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Directory of Mark Twain's maxims, quotations, and various opinions:

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TEETHING

"Tom" was a bad baby, from the very beginning of his usurpation. He would cry for nothing; he would burst into storms of devilish temper without notice, and let go scream after scream and squall after squall, then climax the thing with "holding his breath"-- that frightful specialty of the teething nursling, in the throes of which the creature exhausts its lungs, then is convulsed with noiseless squirmings and twistings and kickings in the effort to get its breath, while the lips turn blue and the mouth stands wide and rigid, offering for inspection one wee tooth set in the lower rim of a hoop of red gums; and when the appalling stillness has endured until one is sure the lost breath will never return, a nurse comes flying, and dashes water in the child`s face, and--presto! the lungs fill, and instantly discharge a shriek, or a yell, or a howl which bursts the listening ear and surprises the owner of it into saying words which would not go well with a halo if he had one.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson

Adam and Eve had many advantages, but the principle one was that they escaped teething.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar


Page from 1917 Mark Twain Calendar
published by Sully and Kleinteich of NY
by arrangement with
Harper & Brothers
from the
Dave Thomson collection

 

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