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diff --git a/2985.txt b/2985.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3812aeb --- /dev/null +++ b/2985.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9433 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mark Twain, A Biography, Vol. 2, Part 2, +1886-1900, by Albert Bigelow Paine + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mark Twain, A Biography, Vol. 2, Part 2, 1886-1900 + The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens + +Author: Albert Bigelow Paine + +Release Date: August 21, 2006 [EBook #2985] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY, *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY + +By Albert Bigelow Paine + + + +VOLUME II, Part 2: 1886-1900 + + + + +CLXII + + +BROWNING, MEREDITH, AND MEISTERSCHAFT + +The Browning readings must have begun about this time. Just what kindled +Mark Twain's interest in the poetry of Robert Browning is not remembered, +but very likely his earlier associations with the poet had something to +do with it. Whatever the beginning, we find him, during the winter of +1886 and 1887, studiously, even violently, interested in Browning's +verses, entertaining a sort of club or class who gathered to hear his +rich, sympathetic, and luminous reading of the Payleyings--"With Bernard +de Mandeville," "Daniel Bartoli," or "Christopher Smart." Members of the +Saturday Morning Club were among his listeners and others-friends of the +family. They were rather remarkable gatherings, and no one of that group +but always vividly remembered the marvelously clear insight which Mark +Twain's vocal personality gave to those somewhat obscure measures. They +did not all of them realize that before reading a poem he studied it line +by line, even word by word; dug out its last syllable of meaning, so far +as lay within human possibility, and indicated with pencil every shade of +emphasis which would help to reveal the poet's purpose. No student of +Browning ever more devoutly persisted in trying to compass a master's +intent--in such poems as "Sordello," for instance--than Mark Twain. Just +what permanent benefit he received from this particular passion it is +difficult to know. Once, at a class-meeting, after finishing "Easter +Day," he made a remark which the class requested him to "write down." It +is recorded on the fly-leaf of Dramatis Personae as follows: + + One's glimpses & confusions, as one reads Browning, remind me of + looking through a telescope (the small sort which you must move with + your hand, not clock-work). You toil across dark spaces which are + (to your lens) empty; but every now & then a splendor of stars & + suns bursts upon you and fills the whole field with flame. Feb. + 23, 1887. + +In another note he speaks of the "vague dim flash of splendid +hamming-birds through a fog." Whatever mental treasures he may or may +not have laid up from Browning there was assuredly a deep gratification +in the discovery of those splendors of "stars and suns" and the flashing +"humming-birds," as there must also have been in pointing out those +wonders to the little circle of devout listeners. It all seemed so worth +while. + +It was at a time when George Meredith was a reigning literary favorite. +There was a Meredith cult as distinct as that of Browning. Possibly it +exists to-day, but, if so, it is less militant. Mrs. Clemens and her +associates were caught in the Meredith movement and read Diana of the +Crossways and the Egoist with reverential appreciation. + +The Meredith epidemic did not touch Mark Twain. He read but few novels +at most, and, skilful as was the artistry of the English favorite, he +found his characters artificialities--ingeniously contrived puppets +rather than human beings, and, on the whole, overrated by their creator. +Diana of the Crossways was read aloud, and, listening now and then, he +was likely to say: + +"It doesn't seem to me that Diana lives up to her reputation. The author +keeps telling us how smart she is, how brilliant, but I never seem to +hear her say anything smart or brilliant. Read me some of Diana's smart +utterances." + +He was relentless enough in his criticism of a literature he did not care +for, and he never learned to care for Meredith. + +He read his favorite books over and over with an ever-changing point of +view. He re-read Carlyle's French Revolution during the summer at the +farm, and to Howells he wrote: + + How stunning are the changes which age makes in man while he sleeps! + When I finished Carlyle's French Revolution in 1871 I was a + Girondin; every time I have read it since I have read it + differently--being influenced & changed, little by little, by life & + environment (& Taine & St. Simon); & now I lay the book down once + more, & recognize that I am a Sansculotte!--And not a pale, + characterless Sansculotte, but a Marat. Carlyle teaches no such + gospel, so the change is in me--in my vision of the evidences. + + People pretend that the Bible means the same to them at 50 that it + did at all former milestones in their journey. I wonder how they + can lie so. It comes of practice, no doubt. They would not say + that of Dickens's or Scott's books. Nothing remains the same. When + a man goes back to look at the house of his childhood it has always + shrunk; there is no instance of such house being as big as the + picture in memory & imagination call for. Shrunk how? Why, to its + correct dimensions; the house hasn't altered; this is the first time + it has been in focus. + + Well, that's loss. To have house & Bible shrink so, under the + disillusioning corrected angle, is loss--for a moment. But there + are compensations. You tilt the tube skyward & bring planets & + comets & corona flames a hundred & fifty thousand miles high into + the field. Which I see you have done, & found Tolstoi. I haven't + got him in focus yet, but I've got Browning. + +In time the Browning passion would wane and pass, and the club was +succeeded by, or perhaps it blended with, a German class which met at +regular intervals at the Clemens home to study "der, die, and das" and +the "gehabt habens" out of Meisterschaft and such other text-books as +Professor Schleutter could provide. They had monthly conversation days, +when they discussed in German all sorts of things, real and imaginary. +Once Dr. Root, a prominent member, and Clemens had a long wrangle over +painting a house, in which they impersonated two German neighbors. + +Clemens finally wrote for the class a three-act play "Meisterschaft"--a +literary achievement for which he was especially qualified, with its +picturesque mixture of German and English and its unfailing humor. It +seems unlike anything ever attempted before or since. No one but Mark +Twain could have written it. It was given twice by the class with +enormous success, and in modified form it was published in the Century +Magazine (January, 1888). It is included to-day in his "Complete Works," +but one must have a fair knowledge of German to capture the full delight +of it.--[On the original manuscript Mark Twain wrote: "There is some +tolerably rancid German here and there in this piece. It is attributable +to the proof-reader." Perhaps the proof-reader resented this and cut it +out, for it does not appear as published.] + +Mark Twain probably exaggerated his sentiments a good deal when in the +Carlyle letter he claimed to be the most rabid of Sansculottes. It is +unlikely that he was ever very bare-kneed and crimson in his anarchy. He +believed always that cruelty should be swiftly punished, whether in king +or commoner, and that tyrants should be destroyed. He was for the people +as against kings, and for the union of labor as opposed to the union of +capital, though he wrote of such matters judicially--not radically. The +Knights of Labor organization, then very powerful, seemed to Clemens the +salvation of oppressed humanity. He wrote a vehement and convincing +paper on the subject, which he sent to Howells, to whom it appealed very +strongly, for Howells was socialistic, in a sense, and Clemens made his +appeal in the best and largest sense, dramatizing his conception in a +picture that was to include, in one grand league, labor of whatever form, +and, in the end, all mankind in a final millennium. Howells wrote that +he had read the essay "with thrills amounting to yells of satisfaction," +and declared it to be the best thing yet said on the subject. The essay +closed: + + He [the unionized workman] is here and he will remain. He is the + greatest birth of the greatest age the nations of the world have + known. You cannot sneer at him--that time has gone by. He has + before him the most righteous work that was ever given into the hand + of man to do; and he will do it. Yes, he is here; and the question + is not--as it has been heretofore during a thousand ages--What shall + we do with him? For the first time in history we are relieved of + the necessity of managing his affairs for him. He is not a broken + dam this time--he is the Flood! + +It must have been about this time that Clemens developed an intense, even +if a less permanent, interest in another matter which was to benefit the +species. He was one day walking up Fifth Avenue when he noticed the sign, + + PROFESSOR LOISETTE + SCHOOL OF MEMORY + The Instantaneous Art of Never Forgetting + +Clemens went inside. When he came out he had all of Professor Loisette's +literature on "predicating correlation," and for the next several days +was steeping himself in an infusion of meaningless words and figures and +sentences and forms, which he must learn backward and forward and +diagonally, so that he could repeat them awake and asleep in order to +predicate his correlation to a point where remembering the ordinary facts +of life, such as names, addresses, and telephone numbers, would be a mere +diversion. + +It was another case of learning the multitudinous details of the +Mississippi River in order to do the apparently simple thing of steering +a boat from New Orleans to St. Louis, and it is fair to say that, for the +time he gave it, he achieved a like success. He was so enthusiastic over +this new remedy for human distress that within a very brief time he was +sending out a printed letter recommending Loisette to the public at +large. Here is an extract: + + . . . I had no SYSTEM--and some sort of rational order of + procedure is, of course, necessary to success in any study. Well, + Loisette furnished me a system. I cannot undertake to say it is the + best, or the worst, because I don't know what the other systems are. + Loisette, among other cruelties, requires you to memorize a great + long string of words that, haven't any apparent connection or + meaning--there are perhaps 500 of these words, arranged in maniacal + lines of 6 to 8 or 9 words in each line--71 lines in all. Of course + your first impulse is to resign, but at the end of three or four + hours you find to your surprise that you've GOT them and can deliver + them backward or forward without mistake or hesitation. Now, don't + you see what a world of confidence that must necessarily breed? + --confidence in a memory which before you wouldn't even venture to + trust with the Latin motto of the U. S. lest it mislay it and the + country suffer. + + Loisette doesn't make memories, he furnishes confidence in memories + that already exist. Isn't that valuable? Indeed it is to me. + Whenever hereafter I shall choose to pack away a thing properly in + that refrigerator I sha'n't be bothered with the aforetime doubts; I + shall know I'm going to find it sound and sweet when I go for it + again. + +Loisette naturally made the most of this advertising and flooded the +public with Mark Twain testimonials. But presently Clemens decided that +after all the system was not sufficiently simple to benefit the race at +large. He recalled his printed letters and prevailed upon Loisette to +suppress his circulars. Later he decided that the whole system was a +humbug. + + + + +CLXIII + +LETTER TO THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND + +It was one day in 1887 that Clemens received evidence that his reputation +as a successful author and publisher--a man of wealth and revenues--had +penetrated even the dimness of the British Tax Offices. A formidable +envelope came, inclosing a letter from his London publishers and a very +large printed document all about the income tax which the Queen's +officers had levied upon his English royalties as the result of a report +that he had taken Buckenham Hall, Norwich, for a year, and was to become +an English resident. The matter amused and interested him. To Chatto & +Windus he wrote: + + I will explain that all that about Buckenham Hall was an English + newspaper's mistake. I was not in England, and if I had been I + wouldn't have been at Buckenham Hall anyway, but Buckingham Palace, + or I would have endeavored to have found out the reason why . . . + + But we won't resist. We'll pay as if I were really a resident. The + country that allows me copyright has a right to tax me. + +Reflecting on the matter, Clemens decided to make literature of it. He +conceived the notion of writing an open letter to the Queen in the +character of a rambling, garrulous, but well-disposed countryman whose +idea was that her Majesty conducted all the business of the empire +herself. He began: + + HARTFORD, November 6, 2887. + + MADAM, You will remember that last May Mr. Edward Bright, the clerk + of the Inland Revenue Office, wrote me about a tax which he said was + due from me to the Government on books of mine published in London + --that is to say, an income tax on the royalties. I do not know Mr. + Bright, and it is embarrassing to me to correspond with strangers, + for I was raised in the country and have always lived there, the + early part in Marion County, Missouri, before the war, and this part + in Hartford County, Connecticut, near Bloomfield and about 8 miles + this side of Farmington, though some call it 9, which it is + impossible to be, for I have walked it many and many a time in + considerably under three hours, and General Hawley says he has done + it in two and a quarter, which is not likely; so it has seemed best + that I write your Majesty. + +The letter proceeded to explain that he had never met her Majesty +personally, but that he once met her son, the Prince of Wales, in Oxford +Street, at the head of a procession, while he himself was on the top of +an omnibus. He thought the Prince would probably remember him on account +of a gray coat with flap pockets which he wore, he being the only person +on the omnibus who had on that kind of a coat. + +"I remember him," he said, "as easily as I would a comet." + +He explained the difficulty he had in understanding under what heading he +was taxed. There was a foot-note on the list which stated that he was +taxed under "Schedule D, section 14." He had turned to that place and +found these three things: "Trades, Offices, Gas Works." He did not +regard authorship as a trade, and he had no office, so he did not +consider that he was taxable under "Schedule D, section 14." The letter +concludes: + + Having thus shown your Majesty that I am not taxable, but am the + victim of the error of a clerk who mistakes the nature of my + commerce, it only remains for me to beg that you will, of your + justice, annul my letter that I spoke of, so that my publisher can + keep back that tax money which, in the confusion and aberration + caused by the Document, I ordered him to pay. You will not miss the + sum, but this is a hard year for authors, and as for lectures I do + not suppose your Majesty ever saw such a dull season. + + With always great and ever-increasing respect, I beg to sign myself + your Majesty's servant to command, + MARK TWAIN. + Her Majesty the Queen, London. + +The letter, or "petition," as it was called, was published in the +Harper's Magazine "Drawer" (December, 1889), and is now included in the +"Complete Works." Taken as a whole it is one of the most exquisite of +Mark Twain's minor humors. What other humorist could have refrained from +hinting, at least, the inference suggested by the obvious "Gas Works"? +Yet it was a subtler art to let his old, simple-minded countryman ignore +that detail. The little skit was widely copied and reached the Queen +herself in due time, and her son, Prince Edward, who never forgot its +humor. + +Clemens read a notable paper that year before the Monday Evening Club. +Its subject was "Consistency"--political consistency--and in it he took +occasion to express himself pretty vigorously regarding the virtue of +loyalty to party before principle, as exemplified in the Blaine-Cleveland +campaign. It was in effect a scathing reply to those who, three years, +before, had denounced Twichell and himself for standing by their +convictions.--[ Characteristic paragraphs from this paper will be found +under Appendix R, at the end of last volume.] + + + + +CLXIV + +SOME FURTHER ACCOUNT OF CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO. + +Flood-tide is a temporary condition, and the ebb in the business of +Charles L. Webster & Co., though very deliberate, was not delayed in its +beginning. Most of the books published--the early ones at least-were +profitable. McClellan's memoirs paid, as did others of the war series. + +Even The Life of Pope Leo XIII. paid. What a statement to make, after +all their magnificent dreams and preparations! It was published +simultaneously in six languages. It was exploited in every conceivable +fashion, and its aggregate sales fell far short of the number which the +general agents had promised for their first orders. It was amazing, it +was incredible, but, alas! it was true. The prospective Catholic +purchaser had decided that the Pope's Life was not necessary to his +salvation or even to his entertainment. Howells explains it, to his own +satisfaction at least, when he says: + + We did not consider how often Catholics could not read, how often, + when they could, they might not wish to read. The event proved + that, whether they could read or not, the immeasurable majority did + not wish to read The Life of the Pope, though it was written by a + dignitary of the Church and issued to the world with sanction from + the Vatican. + +Howells, of course, is referring to the laboring Catholic of that day. +There are no Catholics of this day--no American Catholics, at least--who +do not read, and money among them has become plentiful. Perhaps had the +Pope's Life been issued in this new hour of enlightenment the tale of its +success might have been less sadly told. + +A variety of books followed. Henry Ward Beecher agreed to write an +autobiography, but he died just when he was beginning the work, and the +biography, which his family put together, brought only a moderate return. +A book of Sandwich Islands tales and legends, by his Hawaiian Majesty +King Kalakaua, edited by Clemens's old friend, Rollin M. Daggett, who had +become United States minister to the islands, barely paid for the cost of +manufacture, while a volume of reminiscences by General Hancock was still +less fortunate. The running expenses of the business were heavy. On the +strength of the Grant success Webster had moved into still larger +quarters at No. 3 East Fifteenth Street, and had a ground floor for a +salesroom. The force had become numerous and costly. It was necessary +that a book should pay largely to maintain this pretentious +establishment. A number of books were published at a heavy loss. Never +mind their titles; we may forget them, with the name of the bookkeeper +who presently embezzled thirty thousand dollars of the firm's money and +returned but a trifling sum. + +By the end of 1887 there were three works in prospect on which great +hopes were founded--'The Library of Humor', which Howells and Clark had +edited; a personal memoir of General Sheridan's, and a Library of +American Literature in ten volumes, compiled by Edmund Clarence Stedman +and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson. It was believed these would restore the +fortunes and the prestige of the firm. They were all excellent, +attractive features. The Library of Humor was ably selected and +contained two hundred choice drawings by Kemble. The Sheridan Memoir was +finely written, and the public interest in it was bound to be general. +The Library of American Literature was a collection of the best American +writing, and seemed bound to appeal to every American reading-home. It +was necessary to borrow most of the money required to build these books, +for the profit made from the Grant Life and less fortunate ventures was +pretty well exhausted. Clemens presently found a little drift of his +notes accumulating at this bank and that--a disturbing condition, when he +remembered it, for he was financing the typesetting machine by this time, +and it was costing a pretty sum. + +Meantime, Webster was no longer active in the management. In two years +he had broken down from overwork, and was now desperately ill with an +acute neuralgia that kept him away from the business most of the time. +Its burdens had fallen upon his assistant, Fred J. Hall, a willing, +capable young man, persevering and hopeful, lacking only years and +experience. Hall worked like a beaver, and continually looked forward to +success. He explained, with each month's report of affairs, just why the +business had not prospered more during that particular month, and just +why its profits would be greater during the next. Webster finally +retired from the business altogether, and Hall was given a small +partnership in the firm. He reduced expenses, worked desperately, +pumping out the debts, and managed to keep the craft afloat. + +The Library of Humor, the Life of Sheridan, and The Library of American +Literature all sold very well; not so well as had been hoped, but the +sales yielded a fair profit. It was thought that if Clemens himself +would furnish a new book now and then the business might regain something +of its original standing. + +We may believe that Clemens had not been always patient, not always +gentle, during this process of decline. He had differed with Webster, +and occasionally had gone down and reconstructed things after his own +notions. Once he wrote to Orion that he had suddenly awakened to find +that there was no more system in the office than in a nursery without a +nurse. + +"But," he added, "I have spent a good deal of time there since, and +reduced everything to exact order and system." + +Just what were the new features of order instituted it would be +interesting to know. That the financial pressure was beginning to be +felt even in the Clemens home is shown by a Christmas letter to Mrs. +Moffett. + + HARTFORD, December 18, 1887. + +DEAR PAMELA,--Will you take this $15 & buy some candy or other trifle for +yourself & Sam & his wife to remind you that we remember you? + +If we weren't a little crowded this year by the type-setter I'd send a +check large enough to buy a family Bible or some other useful thing like +that. However, we go on & on, but the type-setter goes on forever--at +$3,000 a month; which is much more satisfactory than was the case the +first 17 months, when the bill only averaged $2,000, & promised to take a +thousand years. We'll be through now in 3 or 4 months, I reckon, & then +the strain will let up and we can breathe freely once more, whether +success ensues or failure. + +Even with a type-setter on hand we ought not to be in the least +scrimped-but it would take a long letter to explain why & who is to +blame. + +All the family send love to all of you, & best Christmas wishes for your +prosperity. + +Affectionately, +SAM. + + + + +CLXV + +LETTERS, VISITS, AND VISITORS + +There were many pleasanter things, to be sure. The farm life never +failed with each returning summer; the winters brought gay company and +fair occasions. Sir Henry and Lady Stanley, visiting. America, were +entertained in the Clemens home, and Clemens went on to Boston to +introduce Stanley to his lecture audience. Charles Dickens's son, with +his wife and daughter, followed a little later. An incident of their +visit seems rather amusing now. There is a custom in England which +requires the host to give the guest notice of bedtime by handing him a +lighted candle. Mrs. Clemens knew of this custom, but did not have the +courage to follow it in her own home, and the guests knew of no other way +to relieve the situation; as a result, all sat up much later than usual. +Eventually Clemens himself suggested that possibly the guests would like +to retire. + +Robert Louis Stevenson came down from Saranac, and Clemens went in to +visit him at his New York hotel, the St. Stevens, on East Eleventh +Street. Stevenson had orders to sit in the sunshine as much as possible, +and during the few days of their association he and Clemens would walk +down to Washington Square and sit on one of the benches and talk. They +discussed many things--philosophies, people, books; it seems a pity their +talk could not have been preserved. + +Stevenson was a great admirer of Mark Twain's work. He said that during +a recent painting of his portrait he had insisted on reading Huck Finn +aloud to the artist, a Frenchman, who had at first protested, and finally +had fallen a complete victim to Huck's yarn. In one of Stevenson's +letters to Clemens he wrote: + + My father, an old man, has been prevailed upon to read Roughing It + (his usual amusement being found in theology), and after one evening + spent with the book he declared: "I am frightened. It cannot be + safe for a man at my time of life to laugh so much." + +What heaps of letters, by the way, remain from this time, and how curious +some of them are! Many of them are requests of one sort or another, +chiefly for money--one woman asking for a single day's income, +conservatively estimated at five thousand dollars. Clemens seldom +answered an unwarranted letter; but at one time he began a series of +unmailed answers--that is to say, answers in which he had let himself go +merely to relieve his feelings and to restore his spiritual balance. He +prepared an introduction for this series. In it he said: + + . . . You receive a letter. You read it. It will be tolerably + sure to produce one of three results: 1, pleasure; 2, displeasure; + 3, indifference. I do not need to say anything about Nos. 1 & 3; + everybody knows what to do with those breeds of letters; it is breed + No. 2 that I am after. It is the one that is loaded up with + trouble. + + When you get an exasperating letter what happens? If you are young + you answer it promptly, instantly--and mail the thing you have + written. At forty what do you do? By that time you have found out + that a letter written in a passion is a mistake in ninety-nine cases + out of a hundred; that it usually wrongs two persons, and always + wrongs one--yourself. You have grown weary of wronging yourself and + repenting; so you manacle, you fetter, you log-chain the frantic + impulse to write a pulverizing answer. You will wait a day or die. + But in the mean time what do you do? Why, if it is about dinner- + time, you sit at table in a deep abstraction all through the meal; + you try to throw it off and help do the talking; you get a start + three or four times, but conversation dies on your lips every time + --your mind isn't on it; your heart isn't in it. You give up, and + subside into a bottomless deep of silence, permanently; people must + speak to you two or three times to get your attention, and then say + it over again to make you understand. This kind of thing goes on + all the rest of the evening; nobody can interest you in anything; + you are useless, a depressing influence, a burden. You go to bed at + last; but at three in the morning you are as wide awake as you were + in the beginning. Thus we see what you have been doing for nine + hours--on the outside. But what were you doing on the inside? You + were writing letters--in your mind. And enjoying it, that is quite + true; that is not to be denied. You have been flaying your + correspondent alive with your incorporeal pen; you have been + braining him, disemboweling him, carving him into little bits, and + then--doing it all over again. For nine hours. + + It was wasted time, for you had no intention of putting any of this + insanity on paper and mailing it. Yes, you know that, and confess + it--but what were you to do? Where was your remedy? Will anybody + contend that a man can say to such masterful anger as that, Go, and + be obeyed? + + No, he cannot; that is certainly true. Well, then, what is he to + do? I will explain by the suggestion contained in my opening + paragraph. During the nine hours he has written as many as forty- + seven furious letters--in his mind. If he had put just one of them + on paper it would have brought him relief, saved him eight hours of + trouble, and given him an hour's red-hot pleasure besides. + + He is not to mail this letter; he understands that, and so he can + turn on the whole volume of his wrath; there is no harm. He is only + writing it to get the bile out. So to speak, he is a volcano: + imaging himself erupting does no good; he must open up his crater + and pour out in reality his intolerable charge of lava if he would + get relief. + + Before he has filled his first sheet sometimes the relief is there. + He degenerates into good-nature from that point. + + Sometimes the load is so hot and so great that one writes as many as + three letters before he gets down to a mailable one; a very angry + one, a less angry one, and an argumentative one with hot embers in + it here and there. He pigeonholes these and then does one of two + things--dismisses the whole matter from his mind or writes the + proper sort of letter and mails it. + + To this day I lose my balance and send an overwarm letter--or more + frequently telegram--two or three times a year. But that is better + than doing it a hundred times a year, as I used to do years ago. + Perhaps I write about as many as ever, but I pigeonhole them. They + ought not to be thrown away. Such a letter a year or so old is as + good as a sermon to the maw who wrote it. It makes him feel small + and shabby, but--well, that wears off. Any sermon does; but the + sermon does some little good, anyway. An old cold letter like that + makes you wonder how you could ever have got into such a rage about + nothing. + +The unmailed answers that were to accompany this introduction were +plentiful enough and generally of a fervent sort. One specimen will +suffice. It was written to the chairman of a hospital committee. + + DEAR SIR,--If I were Smithfield I would certainly go out and get + behind something and blush. According to your report, "the + politicians are afraid to tax the people for the support" of so + humane and necessary a thing as a hospital. And do your "people" + propose to stand that?