This passage reminds me of what went through my head (and at times still does) when I was a kid and couldn’t get to sleep:

At half past nine that night, Tom and Sid were sent to bed as usual. They said their prayers, and Sid was soon asleep. Tom lay awake and waited in restless impatience. When it seemed to him that it must be nearly daylight, he heard the clock strike ten! This was despairl He would have tossed and fidgeted, as his nerves demanded, but he was afraid he might wake Sid. So he lay still and stared up into the dark. Everything was dismally still. By-and-by, out of the stillness little scarcely perceptible noises began to emphasize themselves. The ticking of the clock began to bring itself into notice. Old beams began to crack mysteriously. The stairs creaked faintly. Evidently spirits were abroad. A measured, muffled snore issued from Aunt Polly’s chamber. And now the tiresome chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could locate began. Next the ghastly ticking of a death-watch in the wall at the bed’s head made Tom shudder – it meant that somebod’s days ere numbered. Then the howl of a far-off dog rose on the night air and was answered by a fainter howl from a remoter distance. Tom was in an agony. At last he was satisfied that time had ceased and eternity begun; he began to doze in spite of himself; the clock chimed eleven, but he did not hear it. (65)

Another (and final) passage that struck me:

The captive had broken off the stalagmite, and upon the stump had placed a stone wherein he had scooped a shallow hollow to catch the precious drop that fell once in every twenty minutes with the dreary regularity of a clock-tick – a dessert-spoonful once in four-and-twenty hours. That drop was falling when the Pyramids were new; when Troy fell when the foundations of Rome were laid; when Christ was crucified; when the Conqueror created the British Empire; when Columbus sailed; when the massacre at Lexington was ‘news’. It is falling now; it will still be falling when all these things have sunk down in the afternoon of history and the twilight of tradition, and been swallowed up in the thick night of oblivion. Has everything a purpose and a mission? Did this drop fall patiently during five thousand years to be ready for this flitting human insect’s need, and has it another important object to accomplish ten thousand years to come? (204, italics mine)

So I’m finally giving Mark Twain a chance after years and years of untainted hatred, the reason for which I can’t identify. For whatever reason, I’ve always thought Mark Twain simply sucked. The catch is, if I’ve ever read anything of his (which I don’t recall), it was at most a short story. After actually reading his stuff, I’ve changed my mind. Who’da thunk.

Anyway, here are some quotes I’ve found amusing.

I love this description:

Away off in the flaming sunshine Cardiff Hill lifted its soft green sides through a shimmering veil of heat tinted with the purple of distance; a few birds floated on lazy wing high in the air; no other living thing was visible but some cows, and they were asleep. (54)

I find “the purple of distance” striking.

When Tom and Joe Harper are bored at school, Tom pulls a tick out of his pocket and starts to play:

Joe took a pin out of his lapel, and began to assist in exercising the prisoner. The sport grew in interest momently. Soon Tom said that they were interfering with each other, and neither getting the fullest benefit of the tick. So he put Joe’s slate on the desk and drew a line down the middle of it from top to bottom.

“Now,” said he, “as long as he is on your side you can stir him up and I’ll let him alone: but if you let him get away and get on my side, you’re to leave him alone as long as I can keep him from crossing over.”

“All right, go ahead – start him up.”

The tick escaped from Tom, presently, and crossed the equator. Joe harassed him awhile, and then he got away and crossed back again. This change of base occurred often. While one boy was worrying the tick with absorbing interest, the other would look on with interest as strong, the two heads bowed together over the slate and the two souls dead to all things else. At last luck seemed to settle and abide with Hoe. The tick tried this, that, and the other course, and got as excited and as anxious as the boys themselves, but time and again, just as he would have victory in his very grasp, so to speak, and Tom’s fingers would be twitching to begin, Joe’s pin would deftly head him off and keep possession. At last Tom could stand it no longer. The temptation was too strong. So he reached out and lent a hand with his pin. Joe was angry in a moment. Said he:

“Tom, you let him alone.”

“I only just want to stir him up a little, Joe.”

“No, sir, it ain’t fair; you just let him alone.”

“Blame it, I ain’t going to stir him much.”

“Let him alone, I tell you!”

“I won’t!”

“You shall – he’s on my side of the line.”

“Look here, Joe Harper, whose is that tick?”

“I don’t care whose tick he is – he’s on my side of the line, and you shan’t touch him.”

“Well, I’ll just bet I will, though. He’s my tick, and I’ll do what I blame please with him, or die!” (54-55)

Then they got caught. I could just see it happening. A fight over a tick made me chuckle.