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Extracts From Adam's Diary .............................................................................................................................1

Mark Twain ..............................................................................................................................................1

Monday....................................................................................................................................................1

Tuesday ....................................................................................................................................................2

Wednesday ...............................................................................................................................................2

Friday.......................................................................................................................................................2

Saturday...................................................................................................................................................2

Sunday.....................................................................................................................................................2

Monday....................................................................................................................................................3

Tuesday ....................................................................................................................................................3

Friday.......................................................................................................................................................3

Saturday...................................................................................................................................................3

Sunday.....................................................................................................................................................3

Monday....................................................................................................................................................3

Thursday..................................................................................................................................................4

Saturday...................................................................................................................................................4

Sunday.....................................................................................................................................................4

Tuesday ....................................................................................................................................................4

Friday.......................................................................................................................................................4

Wednesday ...............................................................................................................................................4

Sunday.....................................................................................................................................................6

Wednesday ...............................................................................................................................................6

Three Months Later ..................................................................................................................................6

Five Months Later ....................................................................................................................................7

A Fortnight Later.....................................................................................................................................7

Four Months Later...................................................................................................................................7

Three Months Later ..................................................................................................................................7

Next Day..................................................................................................................................................7

Ten Years Later ........................................................................................................................................8

[NOTE.I translated a portion of this diary some years ago, and a friend of mine printed a few copies in an

incomplete form, but the public never got them. Since then I have deciphered some more of Adam's

hieroglyphics, and think he has now become sufficiently important as a public character to justify this

This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. It is always hanging around and following me

about. I don't like this; I am not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals. Cloudy today,

wind in the east; think we shall have rain. ... Where did I get that word? ... I remember now the new

Been examining the great waterfall. It is the finest thing on the estate, I think. The new creature calls it

Niagara Fallswhy, I am sure I do not know. Says it looks like Niagara Falls. That is not a reason; it is mere

waywardness and imbecility. I get no chance to name anything myself. The new creature names everything

that comes along, before I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offeredit looks like the

thing. There is the dodo, for instance. Says the moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it "looks like a

dodo." It will have to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and it does no good, anyway.

Built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have it to myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When

I tried to put it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with the back of its paws,

and made a noise such as some of the other animals make when they are in distress. I wish it would not talk;

it is always talking. That sounds like a cheap fling at the poor creature, a slur; but I do not mean it so. I have

never heard the human voice before, and any new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the solemn

hush of these dreaming solitudes offends my ear and seems a false note. And this new sound is so close to

me; it is right at my shoulder, right at my ear, first on one side and then on the other, and I am used only to

The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I had a very good name for the estate, and it was

musical and pretty GARDENOFEDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but not any longer publicly.

The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden.

Says it looks like a park, and does not look like anything but a park. Consequently, without consulting me, it

has been newnamed NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently highhanded, it seems to me. And

The new creature eats too much fruit. We are going to run short, most likely. "We" againthat is its word;

mine too, now, from hearing it so much. Good deal of fog this morning. I do not go out in the fog myself. The

new creature does. It goes out in all weathers, and stumps right in with its muddy feet. And talks. It used to be

Pulled through. This day is getting to be more and more trying. It was selected and set apart last November as

a day of rest. I already had six of them per week, before. This morning found the new creature trying to clod

The new creature says its name is Eve. That is all right, I have no objections. Says it is to call it by when I

want it to come. I said it was superfluous, then. The word evidently raised me in its respect; and indeed it is a

large, good word, and will bear repetition. It says it is not an It, it is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it is

all one to me; what she is were nothing to me if she would but go by herself and not talk.

She says this park would make a tidy summer resort, if there was any custom for it. Summer resortanother

invention of hersjust words, without any meaning. What is a summer resort? But it is best not to ask her,

She has taken to beseeching me to stop going over the Falls. What harm does it do? Says it makes her

shudder. I wonder why. I have always done italways liked the plunge, and the excitement, and the

coolness. I supposed it was what the Falls were for. They have no other use that I can see, and they must have

been made for something. She says they were only made for scenerylike the rhinoceros and the mastodon.

