb up again. She persisted until she finally conquered
the elephant’s prejudices, and now they are inseparable friends.
The cat plays about her comrade’s forefeet or his trunk often,
until dogs approach, and then she goes aloft out of danger. The elephant
has annihilated several dogs lately that pressed his companion too closely.
"Among other honors heaped upon me
by Englishmen was that of being photographed in parliament. I am not a member
of parliament. But neither am I a member of congress. Has any fellow-American
suggested that I should be photographed in congress? No! I blush to say
they have not. And yet here is an honor that might without risk to bestowed
on any great man. However, it was not bestowed upon Washington, Jefferson
or Lincoln. When I saw that photograph, with the mother of parliaments in
the background and realized my advancing years, I said to myself, 'here
are two noble monuments of antiquity--two shining examples of the survival
of the fittest.'"
- quoted in the
Boston Daily Globe, May 1, 1910, p. 56 in an article
titled "His Camera Craze."
[
画像:House of Lords]
July 7, 1907, London, England
Photograph by Sir Benjamin Stone
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