On 04/27/2013 09:56 AM, Barbara Schmidt wrote: > The use of the solar eclipse to prove a claim to supernatural power > was not a new concept when Twain wrote CY. In the Iowa/California > edition of the WORKS OF MARK TWAIN, edited by Bernard Stein, (p. 553) > Stein points the reader to THE LIFE AND VOYAGES OF CHRISTOPHER > COLUMBUS, Book 16, chapter 3 by Washington Irving. (Columbus > exploited an eclipse to get natives to procure supplies for him.) > Clemens owned a set of these books in the 1880s. Yes, in fact, Twain makes a joke about it in the text, showing that he (and Hank) knew this: "You see, it was the eclipse. It came into my mind in the nick of time, how Columbus, or Cortez, or one of those people, played an eclipse as a saving trump once, on some savages, and I saw my chance. I could play it myself, now, and it wouldn’t be any plagiarism, either, because I should get it in nearly a thousand years ahead of those parties." (Connecticut Yankee, Chapter 5) -- Alan Eliasen [log in to unmask] http://futureboy.us/