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Mark Twain, a Biography
Contents:
LXXV as to Destiny
If any reader has followed these chapters thus far, he may have wondered, even if vaguely, at the seeming fatality of events. Mark Twain had but to review his own life for justification of his doctrine of inevitability —an unbroken and immutable sequence of cause and effect from the beginning. Once he said:
"When the first living atom found itself afloat on the great Laurentian sea the first act of that first atom led to the second act of that first atom, and so on down through the succeeding ages of all life, until, if the steps could be traced, it would be shown that the first act of that first atom has led inevitably to the act of my standing here in my dressing-gown at this instant talking to you."
It seemed the clearest presentment ever offered in the matter of predestined circumstance—predestined from the instant when that primal atom felt the vital thrill. Mark Twain’s early life, however imperfectly recorded, exemplifies this postulate. If through the years still ahead of us the course of destiny seems less clearly defined, it is only because thronging events make the threads less easy to trace. The web becomes richer, the pattern more intricate and confusing, but the line of fate neither breaks nor falters, to the end.
Contents:
Chicago: Albert Bigelow Paine, "LXXV as to Destiny," Mark Twain, a Biography, ed. Hawthorne, Julian, 1846-1934 in Mark Twain, a Biography (New York: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, 1894), Original Sources, accessed October 13, 2024, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=KQVG397ZPE7I8KW.
MLA: Paine, Albert Bigelow. "LXXV as to Destiny." Mark Twain, a Biography, edited by Hawthorne, Julian, 1846-1934, in Mark Twain, a Biography, Vol. 22, New York, Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, 1894, Original Sources. 13 Oct. 2024. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=KQVG397ZPE7I8KW.
Harvard: Paine, AB, 'LXXV as to Destiny' in Mark Twain, a Biography, ed. . cited in 1894, Mark Twain, a Biography, Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, New York. Original Sources, retrieved 13 October 2024, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=KQVG397ZPE7I8KW.
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