Coincidence becoming legend
He said he would go out with the comet
Coincidence · 1835–1910 · Florida, Missouri; Redding, Connecticut
HALLEY
Compare the dates with the sentence. Then with the later sentence.
In 1909, Paine reports, Twain said he had come in with Halley’s comet and expected to go out with it. The Almighty, in the joke, had two unaccountable freaks who arrived together and must leave together. He died at Stormfield the day after perihelion.
Sourced
Birth and death dates are civic. Perihelia are astronomical. The wording of the joke is Paine’s biography, 1912. We do not treat a biographer’s quotation as a tape.
Miss
Internet versions often collapse the fourteen days and the one day. That collapse is retelling drift. The dates were already striking without it.
A coincidence that wrote its own legend.
Concordance
- The thing
- Samuel Clemens, born near one perihelion, dead near the next, having said he expected to go out with it.
- Seen
- Born 30 November 1835. Halley perihelion 16 November 1835. Died 21 April 1910. Perihelion 20 April 1910.
- Sourced
- Albert Bigelow Paine records the 1909 remark. A New York Times letter of 23 April 1910 already treats the dates as coincidence.
- Miss
- Fourteen days from 1835 perihelion to birth. One day from 1910 perihelion to death. Popular versions say he was born and died on the comet.
- One question remains
- What did the 1909 sentence do to the 1910 death?