--at the hands of vermin officials whom the + breath of their votes could blow out of official existence in a + moment if they had the pluck to band themselves together and blow. + Oh, come, these are not "people"--they are cowed school-boys with + backbones made of boiled macaroni. If you are not misreporting + those "people" you are just in the right business passing the + mendicant hat for them. Dear sir, communities where anything like + citizenship exists are accustomed to hide their shames, but here we + have one proposing to get up a great "exposition" of its dishonor + and advertise it all it can. + + It has been eleven years since I wrote anything for one of those + graveyards called a "Fair paper," and so I have doubtless lost the + knack of it somewhat; still I have done the best I could for you. + + This was from a burning heart and well deserved. One may almost + regret that he did not send it. + +Once he received a letter intended for one Samuel Clements, of Elma, New +York, announcing that the said Clements's pension had been allowed. But +this was amusing. When Clemens had forwarded the notice to its proper +destination he could not resist sending this comment to the commissioner +at Washington: + + DEAR SIR,--I have not applied for a pension. I have often wanted a + pension--often--ever so often--I may say, but in as much as the only + military service I performed during the war was in the Confederate + army, I have always felt a delicacy about asking you for it. + However, since you have suggested the thing yourself, I feel + strengthened. I haven't any very pensionable diseases myself, but I + can furnish a substitute--a man who is just simply a chaos, a museum + of all the different kinds of aches and pains, fractures, + dislocations and malformations there are; a man who would regard + "rheumatism and sore eyes" as mere recreation and refreshment after + the serious occupations of his day. If you grant me the pension, + dear sir, please hand it to General Jos. Hawley, United States + Senator--I mean hand him the certificate, not the money, and he will + forward it to me. You will observe by this postal-card which I + inclose that he takes a friendly interest in the matter. He thinks + I've already got the pension, whereas I've only got the rheumatism; + but didn't want that--I had that before. I wish it were catching. I + know a man that I would load up with it pretty early. Lord, but we + all feel that way sometimes. I've seen the day when but never mind + that; you may be busy; just hand it to Hawley--the certificate, you + understand, is not transferable. + +Clemens was in good standing at Washington during the Cleveland +administration, and many letters came, asking him to use his influence +with the President to obtain this or that favor. He always declined, +though once--a few years later, in Europe--when he learned that Frank +Mason, consul-general at Frankfort, was about to be displaced, Clemens, +of his own accord, wrote to Baby Ruth Cleveland about it. + + MY DEAR RUTH, I belong to the Mugwumps, and one of the most sacred + rules of our order prevents us from asking favors of officials or + recommending men to office, but there is no harm in writing a + friendly letter to you and telling you that an infernal outrage is + about to be committed by your father in turning out of office the + best Consul I know (and I know a great many) just because he is a + Republican and a Democrat wants his place. + + He went on to recall Mason's high and honorable record, suggesting + that Miss Ruth take the matter into her own hands. Then he said: + + I can't send any message to the President, but the next time you + have a talk with him concerning such matters I wish you would tell + him about Captain Mason and what I think of a Government that so + treats its efficient officials. + +Just what form of appeal the small agent made is not recorded, but by and +by Mark Twain received a tiny envelope, postmarked Washington, inclosing +this note in President Cleveland's handwriting: + + Miss Ruth Cleveland begs to acknowledge the receipt of Mr. Twain's + letter and say that she took the liberty of reading it to the + President, who desires her to thank Mr. Twain for her information, + and to say to him that Captain Mason will not be disturbed in the + Frankfort Consulate. The President also desires Miss Cleveland to + say that if Mr. Twain knows of any other cases of this kind he will + be greatly obliged if he will write him concerning them at his + earliest convenience. + +Clemens immensely admired Grover Cleveland, also his young wife, and his +visits to Washington were not infrequent. Mrs. Clemens was not always +able to accompany him, and he has told us how once (it was his first +visit after the President's marriage) she put a little note in the pocket +of his evening waistcoat, which he would be sure to find when dressing, +warning him about his deportment. Being presented to Mrs. Cleveland, he +handed her a card on which he had written "He didn't," and asked her to +sign her name below those words. Mrs. Cleveland protested that she +couldn't sign it unless she knew what it was he hadn't done; but he +insisted, and she promised to sign if he would tell her immediately +afterward all about it. She signed, and he handed her Mrs. Clemens's +note, which was very brief. It said: + +"Don't wear your arctics in the White House." + +Mrs. Cleveland summoned a messenger and had the card she had signed +mailed at once to Mrs. Clemens at Hartford. + +He was not always so well provided against disaster. Once, without +consulting his engagements, he agreed to assist Mrs. Cleveland at a +dedication, only to find that he must write an apology later. In his +letter he said: + + I do not know how it is in the White House, but in this house of + ours whenever the minor half of the administration tries to run + itself without the help of the major half it gets aground. + +He explained his position, and added: + + I suppose the President often acts just like that; goes and makes an + impossible promise, and you never find it out until it is next to + impossible to break it up and set things straight again. Well, that + is just our way exactly--one-half the administration always busy + getting the family into trouble and the other half busy getting it + out. + + + + +CLVXI + +A "PLAYER" AND A MASTER OF ARTS + +One morning early in January Clemens received the following note: + + DALY'S THEATER, NEW YORK, January 2, 1888. + + Mr. Augustin Daly will be very much pleased to have Mr. S. L. + Clemens meet Mr. Booth, Mr. Barrett, and Mr. Palmer and a few + friends at lunch on Friday next, January 6th (at one o'clock in + Delmonico's), to discuss the formation of a new club which it is + thought will claim your (sic) interest. + + R. S. V. P. + +There were already in New York a variety of literary and artistic +societies, such as The Kinsmen and Tile clubs, with which Clemens was +more or less associated. It was proposed now to form a more +comprehensive and pretentious organization--one that would include the +various associated arts. The conception of this new club, which was to +be called The Players, had grown out of a desire on the part of Edwin +Booth to confer some enduring benefit upon the members of his profession. +It had been discussed during a summer cruise on Mr. E. C. Benedict's +steam-yacht by a little party which, besides the owner, consisted of +Booth himself, Aldrich, Lawrence Barrett, William Bispham, and Laurence +Hutton. Booth's original idea had been to endow some sort of an actors' +home, but after due consideration this did not appear to be the best +plan. Some one proposed a club, and Aldrich, with never-failing +inspiration, suggested its name, The Players, which immediately impressed +Booth and the others. It was then decided that members of all the +kindred arts should be admitted, and this was the plan discussed and +perfected at the Daly luncheon. The guests became charter members, and +The Players became an incorporated fact early in January, 1888. +--[Besides Mr. Booth himself, the charter members were: Lawrence Barrett, +William Bispham, Samuel L. Clemens, Augustin Daly, Joseph F. Daly, John +Drew, Henry Edwards, Laurence Hutton, Joseph Jefferson, John A. Lane, +James Lewis, Brander Matthews, Stephen H. Olin, A. M. Palmer, and William +T. Sherman.]--Booth purchased the fine old brownstone residence at 16 +Gramercy Park, and had expensive alterations made under the directions of +Stanford White to adapt it for club purposes. He bore the entire cost, +furnished it from garret to cellar, gave it his books and pictures, his +rare collections of every sort. Laurence Hutton, writing of it +afterward, said: + +And on the first Founder's Night, the 31st of December, 1888, he +transferred it all to the association, a munificent gift; absolutely +without parallel in its way. The pleasure it gave to Booth during the +few remaining years of his life was very great. He made it his home. +Next to his own immediate family it was his chief interest, care, and +consolation. He nursed and petted it, as it nursed and petted and +honored him. He died in it. And it is certainly his greatest monument. + +There is no other club quite like The Players. The personality of Edwin +Booth pervades it, and there is a spirit in its atmosphere not found in +other large clubs--a spirit of unity, and ancient friendship, and +mellowness which usually come only of small membership and long +establishment. Mark Twain was always fond of The Players, and more than +once made it his home. It is a true home, and its members are a genuine +brotherhood. + +It was in June, 1888, that Yale College conferred upon Samuel Clemens the +degree of Master of Arts. It was his first honor of this kind, and he +was proud of it. To Charles Hopkins ("Charley") Clark, who had been +appointed to apprise him of the honor, he wrote: + + I felt mighty proud of that degree; in fact I could squeeze the + truth a little closer and say vain of it. And why shouldn't I be? + I am the only literary animal of my particular subspecies who has + ever been given a degree by any college in any age of the world as + far as I know. + +To which Clark answered: + + MY DEAR FRIEND, You are "the only literary animal of your particular + subspecies" in existence, and you've no cause for humility in the + fact. Yale has done herself at least as much credit as she has done + you, and "don't you forget it." + C. H. C. + +Clemens could not attend the alumni dinner, being at Elmira and unable to +get away, but in an address he made at Yale College later in the year he +thus freely expressed himself: + + I was sincerely proud and grateful to be made a Master of Arts by + this great and venerable University, and I would have come last June + to testify this feeling, as I do now testify it, but that the sudden + and unexpected notice of the honor done me found me at a distance + from home and unable to discharge that duty and enjoy that + privilege. + + Along at first, say for the first month or so, I, did not quite know + hove to proceed because of my not knowing just what authorities and + privileges belonged to the title which had been granted me, but + after that I consulted some students of Trinity--in Hartford--and + they made everything clear to me. It was through them that I found + out that my title made me head of the Governing Body of the + University, and lodged in me very broad and severely responsible + powers. + + I was told that it would be necessary to report to you at this time, + and of course I comply, though I would have preferred to put it off + till I could make a better showing; for indeed I have been so + pertinaciously hindered and obstructed at every turn by the faculty + that it would be difficult to prove that the University is really in + any better shape now than it was when I first took charge. By + advice, I turned my earliest attention to the Greek department. I + told the Greek professor I had concluded to drop the use of Greek- + written character because it is so hard to spell with, and so + impossible to read after you get it spelt. Let us draw the curtain + there. I saw by what followed that nothing but early neglect saved + him from being a very profane man. I ordered the professor of + mathematics to simplify the whole system, because the way it was I + couldn't understand it, and I didn't want things going on in the + college in what was practically a clandestine fashion. I told him + to drop the conundrum system; it was not suited to the dignity of a + college, which should deal in facts, not guesses and suppositions; + we didn't want any more cases of if A and B stand at opposite poles + of the earth's surface and C at the equator of Jupiter, at what + variations of angle will the left limb of the moon appear to these + different parties?--I said you just let that thing alone; it's + plenty time to get in a sweat about it when it happens; as like as + not it ain't going to do any harm, anyway. His reception of these + instructions bordered on insubordination, insomuch that I felt + obliged to take his number and report him. I found the astronomer + of the University gadding around after comets and other such odds + and ends--tramps and derelicts of the skies. I told him pretty + plainly that we couldn't have that. I told him it was no economy to + go on piling up and piling up raw material in the way of new stars + and comets and asteroids that we couldn't ever have any use for till + we had worked off the old stock. At bottom I don't really mind + comets so much, but somehow I have always been down on asteroids. + There is nothing mature about them; I wouldn't sit up nights the way + that man does if I could get a basketful of them. He said it was + the bast line of goods he had; he said he could trade them to + Rochester for comets, and trade the comets to Harvard for nebulae, + and trade the nebula to the Smithsonian for flint hatchets. I felt + obliged to stop this thing on the spot; I said we couldn't have the + University turned into an astronomical junk shop. And while I was + at it I thought I might as well make the reform complete; the + astronomer is extraordinarily mutinous, and so, with your approval, + I will transfer him to the law department and put one of the law + students in his place. A boy will be more biddable, more tractable, + also cheaper. It is true he cannot be intrusted with important work + at first, but he can comb the skies for nebulae till he gets his + hand in. I have other changes in mind, but as they are in the + nature of surprises I judge it politic to leave them unspecified at + this time. + +Very likely it was in this new capacity, as the head of the governing +body, that he wrote one morning to Clark advising him as to the misuse of +a word in the Courant, though he thought it best to sign the +communication with the names of certain learned friends, to give it +weight with the public, as he afterward explained. + + SIR,--The word "patricide" in your issue of this morning (telegrams) + was an error. You meant it to describe the slayer of a father; you + should have used "parricide" instead. Patricide merely means the + killing of an Irishman--any Irishman, male or female. + + Respectfully, + J. HAMMOND TRUMBULL. + N. J. BURTON. + J. H. TWICHELL. + + + + +CLXVII + +NOTES AND LITERARY MATTERS + +Clemens' note-books of this time are full of the vexations of his +business ventures, figures, suggestions, and a hundred imagined +combinations for betterment--these things intermingled with the usual +bits of philosophy and reflections, and amusing reminders. + + Aldrich's man who painted the fat toads red, and naturalist chasing + and trying to catch them. + + Man who lost his false teeth over Brooklyn Bridge when he was on his + way to propose to a widow. + + One believes St. Simon and Benvenuto and partly believes the + Margravine of Bayreuth. There are things in the confession of + Rousseau which one must believe. + + What is biography? Unadorned romance. What is romance? Adorned + biography. Adorn it less and it will be better than it is. + + If God is what people say there can be none in the universe so + unhappy as he; for he sees unceasingly myriads of his creatures + suffering unspeakable miseries, and, besides this, foresees all they + are going to suffer during the remainder of their lives. One might + well say "as unhappy as God." + +In spite of the financial complexities and the drain of the enterprises +already in hand he did not fail to conceive others. He was deeply +interested in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress at the moment, and from +photography and scenic effect he presaged a possibility to-day realized +in the moving picture. + +Dress up some good actors as Apollyon, Greatheart, etc., & the other +Bunyan characters, take them to a wild gorge and photograph them--Valley +of the Shadow of Death; to other effective places & photo them along with +the scenery; to Paris, in their curious costumes, place them near the Arc +de l'Etoile & photo them with the crowd-Vanity Fair; to Cairo, Venice, +Jerusalem, & other places (twenty interesting cities) & always make them +conspicuous in the curious foreign crowds by their costume. Take them to +Zululand. It would take two or three years to do the photographing & +cost $10,000; but this stereopticon panorama of Bunyan's Pilgrim's +Progress could be exhibited in all countries at the same time & would +clear a fortune in a year. By & by I will do this. + + If in 1891 I find myself not rich enough to carry out my scheme of + buying Christopher Columbus's bones & burying them under the Statue + of Liberty Enlightening the World I will give the idea to somebody + who is rich enough. + +Incidentally he did an occasional piece of literary work. Early in the +year, with Brander Matthews, he instructed and entertained the public +with a copyright controversy in the Princeton Review. Matthews would +appear to have criticized the English copyright protection, or rather the +lack of it, comparing it unfavorably with American conditions. Clemens, +who had been amply protected in Great Britain, replied that America was +in no position to criticize England; that if American authors suffered in +England they had themselves to blame for not taking the proper trouble +and precautions required by the English law, that is to say, "previous +publication" on English soil. He declared that his own books had been as +safe in England as at home since he had undertaken to comply with English +requirements, and that Professor Matthews was altogether mistaken, both +as to premise and conclusion. + +"You are the very wrong-headedest person in America," he said; "and you +are injudicious." And of the article: "I read it to the cat--well, I +never saw a cat carry on so before . . . . The American author can go +to Canada, spend three days there and come home with an English and +American copyright as strong as if it had been built out of railroad +iron." + +Matthews replied that not every one could go to Canada, any more than to +Corinth. He said: + +"It is not easy for a poor author who may chance to live in Florida or +Texas, those noted homes of literature, to go to Canada." + +Clemens did not reply again; that is to say, he did not publish his +reply. It was a capable bomb which he prepared, well furnished with +amusing instance, sarcasm, and ridicule, but he did not use it. Perhaps +he was afraid it would destroy his opponent, which would not do. In his +heart he loved Matthews. He laid the deadly thing away and maintained a +dignified reserve. + +Clemens often felt called upon to criticize American institutions, but he +was first to come to their defense, especially when the critic was an +alien. When Matthew Arnold offered some strictures on America. Clemens +covered a good many quires of paper with caustic replies. He even +defended American newspapers, which he had himself more than once +violently assailed for misreporting him and for other journalistic +shortcomings, and he bitterly denounced every shaky British institution, +touched upon every weak spot in hereditary rule. He did not print--not +then--[An article on the American press, probably the best of those +prepared at this time, was used, in part, in The American Claimant, as +the paper read before the Mechanics' Club, by "Parker," assistant editor +of the 'Democrat'.]--he was writing mainly for relief--without success, +however, for he only kindled the fires of his indignation. He was at +Quarry Farm and he plunged into his neglected story--A Yankee in King +Arthur's Court--and made his astonishing hero the mouthpiece of his +doctrines. He worked with an inspiration and energy born of his +ferocity. To Whitmore, near the end of the summer, he wrote: + +I've got 16 working-days left yet, and in that time I will add another +120,000 words to my book if I have luck. + +In his memoranda of this time he says: + + There was never a throne which did not represent a crime. There is + no throne to-day which does not represent a crime .... + +Show me a lord and I will show you a man whom you couldn't tell from a +journeyman shoemaker if he were stripped, and who, in all that is worth +being, is the shoemaker's inferior; and in the shoemaker I will show you +a dull animal, a poor-spirited insect; for there are enough of him to +rise and chuck the lords and royalties into the sea where they belong, +and he doesn't do it. + +But his violence waned, maybe, for he did not finish the Yankee in the +sixteen days as planned. He brought the manuscript back to Hartford, but +found it hard work there, owing to many interruptions. He went over to +Twichell's and asked for a room where he might work in seclusion. They +gave him a big upper chamber, but some repairs were going on below. From +a letter written to Theodore Crane we gather that it was not altogether +quiet. + + Friday, October 5, 1888. + + DEAR THEO, I am here in Twichell's house at work, with the noise of + the children and an army of carpenters to help: Of course they don't + help, but neither do they hinder. It's like a boiler factory for + racket, and in nailing a wooden ceiling on to the room under me the + hammering tickles my feet amazingly sometimes and jars my table a + good deal, but I never am conscious of the racket at all, and I move + my feet into positions of relief without knowing when I do it. I + began here Monday morning, and have done eighty pages since. I was + so tired last night that I thought I would lie abed and rest to-day; + but I couldn't resist. I mean to try to knock off tomorrow, but + it's doubtful if I do. I want to finish the day the machine + finishes, and a week ago the closest calculations for that indicated + Oct. 22--but experience teaches me that the calculations will miss + fire as usual. + + The other day the children were projecting a purchase, Livy and I to + furnish the money--a dollar and a half. Jean discouraged the idea. + She said, "We haven't got any money. Children, if you would think, + you would remember the machine isn't done." + + It's billiards to-night. I wish you were here. + + With love to you both, S. L. C. + + P. S. I got it all wrong. It wasn't the children, it was Marie. + She wanted a box of blacking for the children's shoes. Jean + reproved her and said, "Why, Marie, you mustn't ask for things now. + The machine isn't done." + +Neither the Yankee nor the machine was completed that fall, though +returns from both were beginning to be badly needed. The financial pinch +was not yet severe, but it was noticeable, and it did not relax. + +A memorandum of this time tells of an anniversary given to Charles and +Susan Warner in their own home. The guests assembled at the Clemens +home, the Twichells among them, and slipped across to Warner's, entering +through a window. Dinner was then announced to the Warners, who were +sitting by their library fire. They came across the hall and opened the +dining-room door, to be confronted by a table fully spread and lighted +and an array of guests already seated. + + + + +CLXVIII + +INTRODUCING NYE AND RILEY AND OTHERS + +It was the winter (1888-89) that the Bill Nye and James Whitcomb Riley +entertainment combination set out on its travels. Mark Twain introduced +them to their first Boston audience. Major J. B. Pond was exploiting Nye +and Riley, and Clemens went on to Boston especially to hear them. Pond +happened upon him in the lobby of the Parker House and insisted that +nothing would do but he must introduce them. In his book of memories +which he published later Pond wrote: + +He replied that he believed I was his mortal enemy, and determined that +he should never have an evening's enjoyment in my presence. He +consented, however, and conducted his brother-humorist and the Hoosier +poet to the platform. Mark's presence was a surprise to the audience, +and when they recognized him the demonstration was tremendous. The +audience rose in a body, and men and women shouted at the very top of +their voices. Handkerchiefs waved, the organist even opened every forte +key and pedal in the great organ, and the noise went on unabated for +minutes. It took some time for the crowd to get down to listening, but +when they did subside, as Mark stepped to the front, the silence was as +impressive as the noise had been. + +He presented the Nye-Riley pair as the Siamese Twins. "I saw them +first," he sand, "a great many years ago, when Mr. Barnum had them, and +they were just fresh from Siam. The ligature was their best hold then, +but literature became their best hold later, when one of them committed +an indiscretion, and they had to cut the old bond to accommodate the +sheriff." + +He continued this comic fancy, and the audience was in a proper frame of +mind, when he had finished, to welcome the "Twins of Genius" who were to +entertain them: + +Pond says: + +It was a carnival of fun in every sense of the word. Bostonians will not +have another such treat in this generation. + +Pond proposed to Clemens a regular tour with Nye and Riley. He wrote: + + I will go partners with you, and I will buy Nye and Riley's time and + give an entertainment something like the one we gave in Boston. Let + it be announced that you will introduce the "Twins of Genius." + Ostensibly a pleasure trip for you. I will take one-third of the + profits and you two-thirds. I can tell you it will be the biggest + thing that can be brought before the American public. + +But Clemens, badly as he was beginning to need the money, put this +temptation behind him. His chief diversion these days was in gratuitous +appearances. He had made up his mind not to read or lecture again for +pay, but he seemed to take a peculiar enjoyment in doing these things as +a benefaction. That he was beginning to need the money may have added a +zest to the joy of his giving. He did not respond to all invitations; he +could have been traveling constantly had he done so. He consulted with +Mrs. Clemens and gave himself to the cause that seemed most worthy. In +January Col. Richard Malcolm Johnston was billed to give a reading with +Thomas Nelson Page in Baltimore. Page's wife fell ill and died, and +Colonel Johnston, in extremity, wired Charles Dudley Warner to come in +Page's place. Warner, unable to go, handed the invitation to Clemens, +who promptly wired that he would come. They read to a packed house, and +when the audience was gone and the returns had been counted an equal +division of the profits was handed to each of the authors. Clemens +pushed his share over to Johnston, saying: + +"That's yours, Colonel. I'm not reading for money these days." + +Colonel Johnston, to whom the sum was important, tried to thank him, but +he only said: + +"Never mind, Colonel, it only gave me pleasure to do you that little +favor. You can pass it on some day." + +As a matter of fact, hard put to it as he was for funds, Clemens at this +time regarded himself as a potential multi-millionaire. The type-setting +machine which for years had been sapping his financial strength was +believed to be perfected, and ship-loads of money were waiting in the +offing. However, we shall come to this later. + +Clemens read for the cadets at West Point and for a variety of +institutions and on many special occasions. He usually gave chapters +from his Yankee, now soon to be finished, chapters generally beginning +with the Yankee's impression of the curious country and its people, +ending with the battle of the Sun-belt, when the Yankee and his +fifty-four adherents were masters of England, with twenty-five thousand +dead men lying about them. He gave this at West Point, including the +chapter where the Yankee has organized a West Point of his own in King +Arthur's reign. + +In April, '89, he made an address at a dinner given to a victorious +baseball team returning from a tour of the world by way of the Sandwich +Islands. He was on familiar ground there. His heart was in his words. +He began: + + I have been in the Sandwich Islands-twenty-three years ago--that + peaceful land, that beautiful land, that far-off home of solitude, + and soft idleness, and repose, and dreams, where life is one long + slumberous Sabbath, the climate one long summer day, and the good + that die experience no change, for they but fall asleep in one + heaven and wake up in another. And these boys have played baseball + there!