This surprised me: "Mark Twain too, insisted that a book “write itself” and that “the minute that the book tried to shift to my head the labor of contriving it

This surprised me: "Mark Twain too, insisted that a book “write itself” and that “the minute that the book tried to shift to my head the labor of contriving its situations…I put it away…The reason was very simple — my tank had run dry; it was empty" I'm surprised that the phrase "tank had run dry" was already established during Mark Twain's life. The metaphor refers to automobiles. He died in 1910. Automobiles began to become popular during the early 1890s, but they were still the toys of the rich. The first Model T was built in 1908, and this was the first car built "for the masses". It's interesting that Twain did not use a steam engine metaphor. "The boiler needs to be stoked." His life overlaps entirely with the peak of the railroad/steam engine. But he uses a metaphor from automobiles?