On the Internet, the statement attributed to the American writer is popular that the rich in their moral qualities and actions are worthy of not beautiful clothes, but a prison or even worse. We decided to check if he said something like that.

The phrase about expensive ties and ropes indicating the authorship of Mark Twain can be found on sites with collections Quote And aphorisms, on entertainment And cognitive Portals and services questions and answers. Social networks are divided by it ("VKontakte" X, Telegram, Facebook*) and the Platform blog ("Zen","Picabu" Livejournal). Sometimes to the phrase Added Preambula: "In the USA it happened." And some users Retell And the circumstances in which Mark Twain allegedly pronounced these words - he spoke with a dishonest speculator who deceived the Indians and got rich on the purchase of their land.

Along with Albert Einstein, Mark Twain is one of those outstanding people whose bright aphoristic quotes can often be found on the Internet, and he has nothing to do with some of them. "Checked" already Disassembled There are many statements, groundlessly attributed to this American writer.

It’s easy to check whether Mark Twain was the author of a phrase. For more than a hundred years that have passed since his death, the work of the American writer has been carefully studied and digitized. The largest collections of his works are archive Mark Twain Projects Onlineassembled with the support of the University of California in Berkeley, the base Twain quotes, which includes texts belonging to Peru Mark Twain or dedicated to him, and Electronic archive, compiled by the library of the University of Virginia. By keywords of the dissection of the discounted quote in these databases, you can check whether something similar is found in the literary heritage of the writer.

However, some difficulties arose with a statement about expensive ties and ropes: apparently, it gained popularity only in Russian. None of the possible translation options into English were “tested” found this quote in the English -language segment of the Internet - as indicating the authorship of Mark Twain, and without it. The writer lived in the United States all his life and wrote in English, so there is no doubt that the analysis of the phrase has any relation to him. Nevertheless, according to the keywords, the “tie” and “rope” (in different ways to translate these words into English), “verified” still tried to find something similar to this quote in the data mentioned above, but unsuccessfully.

The magazine "Spark", No. 44, 1951. Screenshot "Retrieved"

The earliest case of attributing this statement by Mark Twain is the most “tested”-publication in the 44th issue of the magazine "Spark" from 1951. The writer’s dialogue with a cunning speculator who robbed the Indians is also retold on this well -rich (as in some modern viral publications). This story later appeared in another Soviet periodicals, for example, in one of the numbers Soviet magazine Theater Life, published in 1969. However, the interlocutor of Mark Twain is already not a speculator, but a theater producer, which is more consistent with the subject of the publication. Be that as it may, in both cases, the story, apparently, did not claim reliability - it was placed in the section of jokes. Given the alleged source, it is not surprising that the quote attributed to the American writer dispersed only in Russian.

Thus, it was not possible to detect any trust in the testimony that Mark Twain spoke or wrote a phrase about ties and ropes was “verified”. Apparently, initially the story of how the writer allegedly witty answered the boastful interlocutor was published in the section of jokes in one of the Soviet periodicals. Subsequently, the context was lost, and the phrase (as well as the alleged circumstances in which the writer pronounced it) began to be distributed as a real story.

Photo on the cover: Ray Jerome Baker, Public Domain, Via Wikimedia Commons

*The Russian authorities consider Meta Platforms Inc., which owns social networks Facebook and Instagram, an extremist organization, its activities in Russia are prohibited.