--baseball, which is the very symbol, the outward and visible + expression, of the drive and push and rush and struggle of the + living, tearing, booming nineteenth, the mightiest of all the + centuries! + +He told of the curious island habits for his hearers' amusement, but at +the close the poetry of his memories once more possessed him: + + Ah, well, it is refreshment to the jaded, it is water to the + thirsty, to look upon men who have so lately breathed the soft air + of those Isles of the Blest and had before their eyes the + inextinguishable vision of their beauty. No alien land in all the + earth has any deep, strong charm for me but that one; no other land + could so longingly and so beseechingly haunt me, sleeping and + waking, through half a lifetime, as that one has done. Other things + leave me, but it abides; other things change, but it remains the + same. For me its balmy airs are always blowing, its summer seas + flashing in the sun; the pulsing of its surf is in my ear; I can see + its garlanded crags, its leaping cascades, its plumy palms drowsing + by the shore, its remote summits floating like islands above the + cloud-rack; I can feel the spirit of its woody solitudes, I hear the + plashing of the brooks; in my nostrils still lives the breath of + flowers that perished twenty years ago. + + + + +CLXIX + +THE COMING OF KIPLING + +It was the summer of 1889 that Mark Twain first met Rudyard Kipling. +Kipling was making his tour around the world, a young man wholly unheard +of outside of India. He was writing letters home to an Indian journal, +The Pioneer, and he came to Elmira especially to see Mark Twain. It was +night when he arrived, and next morning some one at the hotel directed +him to Quarry Farm. In a hired hack he made his way out through the +suburbs, among the buzzing planing-mills and sash factories, and toiled +up the long, dusty, roasting east hill, only to find that Mark Twain was +at General Langdon's, in the city he had just left behind. Mrs. Crane +and Susy Clemens were the only ones left at the farm, and they gave him a +seat on the veranda and brought him glasses of water or cool milk while +he refreshed them with his talk-talk which Mark Twain once said might be +likened to footprints, so strong and definite was the impression which it +left behind. He gave them his card, on which the address was Allahabad, +and Susy preserved it on that account, because to her India was a +fairyland, made up of magic, airy architecture, and dark mysteries. +Clemens once dictated a memory of Kipling's visit. + + Kipling had written upon the card a compliment to me. This gave it + an additional value in Susy's eyes, since, as a distinction, it was + the next thing to being recognized by a denizen of the moon. + + Kipling came down that afternoon and spent a couple of hours with + me, and at the end of that time I had surprised him as much as he + had surprised me--and the honors were easy. I believed that he knew + more than any person I had met before, and I knew that he knew that + I knew less than any person he had met before--though he did not say + it, and I was not expecting that he would. When he was gone Mrs. + Langdon wanted to know about my visitor. I said: + + "He is a stranger to me, but he is a most remarkable man--and I am + the other one. Between us we cover all knowledge; he knows all that + can be known, and I know the rest." + + He was a stranger to me and to all the world, and remained so for + twelve months, then he became suddenly known, and universally known. + From that day to this he has held this unique distinction--that of + being the only living person, not head of a nation, whose voice is + heard around the world the moment it drops a remark; the only such + voice in existence that does not go by slow ship and rail, but + always travels first-class--by cable. + + About a year after Kipling's visit in Elmira George Warner came into + our library one morning in Hartford with a small book in his hand + and asked me if I had ever heard of Rudyard Kipling. I said, "No." + + He said I would hear of him very soon, and that the noise he was + going to make would be loud and continuous. The little book was the + Plain Tales, and he left it for me to read, saying it was charged + with a new and inspiriting fragrance, and would blow a refreshing + breath around the world that would revive the nations. A day or two + later he brought a copy of the London World which had a sketch of + Kipling in it, and a mention of the fact that he had traveled in the + United States. According to this sketch he had passed through + Elmira. This remark, with the additional fact that he hailed from + India, attracted my attention--also Susy's. She went to her room + and brought his card from its place in the frame of her mirror, and + the Quarry Farm visitor stood identified. + +Kipling also has left an account of that visit. In his letter recording +it he says: + + You are a contemptible lot over yonder. Some of you are + Commissioners and some are Lieutenant-Governors, and some have the + V. C., and a few are privileged to walk about the Mall arm in arm + with the Viceroy; but I have seen Mark Twain this golden morning, + have shaken his hand and smoked a cigar--no, two cigars--with him, + and talked with him for more than two hours! Understand clearly + that I do not despise you; indeed, I don't. I am only very sorry + for you, from the Viceroy downward. + + A big, darkened drawing-room; a huge chair; a man with eyes, a mane + of grizzled hair, a brown mustache covering a mouth as delicate as a + woman's, a strong, square hand shaking mine, and the slowest, + calmest, levelest voice in all the world saying: + + "Well, you think you owe me something, and you've come to tell me + so. That's what I call squaring a debt handsomely." + + "Piff!" from a cob-pipe (I always said that a Missouri meerschaum + was the best smoking in the world), and behold! Mark Twain had + curled himself up in the big arm-chair, and I was smoking + reverently, as befits one in the presence of his superior. + + The thing that struck me first was that he was an elderly man; yet, + after a minute's thought, I perceived that it was otherwise, and in + five minutes, the eyes looking at me, I saw that the gray hair was + an accident of the most trivial. He was quite young. I was shaking + his hand. I was smoking his cigar, and I was hearing him talk--this + man I had learned to love and admire fourteen thousand miles away. + + Reading his books, I had striven to get an idea of his personality, + and all my preconceived notions were wrong and beneath the reality. + Blessed is the man who finds no disillusion when he is brought face + to face with a revered writer. + +The meeting of those two men made the summer of '89 memorable in later +years. But it was recalled sadly, too. Theodore Crane, who had been +taken suddenly and dangerously ill the previous autumn, had a recurring +attack and died July 3d. It was the first death in the immediate +families for more than seventeen years, Mrs. Clemens, remembering that +earlier period of sorrow, was depressed with forebodings. + + + + +CLXX + +"THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER" ON THE STAGE + +There was an unusual dramatic interest in the Clemens home that autumn. +Abby Sage Richardson had dramatized 'The Prince and the Pauper', and +Daniel Frohman had secured Elsie Leslie (Lyde) to take the double role of +the Prince and Tom Canty. The rehearsals were going on, and the Clemens +children were naturally a good deal excited over the outcome. Susy +Clemens was inspired to write a play of her own--a pretty Greek fancy, +called "The Triumph of Music," and when it was given on Thanksgiving +night, by herself, with Clara and Jean and Margaret Warner, it was really +a lovely performance, and carried one back to the days when emotions were +personified, and nymphs haunted the seclusions of Arcady. Clemens was +proud of Susy's achievement, and deeply moved by it. He insisted on +having the play repeated, and it was given again later in the year. + +Pretty Elsie Leslie became a favorite of the Clemens household. She was +very young, and when she visited Hartford Jean and she were companions +and romped together in the hay-loft. She was also a favorite of William +Gillette. One day when Clemens and Gillette were together they decided +to give the little girl a surprise--a unique one. They agreed to +embroider a pair of slippers for her--to do the work themselves. Writing +to her of it, Mark Twain said: + + Either one of us could have thought of a single slipper, but it took + both of us to think of two slippers. In fact, one of us did think + of one slipper, and then, quick as a flash, the other of the other + one. It shows how wonderful the human mind is.... + + Gillette embroidered his slipper with astonishing facility and + splendor, but I have been a long time pulling through with mine. + You see, it was my very first attempt at art, and I couldn't rightly + get the hang of it along at first. And then I was so busy that I + couldn't get a chance to work at it at home, and they wouldn't let + me embroider on the cars; they said it made the other passengers + afraid. They didn't like the light that flared into my eye when I + had an inspiration. And even the most fair-minded people doubted me + when I explained what it was I was making--especially brakemen. + Brakemen always swore at it and carried on, the way ignorant people + do about art. They wouldn't take my word that it was a slipper; + they said they believed it was a snow-shoe that had some kind of + disease. + +He went on to explain and elucidate the pattern of the slipper, and how +Dr. Root had come in and insisted on taking a hand in it, and how +beautiful it was to see him sit there and tell Mrs. Clemens what had been +happening while they were away during the summer, holding the slipper up +toward the end of his nose, imagining the canvas was a "subject" with a +scalp-wound, working with a "lovely surgical stitch," never hesitating a +moment in his talk except to say "Ouch!" when he stuck himself with the +needle. + + Take the slippers and wear them next your heart, Elsie dear; for + every stitch in them is a testimony of the affection which two of + your loyalest friends bear you. Every single stitch cost us blood. + I've got twice as many pores in me now as I used to have; and you + would never believe how many places you can stick a needle in + yourself until you go into the embroidery line and devote yourself + to art. + + Do not wear these slippers in public, dear; it would only excite + envy; and, as like as not, somebody would try to shoot you. + + Merely use them to assist you in remembering that among the many, + many people who think all the world of you is your friend, + + MARK TWAIN. + +The play of "The Prince and the Pauper," dramatized by Mrs. Richardson +and arranged for the stage by David Belasco, was produced at the Park +Theater, Philadelphia, on Christmas Eve. It was a success, but not a +lavish one. The play was well written and staged, and Elsie Leslie was +charming enough in her parts, but in the duality lay the difficulty. The +strongest scenes in the story had to be omitted when one performer played +both Tom Canty and the little Prince. The play came to New York--to the +Broadway Theater--and was well received. On the opening night there Mark +Twain made a speech, in which he said that the presentation of "The +Prince and the Pauper" realized a dream which fifteen years before had +possessed him all through a long down-town tramp, amid the crowds and +confusion of Broadway. In Elsie Leslie, he said, he had found the +embodiment of his dream, and to her he offered homage as the only prince +clothed in a divine right which was not rags and sham--the divine right +of an inborn supremacy in art. + +It seems incredible to-day that, realizing the play's possibilities as +Mark Twain did, and as Belasco and Daniel Frohman must have done, they +did not complete their partial triumph by finding another child actress +to take the part of Tom Canty. Clemens urged and pleaded with them, but +perhaps the undertaking seemed too difficult--at all events they did not +find the little beggar king. Then legal complications developed. Edward +House, to whom Clemens had once given a permission to attempt a +dramatization of the play, suddenly appeared with a demand for +recognition, backed by a lawsuit against all those who had a proprietary +interest in the production. House, with his adopted Japanese daughter +Koto, during a period of rheumatism and financial depression, had made a +prolonged visit in the Clemens home and originally undertook the +dramatization as a sort of return for hospitality. He appears not to +have completed it and to have made no arrangement for its production or +to have taken any definite step until Mrs. Richardson's play was +profitably put on; whereupon his suit and injunction. + +By the time a settlement of this claim had been reached the play had run +its course, and it was not revived in that form. It was brought out in +England, where it was fairly prosperous, though it seems not to have been +long continued. Variously reconstructed, it has occasionally been played +since, and always, when the parts of Tom Canty and the Prince were +separate, with great success. Why this beautiful drama should ever be +absent from the boards is one of the unexplainable things. It is a play +for all times and seasons, the difficulty of obtaining suitable "twin" +interpreters for the characters of the Prince and the Pauper being its +only drawback. + + + + +CLXXI + +"A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT" + +From every point of view it seemed necessary to make the 'Yankee in King +Arthur's Court' an important and pretentious publication. It was Mark +Twain's first book after a silence of five years; it was a book badly +needed by his publishing business with which to maintain its prestige and +profit; it was a book which was to come out of his maturity and present +his deductions, as to humanity at large and kings in particular, to a +waiting public. It was determined to spare no expense on the +manufacture, also that its illustrations must be of a sort to illuminate +and, indeed, to elaborate the text. Clemens had admired some pictures +made by Daniel Carter ("Dan") Beard for a Chinese story in the +Cosmopolitan, and made up his mind that Beard was the man for the Yankee. +The manuscript was sent to Beard, who met Clemens a little later in the +office of Webster & Co. to discuss the matter. Clemens said: + +"Mr. Beard, I do not want to subject you to any undue suffering, but I +wish you would read the book before you make the pictures." + +Beard replied that he had already read it twice. + +"Very good," Clemens said; "but I wasn't led to suppose that that was the +usual custom among illustrators, judging from some results I have seen. +You know," he went on, "this Yankee of mine has neither the refinement +nor the weakness of a college education; he is a perfect ignoramus; he is +boss of a machine shop; he can build a locomotive or a Colt's revolver, +he can put up and run a telegraph line, but he's an ignoramus, +nevertheless. I am not going to tell you what to draw. If a man comes +to me and says, 'Mr. Clemens, I want you to write me a story,' I'll write +it for him; but if he undertakes to tell me what to write I'll say, 'Go +hire a typewriter.'" + +To Hall a few days later he wrote: + + Tell Beard to obey his own inspirations, and when he sees a picture + in his mind put that picture on paper, be it humorous or be it + serious. I want his genius to be wholly unhampered. I sha'n't have + any fear as to results. + +Without going further it is proper to say here that the pictures in the +first edition of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court justified +the author's faith in the artist of his selection. They are far and away +Dan Beard's best work. The socialism of the text strongly appealed to +him. Beard himself had socialistic tendencies, and the work inspired him +to his highest flights of fancy and to the acme of his technic. Clemens +examined the pictures from time to time, and once was moved to write: + + My pleasure in them is as strong and as fresh as ever. I do not + know of any quality they lack. Grace, dignity, poetry, spirit, + imagination, these enrich them and make them charming and beautiful; + and wherever humor appears it is high and fine--easy, unforced, kept + under, masterly, and delicious. + +He went on to describe his appreciation in detail, and when the drawings +were complete he wrote again: + + Hold me under permanent obligations. What luck it was to find you! + There are hundreds of artists who could illustrate any other book of + mine, but there was only one who could illustrate this one. Yes, it + was a fortunate hour that I went netting for lightning-bugs and + caught a meteor. Live forever! + +This was not too much praise. Beard realized the last shade of the +author's allegorical intent and portrayed it with a hundred accents which +the average reader would otherwise be likely to miss. + +Clemens submitted his manuscript to Howells and to Stedman, and he read +portions of it, at least, to Mrs. Clemens, whose eyes were troubling her +so that she could not read for herself. Stedman suggested certain +eliminations, but, on the whole, would seem to have approved of the book. +Howells was enthusiastic. It appealed to him as it had appealed to +Beard. Its sociology and its socialism seemed to him the final word that +could be said on those subjects. When he had partly finished it he +wrote: + + It's a mighty great book and it makes my heart, burn with wrath. It + seems that God didn't forget to put a soul in you. He shuts most + literary men off with a brain, merely. + +A few days later he wrote again: + + The book is glorious-simply noble. What masses of virgin truth + never touched in print before! + +And when he had finished it: + + Last night I read your last chapter. As Stedman says of the whole + book, it's titanic. + +Clemens declared, in one of his replies to Howells: + + I'm not writing for those parties who miscall themselves critics, + and I don't care to have them paw the book at all. It's my swan + song, my retirement from literature permanently, and I wish to pass + to the cemetery unclodded . . . . Well, my book is written--let + it go, but if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so + many things left out. They burn in me; they keep multiplying and + multiplying, but now they can't ever be said; and besides they would + require a library--and a pen warmed up in hell. + +In another letter of this time to Sylvester Baxter, apropos of the +tumbling Brazilian throne, he wrote: + + When our great brethren, the disenslaved Brazilians, frame their + declaration of independence I hope they will insert this missing + link: "We hold these truths to be self-evident--that all monarchs + are usurpers and descendants of usurpers, for the reason that no + throne was ever set up in this world by the will, freely exercised, + of the only body possessing the legitimate right to set it up--the + numerical mass of the nation." + +He was full of it, as he had been all along, and 'A Connecticut Yankee in +King Arthur's Court' is nothing less than a brief for human rights and +human privileges. That is what it is, and it is a pity that it should be +more than that. It is a pity that he should have been beset by his old +demon of the burlesque, and that no one should have had the wisdom or the +strength to bring it under control. + +There is nothing more charming in any of Mark Twain's work than his +introductory chapter, nothing more delightful than the armoring of the +Yankee and the outset and the wandering with Alisande. There is nothing +more powerful or inspiring than his splendid panoramic picture--of the +King learning mercy through his own degradation, his daily intercourse +with a band of manacled slaves; nothing more fiercely moving than that +fearful incident of the woman burned to warm those freezing chattels, or +than the great gallows scene, where the priest speaks for the young +mother about to pay the death penalty for having stolen a halfpenny's +worth, that her baby might have bread. Such things as these must save +the book from oblivion; but alas! its greater appeal is marred almost to +ruin by coarse and extravagant burlesque, which destroys illusion and +antagonizes the reader often at the very moment when the tale should fill +him with a holy fire of a righteous wrath against wrong. As an example +of Mark Twain at his literary worst and best the Yankee ranks supreme. It +is unnecessary to quote examples; one cannot pick up the volume and read +ten pages of it, or five pages, without finding them. In the midst of +some exalted passage, some towering sublimity, you are brought suddenly +to earth with a phrase which wholly destroys the illusion and the diviner +purpose. Howells must have observed these things, or was he so dazzled +by the splendor of its intent, its righteous charge upon the ranks of +oppression, that he regarded its offenses against art as unimportant. +This is hard to explain, for the very thing that would sustain such a +great message and make it permanent would be the care, the restraint, the +artistic worthiness of its construction. One must believe in a story +like that to be convinced of its logic. To lose faith in it--in its +narrative--is absolutely fatal to its purpose. The Yankee in King +Arthur's Court not only offended the English nation, but much of it +offended the better taste of Mark Twain's own countrymen, and in time it +must have offended even Mark Twain himself. Reading it, one can +visualize the author as a careering charger, with a bit in his teeth, +trampling the poetry and the tradition of the romantic days, the very +things which he himself in his happier moods cared for most. Howells +likened him to Cervantes, laughing Spain's chivalry away. The comparison +was hardly justified. It was proper enough to laugh chivalry out of +court when it was a reality; but Mark Twain, who loved Sir Thomas Malory +to the end of his days, the beauty and poetry of his chronicles; who had +written 'The Prince and the Pauper', and would one day write that divine +tale of the 'Maid of Orleans'; who was himself no more nor less than a +knight always ready to redress wrong, would seem to have been the last +person to wish to laugh it out of romance. + +And yet, when all is said, one may still agree with Howells in ranking +the Yankee among Mark Twain's highest achievements in the way of "a +greatly imagined and symmetrically developed tale." It is of that class, +beyond doubt. Howells goes further: + + Of all the fanciful schemes in fiction it pleases me most, and I + give myself with absolute delight to its notion of a keen East + Hartford Yankee finding himself, by a retroactionary spell, at the + court of King Arthur of Britain, and becoming part of the sixth + century with all the customs and ideas of the nineteenth in him and + about him. The field for humanizing satire which this scheme opens + is illimitable. + +Colossal it certainly is, as Howells and Stedman agreed: colossal in its +grotesqueness as in its sublimity. Howells, summarizing Mark Twain's +gifts (1901), has written: + + He is apt to burlesque the lighter colloquiality, and it is only in + the more serious and most tragical junctures that his people utter + themselves with veracious simplicity and dignity. That great, burly + fancy of his is always tempting him to the exaggeration which is the + condition of so much of his personal humor, but which when it + invades the drama spoils the illusion. The illusion renews itself + in the great moments, but I wish it could be kept intact in the + small, and I blame him that he does not rule his fancy better. + +All of which applies precisely to the writing of the Yankee in King +Arthur's Court. Intended as a fierce heart-cry against human injustice +--man's inhumanity to man--as such it will live and find readers; but, +more than any other of Mark Twain's pretentious works, it needs editing +--trimming by a fond but relentless hard. + + + + +CLXXII + +THE "YANKEE" IN ENGLAND + +The London publishers of the Yankee were keenly anxious to revise the +text for their English readers. Clemens wrote that he had already +revised the Yankee twice, that Stedman had critically read it, and that +Mrs. Clemens had made him strike out many passages and soften others. He +added that he had read chapters of it in public several times where +Englishmen were present and had profited by their suggestions. Then he +said: + + Now, mind you, I have taken all this pains because I wanted to say a + Yankee mechanic's say against monarchy and its several natural + props, and yet make a book which you would be willing to print + exactly as it comes to you, without altering a word. + + We are spoken of (by Englishmen) as a thin-skinned people. It is + you who are thin-skinned. An Englishman may write with the most + brutal frankness about any man or institution among us and we + republish him without dreaming of altering a line or a word. But + England cannot stand that kind of a book written about herself. It + is England that is thin-skinned. It causeth me to smile when I read + the modifications of my language which have been made in my English + editions to fit them for the sensitive English palate. + + Now, as I say, I have taken laborious pains to so trim this book of + offense that you'll not lack the nerve to print it just as it + stands. I am going to get the proofs to you just as early as I can. + I want you to read it carefully. If you can publish it without + altering a single word, go ahead. Otherwise, please hand it to + J. R. Osgood in time for him to have it published at my expense. + + This is important, for the reason that the book was not written for + America; it was written for England. So many Englishmen have done + their sincerest best to teach us something for our betterment that + it seems to me high time that some of us should substantially + recognize the good intent by trying to pry up the English nation to + a little higher level of manhood in turn. + +So the Yankee was published in England just as he had written it,--[The +preface was shortened and modified for both the American and English +editions. The reader will find it as originally written under Appendix +S, at the end of last volume.]