Please help me find this quote!
February 4, 2009 11:47 AM Subscribe
"All of the words the preacher spoke weren't worth a single hair on her head."-??? (Not exact) I've googled this to infinity, where does it come from? More explanation beneath the fold.
I was having a long discussion with a very smart professor, and the topic turned to religion. He quoted the above phrase and referenced it to something (novel/poem/short story/song lyric). I think it might be from Mark Twain. I think the speaker is a young man who is in church or some sort of lecture (it may not be a preacher). He looks over to a pretty young woman and realizes that the all of the speaker's words and pontificating aren't worth a "single hair" on the young woman's head. However, it may some other physical attribute, like the pretty curve of her jawbone. I don't know, my memory is fading and I'm going crazy! If someone could direct me to where this comes from, and perhaps supply the excerpt in question word for word, I would be very thankful!!
I was having a long discussion with a very smart professor, and the topic turned to religion. He quoted the above phrase and referenced it to something (novel/poem/short story/song lyric). I think it might be from Mark Twain. I think the speaker is a young man who is in church or some sort of lecture (it may not be a preacher). He looks over to a pretty young woman and realizes that the all of the speaker's words and pontificating aren't worth a "single hair" on the young woman's head. However, it may some other physical attribute, like the pretty curve of her jawbone. I don't know, my memory is fading and I'm going crazy! If someone could direct me to where this comes from, and perhaps supply the excerpt in question word for word, I would be very thankful!!
The closest I can find from Twain is in Chapter XXXIII of Huckleberry Finn:
The old gentleman was at the door, and he says:
“Why, this is wonderful! Whoever would 'a' thought it was in that mare to do it? I wish we'd 'a' timed her. And she hain't sweated a hair—not a hair. It's wonderful. Why, I wouldn't take a hundred dollars for that horse now—I wouldn't, honest; and yet I'd 'a' sold her for fifteen before, and thought 'twas all she was worth.”
That's all he said. He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see. But it warn't surprising; because he warn't only just a farmer, he was a preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down back of the plantation, which he built it himself at his own expense, for a church and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 12:30 PM on February 4, 2009
The old gentleman was at the door, and he says:
“Why, this is wonderful! Whoever would 'a' thought it was in that mare to do it? I wish we'd 'a' timed her. And she hain't sweated a hair—not a hair. It's wonderful. Why, I wouldn't take a hundred dollars for that horse now—I wouldn't, honest; and yet I'd 'a' sold her for fifteen before, and thought 'twas all she was worth.”
That's all he said. He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see. But it warn't surprising; because he warn't only just a farmer, he was a preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down back of the plantation, which he built it himself at his own expense, for a church and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was worth it, too.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 12:30 PM on February 4, 2009
This reminds me of the scene at the end of "A Death in the Family" by James Agee, where one character tells another about a butterfly that has landed on the coffin of a family member: "that butterfly has got more of God in him than Jackson [the priest] will ever see for the rest of eternity."
posted by hecho de la basura at 12:31 PM on February 4, 2009
posted by hecho de la basura at 12:31 PM on February 4, 2009
Best answer: Sounds very much like the scene with the priest from The Stranger (L'etranger):
Then, I don't know why, but something inside me snapped. I started yelling at the top of my lungs, and I insulted him and told him not to waste his prayers on me. I grabbed him by the collar of his cassock. I was pouring out on him everything that was in my heart, cries of anger and cries of joy. He seemed so certain about everything, didn't he? And yet none of his certainties was worth one hair of a woman's head. He wasn't even sure he was alive, because he was living like a dead man...posted by cowbellemoo at 1:29 PM on February 4, 2009 [3 favorites]
I think it has to be Camus that the professor was alluding to, whether he described it correctly or not. The "not worth a single hair" (or "one hair") idiom is a bit of an expression, but in a religious context the above quote comes up a lot -- the point being that "certainties" are little more than argument by assertion.
posted by dhartung at 5:14 PM on February 4, 2009
posted by dhartung at 5:14 PM on February 4, 2009
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posted by Weighted Companion Cube at 12:26 PM on February 4, 2009