I've always read "the person sitting" as a deliberate choice, an example of Twain's adept & frequent reliance on the possibility of empathic perception in his reader, betting that the individual reader might, in this particular case, get a glimpse at the nature and extent of the predations which are the source of the suffering of "the person sitting."  Predations which are, of course, imposed on "the person sitting" by the imperialist activities of nations including that of "the person reading."  Twain uses this device, IMO, in the hope that the reader will have sufficient powers of insight to make the connection, obviating the necessity of ponderous preaching. Huck Finn, is, of course, the Twain archetype for this very effective use of the possibility of empathic perception to slowly, but surely, sneak up on and bring into question widely-held assumptions/perceptions, creating at least the possibility their subversion.  

Martin Zehr
Kansas City, Missouri

--- On Wed, 4/18/12, Harold Bush <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: Harold Bush <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: MT, the KJV, and Matt. 4:16
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Wednesday, April 18, 2012, 7:05 PM

Folks;  I'm attempting to explain some things about MT's "To the Person
Sitting in Darkness," and I guess I should have figured this out years ago,
but:

Why did he use that exact phrasing?  Everyone recognizes he alludes to
Matt. 4:16:  King James Version (KJV) which reads:

 The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in
the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.

This verse in Matthew alludes to Isaiah 9:2 :

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell
in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

Both are from the KJV (sidenote:  I've always assumed MT read, and used,
the KJV).  I have checked all the other translations and none of them at
that time used "sitting."

(More arcane = why the Hebrew Bible quote says "walked," NT says "sat"; why
switch it up from walking to sitting?  (some commentators suggest the
change to "sat" makes their conditions even more desperate; Anyway that is
true textual hairsplitting)

the questions I really have are:

Why change the "people which sat" to "the person sitting"?  I guess to
bring it up to date??  To personalize it even more??

More generally:  I wonder now that I think of it, about the element of
directly addressing this "person," and the rhetorical strategy of that form
of address:  how and why did he choose that title and method?
Even more generally: is it basically the case the we should always assume
MT's reading was always in the KJV, and his use of and references to the
Bible are based on the KJV?  Seems like common sense, but the Revised
Version did come out in the 1880s, (1881 I believe), making a fairly big
splash in fact.

thanks, --hb

-- 
Harold K. Bush, Ph.D
Professor of English
Saint Louis University
St. Louis, MO  63108
314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795 (h)
<www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>