--and the criticisms were as plentiful as +they were frank. It was referred to as a "lamentable failure" and as an +"audacious sacrilege" and in terms still less polite. Not all of the +English critics were violent. The Daily Telegraph gave it something more +than a column of careful review, which did not fail to point out the +book's sins with a good deal of justice and dignity; but the majority of +English papers joined in a sort of objurgatory chorus which, for a time +at least, spared neither the author nor his work. Strictures on the +Yankee extended to his earlier books. After all, Mark Twain's work was +not for the cultivated class. + +These things must have begun to gravel Clemens a good deal at last, for +he wrote to Andrew Lang at considerable length, setting forth his case in +general terms--that is to say, his position as an author--inviting Lang +to stand as his advocate before the English public. In part he said: + + The critic assumes every time that if a book doesn't meet the + cultivated-class standard it isn't valuable . . . The critic has + actually imposed upon the world the superstition that a painting by + Raphael is more valuable to the civilizations of the earth than is a + chromo; and the august opera more than the hurdy-gurdy and the + villagers' singing society; and the Latin classics than Kipling's + far-reaching bugle-note; and Jonathan Edwards than the Salvation + Army . . . . If a critic should start a religion it would not + have any object but to convert angels, and they wouldn't need it. + It is not that little minority who are already saved that are best + worth lifting up, I should think, but the mighty mass of the + uncultivated who are underneath! That mass will never see the old + masters--that sight is for the few; but the chromo-maker can lift + them all one step upward toward appreciation of art; they cannot + have the opera, but the hurdy-gurdy and the singing-class lift them + a little way toward that far height; they will never know Homer, but + the passing rhymester of their day leaves them higher than he found + them; they may never even hear of the Latin classics, but they will + strike step with Kipling's drum-beat and they will march; for all + Jonathan Edwards's help they would die in their slums, but the + Salvation Army will beguile some of them to a purer air and a + cleaner life. + + . . . I have never tried, in even one single little instance, to + help cultivate the cultivated classes. I was not equipped for it + either by native gifts or training. And I never had any ambition in + that direction, but always hunted for bigger game--the masses. I + have seldom deliberately tried to instruct them, but I have done my + best to entertain them, for they can get instruction elsewhere . . + . . My audience is dumb; it has no voice in print, and so I cannot + know whether I have won its approval or only got its censure. + +He closed by asking that Lang urge the critics to adopt a rule +recognizing the masses, and to formulate a standard whereby work done for +them might be judged. "No voice can reach further than yours in a case +of this kind," he said, "or carry greater weight of authority." There +was no humor in this letter, and the writer of it was clearly in earnest. + +Lang's response was an article published in the Illustrated London News +on the art of Mark Twain. He began by gently ridiculing hyperculture +--the new culture--and ended with a eulogy on Huck Finn. It seems worth +while, however, to let Andrew Lang speak for himself. + + I have been educated till I nearly dropped; I have lived with the + earliest apostles of culture, in the days when Chippendale was first + a name to conjure with, and Japanese art came in like a raging lion, + and Ronsard was the favorite poet, and Mr. William Morris was a + poet, too, and blue and green were the only wear, and the name of + Paradise was Camelot. To be sure, I cannot say that I took all this + quite seriously, but "we, too, have played" at it, and know all + about it. Generally speaking, I have kept up with culture. I can + talk (if desired) about Sainte-Beuve, and Merimee, and Felicien + Rops; I could rhyme "Ballades" when they were "in," and knew what a + "pantoom" was . . . . And yet I have not culture. My works are + but tinkling brass because I have not culture. For culture has got + into new regions where I cannot enter, and, what is perhaps worse, + I find myself delighting in a great many things which are under the + ban of culture. + +He confesses that this is a dreadful position; one that makes a man feel +like one of those Liberal politicians who are always "sitting on the +fence," and who follow their party, if follow it they do, with the +reluctant acquiescence of the prophet's donkey. He further confesses +that he has tried Hartmann and prefers Plato, that he is shaky about +Blake, though stalwart concerning Rudyard Kipling. + + This is not the worst of it. Culture has hardly a new idol but I + long to hurl things at it. Culture can scarcely burn anything, but + I am impelled to sacrifice to that same. I am coming to suspect + that the majority of culture's modern disciples are a mere crowd of + very slimly educated people who have no natural taste or impulses; + who do not really know the best things in literature; who have a + feverish desire to admire the newest thing, to follow the latest + artistic fashion; who prate about "style," without the faintest + acquaintance with the ancient examples of style in Greek, French, or + English; who talk about the classics and--criticize the classical + critics and poets, without being able to read a line of them in the + original. Nothing of the natural man is left in these people; their + intellectual equipment is made up of ignorant vanity and eager + desire for novelty, and a yearning to be in the fashion. Take, for + example--and we have been a long time in coming to him--Mark Twain. + [Here follow some observations concerning the Yankee, which Lang + confesses that he has not read, and has abstained from reading + because----]. Here Mark Twain is not, and cannot be, at the proper + point of view. He has not the knowledge which would enable him to + be a sound critic of the ideals of the Middle Ages. An Arthurian + Knight in New York or in Washington would find as much to blame, and + justly, as a Yankee at Camelot. + +Of Mark Twain's work in general he speaks with another conclusion: + + Mark Twain is a benefactor beyond most modern writers, and the + cultured who do not laugh are merely to be pitied. But his art is + not only that of the maker of the scarce article--mirth. I have no + hesitation in saying that Mark Twain is one among the greatest + contemporary makers of fiction . . . . I can never forget or be + ungrateful for the exquisite pleasure with which I read Huckleberry + Finn for the first time years ago. I read it again last night, + deserting Kenilworth for Huck. I never laid it down till I had + finished it. I perused several passages more than once, and rose + from it with a higher opinion of its merits than ever. + + What is it that we want in a novel? We want a vivid and original + picture of life; we want character naturally displayed in action; + and if we get the excitement of adventure into the bargain, and that + adventure possible and plausible, I so far differ from the newest + school of criticism as to think that we have additional cause for + gratitude. If, moreover, there is an unstrained sense of humor in + the narrator we have a masterpiece, and Huckleberry Finn is, nothing + less. + +He reviews Huck sympathetically in detail, and closes: + + There are defects of taste, or passages that to us seem deficient in + taste, but the book remains a nearly flawless gem of romance and of + humor. The world appreciates it, no doubt, but "cultured critics" + are probably unaware of its singular value. The great American + novel has escaped the eyes of those who watch to see this new planet + swim into their ken. And will Mark Twain never write such another? + One is enough for him to live by, and for our gratitude, but not + enough for our desire. + +In the brief column and a half which it occupies, this comment of Andrew +Lang's constitutes as thoughtful and fair an estimate of Mark Twain's +work as was ever written. + +W. T. Stead, of the Review of Reviews, was about the only prominent +English editor to approve of the Yankee and to exploit its merits. Stead +brought down obloquy upon himself by so doing, and his separation from +his business partner would seem to have been at least remotely connected +with this heresy. + +The Yankee in King Arthur's Court was dramatized in America by Howard +Taylor, one of the Enterprise compositors, whom Clemens had known in the +old Comstock days. Taylor had become a playwright of considerable +success, with a number of well-known actors and actresses starring in his +plays. The Yankee, however, did not find a manager, or at least it seems +not to have reached the point of production. + + + + +CLXXIII + +A SUMMER AT ONTEORA + +With the exception of one article--"A Majestic Literary Fossil" +--[Harper's Magazine, February, 1890. Included in the "Complete Works."] +--Clemens was writing nothing of importance at this time. This article +grew out of a curious old medical work containing absurd prescriptions +which, with Theodore Crane, he had often laughed over at the farm. A +sequel to Huckleberry Finn--Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians +--was begun, and a number of its chapters were set in type on the new +Paige compositor, which had cost such a gallant sum, and was then thought +to be complete. There seems to have been a plan to syndicate the story, +but at the end of Chapter IX Huck and Tom had got themselves into a +predicament from which it seemed impossible to extricate them, and the +plot was suspended for further inspiration, which apparently never came. + +Clemens, in fact, was troubled with rheumatism in his arm and shoulder, +which made writing difficult. Mrs. Clemens, too, had twinges of the +malady. They planned to go abroad for the summer of 1890, to take the +waters of some of the German baths, but they were obliged to give up the +idea. There were too many business complications; also the health of +Clemens's mother had become very feeble. They went to Tannersville in +the Catskills, instead--to the Onteora Club, where Mrs. Candace Wheeler +had gathered a congenial colony in a number of picturesque cottages, with +a comfortable hotel for the more transient visitor. The Clemenses +secured a cottage for the season. Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, Laurence +Hutton, Carroll Beckwith, the painter; Brander Matthews, Dr. Heber +Newton, Mrs. Custer, and Dora Wheeler were among those who welcomed Mark +Twain and his family at a generous home-made banquet. + +It was the beginning of a happy summer. There was a constant visiting +from one cottage to another, with frequent assemblings at the Bear and +Fox Inn, their general headquarters. There were pantomimes and charades, +in which Mark Twain and his daughters always had star parts. Susy +Clemens, who was now eighteen, brilliant and charming, was beginning to +rival her father as a leader of entertainment. Her sister Clara gave +impersonations of Modjeska and Ada Rehan. When Fourth of July came there +were burlesque races, of which Mark Twain was starter, and many of that +lighthearted company took part. Sometimes, in the evening, they gathered +in one of the cottages and told stories by the firelight, and once he +told the story of the Golden Arm, so long remembered, and brought them up +with the same old jump at the sudden climax. Brander Matthews remembers +that Clemens was obliged frequently to go to New York on business +connected with the machine and the publishing, and that during one of +these absences a professional entertainer came along, and in the course +of his program told a Mark Twain story, at which Mrs. Clemens and the +girls laughed without recognizing its authorship. Matthews also +remembers Jean, as a little girl of ten, allowed to ride a pony and to go +barefoot, to her great delight, full of health and happiness, a favorite +of the colony. + +Clemens would seem to have forgiven Brander Matthews for his copyright +articles, for he walked over to the Matthews cottage one morning and +asked to be taught piquet, the card game most in vogue there that season. +At odd times he sat to Carroll Beckwith for his portrait, and smoked a +cob pipe meantime, so Beckwith painted him in that way. + +It was a season that closed sadly. Clemens was called to Keokuk in +August, to his mother's bedside, for it was believed that her end was +near. She rallied, and he returned to Onteora. But on the 27th of +October came the close of that long, active life, and the woman who two +generations before had followed John Clemens into the wilderness, and +along the path of vicissitude, was borne by her children to Hannibal and +laid to rest at his side. She was in her eighty-eighth year. + +The Clemens family were back in Hartford by this time, and it was only a +little later that Mrs. Clemens was summoned to the death-bed of her own +mother, in Elmira. Clemens accompanied her, but Jean being taken +suddenly ill he returned to Hartford. Watching by the little girl's +bedside on the night of the 27th of November, he wrote Mrs. Clemens a +birthday letter, telling of Jean's improved condition and sending other +good news and as many loving messages as he could devise. But it proved +a sad birthday for Mrs. Clemens, for on that day her mother's gentle and +beautiful soul went out from among them. The foreboding she had felt at +the passing of Theodore Crane had been justified. She had a dread that +the harvest of death was not yet ended. Matters in general were going +badly with them, and an anxiety began to grow to get away from America, +and so perhaps leave sorrow and ill-luck behind. Clemens, near the end +of December, writing to his publishing manager, Hall, said: + + Merry Christmas to you, and I wish to God I could have one myself + before I die. + +The house was emptier that winter than before, for Susy was at Bryn Mawr. +Clemens planned some literary work, but the beginning, after his long +idleness, was hard. A diversion was another portrait of himself, this +time undertaken by Charles Noel Flagg. Clemens rather enjoyed +portrait-sittings. He could talk and smoke, and he could incidentally +acquire information. He liked to discuss any man's profession with him, +and in his talks with Flagg he made a sincere effort to get that insight +which would enable him to appreciate the old masters. Flagg found him a +tractable sitter, and a most interesting one. Once he paid him a +compliment, then apologized for having said the obvious thing. + +"Never mind the apology," said Clemens. "The compliment that helps us on +our way is not the one that is shut up in the mind, but the one that is +spoken out." + +When Flagg's portrait was about completed, Mrs. Clemens and Mrs. Crane +came to the studio to look at it. Mrs. Clemens complained only that the +necktie was crooked. + +"But it's always crooked," said Flagg, "and I have a great fancy for the +line it makes." + +She straightened it on Clemens himself, but it immediately became crooked +again. Clemens said: + +"If you were to make that necktie straight people would say; 'Good +portrait, but there is something the matter with it. I don't know where +it is.'" + +The tie was left unchanged. + + + + +CLXXIV + +THE MACHINE + +The reader may have realized that by the beginning of 1891 Mark Twain's +finances were in a critical condition. The publishing business had +managed to weather along. It was still profitable, and could have been +made much more so if the capital necessary to its growth had not been +continuously and relentlessly absorbed by that gigantic vampire of +inventions--that remorseless Frankenstein monster--the machine. + +The beginning of this vast tragedy (for it was no less than that) dated +as far back as 1880, when Clemens one day had taken a minor and purely +speculative interest in patent rights, which was to do away with setting +type by hand. In some memoranda which he made more than ten years later, +when the catastrophe was still a little longer postponed, he gave some +account of the matter. + + This episode has now spread itself over more than one-fifth of my + life, a considerable stretch of time, as I am now 55 years old. + + Ten or eleven years ago Dwight Buell, a jeweler, called at our house + and was shown up to the billiard-room-which was my study; and the + game got more study than the other sciences. He wanted me to take + some stock in a type-setting machine. He said it was at the Colt's + Arms factory, and was about finished. I took $2,000 of the stock. + I was always taking little chances like that, and almost always + losing by it, too. Some time afterward I was invited to go down to + the factory and see the machine. I went, promising myself nothing, + for I knew all about type-setting by practical experience, and held + the settled and solidified opinion that a successful type-setting + machine was an impossibility, for the reason that a machine cannot + be made to think, and the thing that sets movable type must think or + retire defeated. So, the performance I witnessed did most + thoroughly amaze me. Here was a machine that was really setting + type, and doing it with swiftness and accuracy, too. Moreover, it + was distributing its case at the same time. The distribution was + automatic; the machine fed itself from a galley of dead matter and + without human help or suggestion, for it began its work of its own + accord when the type channels needed filling, and stopped of its own + accord when they were full enough. The machine was almost a + complete compositor; it lacked but one feature--it did not "justify" + the lines. This was done by the operator's assistant. + + I saw the operator set at the rate of 3,000 ems an hour, which, + counting distribution, was but little short of four casemen's work. + William Hamersley was there. He said he was already a considerable + owner, and was going to take as much more of the stock as he could + afford. Wherefore, I set down my name for an additional $3,000. It + is here that the music begins. + +It was the so-called Farnham machine that he saw, invented by James W. +Paige, and if they had placed it on the market then, without waiting for +the inventor to devise improvements, the story might have been a +different one. But Paige was never content short of absolute perfection +--a machine that was not only partly human, but entirely so. Clemens' +used to say later that the Paige type-setter would do everything that a +human being could do except drink and swear and go on a strike. He might +properly have omitted the last item, but of that later. Paige was a +small, bright-eyed, alert, smartly dressed man, with a crystal-clear +mind, but a dreamer and a visionary. Clemens says of him: "He is a poet; +a most great and genuine poet, whose sublime creations are written in +steel." + +It is easy to see now that Mark Twain and Paige did not make a good +business combination. When Paige declared that, wonderful as the machine +was, he could do vastly greater things with it, make it worth many more +and much larger fortunes by adding this attachment and that, Clemens was +just the man to enter into his dreams and to furnish the money to realize +them. Paige did not require much money at first, and on the capital +already invested he tinkered along with his improvements for something +like four or five years; Hamersley and Clemens meantime capitalizing the +company and getting ready to place the perfected invention on the market. +By the time the Grant episode had ended Clemens had no reason to believe +but that incalculable wealth lay just ahead, when the newspapers should +be apprised of the fact that their types were no longer to be set by +hand. Several contracts had been made with Paige, and several new +attachments had been added to the machine. It seemed to require only one +thing more, the justifier, which would save the labor of the extra man. +Paige could be satisfied with nothing short of that, even though the +extra man's wage was unimportant. He must have his machine do it all, +and meantime five precious years had slipped away. Clemens, in his +memoranda, says: + + End of 1885. Paige arrives at my house unheralded. I had seen + little or nothing of him for a year or two. He said: + + "What will you complete the machine for?" + + "What will it cost?" + + "Twenty thousand dollars; certainly not over $30,000." + + "What will you give?" + + "I'll give you half." + +Clemens was "flush" at this time. His reading tour with Cable, the great +sale of Huck Finn, the prospect of the Grant book, were rosy realities. +He said: + + "I'll do it, but the limit must be $30,000." + +They agreed to allow Hamersley a tenth interest for the money he had +already invested and for legal advice. + +Hamersley consented readily enough, and when in February, 1886, the new +contract was drawn they believed themselves heir to the millions of the +Fourth Estate. + +By this time F. G. Whitmore had come into Clemens's business affairs, and +he did not altogether approve of the new contract. Among other things, +it required that Clemens should not only complete the machine, but +promote it, capitalize it commercially. Whitmore said: + +"Mr. Clemens, that clause can bankrupt you." + +Clemens answered: "Never mind that, Whitmore; I've considered that. I +can get a thousand men worth a million apiece to go in with me if I can +get a perfect machine." + +He immediately began to calculate the number of millions he would be +worth presently when the machine was completed and announced to the +waiting world. He covered pages with figures that never ran short of +millions, and frequently approached the billion mark. Colonel Sellers in +his happiest moments never dreamed more lavishly. He obtained a list of +all the newspapers in the United States and in Europe, and he counted up +the machines that would be required by each. To his nephew, Sam Moffett, +visiting him one day, he declared that it would take ten men to count the +profits from the typesetter. He realized clearly enough that a machine +which would set and distribute type and do the work of half a dozen men +or more would revolutionize type composition. The fact that other +inventors besides Paige were working quite as diligently and perhaps +toward more simple conclusions did not disturb him. Rumors came of the +Rogers machine and the Thorne machine and the Mergenthaler linotype, but +Mark Twain only smiled. When the promoters of the Mergenthaler offered +to exchange half their interests for a half interest in the Paige patent, +to obtain thereby a wider insurance of success, it only confirmed his +trust, and he let the golden opportunity go by. + +Clemens thinks the thirty thousand dollars lasted about a year. Then +Paige confessed that the machine was still incomplete, but he said that +four thousand dollars more would finish it, and that with ten thousand +dollars he could finish it and give a big exhibition in New York. He had +discarded the old machine altogether, it seems, and at Pratt & Whitney's +shops was building a new one from the ground up--a machine of twenty +thousand minutely exact parts, each of which must be made by expert hand +workmanship after elaborate drawings and patterns even more expensive. It +was an undertaking for a millionaire. + +Paige offered to borrow from Clemens the amount needed, offering the +machine as security. Clemens supplied the four thousand dollars, and +continued to advance money from time to time at the rate of three to four +thousand dollars a month, until he had something like eighty thousand +dollars invested, with the machine still unfinished. This would be early +in 1888, by which time other machines had reached a state of completion +and were being placed on the market. The Mergenthaler, in particular, +was attracting wide attention. Paige laughed at it, and Clemens, too, +regarded it as a joke. The moment their machine was complete all other +machines would disappear. Even the fact that the Tribune had ordered +twenty-three of the linotypes, and other journals were only waiting to +see the paper in its new dress before ordering, did not disturb them. +Those linotypes would all go into the scrap-heap presently. It was too +bad people would waste their money so. In January, 1888, Paige promised +that the machine would be done by the 1st of April. On the 1st of April +he promised it for September, but in October he acknowledged there were +still eighty-five days' work to be done on it. In November Clemens wrote +to Orion: + +The machine is apparently almost done--but I take no privileges on that +account; it must be done before I spend a cent that can be avoided. I +have kept this family on very short commons for two years and they must +go on scrimping until the machine is finished, no matter how long that +may be. + +By the end of '88 the income from the books and the business and Mrs. +Clemens's Elmira investments no longer satisfied the demands of the +type-setter, in addition to the household expense, reduced though the +latter was; and Clemens began by selling and hypothecating his marketable +securities. The whole household interest by this time centered in the +machine. What the Tennessee land had been to John and Jane Clemens and +their children, the machine had now become to Samuel Clemens and his +family. "When the machine is finished everything will be all right +again" afforded the comfort of that long-ago sentence, "When the +Tennessee land is sold." + +They would have everything they wanted then. Mrs. Clemens planned +benefactions, as was her wont. Once she said to her sister: + +"How strange it will seem to have unlimited means, to be able to do +whatever you want to do, to give whatever you want to give without +counting the cost." + +Straight along through another year the three thousand dollars and more a +month continued, and then on the 5th of January, 1889, there came what +seemed the end--the machine and justifier were complete! In his notebook +on that day Mark Twain set down this memorandum: + + EUREKA! + + Saturday, January 5, 1889-12.20 P.M. At this moment I have seen a + line of movable type spaced and justified by machinery! This is the + first time in the history of the world that this amazing thing has + ever been done. Present: + J. W. Paige, the inventor; + Charles Davis, | Mathematical assistants + Earll | & mechanical + Graham | experts + Bates, foreman, and S. L. Clemens. + This record is made immediately after the prodigious event. + +Two days later he made another note: + + Monday, January 7--4.45 P.m. The first proper name ever set by this + new keyboard was William Shakspeare. I set it at the above hour; & + I perceive, now that I see the name written, that I either + misspelled it then or I've misspelled it now. + + The space-bar did its duty by the electric connections & steam & + separated the two words preparatory to the reception of the space. + +It seemed to him that his troubles were at an end. He wrote overflowing +letters, such as long ago he had written about his first mining claims, +to Orion and to other members of the family and to friends in America and +Europe. One of these letters, written to George Standring, a London +printer and publisher, also an author, will serve as an example. + + The machine is finished! An hour and forty minutes ago a line of + movable type was spaced and justified by machinery for the first + time in the history of the world. And I was there to see. + + That was the final function. I had before seen the machine set + type, automatically, and distribute type, and automatically + distribute its eleven different thicknesses of spaces. So now I + have seen the machine, operated by one individual, do the whole + thing, and do it a deal better than any man at the case can do it. + + This is by far and away the most marvelous invention ever contrived + by man. And it is not a thing of rags and patches; it is made of + massive steel, and will last a century. + + She will do the work of six men, and do it better than any six men + that ever stood at a case. + + The death-warrant of all other type-setting machines in this world + was signed at 12.20 this afternoon, when that first line was shot + through this machine and came out perfectly spaced and justified. + And automatically, mind you. + + There was a speck of invisible dirt on one of those nonpareil types. + Well, the machine allowed for that by inserting of its own accord a + space which was the 5-1,000 of an inch thinner than it would have + used if the dirt had been absent. But when I send you the details + you will see that that's nothing for this machine to do; you'll see + that it knows more and has got more brains than all the printers in + the world put together. + +His letter to Orion was more technical, also more jubilant. At the end +he said: + + All the witnesses made written record of the immense historical + birth--the first justification of a line of movable type by + machinery--& also set down the hour and the minute. Nobody had + drank anything, & yet everybody seemed drunk. Well-dizzy, + stupefied, stunned. + + All the other wonderful inventions of the human brain sink pretty + nearly into commonplaces contrasted with this awful mechanical + miracle. Telephones, telegraphs, locomotives, cotton-gins, sewing- + machines, Babbage calculators, jacquard looms, perfecting presses, + all mere toys, simplicities! The Paige Compositor marches alone and + far in the land of human inventions. + +In one paragraph of Orion's letter he refers to the machine as a "cunning +devil, knowing more than any man that ever lived." That was a profound +truth, though not as he intended it. That creation of James Paige's +brain reflected all the ingenuity and elusiveness of its creator, and +added something on its own account. It was discovered presently that it +had a habit of breaking the types. Paige said it was a trifling thing: +he could fix it, but it meant taking down the machine, and that deadly +expense of three thousand or four thousand dollars a month for the band +of workmen and experts in Pratt & Whitney's machine shops did not cease. +In February the machine was again setting and justifying type "to a +hair," and Whitmore's son, Fred, was running it at a rate of six thousand +ems an hour, a rate of composition hitherto unknown in the history of the +world. His speed was increased to eight thousand ems an hour by the end +of the year, and the machine was believed to have a capacity of eleven +thousand. No type-setter invented to this day could match it for +accuracy and precision when it was in perfect order, but its point of +perfection was apparently a vanishing point. It would be just reached, +when it would suddenly disappear, and Paige would discover other needed +corrections. Once, when it was apparently complete as to every detail; +and running like a human thing, with such important customers as the New +York Herald and other great papers ready to place their orders, Paige +suddenly discovered that it required some kind of an air-blast, and it +was all taken down again and the air-blast, which required months to +invent and perfect, was added. + +But what is the use of remembering all these bitter details? The steady +expense went on through another year, apparently increasing instead of +diminishing, until, by the beginning of 1890, Clemens was finding it +almost impossible to raise funds to continue the work. Still he +struggled on. It was the old mining fascination--"a foot farther into +the ledge and we shall strike the vein of gold." + +He sent for Joe Goodman to come and help him organize a capital-stock +company, in which Senator Jones and John Mackay, old Comstock friends, +were to be represented. He never for a moment lost faith in the final +outcome, and he believed that if they could build their own factory the +delays and imperfections of construction would be avoided. Pratt & +Whitney had been obliged to make all the parts by hand. With their own +factory the new company would have vast and perfect machinery dedicated +entirely to the production of type-setters. + +Nothing short of two million dollars capitalization was considered, and +Goodman made at least three trips from California to the East and labored +with Jones and Mackay all that winter and at intervals during the +following year, through which that "cunning devil," the machine, consumed +its monthly four thousand dollars--money that was the final gleanings and +sweepings of every nook and corner of the strong-box and bank-account and +savings of the Clemens family resources. With all of Mark Twain's fame +and honors his life at this period was far from an enviable one. It was, +in fact, a fevered delirium, often a veritable nightmare. + +Reporters who approached him for interviews, little guessing what he was +passing through, reported that Mark Twain's success in life had made him +crusty and sour. + +Goodman remembers that when they were in Washington, conferring with +Jones, and had rooms at the Arlington, opening together, often in the +night he would awaken to see a light burning in the next room and to hear +Mark Twain's voice calling: + +"Joe, are you awake?" + +"Yes, Mark, what is it?" + +"Oh, nothing, only I can't sleep. Won't you talk awhile? I know it's +wrong to disturb you, but I am so d--d miserable that I can't help it." + +Whereupon he would get up and talk and talk, and pace the floor and curse +the delays until he had refreshed himself, and then perhaps wallow in +millions until breakfast-time. + +Jones and Mackay, deeply interested, were willing to put up a reasonable +amount of money, but they were unable to see a profit in investing so +large a capital in a plant for constructing the machines. + +Clemens prepared estimates showing that the American business alone would +earn thirty-five million dollars a year, and the European business twenty +million dollars more. These dazzled, but they did not convince the +capitalists. Jones was sincerely anxious to see the machine succeed, and +made an engagement to come out to see it work, but a day or two before he +was to come Paige was seized with an inspiration. The type-setter was +all in parts when the day came, and Jones's visit had to be postponed. +Goodman wrote that the fatal delay had "sicklied over the bloom" of +Jones's original enthusiasm. + +Yet Clemens seems never to have been openly violent with Paige. In the +memorandum which he completed about this time he wrote: + + Paige and I always meet on effusively affectionate terms, and yet he + knows perfectly well that if I had him in a steel trap I would shut + out all human succor and watch that trap until he died. + +He was grabbing at straws now. He offered a twentieth or a hundredth or +a thousandth part of the enterprise for varying sums, ranging from one +thousand to one hundred thousand dollars. He tried to capitalize his +advance (machine) royalties, and did dispose of a few of these; but when +the money came in for them he was beset by doubts as to the final +outcome, and though at his wit's ends for further funds, he returned the +checks to the friends who had sent them. One five-thousand-dollar check +from a friend named Arnot, in Elmira, went back by the next mail. He was +willing to sacrifice his own last penny, but he could not take money from +those who were blindly backing his judgment only and not their own. He +still had faith in Jones, faith which lasted up to the 13th of February, +1891. Then came a final letter, in which Jones said that he had +canvassed the situation thoroughly with such men as Mackay, Don Cameron, +Whitney, and others, with the result that they would have nothing to do +with the machine. Whitney and Cameron, he said, were large stockholders +in the Mergenthaler. Jones put it more kindly and more politely than +that, and closed by saying that there could be no doubt as to the +machine's future an ambiguous statement. A letter from young Hall came +about the same time, urging a heavy increase of capital in the business. +The Library of American Literature, its leading feature, was handled on +the instalment plan. The collections from this source were deferred +driblets, while the bills for manufacture and promotion must be paid down +in cash. Clemens realized that for the present at least the dream was +ended. The family securities were exhausted. The book trade was dull; +his book royalties were insufficient even to the demands of the +household. He signed further notes to keep business going, left the +matter of the machine in abeyance, and turned once more to the trade of +authorship. He had spent in the neighborhood of one hundred and ninety +thousand dollars on the typesetter--money that would better have been +thrown into the Connecticut River, for then the agony had been more +quickly over. As it was, it had shadowed many precious years. + + + + +CLXXV + +"THE CLAIMANT"--LEAVING HARTFORD + +For the first time in twenty years Mark Twain was altogether dependent on +literature. He did not feel mentally unequal to the new problem; in +fact, with his added store of experience, he may have felt himself more +fully equipped for authorship than ever before. It had been his habit to +write within his knowledge and observation. To a correspondent of this +time he reviewed his stock in trade-- + + . . . I confine myself to life with which I am familiar when + pretending to portray life. But I confined myself to the boy-life + out on the Mississippi because that had a peculiar charm for me, and + not because I was not familiar with other phases of life. I was a + soldier two weeks once in the beginning of the war, and was hunted + like a rat the whole time. Familiar? My splendid Kipling himself + hasn't a more burnt-in, hard-baked, and unforgetable familiarity + with that death-on-the-pale-horse-with-hell-following-after, which + is a raw soldier's first fortnight in the field--and which, without + any doubt, is the most tremendous fortnight and the vividest he is + ever going to see. + + Yes, and I have shoveled silver tailings in a quartz-mill a couple + of weeks, and acquired the last possibilities of culture in that + direction. And I've done "pocket-mining" during three months in the + one little patch of ground in the whole globe where Nature conceals + gold in pockets--or did before we robbed all of those pockets and + exhausted, obliterated, annihilated the most curious freak Nature + ever indulged in. There are not thirty men left alive who, being + told there was a pocket hidden on the broad slope of a mountain, + would know how to go and find it, or have even the faintest idea of + how to set about it; but I am one of the possible 20 or 30 who + possess the secret, and I could go and put my hand on that hidden + treasure with a most deadly precision. + + And I've been a prospector, and know pay rock from poor when I find + it--just with a touch of the tongue. And I've been a silver miner + and know how to dig and shovel and drill and put in a blast. And so + I know the mines and the miners interiorly as well as Bret Harte + knows them exteriorly. + + And I was a newspaper reporter four years in cities, and so saw the + inside of many things; and was reporter in a legislature two + sessions and the same in Congress one session, and thus learned to + know personally three sample bodies of the smallest minds and the + selfishest souls and the cowardliest hearts that God makes. + + And I was some years a Mississippi pilot, and familiarly knew all + the different kinds of steamboatmen--a race apart, and not like + other folk. + + And I was for some years a traveling "jour" printer, and wandered + from city to city--and so I know that sect familiarly. + + And I was a lecturer on the public platform a number of seasons and + was a responder to toasts at all the different kinds of banquets + --and so I know a great many secrets about audiences--secrets not to + be got out of books, but only acquirable by experience. + + And I watched over one dear project of mine for years, spent a + fortune on it, and failed to make it go--and the history of that + would make a large book in which a million men would see themselves + as in a mirror; and they would testify and say, Verily, this is not + imagination; this fellow has been there--and after would they cast + dust upon their heads, cursing and blaspheming. + + And I am a publisher, and did pay to one author's widow (General + Grant's) the largest copyright checks this world has seen + --aggregating more than L80,000 in the first year. + + And I have been an author for 20 years and an ass for 55. + + Now then: as the most valuable capital or culture or education + usable in the building of novels is personal experience I ought to + be well equipped for that trade. + + I surely have the equipment, a wide culture, and all of it real, + none of it artificial, for I don't know anything about books. + +This generous bill of literary particulars was fully warranted. Mark +Twain's equipment was equal to his occasions. It is true that he was no +longer young, and that his health was not perfect, but his resolution and +his energy had not waned. + +His need was imminent and he lost no time. He dug out from his +pigeonholes such materials as he had in stock, selecting a few completed +manuscripts for immediate disposal--among them his old article entitled, +"Mental Telegraphy," written in 1878, when he had hesitated to offer it, +in the fear that it would not be accepted by the public otherwise than as +a joke. He added to it now a supplement and sent it to Mr. Alden, of +Harper's Magazine. + +Psychic interest had progressed in twelve years; also Mark Twain had come +to be rather more seriously regarded. The article was accepted promptly! +--[The publication of this article created a good deal of a stir and +resulted in the first general recognition of what later became known as +Telepathy. A good many readers insisted on regarding the whole matter as +one of Mark Twain's jokes, but its serious acceptance was much wider.] +--The old sketch, "Luck," also found its way to Harper's Magazine, and +other manuscripts were looked over and furbished up with a view to their +disposal. Even the history game was dragged from the dust of its +retirement, and Hall was instructed to investigate its chance of profit. + +Then Mark Twain went to work in earnest. Within a week after the +collapse of the Jones bubble he was hard at work on a new book--the +transmigration of the old "Claimant" play into a novel. + +Ever since the appearance of the Yankee there had been what was evidently +a concerted movement to induce him to write a novel with the theories of +Henry George as the central idea. Letters from every direction had urged +him to undertake such a story, and these had suggested a more serious +purpose for the Claimant book. A motif in which there is a young lord +who renounces his heritage and class to come to America and labor with +his hands; who attends socialistic meetings at which men inspired by +readings of 'Progress and Poverty' and 'Looking Backward' address their +brothers of toil, could have in it something worth while. Clemens +inserted portions of some of his discarded essays in these addresses, and +had he developed this element further, and abandoned Colonel Sellers's +materialization lunacies to the oblivion they had earned, the result +might have been more fortunate. + +But his faith in the new Sellers had never died, and the temptation to +use scenes from the abandoned play proved to be too strong to be +resisted. The result was incongruous enough. The author, however, +admired it amazingly at the time. He sent Howells stirring reports of +his progress. He wrote Hall that the book would be ready soon and that +there must be seventy-five thousand orders by the date of issue, "not a +single one short of that." Then suddenly, at the end of February, the +rheumatism came back into his shoulder and right arm and he could hardly +hold the pen. He conceived the idea of dictating into a phonograph, and +wrote Howells to test this invention and find out as to terms for three +months, with cylinders enough to carry one hundred and seventy-five +thousand words. + + I don't want to erase any of them. My right arm is nearly disabled + by rheumatism, but I am bound to write this book (and sell 100,000 + copies of it-no, I mean 1,000,000--next fall). I feel sure I can + dictate the book into a phonograph if I don't have to yell. I write + 2,000 words a day. I think I can dictate twice as many. + + But mind, if this is going to be too much trouble to you--go ahead + and do it all the same. + +Howells replied encouragingly. He had talked a letter into a phonograph +and the phonograph man had talked his answer into it, after which the +cylinder had been taken to a typewriter in the-next room and correctly +written out. If a man had the "cheek" to dictate his story into a +phonograph, Howells said, all the rest seemed perfectly easy. + +Clemens ordered a phonograph and gave it a pretty fair trial. It was +only a partial success. He said he couldn't write literature with it +because it hadn't any ideas or gift for elaboration, but was just as +matter-of-fact, compressive and unresponsive, grave and unsmiling as the +devil--a poor audience. + +I filled four dozen cylinders in two sittings, then I found I could have +said it about as easy with the pen, and said it a deal better. Then I +resigned. + +He did not immediately give it up. To relieve his aching arm he +alternated the phonograph with the pen, and the work progressed rapidly. +Early in May he was arranging for its serial disposition, and it was +eventually sold for twelve thousand dollars to the McClure Syndicate, who +placed it with a number of papers in America and with the Idler Magazine +in England. W. M. Laffan, of the Sun, an old and tried friend, combined +with McClure in the arrangement. Laffan also proposed to join with +McClure in paying Mark Twain a thousand dollars each for a series of six +European letters. This was toward the end of May, 1891, when Clemens had +already decided upon a long European sojourn. + +There were several reasons why this was desirable. Neither Clemens nor +his wife was in good health. Both of them were troubled with rheumatism, +and a council of physicians had agreed that Mrs. Clemens had some +disturbance of the heart. The death of Charles L. Webster in April--the +fourth death among relatives in two years--had renewed her forebodings. +Susy, who had been at Bryn Mawr, had returned far from well. The +European baths and the change of travel it was believed would be +beneficial to the family health. Furthermore, the maintenance of the +Hartford home was far too costly for their present and prospective +income. The house with its associations of seventeen incomparable years +must be closed. A great period had ended. + +They arranged to sail on the 6th of June by the French line.--[On the +Gascogne.]--Mrs. Crane was to accompany them, and came over in April to +help in breaking the news to the servants. John and Ellen O'Neill (the +gardener and his wife) were to remain in charge; places were found for +George and Patrick. Katie Leary was retained to accompany the family. It +was a sad dissolution. + +The day came for departure and the carriage was at the door. Mrs. +Clemens did not come immediately. She was looking into the rooms, +bidding a kind of silent good-by to the home she had made and to all its +memories. Following the others she entered the carriage, and Patrick +McAleer drove them together for the last time. They were going on a long +journey. They did not guess how long, or that the place would never be +home to them again. + + + + +CLXXVI + +A EUROPEAN SUMMER + +They landed at Havre and went directly to Paris, where they remained +about a week. From Paris Clemens wrote to Hall that a deal by which he +had hoped to sell out his interest in the type-setter to the Mallorys, of +the Churchman, had fallen through. + +"Therefore," he said, "you will have to modify your instalment system to +meet the emergency of a constipated purse; for if you should need to +borrow any more money I would not know how or where to raise it." + +The Clemens party went to Geneva, then rested for a time at the baths of +Aix; from Aix to Bayreuth to attend the Wagner festival, and from +Bayreuth to Marienbad for further additions of health. Clemens began +writing his newspaper letters at Aix, the first of which consists of +observations at that "paradise of rheumatics." This letter is really a +careful and faithful description of Aix-les-Bains, with no particular +drift of humor in it. He tells how in his own case the baths at first +developed plenty of pain, but that the subsequent ones removed almost all +of it. + +"I've got back the use of my arm the last few days, and I am going away +now," he says, and concludes by describing the beautiful drives and +scenery about Aix--the pleasures to be found paddling on little Lake +Bourget and the happy excursions to Annecy. + + At the end of an hour you come to Annecy and rattle through its old + crooked lanes, built solidly up with curious old houses that are a + dream of the Middle Ages, and presently you come to the main object + of your trip--Lake Annecy. It is a revelation. It is a miracle. + It brings the tears to a body's eyes. It is so enchanting. That is + to say, it affects you just as all other things that you instantly + recognize as perfect affect you--perfect music, perfect eloquence, + perfect art, perfect joy, perfect grief. + +He was getting back into his old descriptive swing, but his dislike for +travel was against him, and he found writing the letters hard. From +Bayreuth he wrote "At the Shrine of St. Wagner," one of the best +descriptions of that great musical festival that has been put into words. +He paid full tribute to the performance, also to the Wagner devotion, +confessing its genuineness. + + This opera of "Tristan and Isolde" last night broke the hearts of + all witnesses who were of the faith, and I know of some, and have + heard of many, who could not sleep after it, but cried the night + away. I feel strongly out of place here. Sometimes I feel like the + one sane person in the community of the mad; sometimes I feel like + the one blind man where all others see; the one groping savage in + the college of the learned, and always during service I feel like a + heretic in heaven. + +He tells how he really enjoyed two of the operas, and rejoiced in +supposing that his musical regeneration was accomplished and perfected; +but alas! he was informed by experts that those particular events were +not real music at all. Then he says: + + Well, I ought to have recognized the sign the old, sure sign that + has never failed me in matters of art. Whenever I enjoy anything in + art it means that it is mighty poor. The private knowledge of this + fact has saved me from going to pieces with enthusiasm in front of + many and many a chromo. However, my base instinct does bring me + profit sometimes; I was the only man out of 3,200 who got his money + back on those two operas. + +His third letter was from Marienbad, in Bohemia, another +"health-factory," as he calls it, and is of the same general character as +those preceding. In his fourth letter he told how he himself took charge +of the family fortunes and became courier from Aix to Bayreuth. It is a +very delightful letter, most of it, and probably not greatly burlesqued +or exaggerated in its details. It is included now in the "Complete +Works," as fresh and delightful as ever. They returned to Germany at the +end of August, to Nuremberg, which he notes as the "city of exquisite +glimpses," and to Heidelberg, where they had their old apartment of +thirteen years before, Room 40 at the Schloss Hotel, with its wonderful +prospect of wood and hill, and the haze-haunted valley of the Rhine. They +remained less than a week in that beautiful place, and then were off for +Switzerland, Lucerne, Brienz, Interlaken, finally resting at the Hotel +Beau Rivage, Ouchy, Lausanne, on beautiful Lake Leman. + +Clemens had agreed to write six of the newspaper letters, and he had by +this time finished five of them, the fifth being dated from Interlaken, +its subject, "Switzerland, the Cradle of Liberty." He wrote to Hall that +it was his intention to write another book of travel and to take a year +or two to collect the material. The Century editors were after him for a +series after the style of Innocents Abroad. He considered this +suggestion, but declined by cable, explaining to Hall that he intended to +write for serial publication no more than the six newspaper letters. He +said: + + To write a book of travel would be less trouble than to write six + detached chapters. Each of these letters requires the same variety + of treatment and subject that one puts into a book; but in the book + each chapter doesn't have to be rounded and complete in itself. + +He suggested that the six letters be gathered into a small volume which +would contain about thirty-five or forty thousand words, to be sold as +low as twenty-five cents, but this idea appears to have been dropped. + +At Ouchy Clemens conceived the idea of taking a little trip on his own +account, an excursion that would be a rest after the strenuous three +months' travel and sightseeing--one that he could turn into literature. +He engaged Joseph Very, a courier used during their earlier European +travels, and highly recommended in the Tramp Abroad. He sent Joseph over +to Lake Bourget to engage a boat and a boatman for a ten days' trip down +the river Rhone. For five dollars Joseph bought a safe, flat-bottom +craft; also he engaged the owner as pilot. A few days later--September +19--Clemens followed. They stopped overnight on an island in Lake +Bourget, and in his notes Clemens tells how he slept in the old castle of +Chatillon, in the room where a pope was born. They started on their +drift next morning. To Mrs. Clemens, in some good-by memoranda, he said: + + The lake is as smooth as glass; a brilliant sun is shining. + + Our boat is so comfortable and shady with its awning. + + 11.20. We have crossed the lake and are entering the canal. Shall + presently be in the Rhone. + + Noon. Nearly down to the Rhone, passing the village of Chanaz. + + Sunday, 3.15 P.M. We have been in the Rhone three hours. It + is unimaginably still & reposeful & cool & soft & breezy. No rowing + or work of any kind to do--we merely float with the current we glide + noiseless and swift--as fast as a London cab-horse rips along--8 + miles an hour--the swiftest current I've ever boated in. We have the + entire river to ourselves nowhere a boat of any kind. + +Pleasant it must have been in the warm September days to go swinging down +that swift, gray stream which comes racing out of Switzerland into +France, fed from a thousand glaciers. He sent almost daily memoranda of +his progress. Half-way to Arles he wrote: + + It's too delicious, floating with the swift current under the + awning these superb, sunshiny days in deep peace and quietness. + + Some of these curious old historical towns strangely persuade me, + but it is so lovely afloat that I don't stop, but view them from the + outside and sail on. We get abundance of grapes and peaches for + next to nothing. My, but that inn was suffocating with garlic where + we stayed last night! I had to hold my nose as we went up-stairs or + I believe I should have fainted. + + Little bit of a room, rude board floor unswept, 2 chairs, unpainted + white pine table--void the furniture! Had a good firm bed, solid as + a rock, & you could have brained an ox with the bolster. + + These six hours have been entirely delightful. I want to do all the + rivers of Europe in an open boat in summer weather. + + Still further along he described one of their shore accommodations. + + Night caught us yesterday where we had to take quarters in a + peasant's house which was occupied by the family and a lot of cows & + calves, also several rabbits.