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Abraham
The patriarch of Genesis, father of Isaac; quoted from the genealogical 'begat' formula as a stock biblical allusion used for comic or mock-solemn effect.
Reading notes
- To A. S. Suvorin, 13 December 1891. Moscow. §4 the nerves of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob
The patriarchs of Genesis (Abraham, his son Isaac, and Isaac's son Jacob), invoked here as the standard biblical shorthand for the whole span of human history, in Chekhov's argument that there is no such thing as a distinctly modern "nervous age": people's nerves, he insists, are no different now than they were in patriarchal times.