“ Your race never know good fortune from ill. They are always mistaking the one for the other. ”
Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger (1916). copy citation
| Author | Mark Twain |
|---|---|
| Source | The Mysterious Stranger |
| Topic | fortune mistake |
| Date | 1916 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3186/3186-h/3186-h.htm |
Context
“I like you and the boys, I like father Peter, and for your sakes I am doing all these things for the villagers.”
He saw that I was thinking a sarcasm, and he explained his position.
“I have wrought well for the villagers, though it does not look like it on the surface. Your race never know good fortune from ill. They are always mistaking the one for the other. It is because they cannot see into the future. What I am doing for the villagers will bear good fruit some day; in some cases to themselves; in others, to unborn generations of men. No one will ever know that I was the cause, but it will be none the less true, for all that.”
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