--[His word for fleas. Neither fleas + nor mosquitoes ever bit him--probably because of his steady use of + tobacco.]--The latter had a ball & I was the ballroom; but they + were very friendly and didn't bite. + + The peasants were mighty kind and hearty & flew around & did their + best to make us comfortable. This morning I breakfasted on the + shore in the open air with two sociable dogs & a cat. Clean cloth, + napkins & table furniture, white sugar, a vast hunk of excellent + butter, good bread, first-class coffee with pure milk, fried fish + just caught. Wonderful that so much cleanliness should come out of + such a phenomenally dirty house. + + An hour ago we saw the Falls of the Rhone, a prodigiously rough and + dangerous-looking place; shipped a little water, but came to no + harm. It was one of the most beautiful pieces of piloting & boat + management I ever saw. Our admiral knew his business. + + We have had to run ashore for shelter every time it has rained + heretofore, but Joseph has been putting in his odd time making a + waterproof sun-bonnet for the boat, & now we sail along dry, + although we have had many heavy showers this morning. + +Here follows a pencil-drawing of the boat and its new awning, and he +adds: "I'm on the stern, under the shelter, and out of sight." + +The trip down the Rhone proved more valuable as an outing than as +literary material. Clemens covered one hundred and seventy-four pages +with his notes of it, then gave it up. Traveling alone with no one but +Joseph and the Admiral (former owner of the craft) was reposeful and +satisfactory, but it did not inspire literary flights. He tried to +rectify the lack of companionship by introducing fictitious characters, +such as Uncle Abner, Fargo, and Stavely, a young artist; also Harris, +from the Tramp Abroad; but Harris was not really there this time, and +Mark Twain's genius, given rather to elaboration than to construction, +found it too severe a task to imagine a string of adventures without at +least the customary ten per cent. of fact to build upon. + +It was a day above Avignon that he had an experience worth while. They +were abreast of an old castle, nearing a village, one of the huddled +jumble of houses of that locality, when, glancing over his left shoulder +toward the distant mountain range, he received what he referred to later +as a soul-stirring shock. Pointing to the outline of the distant range +he said to the courier: + +"Name it. Who is it?" + +The courier said, "Napoleon." + +Clemens assented. The Admiral, when questioned, also promptly agreed +that the mountain outlined was none other than the reclining figure of +the great commander himself. They watched and discussed the phenomenon +until they reached the village. Next morning Clemens was up for a first +daybreak glimpse of his discovery. Later he reported it to Mrs. Clemens: + + I did so long for you and Sue yesterday morning--the most superb + sunrise--the most marvelous sunrise--& I saw it all, from the very + faintest suspicion of the coming dawn, all the way through to the + final explosion of glory. But it had an interest private to itself + & not to be found elsewhere in the world; for between me & it, in + the far-distant eastward, was a silhouetted mountain range, in which + I had discovered, the previous afternoon, a most noble face upturned + to the sky, & mighty form outstretched, which I had named Napoleon + Dreaming of Universal Empire--& now this prodigious face, soft, + rich, blue, spirituelle, asleep, tranquil, reposeful, lay against + that giant conflagration of ruddy and golden splendors, all rayed + like a wheel with the up-streaming & far-reaching lances of the sun. + It made one want to cry for delight, it was so supreme in its + unimaginable majesty & beauty. + +He made a pencil-sketch of the Napoleon head in his note-book, and stated +that the apparition could be seen opposite the castle of Beauchastel; but +in later years his treacherous memory betrayed him, and, forgetting these +identifying marks, he told of it as lying a few hours above Arles, and +named it the "Lost Napoleon," because those who set out to find it did +not succeed. He even wrote an article upon the subject, in which he +urged tourists to take steamer from Arles and make a short trip upstream, +keeping watch on the right-hand bank, with the purpose of rediscovering +the natural wonder. Fortunately this sketch was not published. It would +have been set down as a practical joke by disappointed travelers. One of +Mark Twain's friends, Mr. Theodore Stanton, made a persistent effort to +find the Napoleon, but with the wrong directions naturally failed. + +It required ten days to float to Arles. Then the current gave out and +Clemens ended the excursion and returned to Lausanne by rail. He said: + +"It was twenty-eight miles to Marseilles, and somebody would have to row. +That would not have been pleasure; it would have meant work for the +sailor, and I do not like work even when another person does it." + +To Twichell in America he wrote: + + You ought to have been along--I could have made room for you easily, + & you would have found that a pedestrian tour in Europe doesn't + begin with a raft voyage for hilarity & mild adventure & intimate + contact with the unvisited native of the back settlements & + extinction from the world and newspapers & a conscience in a state + of coma & lazy comfort & solid happiness. In fact, there's nothing + that's so lovely. + +But it's all over. I gave the raft away yesterday at Arles & am loafing +along back by short stages on the rail to Ouchy, Lausanne, where the +tribe are staying at the Beau Rivage and are well and prosperous. + + + + +CLXXVII + +KORNERSTRASSE,7 + +They had decided to spend the winter in Berlin, and in October Mrs. +Clemens and Mrs. Crane, after some previous correspondence with an agent, +went up to that city to engage an apartment. The elevator had not +reached the European apartment in those days, and it was necessary, on +Mrs. Clemens's account, to have a ground floor. The sisters searched a +good while without success, and at last reached Kornerstrasse, a short, +secluded street, highly recommended by the agent. The apartment they +examined in Kornerstrasse was Number 7, and they were so much pleased +with the conveniences and comfort of it and so tired that they did not +notice closely its, general social environment. The agent supplied an +assortment of furniture for a consideration, and they were soon settled +in the attractive, roomy place. Clemens and the children, arriving +somewhat later, expressed themselves as satisfied. + +Their contentment was somewhat premature. When they began to go out +socially, which was very soon, and friends inquired as to their location, +they noticed that the address produced a curious effect. +Semi-acquaintances said, "Ah, yes, Kornerstrasse"; acquaintances said, +"Dear me, do you like it?" An old friend exclaimed, "Good gracious! How +in the world did you ever come to locate there?" Then they began to +notice what they had not at first seen. Kornerstrasse was not +disreputable, but it certainly was not elegant. There were rag +warehouses across the street and women who leaned out the windows to +gossip. The street itself was thronged with children. They played on a +sand pile and were often noisy and seldom clean. It was eminently not +the place for a distinguished man of letters. The family began to be +sensitive on the subject of their address. + +Clemens, of course, made humor out of it. He wrote a newspaper letter on +the subject, a burlesque, naturally, which the family prevailed upon him +not to print. But the humiliation is out of it now, and a bit of its +humor may be preserved. He takes upon himself the renting of the place, +and pictures the tour of inspection with the agent's assistant. + +He was greatly moved when they came to the street and said, softly and +lovingly: + + "Ah, Korner Street, Korner Street, why did I not think of you + before! A place fit for the gods, dear sir. Quiet?--notice how + still it is; and remember this is noonday--noonday. It is but one + block long, you see, just a sweet, dear little nest hid away here in + the heart of the great metropolis, its presence and its sacred quiet + unsuspected by the restless crowds that swarm along the stately + thoroughfares yonder at its two extremities. And----" + + "This building is handsome, but I don't think much of the others. + They look pretty commonplace, compared with the rest of Berlin." + + "Dear! dear! have you noticed that? It is just an affectation of + the nobility. What they want----" + + "The nobility? Do they live in----" + + "In this street? That is good! very good, indeed! I wish the Duke + of Sassafras-Hagenstein could hear you say that. When the Duke + first moved in here he----" + + "Does he live in this street?" + + "Him! Well, I should say so! Do you see the big, plain house over + there with the placard in the third floor window? That's his + house." + + "The placard that says 'Furnished rooms to let'? Does he keep + boarders?" + + "What an idea! Him! With a rent-roll of twelve hundred thousand + marks a year? Oh, positively this is too good." + + "Well, what does he have that sign up for?" + + The assistant took me by the buttonhole & said, with a merry light + beaming in his eye: + + "Why, my dear sir, a person would know you are new to Berlin just by + your innocent questions. Our aristocracy, our old, real, genuine + aristocracy, are full of the quaintest eccentricities, + eccentricities inherited for centuries, eccentricities which they + are prouder of than they are of their titles, and that sign-board + there is one of them. They all hang them out. And it's regulated + by an unwritten law. A baron is entitled to hang out two, a count + five, a duke fifteen----" + + "Then they are all dukes over on that side, I sup----" + + "Every one of them. Now the old Duke of Backofenhofenschwartz not + the present Duke, but the last but one, he----" + + "Does he live over the sausage-shop in the cellar?" + + "No, the one farther along, where the eighteenth yellow cat is + chewing the door-mat----" + + "But all the yellow cats are chewing the door-mats." + + "Yes, but I mean the eighteenth one. Count. No, never mind; + there's a lot more come. I'll get you another mark. Let me see---" + +They could not remain permanently in Komerstrasse, but they stuck it out +till the end of December--about two months. Then they made such +settlement with the agent as they could--that is to say, they paid the +rest of their year's rent--and established themselves in a handsome +apartment at the Hotel Royal, Unter den Linden. There was no need to be +ashamed of this address, for it was one of the best in Berlin. + +As for Komerstrasse, it is cleaner now. It is still not aristocratic, +but it is eminently respectable. There is a new post-office that takes +in Number 7, where one may post mail and send telegrams and use the +Fernsprecher--which is to say the telephone--and be politely treated by +uniformed officials, who have all heard of Mark Twain, but have no +knowledge of his former occupation of their premises. + +CLXXVIII + +A WINTER IN BERLIN + +Clemens, meantime, had been trying to establish himself in his work, but +his rheumatism racked him occasionally and was always a menace. Closing +a letter to Hall, he said: + + "I must stop-my arm is howling." + +He put in a good deal of time devising publishing schemes, principal +among them being a plan for various cheap editions of his books, +pamphlets, and such like, to sell for a few cents. These projects appear +never to have been really undertaken, Hall very likely fearing that a +flood of cheap issues would interfere with the more important trade. It +seemed dangerous to trifle with an apparently increasing prosperity, and +Clemens was willing enough to agree with this view. + +Clemens had still another letter to write for Laffan and McClure, and he +made a pretty careful study of Berlin with that end in view. But his arm +kept him from any regular work. He made notes, however. Once he wrote: + + The first gospel of all monarchies should be Rebellion; the second + should be Rebellion; and the third and all gospels, and the only + gospel of any monarchy, should be Rebellion--against Church and + State. + +And again: + + I wrote a chapter on this language 13 years ago and tried my level + best to improve it and simplify it for these people, and this is the + result--a word of thirty-nine letters. It merely concentrates the + alphabet with a shovel. It hurts me to know that that chapter is + not in any of their text-books and they don't use it in the + university. + +Socially, that winter in Berlin was eventful enough. William Walter +Phelps, of New Jersey (Clemens had known him in America), was United +States minister at the German capital, while at the Emperor's court there +was a cousin, Frau von Versen, nee Clemens, one of the St. Louis family. +She had married a young German officer who had risen to the rank of a +full general. Mark Twain and his family were welcome guests at all the +diplomatic events--often brilliant levees, gatherings of distinguished +men and women from every circle of achievement. Labouchere of 'Truth' +was there, De Blowitz of the 'Times', and authors, ambassadors, and +scientists of rank. Clemens became immediately a distinguished figure at +these assemblies. His popularity in Germany was openly manifested. At +any gathering he was surrounded by a brilliant company, eager to do him +honor. He was recognized whenever he appeared on the street, and +saluted, though in his notes he says he was sometimes mistaken for the +historian Mommsen, whom he resembled in hair and features. His books +were displayed for sale everywhere, and a special cheap edition of them +was issued at a few cents per copy. + +Captain Bingham (later General Bingham, Commissioner of Police in New +York City) and John Jackson were attaches of the legation, both of them +popular with the public in general, and especially so with the Clemens +family. Susy Clemens, writing to her father during a temporary absence, +tells of a party at Mrs. Jackson's, and especially refers to Captain +Bingham in the most complimentary terms. + +"He never left me sitting alone, nor in an awkward situation of any kind, +but always came cordially to the rescue. My gratitude toward him was +absolutely limitless." + +She adds that Mrs. Bingham was very handsome and decidedly the most +attractive lady present. Berlin was Susy's first real taste of society, +and she was reveling in it. In her letter she refers to Minister Phelps +by the rather disrespectful nickname of "Yaas," a term conferred because +of his pronounciation of that affirmative. The Clemens children were not +entirely happy in the company of the minister. They were fond of him, +but he was a great tease. They were quite young enough, but it seemed +always to give him delight to make them appear much younger. In the +letter above quoted Susy says: + + When I saw Mr. Phelps I put out my hand enthusiastically and said, + "Oh, Mr. Phelps, good evening," whereat he drew back and said, so + all could hear, "What, you here! why, you're too young. Do you + think you know how to behave?" As there were two or three young + gentlemen near by to whom I hadn't been introduced I wasn't exactly + overjoyed at this greeting. + +We may imagine that the nickname "Yaas" had been invented by Susy in +secret retaliation, though she was ready enough to forgive him, for he +was kindness itself at heart. + +In one of his later dictations Clemens related an anecdote concerning a +dinner with Phelps, when he (Clemens) had been invited to meet Count +S----, a cabinet minister of long and illustrious descent. Clemens, and +Phelps too, it seems, felt overshadowed by this ancestry. + + Of course I wanted to let out the fact that I had some ancestors, + too; but I did not want to pull them out of their graves by the + ears, and I never could seem to get the chance to work them in, in a + way that would look sufficiently casual. I suppose Phelps was in + the same difficulty. In fact he looked distraught now and then just + as a person looks who wants to uncover an ancestor purely by + accident and cannot think of a way that will seem accidental enough. + But at last, after dinner, he made a try. He took us about his + drawing-room, showing us the pictures, and finally stopped before a + rude and ancient engraving. It was a picture of the court that + tried Charles I. There was a pyramid of judges in Puritan slouch + hats, and below them three bareheaded secretaries seated at a table. + Mr. Phelps put his finger upon one of the three and said, with + exulting indifference: + + "An ancestor of mine." + + I put a finger on a judge and retorted with scathing languidness: + "Ancestor of mine. But it is a small matter. I have others." + +Clemens was sincerely fond of Phelps and spent a good deal of time at the +legation headquarters. Sometimes he wrote there. An American +journalist, Henry W. Fischer, remembers seeing him there several times +scribbling on such scraps of paper as came handy, and recalls that on one +occasion he delivered an address to a German and English audience on the +"Awful German Tongue." This was probably the lecture that brought +Clemens to bed with pneumonia. With Mrs. Clemens he had been down to +Ilsenburg, in the Hartz Mountains, for a week of change. It was pleasant +there, and they would have remained longer but for the Berlin lecture +engagement. As it was, they found Berlin very cold and the lecture-room +crowded and hot. When the lecture was over they stopped at General von +Versen's for a ball, arriving at home about two in the morning. Clemens +awoke with a heavy cold and lung congestion. He remained in bed, a very +sick man indeed, for the better part of a month. It was unpleasant +enough at first, though he rather enjoyed the convalescent period. He +could sit up in bed and read and receive occasional callers. Fischer +brought him Memoirs of the Margravine of Bayreuth, always a favorite. +--[Clemens was deeply interested in the Margravine, and at one time began +a novel with her absorbing history as its theme. He gave it up, probably +feeling that the romantic form could add nothing to the Margravine's own +story.]--The Emperor sent Frau von Versen with an invitation for him to +attend the consecration of some flags in the palace. When she returned, +conveying thanks and excuses, his Majesty commanded her to prepare a +dinner at her home for Mark Twain and himself and a few special guests, +the date to be arranged when Clemens's physician should pronounce him +well enough to attend. + +Members of the Clemens household were impressed by this royal attention. +Little Jean was especially awed. She said: + +"I wish I could be in papa's clothes"; then, after reflection, "but that +wouldn't be any use. I reckon the Emperor wouldn't recognize me." And a +little later, when she had been considering all the notables and +nobilities of her father's recent association, she added: + +"Why, papa, if it keeps on like this, pretty soon there won't be anybody +for you to get acquainted with but God," which Mark Twain decided was not +quite as much of a compliment as it had at first seemed. + +It was during the period of his convalescence that Clemens prepared his +sixth letter for the New York Sun and McClure's syndicate, "The German +Chicago," a finely descriptive article on Berlin, and German customs and +institutions generally. Perhaps the best part of it is where he +describes the grand and prolonged celebration which had been given in +honor of Professor Virchow's seventieth birthday.--[Rudolph Virchow, an +eminent German pathologist and anthropologist and scholar; then one of +the most prominent figures of the German Reichstag. He died in 1902.] +--He tells how the demonstrations had continued in one form or another +day after day, and merged at last into the seventieth birthday of +Professor Helmholtz--[Herman von Helmholtz, an eminent German physicist, +one of the most distinguished scientists of the nineteenth century. He +died in 1894.]--also how these great affairs finally culminated in a +mighty 'commers', or beer-fest, given in their honor by a thousand German +students. This letter has been published in Mark Twain's "Complete +Works," and is well worth reading to-day. His place had been at the +table of the two heroes of the occasion, Virchow and Helmholtz, a place +where he could see and hear all that went on; and he was immensely +impressed at the honor which Germany paid to her men of science. The +climax came when Mommsen unexpectedly entered the room.--[Theodor Mommsen +(1817-1903), an eminent German historian and archeologist, a powerful +factor in all liberal movements. From 1874-1895 permanent secretary of +the Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences.] + + There seemed to be some signal whereby the students on the platform + were made aware that a professor had arrived at the remote door of + entrance, for you would see them suddenly rise to their feet, strike + an erect military attitude, then draw their swords; the swords of + all their brethren standing guard at the innumerable tables would + flash from the scabbard and be held aloft--a handsome spectacle. + Three clear bugle-notes would ring out, then all these swords would + come down with a crash, twice repeated, on the tables and be + uplifted and held aloft again; then in the distance you would see + the gay uniforms and uplifted swords of a guard of honor clearing + the way and conducting the guest down to his place. The songs were + stirring, and the immense outpour from young life and young lungs, + the crash of swords, and the thunder of the beer-mugs gradually + worked a body up to what seemed the last possible summit of + excitement. It surely seemed to me that I had reached that summit, + that I had reached my limit, and that there was no higher lift + devisable for me. When apparently the last eminent guest had long + ago taken his place, again those three bugle-blasts rang out, and + once more the swords leaped from their scabbards. Who might this + late comer be? Nobody was interested to inquire. Still, indolent + eyes were turned toward the distant entrance, and we saw the silken + gleam and the lifted sword of a guard of honor plowing through the + remote crowds. Then we saw that end of the house rising to its + feet; saw it rise abreast the advancing guard all along like a wave. + This supreme honor had been offered to no one before. There was an + excited whisper at our table--"Mommsen!"--and the whole house rose + --rose and shouted and stamped and clapped and banged the beer-mugs. + Just simply a storm! Then the little man with his long hair and + Emersonian face edged his way past us and took his seat. I could + have touched him with my hand--Mommsen!