“The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.”
- Date
- 1894
- Attribution
- Source identified
- Voice / speaker
- Epigraph / fictional source voice · Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar
What does this quote mean?
The sentence builds friendship into something almost sacred and then punctures the ideal with a borrowing joke, satirizing how financial pressure tests supposedly unconditional loyalty.
Where does it come from?
Pudd’nhead Wilson, Calendar epigraph before the section following Chapter VII; the lending-money qualification supplies the punch line.
Who voices the line?
Epigraph / fictional source voice · Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar. 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.
The source author and the local speaker can be different, especially in fiction, drama, dialogue and poetry.
How should this attribution be read?
This wording is connected with the named source shown above. Translations and editions can vary, so consult the source note when exact wording matters.