Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition. There was once a man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it.”
- Date
- 1894
- Local voice
- Epigraph / fictional source voice · Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
Meaning of “It is easy to find fault, if one…”
The prehistoric-toad complaint satirizes habitual fault-finding by imagining a critic so determined to complain that even an absurd geological objection becomes useful.
Where does it come from?
Pudd’nhead Wilson, Chapter IX epigraph; the coal complaint follows the birth-and-funeral maxim in the Calendar sequence.
Why the local voice matters
Twain presents this wording as a chapter-epigraph Calendar maxim. The Calendar is a fictional framing device / source voice rather than uncomplicated autobiography by Twain.