I went over the Falls in a barrelnot satisfactory to her. Went over in a tubstill not satisfactory. Swam the

Whirlpool and the Rapids in a figleaf suit. It got much damaged. Hence, tedious complaints about my

I escaped last Tuesday night, and travelled two days, and built me another shelter, in a secluded place, and

obliterated my tracks as well as I could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast which she has tamed and

calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful noise again, and shedding that water out of the places she looks

with. I was obliged to return with her, but will presently emigrate again, when occasion offers. She engages

herself in many foolish things: among others, trying to study out why the animals called lions and tigers live

on grass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they wear would indicate that they were intended to

eat each other. This is foolish, because to do that would be to kill each other, and that would introduce what,

as I understand it, is called "death;" and death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the Park. Which is a

I believe I see what the week is for: it is to give time to rest up from the weariness of Sunday. It seems a good

idea. ... She has been climbing that tree again. Clodded her out of it. She said nobody was looking. Seems to

consider that a sufficient justification for chancing any dangerous thing. Told her that. The word justification

She told me she was made out of a rib taken from my body. This is at least doubtful, if not more than that. I

have not missed any rib. ... She is in much trouble about the buzzard; says grass does not agree with it; is

afraid she can't raise it; thinks it was intended to live on decayed flesh. The buzzard must get along the best it

can with what is provided. We cannot overturn the whole scheme to accommodate the buzzard.

She fell in the pond yesterday, when she was looking at herself in it, which she is always doing. She nearly

strangled, and said it was most uncomfortable. This made her sorry for the creatures which live in there,

which she calls fish, for she continues to fasten names on to things that don't need them and don't come when

they are called by them, which is a matter of no consequence to her, as she is such a numskull anyway; so she

got a lot of them out and brought them in last night and put them in my bed to keep warm, but I have noticed

them now and then all day, and I don't see that they are any happier there than they were before, only quieter.

When night comes I shall throw them outdoors. I will not sleep with them again, for I find them clammy

She has taken up with a snake now. The other animals are glad, for she was always experimenting with them

and bothering them; and I am glad, because the snake talks, and this enables me to get a rest.

She says the snake advises her to try the fruit of that tree, and says the result will be a great and fine and

noble education. I told her there would be another result, tooit would introduce death into the world. That

was a mistakeit had been better to keep the remark to myself; it only gave her an ideashe could save the

sick buzzard, and furnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and tigers. I advised her to keep away from the

I have had a variegated time. I escaped that night, and rode a horse all night as fast as he could go, hoping to

get clear out of the Park and hide in some other country before the trouble should begin; but it was not to be.

About an hour after sunup, as I was riding through a flowery plain where thousands of animals were grazing,

slumbering, or playing with each other, according to their wont, all of a sudden they broke into a tempest of

frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was in a frantic commotion and every beast was destroying its

neighbor. I knew what it meantEve had eaten that fruit, and death was come into the world. ... The tigers

ate my horse, paying no attention when I ordered them to desist, and they would even have eaten me if I had

stayedwhich I didn't, but went away in much haste. ... I found this place, outside the Park, and was fairly

comfortable for a few days, but she has found me out. Found me out, and has named the place

Tonawandasays it looks like that. In fact, I was not sorry she came, for there are but meagre pickings here,

and she brought some of those apples. I was obliged to eat them, I was so hungry. It was against my

principles, but I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed. ... She came curtained in

boughs and bunches of leaves, and when I asked her what she meant by such nonsense, and snatched them

away and threw them down, she tittered and blushed. I had never seen a person titter and blush before, and to

me it seemed unbecoming and idiotic. She said I would soon know how it was myself. This was correct.

Hungry as I was, I laid down the apple half eatencertainly the best one I ever saw, considering the lateness

of the seasonand arrayed myself in the discarded boughs and branches, and then spoke to her with some

severity and ordered her to go and get some more and not make such a spectacle of herself. She did it, and

after this we crept down to where the wildbeast battle had been, and collected some skins, and I made her

patch together a couple of suits proper for public occasions. They are uncomfortable, it is true, but stylish,

and that is the main point about clothes. ... I find she is a good deal of a companion. I see I should be

lonesome and depressed without her, now that I have lost my property. Another thing, she says it is ordered

She accuses me of being the cause of our disaster! She says, with apparent sincerity and truth, that the

Serpent assured her that the forbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts. I said I was innocent, then, for I

had not eaten any chestnuts. She said the Serpent informed her that "chestnut" was a figurative term meaning

an aged and mouldy joke. I turned pale at that, for I have made many jokes to pass the weary time, and some

of them could have been of that sort, though I had honestly supposed that they were new when I made them.

She asked me if I had made one just at the time of the catastrophe. I was obliged to admit that I had made one

to myself, though not aloud. It was this. I was thinking about the Falls, and I said to myself, "How wonderful

it is to see that vast body of water tumble down there!" Then in an instant a bright thought flashed into my

head, and I let it fly, saying, "It would be a deal more wonderful to see it tumble up there!"and I was just

about to kill myself with laughing at it when all nature broke loose in war and death, and I had to flee for my

life. "There," she said, with triumph, "that is just it; the Serpent mentioned that very jest, and called it the

First Chestnut, and said it was coeval with the creation." Alas, I am indeed to blame. Would that I were not

We have named it Cain. She caught it while I was up country trapping on the North Shore of the Erie; caught

it in the timber a couple of miles from our dugoutor it might have been four, she isn't certain which. It

resembles us in some ways, and may be a relation. That is what she thinks, but this is an error, in my

judgment. The difference in size warrants the conclusion that it is a different and new kind of animala fish,

perhaps, though when I put it in the water to see, it sank, and she plunged in and snatched it out before there

was opportunity for the experiment to determine the matter. I still think it is a fish, but she is indifferent about

what it is, and will not let me have it to try. I do not understand this. The coming of the creature seems to

have changed her whole nature and made her unreasonable about experiments. She thinks more of it than she

does of any of the other animals, but is not able to explain why. Her mind is disorderedeverything shows

it. Sometimes she carries the fish in her arms half the night when it complains and wants to get to the water.

At such times the water comes out of the places in her face that she looks out of, and she pats the fish on the

back and makes soft sounds with her mouth to soothe it, and betrays sorrow and solicitude in a hundred ways.

I have never seen her do like this with any other fish, and it troubles me greatly. She used to carry the young

tigers around so, and play with them, before we lost our property; but it was only play; she never took on

She doesn't work Sundays, but lies around all tired out, and likes to have the fish wallow over her; and she

makes fool noises to amuse it, and pretends to chew its paws, and that makes it laugh. I have not seen a fish

before that could laugh. This makes me doubt. ... I have come to like Sunday myself. Superintending all the

week tires a body so. There ought to be more Sundays. In the old days they were tough, but now they come

It isn't a fish. I cannot quite make out what it is. It makes curious, devilish noises when not satisfied, and says

"googoo" when it is. It is not one of us, for it doesn't walk; it is not a bird, for it doesn't fly; it is not a frog,

for it doesn't hop; it is not a snake, for it doesn't crawl; I feel sure it is not a fish, though I cannot get a chance

to find out whether it can swim or not. It merely lies around, and mostly on its back, with its feet up. I have

not seen any other animal do that before. I said I believed it was an enigma, but she only admired the word

without understanding it. In my judgment it is either an enigma or some kind of a bug. If it dies, I will take it

The perplexity augments instead of diminishing. I sleep but little. It has ceased from lying around, and goes

about on its four legs now. Yet it differs from the other fourlegged animals in that its front legs are

unusually short, consequently this causes the main part of its person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air,

and this is not attractive. It is built much as we are, but its method of travelling shows that it is not of our

breed. The short front legs and long hind ones indicate that it is of the kangaroo family, but it is a marked

variation of the species, since the true kangaroo hops, whereas this one never does. Still, it is a curious and

interesting variety, and has not been catalogued before. As I discovered it, I have felt justified in securing the

credit of the discovery by attaching my name to it, and hence have called it Kangaroorum Adamiensis. ... It

must have been a young one when it came, for it has grown exceedingly since. It must be five times as big,

now, as it was then, and when discontented is able to make from twentytwo to thirtyeight times the noise it

made at first. Coercion does not modify this, but has the contrary effect. For this reason I discontinued the

system. She reconciles it by persuasion, and by giving it things which she had previously told it she wouldn't

give it. As already observed, I was not at home when it first came, and she told me she found it in the woods.

It seems odd that it should be the only one, yet it must be so, for I have worn myself out these many weeks

trying to find another one to add to my collection, and for this one to play with; for surely then it would be

quieter, and we could tame it more easily. But I find none, nor any vestige of any; and strangest of all, no

tracks. It has to live on the ground, it cannot help itself; therefore, how does it get about without leaving a

track? I have set a dozen traps, but they do no good. I catch all small animals except that one; animals that

merely go into the trap out of curiosity, I think, to see what the milk is there for. They never drink it.

The kangaroo still continues to grow, which is very strange and perplexing. I never knew one to be so long

getting its growth. It has fur on its head now; not like kangaroo fur, but exactly like our hair, except that it is

much finer and softer, and instead of being black is red. I am like to lose my mind over the capricious and

harassing developments of this unclassifiable zoological freak. If I could catch another onebut that is

hopeless; it is a new variety, and the only sample; this is plain. But I caught a true kangaroo and brought it in,

thinking that this one, being lonesome, would rather have that for company than have no kin at all, or any

animal it could feel a nearness to or get sympathy from in its forlorn condition here among strangers who do

not know its ways or habits, or what to do to make it feel that it is among friends; but it was a mistakeit

went into such fits at the sight of the kangaroo that I was convinced it had never seen one before. I pity the

poor noisy little animal, but there is nothing I can do to make it happy. If I could tame itbut that is out of

the question; the more I try, the worse I seem to make it. It grieves me to the heart to see it in its little storms

of sorrow and passion. I wanted to let it go, but she wouldn't hear of it. That seemed cruel and not like her;

and yet she may be right. It might be lonelier than ever; for since I cannot find another one, how could it?

It is not a kangaroo. No, for it supports itself by holding to her finger, and thus goes a few steps on its hind

legs, and then falls down. It is probably some kind of a bear; and yet it has no tailas yetand no fur,

except on its head. It still keeps on growingthat is a curious circumstance, for bears get their growth earlier

than this. Bears are dangeroussince our catastropheand I shall not be satisfied to have this one prowling

about the place much longer without a muzzle on. I have offered to get her a kangaroo if she would let this

one go, but it did no goodshe is determined to run us into all sorts of foolish risks, I think. She was not like

I examined its mouth. There is no danger yet; it has only one tooth. It has no tail yet. It makes more noise

now than it ever did beforeand mainly at night. I have moved out. But I shall go over, mornings, to

breakfast, and to see if it has more teeth. If it gets a mouthful of teeth, it will be time for it to go, tail or no

I have been off hunting and fishing a month, up in the region that she calls Buffalo; I don't know why, unless

it is because there are not any buffaloes there. Meantime the bear has learned to paddle around all by itself on

its hind legs, and says "poppa" and "momma." It is certainly a new species. This resemblance to words may

be purely accidental, of course, and may have no purpose or meaning; but even in that case it is still

extraordinary, and is a thing which no other bear can do. This imitation of speech, taken together with general

absence of fur and entire absence of tail, sufficiently indicates that this is a new kind of bear. The further

study of it will be exceedingly interesting. Meantime I will go off on a far expedition among the forests of the

North and make an exhaustive search. There must certainly be another one somewhere, and this one will be

less dangerous when it has company of its own species. I will go straightway; but I will muzzle this one first.

It has been a weary, weary hunt, yet I have had no success. In the mean time, without stirring from the home

estate, she has caught another one! I never saw such luck. I might have hunted these woods a hundred years, I

I have been comparing the new one with the old one, and it is perfectly plain that they are the same breed. I

was going to stuff one of them for my collection, but she is prejudiced against it for some reason or other; so I

have relinquished the idea, though I think it is a mistake. It would be an irreparable loss to science if they

should get away. The old one is tamer than it was, and can laugh and talk like the parrot, having learned this,

no doubt, from being with the parrot so much, and having the imitative faculty in a highly developed degree.

I shall be astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot, and yet I ought not to be astonished, for it has

already been everything else it could think of, since those first days when it was a fish. The new one is as

ugly now as the old one was at first; has the same sulphurandrawmeat complexion and the same singular

They are boys; we found it out long ago. It was their coming in that small, immature shape that puzzled us;

we were not used to it. There are some girls now. Abel is a good boy, but if Cain had stayed a bear it would

have improved him. After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to

live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her. At first I thought she talked too much; but now I

should be sorry to have that voice fall silent and pass out of my life. Blessed be the chestnut that brought us

near together and taught me to know the goodness of her heart and the sweetness of her spirit!