--think of it! + + This was one of those immense surprises that can happen only a few + times in one's life. I was not dreaming of him; he was to me only a + giant myth, a world-shadowing specter, not a reality. The surprise + of it all can be only comparable to a man's suddenly coming upon + Mont Blanc, with its awful form towering into the sky, when he + didn't suspect he was in its neighborhood. I would have walked a + great many miles to get a sight of him, and here he was, without + trouble, or tramp, or cost of any kind. Here he was, clothed in a + titanic deceptive modesty which made him look like other men. Here + he was, carrying the Roman world and all the Caesars in his + hospitable skull, and doing it as easily as that other luminous + vault, the skull of the universe, carries the Milky Way and the + constellations. + +During his convalescent days, Clemens had plenty of time to reflect and +to look out of the window. His notebook preserves some of his +reflections. In one place he says: + + The Emperor passes in a modest open carriage. Next that happy + 12-year-old butcher-boy, all in white apron and turban, standing up + & so proud! + + How fast they drive-nothing like it but in London. And the horses + seem to be of very fine breed, though I am not an expert in horses + & do not speak with assurance. I can always tell which is the front + end of a horse, but beyond that my art is not above the ordinary. + + The "Court Gazette" of a German paper can be covered with a playing- + card. In an English paper the movements of titled people take up + about three times that room. In the papers of Republican France + from six to sixteen times as much. There, if a Duke's dog should + catch cold in the head they would stop the press to announce it and + cry about it. In Germany they respect titles, in England they + revere them, in France they adore them. That is, the French + newspapers do. + + Been taken for Mommsen twice. We have the same hair, but on + examination it was found the brains were different. + +On February 14th he records that Professor Helmholtz called, but +unfortunately leaves no further memorandum of that visit. He was quite +recovered by this time, but was still cautioned about going out in the +severe weather. In the final entry he says: + + Thirty days sick abed--full of interest--read the debates and get + excited over them, though don't 'versteh'. By reading keep in a + state of excited ignorance, like a blind man in a house afire; + flounder around, immensely but unintelligently interested; don't + know how I got in and can't find the way out, but I'm having a + booming time all to myself. + +Don't know what a 'Schelgesetzentwurf' is, but I keep as excited over it +and as worried about it as if it was my own child. I simply live on the +Sch.; it is my daily bread. I wouldn't have the question settled for +anything in the world. Especially now that I've lost the 'offentliche +Militargericht circus'. I read all the debates on that question with a +never-failing interest, but all at once they sprung a vote on me a couple +of days ago & did something by a vote of 100 to 143, but I couldn't find +out what it was. + + + + +CLXXIX + +A DINNER WITH WILLIAM II. + +The dinner with Emperor William II. at General von Versen's was set for +the 20th of February. A few days before, Mark Twain entered in his +note-book: + + In that day the Imperial lion and the Democratic lamb shall sit down + together, and a little General shall feed them. + +Mark Twain was the guest of honor on this occasion, and was seated at the +Emperor's right hand. The Emperor's brother, Prince Heinrich, sat +opposite; Prince Radolin farther along. Rudolf Lindau, of the Foreign +Office, was also present. There were fourteen at the table, all told. In +his memorandum made at the time, Clemens gave no account of the dinner +beyond the above details, only adding: + + After dinner 6 or 8 officers came in, & all hands adjourned to the + big room out of the smoking-room and held a "smoking parliament" + after the style of the ancient Potsdam one, till midnight, when the + Emperor shook hands and left. + +It was not until fourteen years later that Mark Twain related some +special matters pertaining to that evening. He may have expanded then +somewhat to fill out spaces of his memory, and embroidered them, as was +his wont; but that something happened, either in reality or in his +imagination, which justified his version of it we may believe. He told +it as here given, premising: "This may appear in print after I am dead, +but not before. + + "From 1891 until day before yesterday I had never mentioned the + matter, nor set it down with a pen, nor ever referred to it in any + way--not even to my wife, to whom I was accustomed to tell + everything that happened to me. + + "At the dinner his Majesty chatted briskly and entertainingly along + in easy and flowing English, and now and then he interrupted himself + to address a remark to me or to some other individual of the guests. + When the reply had been delivered he resumed his talk. I noticed + that the table etiquette tallied with that which was the law of my + house at home when we had guests; that is to say, the guests + answered when the host favored them with a remark, and then quieted + down and behaved themselves until they got another chance. If I had + been in the Emperor's chair and he in mine I should have felt + infinitely comfortable and at home, but I was guest now, and + consequently felt less at home. From old experience I was familiar + with the rules of the game and familiar with their exercise from the + high place of host; but I was not familiar with the trammeled and + less satisfactory position of guest, therefore I felt a little + strange and out of place. But there was no animosity--no, the + Emperor was host, therefore, according to my own rule, he had a + right to do the talking, and it was my honorable duty to intrude no + interruptions or other improvements except upon invitation; and of + course it could be my turn some day--some day, on some friendly + visit of inspection to America, it might be my pleasure and + distinction to have him as guest at my table; then I would give him + a rest and a quiet time. + + "In one way there was a difference between his table and mine-for + instance, atmosphere; the guests stood in awe of him, and naturally + they conferred that feeling upon me, for, after all, I am only + human, although I regret it. When a guest answered a question he + did it with a deferential voice and manner; he did not put any + emotion into it, and he did not spin it out, but got it out of his + system as quickly as he could, and then looked relieved. The + Emperor was used to this atmosphere, and it did not chill his blood; + maybe it was an inspiration to him, for he was alert, brilliant, and + full of animation; also he was most gracefully and felicitously + complimentary to my books--and I will remark here that the happy + phrasing of a compliment is one of the rarest of human gifts and the + happy delivery of it another. I once mentioned the high compliment + which he paid to the book 'Old Times on the Mississippi'; but there + were others, among them some high praise of my description in 'A + Tramp Abroad' of certain striking phases of German student life. + + "Fifteen or twenty minutes before the dinner ended the Emperor made + a remark to me in praise of our generous soldier pensions; then, + without pausing, he continued the remark, not speaking to me, but + across the table to his brother, Prince Heinrich. The Prince + replied, endorsing the Emperor's view of the matter. Then I + followed with my own view of it. I said that in the beginning our + government's generosity to the soldier was clear in its intent and + praiseworthy, since the pensions were conferred upon soldiers who + had earned them, soldiers who had been disabled in the war and could + no longer earn a livelihood for themselves and their families, but + that the pensions decreed and added later lacked the virtue of a + clean motive, and had, little by little, degenerated into a wider + and wider and more and more offensive system of vote-purchasing, and + was now become a source of corruption, which was an unpleasant thing + to contemplate and was a danger besides. I think that that was + about the substance of my remark; but in any case the remark had a + quite definite result, and that is the memorable thing about it + --manifestly it made everybody uncomfortable. I seemed to perceive + this quite plainly. I had committed an indiscretion. Possibly it + was in violating etiquette by intruding a remark when I had not been + invited to make one; possibly it was in taking issue with an opinion + promulgated by his Majesty. I do not know which it was, but I quite + clearly remember the effect which my act produced--to wit, the + Emperor refrained from addressing any remarks to me afterward, and + not merely during the brief remainder of the dinner, but afterward + in the kneip-room, where beer and cigars and hilarious anecdoting + prevailed until about midnight. I am sure that the Emperor's good + night was the only thing he said to me in all that time. + + "Was this rebuke studied and intentional? I don't know, but I + regarded it in that way. I can't be absolutely sure of it because + of modifying doubts created afterward by one or two circumstances. + For example: the Empress Dowager invited me to her palace, and the + reigning Empress invited me to breakfast, and also sent for General + von Versen to come to her palace and read to her and her ladies from + my books." + +It was a personal message from the Emperor that fourteen years later +recalled to him this curious circumstance. A gentleman whom Clemens knew +went on a diplomatic mission to Germany. Upon being presented to Emperor +William, the latter had immediately begun to talk of Mark Twain and his +work. He spoke of the description of German student life as the greatest +thing of its kind ever written, and of the sketch on the German language +as wonderful; then he said: + +"Convey to Mr. Clemens my kindest regards, ask him if he remembers that +dinner at Von Versen's, and ask him why he didn't do any more talking at +that dinner." + +It seemed a mysterious message. Clemens thought it might have been meant +to convey some sort of an imperial apology; but again it might have meant +that Mark Twain's breach and the Emperor's coolness on that occasion were +purely imaginary, and that the Emperor had really expected him to talk +far more than he did. + +Returning to the Royal Hotel after the Von Versen dinner, Mark Twain +received his second high compliment that day on the Mississippi book. The +portier, a tow-headed young German, must have been comparatively new at +the hotel; for apparently he had just that day learned that his favorite +author, whose books he had long been collecting, was actually present in +the flesh. Clemens, all ready to apologize for asking so late an +admission, was greeted by the portier's round face all sunshine and +smiles. The young German then poured out a stream of welcome and +compliments and dragged the author to a small bedroom near the front +door, where he excitedly pointed out a row of books, German translations +of Mark Twain. + +"There," he said; "you wrote them. I've found it out. Lieber Gott! I +did not know it before, and I ask a million pardons. That one there, Old +Times on the Mississippi, is the best you ever wrote." + +The note-book records only one social event following the Emperor's +dinner--a dinner with the secretary of the legation. The note says: + +At the Emperor's dinner black cravats were ordered. Tonight I went in a +black cravat and everybody else wore white ones. Just my luck. + +The Berlin activities came to an end then. He was still physically far +from robust, and his doctors peremptorily ordered him to stay indoors or +to go to a warmer climate. This was March 1st. Clemens and his wife +took Joseph Very, and, leaving the others for the time in Berlin, set out +for Mentone, in the south of France. + + + + +CLXXX + +MANY WANDERINGS + +Mentone was warm and quiet, and Clemens worked when his arm permitted. He +was alone there with Mrs. Clemens, and they wandered about a good deal, +idling and picture-making, enjoying a sort of belated honeymoon. Clemens +wrote to Susy: + +Joseph is gone to Nice to educate himself in kodaking--and to get the +pictures mounted which mama thinks she took here; but I noticed she +didn't take the plug out, as a rule. When she did she took nine pictures +on top of each other--composites. + +They remained a month in Mentone, then went over to Pisa, and sent Joseph +to bring the rest of the party to Rome. In Rome they spent another +month--a period of sight-seeing, enjoyable, but to Clemens pretty +profitless. + +"I do not expect to be able to write any literature this year," he said +in a letter to Hall near the end of April. "The moment I take up my pen +my rheumatism returns." + +Still he struggled along and managed to pile up a good deal of copy in +the course of weeks. From Rome to Florence, at the end of April, and so +pleasing was the prospect, and so salubrious the air of that ancient +city, that they resolved to engage residence there for the next winter. +They inspected accommodations of various kinds, and finally, through +Prof. Willard Fiske, were directed to the Villa Viviani, near Settignano, +on a hill to the eastward of Florence, with vineyard and olive-grove +sloping away to the city lying in a haze-a vision of beauty and peace. +They closed the arrangement for Viviani, and about the middle of May went +up to Venice for a fortnight of sight-seeing--a break in the travel back +to Germany. William Gedney Bunce, the Hartford artist, was in Venice, +and Sarah Orne Jewett and other home friends. + +From Venice, by way of Lake Como and "a tangled route" (his note-book +says) to Lucerne, and so northward to Berlin and on to Bad Nauheim, where +they had planned to spend the summer. Clemens for some weeks had +contemplated a trip to America, for matters there seemed to demand his +personal attention. Summer arrangements for the family being now +concluded, he left within the week and set sail on the Havel for New +York. To Jean he wrote a cheerful good-by letter, more cheerful, we may +believe, than he felt. + + BREMEN, 7.45 A.M., June 14, 1892. + +DEAR JEAN CLEMENS,--I am up & shaved & got my clean shirt on & feel +mighty fine, & am going down to show off before I put on the rest of my +clothes. + +Perhaps mama & Mrs. Hague can persuade the Hauswirth to do right; but if +he don't you go down & kill his dog. + +I wish you would invite the Consul-General and his ladies down to take +one of those slim dinners with mama, then he would complain to the +Government. + +Clemens felt that his presence in America, was demanded by two things. +Hall's reports continued, as ever, optimistic; but the semi-annual +statements were less encouraging. The Library of Literature and some of +the other books were selling well enough; but the continuous increase of +capital required by a business conducted on the instalment plan had +steadily added to the firm's liabilities, while the prospect of a general +tightening in the money-market made the outlook not a particularly happy +one. Clemens thought he might be able to dispose of the Library or an +interest in it, or even of his share of the business itself, to some one +with means sufficient to put it on an easier financial footing. The +uncertainties of trade and the burden of increased debt had become a +nightmare which interfered with his sleep. It seemed hard enough to earn +a living with a crippled arm, without this heavy business care. + +The second interest requiring attention was that other old one--the +machine. Clemens had left the matter in Paige's hands, and Paige, with +persuasive eloquence, had interested Chicago capital to a point where a +company had been formed to manufacture the type-setter in that city. +Paige reported that he had got several million dollars subscribed for the +construction of a factory, and that he had been placed on a salary as a +sort of general "consulting omniscient" at five thousand dollars a month. +Clemens, who had been negotiating again with the Mallorys for the +disposal of his machine royalties, thought it proper to find out just +what was going on. He remained in America less than two weeks, during +which he made a flying trip to Chicago and found that Paige's company +really had a factory started, and proposed to manufacture fifty machines. +It was not easy to find out the exact status of this new company, but +Clemens at least was hopeful enough of its prospects to call off the +negotiations with the Mallorys which had promised considerable cash in +hand. He had been able to accomplish nothing material in the publishing +situation, but his heart-to-heart talk with Hall for some reason had +seemed comforting. The business had been expanding; they would now +"concentrate." He returned on the Lahn, and he must have been in better +health and spirits, for it is said he kept the ship very merry during the +passage. He told many extravagantly amusing yarns; so many that a court +was convened to try him on the charge of "inordinate and unscientific +lying." Many witnesses testified, and his own testimony was so +unconvincing that the jury convicted him without leaving the bench. He +was sentenced to read aloud from his own works for a considerable period +every day until the steamer should reach port. It is said that he +faithfully carried out this part of the program, and that the proceeds +from the trial and the various readings amounted to something more than +six hundred dollars, which was turned over to the Seamen's Fund. + +Clemens's arm was really much better, and he put in a good deal of spare +time during the trip writing an article on "All Sorts and Conditions of +Ships," from Noah's Ark down to the fine new Havel, then the latest word +in ship-construction. It was an article written in a happy vein and is +profitable reading to-day. The description of Columbus as he appeared on +the deck of his flag-ship is particularly rich and flowing: + + If the weather was chilly he came up clad from plumed helmet to + spurred heel in magnificent plate-armor inlaid with arabesques of + gold, having previously warmed it at the galley fire. If the + weather was warm he came up in the ordinary sailor toggery of the + time-great slouch hat of blue velvet, with a flowing brush of snowy + ostrich-plumes, fastened on with a flashing cluster of diamonds and + emeralds; gold-embroidered doublet of green velvet, with slashed + sleeves exposing undersleeves of crimson satin; deep collar and cuff + ruffles of rich, limp lace; trunk hose of pink velvet, with big + knee-knots of brocaded yellow ribbon; pearl-tinted silk stockings, + clocked and daintily embroidered; lemon-colored buskins of unborn + kid, funnel-topped, and drooping low to expose the pretty stockings; + deep gauntlets of finest white heretic skin, from the factory of the + Holy Inquisition, formerly part of the person of a lady of rank; + rapier with sheath crusted with jewels and hanging from a broad + baldric upholstered with rubies and sapphires. + + + + +CLXXXI + +NAUHEIM AND THE PRINCE OF WALES + +Clemens was able to write pretty steadily that summer in Nauheim and +turned off a quantity of copy. He completed several short articles and +stories, and began, or at least continued work on, two books--'Tom Sawyer +Abroad' and 'Those Extraordinary Twins'--the latter being the original +form of 'Pudd'nhead Wilson'. As early as August 4th he wrote to Hall +that he had finished forty thousand words of the "Tom Sawyer" story, and +that it was to be offered to some young people's magazine, Harper's Young +People or St. Nicholas; but then he suddenly decided that his narrative +method was altogether wrong. To Hall on the 10th he wrote: + + I have dropped that novel I wrote you about because I saw a more + effective way of using the main episode--to wit, by telling it + through the lips of Huck Finn. So I have started Huck Finn & Tom + Sawyer (still 15 years old) & their friend the freed slave Jim + around the world in a stray balloon, with Huck as narrator, & + somewhere after the end of that great voyage he will work in that + original episode & then nobody will suspect that a whole book has + been written & the globe circumnavigated merely to get that episode + in in an effective (& at the same time apparently unintentional) + way. I have written 12,000 words of this new narrative, & find that + the humor flows as easily as the adventures & surprises--so I shall + go along and make a book of from 50,000 to 100,000 words. + + It is a story for boys, of course, & I think it will interest any + boy between 8 years & 80. + + When I was in New York the other day Mrs. Dodge, editor of St. + Nicholas, wrote and offered me $5,000 for (serial right) a story for + boys 50,000 words long. I wrote back and declined, for I had other + matter in my mind then. + + I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write + so that it will not only interest boys, but will also strongly + interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges + the audience. + + Now, this story doesn't need to be restricted to a child's magazine + --it is proper enough for any magazine, I should think, or for a + syndicate. I don't swear it, but I think so. + + Proposed title--New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. + +He was full of his usual enthusiasm in any new undertaking, and writes of +the Extraordinary Twins: + + By and by I shall have to offer (for grown folks' magazine) a novel + entitled, 'Those Extraordinary Twins'. It's the howling farce I + told you I had begun awhile back. I laid it aside to ferment while + I wrote Tom Sawyer Abroad, but I took it up again on a little + different plan lately, and it is swimming along satisfactorily now. + I think all sorts of folks will read it. It is clear out of the + common order--it is a fresh idea--I don't think it resembles + anything in literature. + +He was quite right; it did not resemble anything in literature, nor did +it greatly resemble literature, though something at least related to +literature would eventually grow out of it. + +In a letter written many years afterward by Frank Mason, then +consul-general at Frankfort, he refers to "that happy summer at Nauheim." +Mason was often a visitor there, and we may believe that his memory of +the summer was justified. For one thing, Clemens himself was in better +health and spirits and able to continue his work. But an even greater +happiness lay in the fact that two eminent physicians had pronounced Mrs. +Clemens free from any organic ills. To Orion, Clemens wrote: + + We are in the clouds because the bath physicians say positively that + Livy has no heart disease but has only weakness of the heart muscles + and will soon be well again. That was worth going to Europe to find + out. + +It was enough to change the whole atmosphere of the household, and +financial worries were less considered. Another letter to Orion relates +history: + + The Twichells have been here four days & we have had good times with + them. Joe & I ran over to Homburg, the great pleasure-resort, + Saturday, to dine with friends, & in the morning I went walking in + the promenade & met the British ambassador to the Court of Berlin + and he introduced me to the Prince of Wales. I found him a most + unusually comfortable and unembarrassing Englishman. + +Twichell has reported Mark Twain's meeting with the Prince (later Edward +VII) as having come about by special request of the latter, made through +the British ambassador. "The meeting," he says, "was a most cordial one +on both sides, and presently the Prince took Mark Twain's arm and the two +marched up and down, talking earnestly together, the Prince, solid, +erect, and soldierlike, Clemens weaving along in his curious, swinging +gait in a full tide of talk, and brandishing a sun-umbrella of the most +scandalous description." + +When they parted Clemens said: + +"It has been, indeed, a great pleasure to meet your Royal Highness." + +The Prince answered: + +"And it is a pleasure, Mr. Clemens, to have met you--again." + +Clemens was puzzled to reply. + +"Why," he said, "have we met before?" + +The Prince smiled happily. + +"Oh yes," he said; "don't you remember that day on the Strand when you +were on the top of a bus and I was heading a procession and you had on +your new overcoat with flap-pockets?"--[See chap. clxiii, "A Letter to +the Queen of England."] + +It was the highest compliment he could have paid, for it showed that he +had read, and had remembered all those years. Clemens expressed to +Twichell regret that he had forgotten to mention his visit to the +Prince's sister, Louise, in Ottawa, but he had his opportunity at a +dinner next day. Later the Prince had him to supper and they passed an +entire evening together. + +There was a certain uneasiness in the Nauheim atmosphere that year, for +the cholera had broken out at Hamburg, and its victims were dying at a +terrific rate. It was almost impossible to get authentic news as to the +spread of the epidemic, for the German papers were curiously conservative +in their reports. Clemens wrote an article on the subject but concluded +not to print it. A paragraph will convey its tenor. + + What I am trying to make the reader understand is the strangeness of + the situation here--a mighty tragedy being played upon a stage that + is close to us, & yet we are as ignorant of its details as we should + be if the stage were in China. We sit "in front," & the audience is + in fact the world; but the curtain is down, & from behind it we hear + only an inarticulate murmur. The Hamburg disaster must go into + history as the disaster without a history. + +He closes with an item from a physician's letter--an item which he says +"gives you a sudden and terrific sense of the situation there." + For in a line it flashes before you--this ghastly picture--a thing + seen by the physician: a wagon going along the street with five sick + people in it, and with them four dead ones. + + + + +CLXXXII + +THE VILLA VIVIANI + +'The American Claimant', published in May l (1892), did not bring a very +satisfactory return. For one thing, the book-trade was light, and then +the Claimant was not up to his usual standard. It had been written under +hard circumstances and by a pen long out of practice; it had not paid, +and its author must work all the harder on the new undertakings. The +conditions at Nauheim seemed favorable, and they lingered there until +well into September. To Mrs. Crane, who had returned to America, Clemens +wrote on the 18th, from Lucerne, in the midst of their travel to Italy: + + We remained in Nauheim a little too long. If we had left four or + five days earlier we should have made Florence in three days. Hard + trip because it was one of those trains that gets tired every 7 + minutes and stops to rest three-quarters of an hour. It took us + 3 1/2 hours to get there instead of the regulation 2 hours. We + shall pull through to Milan to-morrow if possible. Next day we + shall start at 10 AM and try to make Bologna, 5 hours. Next day, + Florence, D. V. Next year we will walk. Phelps came to Frankfort + and we had some great times--dinner at his hotel; & the Masons, + supper at our inn--Livy not in it. She was merely allowed a + glimpse, no more. Of course Phelps said she was merely pretending + to be ill; was never looking so well & fine. + + A Paris journal has created a happy interest by inoculating one of + its correspondents with cholera. A man said yesterday he wished to + God they would inoculate all of them. Yes, the interest is quite + general and strong & much hope is felt. + + Livy says I have said enough bad things, and better send all our + loves & shut up. Which I do--and shut up. + +They lingered at Lucerne until Mrs. Clemens was rested and better able to +continue the journey, arriving at last in Florence, September 26th. They +drove out to the Villa Viviani in the afternoon and found everything in +readiness for their reception, even to the dinner, which was prepared and +on the table. Clemens, in his notes, speaks of this and adds: + +It takes but a sentence to state that, but it makes an indolent person +tired to think of the planning & work and trouble that lie concealed in +it. + +Some further memoranda made at this time have that intimate interest +which gives reality and charm. The 'contadino' brought up their trunks +from the station, and Clemens wrote: + + The 'contadino' is middle-aged & like the rest of the peasants--that + is to say, brown, handsome, good-natured, courteous, & entirely + independent without making any offensive show of it. He charged too + much for the trunks, I was told. My informer explained that this + was customary. + + September 27. The rest of the trunks brought up this morning. He + charged too much again, but I was told that this was also customary. + It's all right, then. I do not wish to violate the customs. Hired + landau, horses, & coachman. Terms, 480 francs a month & a pourboire + to the coachman, I to furnish lodging for the man & the horses, but + nothing else. The landau has seen better days & weighs 30 tons. + The horses are feeble & object to the landau; they stop & turn + around every now & then & examine it with surprise & suspicion. + This causes delay. But it entertains the people along the road. + They came out & stood around with their hands in their pockets & + discussed the matter with each other. I was told that they said + that a 30-ton landau was not the thing for horses like those--what + they needed was a wheelbarrow. + +His description of the house pictures it as exactly today as it did then, +for it has not changed in these twenty years, nor greatly, perhaps, in +the centuries since it was built. + It is a plain, square building, like a box, & is painted light + yellow & has green window-shutters. It stands in a commanding + position on the artificial terrace of liberal dimensions, which is + walled around with masonry. From the walls the vineyards & olive + orchards of the estate slant away toward the valley. There are + several tall trees, stately stone-pines, also fig-trees & trees of + breeds not familiar to me. Roses overflow the retaining-walls, & + the battered & mossy stone urn on the gate-posts, in pink & yellow + cataracts exactly as they do on the drop-curtains in the theaters. + The house is a very fortress for strength. The main walls--all + brick covered with plaster--are about 3 feet thick. I have several + times tried to count the rooms of the house, but the irregularities + baffle me. There seem to be 28. There are plenty of windows & + worlds of sunlight. The floors are sleek & shiny & full of + reflections, for each is a mirror in its way, softly imaging all + objects after the subdued fashion of forest lakes. The curious + feature of the house is the salon. This is a spacious & lofty + vacuum which occupies the center of the house. All the rest of the + house is built around it; it extends up through both stories & its + roof projects some feet above the rest of the building. The sense + of its vastness strikes you the moment you step into it & cast your + eyes around it & aloft. There are divans distributed along its + walls. They make little or no show, though their aggregate length + is 57 feet. A piano in it is a lost object. We have tried to + reduce the sense of desert space & emptiness with tables & things, + but they have a defeated look, & do not do any good. Whatever + stands or moves under that soaring painted vault is belittled. + +He describes the interior of this vast room (they grew to love it), +dwelling upon the plaster-relief portraits above its six doors, +Florentine senators and judges, ancient dwellers there and former owners +of the estate. + + The date of one of them is 1305--middle-aged, then, & a judge--he + could have known, as a youth, the very greatest Italian artists, & + he could have walked & talked with Dante, & probably did. The date + of another is 1343--he could have known Boccaccio & spent his + afternoons wandering in Fiesole, gazing down on plague-reeking + Florence & listening to that man's improper tales, & he probably + did. The date of another is 1463--he could have met Columbus & he + knew the magnificent Lorenzo, of course. These are all Cerretanis + --or Cerretani-Twains, as I may say, for I have adopted myself into + their family on account of its antiquity--my origin having been + heretofore too recent to suit me. + +We are considering the details of Viviani at some length, for it was in +this setting that he began and largely completed what was to be his most +important work of this later time--in some respects his most important of +any time--the 'Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc'. If the reader +loves this book, and he must love it if he has read it, he will not +begrudge the space here given to the scene of its inspiration. The +outdoor picture of Viviani is of even more importance, for he wrote +oftener out-of-doors than elsewhere. Clemens added it to his notes +several months later, but it belongs here. + + The situation of this villa is perfect. It is three miles from + Florence, on the side of a hill. Beyond some hill-spurs is Fiesole + perched upon its steep terraces; in the immediate foreground is the + imposing mass of the Ross castle, its walls and turrets rich with + the mellow weather-stains of forgotten centuries; in the distant + plain lies Florence, pink & gray & brown, with the ruddy, huge dome + of the cathedral dominating its center like a captive balloon, & + flanked on the right by the smaller bulb of the Medici chapel & on + the left by the airy tower of the Palazzo Vecchio; all around the + horizon is a billowy rim of lofty blue hills, snowed white with + innumerable villas. After nine months of familiarity with this + panorama I still think, as I thought in the beginning, that this is + the fairest picture on our planet, the most enchanting to look upon, + the most satisfying to the eye & the spirit. To see the sun sink + down, drowned in his pink & purple & golden floods, & overwhelm + Florence with tides of color that make all the sharp lines dim & + faint & turn the solid city into a city of dreams, is a sight to + stir the coldest nature & make a sympathetic one drunk with ecstasy. + +The Clemens household at Florence consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Clemens, +Susy, and Jean. Clara had soon returned to Berlin to attend Mrs. +Willard's school and for piano instruction. Mrs. Clemens improved in the +balmy autumn air of Florence and in the peaceful life of their +well-ordered villa. In a memorandum of October 27th Clemens wrote: + + The first month is finished. We are wonted now. This carefree life + at a Florentine villa is an ideal existence. The weather is divine, + the outside aspects lovely, the days and nights tranquil and + reposeful, the seclusion from the world and its worries as + satisfactory as a dream. Late in the afternoons friends come out + from the city & drink tea in the open air & tell what is happening + in the world; & when the great sun sinks down upon Florence & the + daily miracle begins they hold their breath & look. It is not a + time for talk. + +No wonder he could work in that environment. He finished 'Tom Sawyer +Abroad', also a short story, 'The L 1,000,000 Bank-Note' (planned many +years before), discovered the literary mistake of the 'Extraordinary +Twins' and began converting it into the worthier tale, 'Pudd'nhead +Wilson', soon completed and on its way to America. + +With this work out of his hands, Clemens was ready for his great new +undertaking. A seed sown by the wind more than forty years before was +ready to bloom. He would write the story of Joan of Arc. + + + + +CLXXXIII + +THE SIEUR DE CONTE AND JOAN + +In a note which he made many years later Mark Twain declared that he was +fourteen years at work on Joan of Arc; that he had been twelve years +preparing for it, and that he was two years in writing it. + +There is nothing in any of his earlier notes or letters to indicate that +he contemplated the story of Joan as early as the eighties; but there is +a bibliographical list of various works on the subject, probably compiled +for him not much later than 1880, for the latest published work of the +list bears that date. He was then too busy with his inventions and +publishing schemes to really undertake a work requiring such vast +preparation; but without doubt he procured a number of books and renewed +that old interest begun so long ago when a stray wind had blown a leaf +from that tragic life into his own. Joan of Arc, by Janet Tuckey, was +apparently the first book he read with the definite idea of study, for +this little volume had been recently issued, and his copy, which still +exists, is filled with his marginal notes. He did not speak of this +volume in discussing the matter in after-years. He may have forgotten +it. He dwelt mainly on the old records of the trial which had been dug +out and put into modern French by Quicherat; the 'Jeanne d'Arc' of J. +Michelet, and the splendid 'Life of the Maid' of Lord Ronald Gower, these +being remembered as his chief sources of information.--[The book of Janet +Tuckey, however, and ten others, including those mentioned, are credited +as "authorities examined in verification" on a front page of his +published book. In a letter written at the conclusion of "Joan" in 1895, +the author states that in the first two-thirds of the story he used one +French and one English authority, while in the last third he had +constantly drawn from five French and five English sources.] + +"I could not get the Quicherat and some of the other books in English," +he said, "and I had to dig them out of the French. I began the story +five times." + +None of these discarded beginnings exists to-day, but we may believe they +were wisely put aside, for no story of the Maid could begin more +charmingly, more rarely, than the one supposedly told in his old age by +Sieur Louis de Conte, secretary of Joan of Arc, and translated by Jean +Francois Alden for the world to read. The impulse which had once +prompted Mark Twain to offer The Prince and the Pauper anonymously now +prevailed. He felt that the Prince had missed a certain appreciation by +being connected with his signature, and he resolved that its companion +piece (he so regarded Joan) should be accepted on its merits and without +prejudice. Walking the floor one day at Viviani, smoking vigorously, he +said to Mrs. Clemens and Susy: + +"I shall never be accepted seriously over my own signature. People +always want to laugh over what I write and are disappointed if they don't +find a joke in it. This is to be a serious book. It means more to me +than anything I have ever undertaken. I shall write it anonymously." + +So it was that that gentle, quaint Sieur de Conte took up the pen, and +the tale of Joan was begun in that beautiful spot which of all others +seems now the proper environment for its lovely telling. + +He wrote rapidly once he got his plan perfected and his material +arranged. The reading of his youth and manhood, with the vivid +impressions of that earlier time, became now something remembered, not +merely as reading, but as fact. + +Others of the family went down into the city almost daily, but he +remained in that still garden with Joan as his companion--the old Sieur +de Conte, saturated with memories, pouring out that marvelous and tragic +tale. At the end of each day he would read to the others what he had +written, to their enjoyment and wonder. + +How rapidly he worked may be judged from a letter which he wrote to Hall +in February, in which he said: + +I am writing a companion piece to 'The Prince and the Pauper', which is +half done & will make 200,000 words. + +That is to say, he had written one hundred thousand words in a period of +perhaps six weeks, marvelous work when one remembers that after all he +was writing history, some of which he must dig laboriously from a foreign +source. He had always, more or less, kept up his study of the French, +begun so long ago on the river and it stood him in good stead now. Still, +it was never easy for him, and the multitude of notes along the margin of +his French authorities bears evidence of his faithfulness and the +magnitude of his toil. No previous work had ever required so much of +him, such thorough knowledge; none had ever so completely commanded his +interest. He would have been willing to remain shut away from visitors, +to have been released altogether from social obligations; and he did +avoid most of them. Not all, for he could not always escape, and perhaps +did not always really wish to. Florence and its suburbs were full of +delightful people--some of them his old friends. There were luncheons, +dinners, teas, dances, concerts, operas always in progress somewhere, and +not all of these were to be resisted even by an absorbed author who was +no longer himself, but sad old Sieur de Conte, following again the banner +of the Maid of Orleans, marshaling her twilight armies across his +illumined page. + + + + +CLXXXIV + +NEW HOPE IN THE MACHINE + +If all human events had not been ordered in the first act of the primal +atom, and so become inevitable, it would seem a pity now that he must +abandon his work half-way, and make another hard, distracting trip to +America. + +But it was necessary for him to go. Even Hall was no longer optimistic. +His letters provided only the barest shreds of hope. Times were hard and +there was every reason to believe they would be worse. The World's Fair +year promised to be what it speedily became--one of the hardest financial +periods this country has ever seen. Chicago could hardly have selected a +more profitless time for her great exposition. Clemens wrote urging Hall +to sell out all, or a portion, of the business--to do anything, indeed, +that would avoid the necessity of further liability and increased dread. +Every payment that could be spared from the sales of his manuscript was +left in Hall's hands, and such moneys as still came to Mrs. Clemens from +her Elmira interests were flung into the general fund. The latter were +no longer large, for Langdon & Co. were suffering heavily in the general +depression, barely hoping to weather the financial storm. + +It is interesting to note that age and misfortune and illness had a +tempering influence on Mark Twain's nature. Instead of becoming harsh +and severe and bitter, he had become more gentle, more kindly. He wrote +often to Hall, always considerately, even tenderly. Once, when something +in Hall's letter suggested that he had perhaps been severe, he wrote: + + Mrs. Clemens is deeply distressed, for she thinks I have been + blaming you or finding fault with you about something. But most + assuredly that cannot be. I tell her that although I am prone to + write hasty and regrettable things to other people I am not a bit + likely to write such things to you. I can't believe I have done + anything so ungrateful. If I have, pile coals of fire upon my head + for I deserve it. You have done magnificently with the business, & + we must raise the money somehow to enable you to reap a reward for + all that labor. + +He was fond of Hall. He realized how honest and resolute and industrious +he had been. In another letter he wrote him that it was wonderful he had +been able to "keep the ship afloat in the storm that has seen fleets and +fleets go down"; and he added: "Mrs. Clemens says I must tell you not to +send us any money for a month or two, so that you may be afforded what +little relief is in our power." + +The type-setter situation seemed to promise something. In fact, the +machine once more had become the principal hope of financial salvation. +The new company seemed really to begetting ahead in spite of the money +stringency, and was said to have fifty machines well under way: About the +middle of March Clemens packed up two of his shorter manuscripts which he +had written at odd times and forwarded them to Hall, in the hope that +they would be disposed of and the money waiting him on his arrival; and a +week later, March 22, 1893, he sailed from Genoa on the Kaiser Wilhelm +II, a fine, new boat. One of the manuscripts was 'The Californian's +Tale' and the other was 'Adam's Diary'.--[It seems curious that neither +of these tales should have found welcome with the magazines. "The +Californian's Tale" was published in the Liber Scriptorum, an Authors' +Club book, edited by Arthur Stedman. The 'Diary' was disposed of to the +Niagara Book, a souvenir of Niagara Falls, which contained sketches by +Howells, Clemens, and others. Harper's Magazine republished both these +stories in later years--the Diary especially with great success.] + +Some joke was likely to be played on Mark Twain during these ocean +journeys, and for this particular voyage an original one was planned. +They knew how he would fume and swear if he should be discovered with +dutiable goods and held up in the Custom House, and they planned for this +effect. A few days before arriving in New York one passenger after +another came to him, each with a box of expensive cigars, and some +pleasant speech expressing friendship and appreciation and a hope that +they would be remembered in absence, etc., until he had perhaps ten or a +dozen very choice boxes of smoking material. He took them all with +gratitude and innocence. He had never declared any dutiable baggage, +entering New York alone, and it never occurred to him that he would need +to do so now. His trunk and bags were full; he had the cigars made into +a nice package, to be carried handily, and on his arrival at the North +German Lloyd docks stood waiting among his things for the formality of +Customs examination, his friends assembled for the explosion. + +They had not calculated well; the Custom-House official came along +presently with the usual "Open your baggage, please," then suddenly +recognizing the owner of it he said: + +"Oh, Mr. Clemens, excuse me. We have orders to extend to you the +courtesies of the port. No examination of your effects is necessary." + +It was the evening of Monday, April 3d, when he landed in New York and +went to the Hotel Glenham. In his notes he tells of having a two-hour +talk with Howells on the following night. They had not seen each other +for two years, and their correspondence had been broken off. It was a +happy, even if somewhat sad, reunion, for they were no longer young, and +when they called the roll of friends there were many vacancies. They had +reached an age where some one they loved died every year. Writing to +Mrs. Crane, Clemens speaks of the ghosts of memory; then he says: + + I dreamed I was born & grew up & was a pilot on the Mississippi & a + miner & a journalist in Nevada & a pilgrim in the Quaker City & had + a wife & children & went to live in a villa at Florence--& this + dream goes on & on & sometimes seems so real that I almost believe + it is real. I wonder if it is? But there is no way to tell, for if + one applies tests they would be part of the dream, too, & so would + simply aid the deceit. I wish I knew whether it is a dream or real. + +He was made handsomely welcome in New York. His note-book says: + + Wednesday. Dined with Mary Mapes Dodge, Howells, Rudyard Kipling & + wife, Clarke,--[ William Fayal Clarke, now editor of St. Nicholas + Magazine.]--Jamie Dodge & wife. + + Thursday, 6th. Dined with Andrew Carnegie, Prof. Goldwin Smith, + John Cameron, Mr. Glenn. Creation of league for absorbing Canada + into our Union. Carnegie also wants to add Great Britain & Ireland. + +It was on this occasion that Carnegie made his celebrated maxim about the +basket and the eggs. Clemens was suggesting that Carnegie take an +interest in the typesetter, and quoted the old adage that one should not +put all of his eggs into one basket. Carnegie regarded him through +half-closed lids, as was his custom, and answered: + + "That's a mistake; put all your eggs into one basket--and watch that + basket." + +He had not come to America merely for entertainment. He was at the New +York office of the type-setter company, acquiring there what seemed to be +good news, for he was assured that his interests were being taken care +of, and that within a year at most his royalty returns would place him +far beyond the fear of want. He forwarded this good news to Italy, where +it was sorely needed, for Mrs. Clemens found her courage not easy to +sustain in his absence. That he had made his letter glowing enough, we +may gather from her answer. + + It does not seem credible that we are really again to have money to + spend. I think I will jump around and spend money just for fun, and + give a little away, if we really get some. What should we do and + how should we feel if we had no bright prospects before us, and yet + how many people are situated in that way? + +He decided to make another trip to Chicago to verify, with his own eyes, +the manufacturing reports, and to see Paige, who would appear to have +become more elusive than ever as to contracts, written and implied. He +took Hall with him, and wrote Orion to meet him at the Great Northern +Hotel. This would give him a chance to see Orion and would give Orion a +chance to see the great Fair. He was in Chicago eleven days, and in bed +with a heavy cold almost the whole of that time. Paige came to see him +at his rooms, and, as always, was rich in prospects and promises; full of +protestations that, whatever came, when the tide of millions rolled in, +they would share and share alike. The note-book says: + + Paige shed even more tears than usual. What a talker he is! He + could persuade a fish to come out and take a walk with him. When he + is present I always believe him; I can't help it. + +Clemens returned to New York as soon as he was able to travel. Going +down in the elevator a man stepped in from one of the floors swearing +violently. Clemens, leaning over to Hall, with his hand to his mouth, +and in a whisper audible to every one, said: + +"Bishop of Chicago." + +The man, with a quick glance, recognized his fellow-passenger and +subsided. + +On May 13th Clemens took the Kaiser Wilhelm II. for Genoa. He had +accomplished little, but he was in better spirits as to the machine. If +only the strain of his publishing business had slackened even for a +moment! Night and day it was always with him. Hall presently wrote that +the condition of the money-market was "something beyond description. You +cannot get money on anything short of government bonds." The Mount +Morris Bank would no longer handle their paper. The Clemens household +resorted to economies hitherto undreamed of. Mrs. Clemens wrote to her +sister that she really did not see sometimes where their next money would +come from. She reported that her husband got up in the night and walked +the floor in his distress. + +He wrote again to Hall, urging him to sell and get rid of the debts and +responsibilities at whatever sacrifice: + + I am terribly tired of business. I am by nature and disposition + unfit for it, & I want to get out of it. I am standing on the Mount + Morris volcano with help from the machine a long, long way off--& + doubtless a long way further off than the Connecticut company + imagine. + + Get me out of business! + +He knew something of the delays of completing a typesetting machine, and +he had little faith in any near relief from that source. He wrote again +go Hall, urging him to sell some of his type-setter royalties. They +should be worth something now since the manufacturing company was +actually in operation; but with the terrible state of the money-market +there was no sale for anything. Clemens attempted to work, but put in +most of his time footing up on the margin of his manuscript the amount of +his indebtedness, the expenses of his household, and the possibilities of +his income. It was weary, hard, nerve-racking employment. About the +muddle of June they closed Viviani. Susy Clemens went to Paris to +cultivate her voice, a rare soprano, with a view to preparing for the +operatic stage. Clemens took Mrs. Clemens, with little Jean, to Germany +for the baths. Clara, who had graduated from Mrs. Willard's school in +Berlin, joined them in Munich, and somewhat later Susy also joined them, +for Madame Marchesi, the great master of voice-culture, had told her that +she must acquire physique to carry that voice of hers before she would +undertake to teach her. + +In spite of his disturbed state of mind Clemens must have completed some +literary work during this period, for we find first mention, in a letter +to Hall, of his immortal defense of Harriet Shelley, a piece of writing +all the more marvelous when we consider the conditions of its +performance. Characteristically, in the same letter, he suddenly +develops a plan for a new enterprise--this time for a magazine which +Arthur Stedman or his father will edit, and the Webster company will +publish as soon as their present burdens are unloaded. But we hear no +more of this project. + +But by August he was half beside himself with anxiety. On the 6th he +wrote Hall: + + Here we never see a newspaper, but even if we did I could not come + anywhere near appreciating or correctly estimating the tempest you + have been buffeting your way through--only the man who is in it can + do that--but I have tried not to burden you thoughtlessly or + wantonly. I have been overwrought & unsettled in mind by + apprehensions, & that is a thing that is not helpable when one is in + a strange land & sees his resources melt down to a two months' + supply & can't see any sure daylight beyond. The bloody machine + offers but a doubtful outlook--& will still offer nothing much + better for a long time to come; for when the "three weeks" are up, + there will be three months' tinkering to follow, I guess. That is + unquestionably the boss machine of the world, but is the toughest + one on prophets when it is in an incomplete state that has ever seen + the light. + +And three days later: + + Great Scott, but it's a long year--for you & me! I never knew the + almanac to drag so. At least not since I was finishing that other + machine. + + I watch for your letters hungrily--just as I used to watch for the + telegram saying the machine's finished--but when "next week + certainly" suddenly swelled into "three weeks sure" I recognized the + old familiar tune I used to hear so much. W----don't know what + sick-heartedness is--but he is in a way to find out. + +And finally, on the 4th: + + I am very glad indeed if you and Mr. Langdon are able to see any + daylight ahead. To me none is visible. I strongly advise that + every penny that comes in shall be applied to paying off debts. I + may be in error about this, but it seems to me that we have no other + course open. We can pay a part of the debts owing to outsiders + --none to Clemenses. In very prosperous times we might regard our + stock & copyrights as assets sufficient, with the money owing to us, + to square up & quit even, but I suppose we may not hope for such + luck in the present condition of things. + + What I am mainly hoping for is to save my book royalties. If they + come into danger I hope you will cable me so that I can come over & + try to save them, for if they go I am a beggar. + + I would sail to-day if I had anybody to take charge of my family & + help them through the difficult journeys commanded by the doctors. + +A few days later he could stand it no longer, and on August 29 (1893) +sailed, the second time that year, for New York. + + + + +CLXXXV + +AN INTRODUCTION TO H. H. ROGERS + +Clemens took a room at The Players--"a cheap room," he wrote, "at $1.50 +per day." It was now the end of September, the beginning of a long +half-year, during which Mark Twain's fortunes were at a lower ebb than +ever before; lower, even, than during those mining days among the bleak +Esmeralda hills. Then he had no one but him self and was young. Now, at +fifty-eight, he had precious lives dependent upon him, and he was weighed +down with a vast burden of debt. The liabilities of Charles L. Webster & +Co. were fully two hundred thousand dollars. Something like sixty +thousand dollars of this was money supplied by Mrs. Clemens, but the vast +remaining sum was due to banks, to printers, to binders, and to dealers +in various publishing materials. Somehow it must be paid. As for their +assets, they looked ample enough on paper, but in reality, at a time like +this, they were problematical. In fact, their value was very doubtful +indeed. What he was to do Clemens did not know. He could not even send +cheerful reports to Europe. There was no longer anything to promise +concerning the type-setter. The fifty machines which the company had +started to build had dwindled to ten machines; there was a prospect that +the ten would dwindle to one, and that one a reconstruction of the +original Hartford product, which had cost so much money and so many weary +years. Clemens spent a good part of his days at The Players, reading or +trying to write or seeking to divert his mind in the company of the +congenial souls there, waiting for-he knew not what. + +Yet at this very moment a factor was coming into his life, a human +element, a man to whom in his old age Mark Twain owed more than to any +other of his myriad of friends. One night, when he was with Dr. Clarence +C. Rice at the Murray Hill Hotel, Rice said: + +"Clemens, I want you to know my friend, Mr. H. H. Rogers. He is an +admirer of your books." + +Clemens turned and was looking into the handsome, clean-cut features of +the great financier, whose name was hardly so familiar then as it became +at a later period, but whose power was already widely known and felt +among his kind. + +"Mr. Clemens," said Mr. Rogers, "I was one of your early admirers. I +heard you lecture a long time ago on the Sandwich Islands. I was +interested in the subject in those days, and I heard that Mark Twain was +a man who had been there. I didn't suppose I'd have any difficulty +getting a seat, but I did; the house was jammed. When I came away I +realized that Mark Twain was a great man, and I have read everything of +yours since that I could get hold of." + +They sat down at a table, and Clemens told some of his amusing stories. +Rogers was in a perpetual gale of laughter. When at last he rose to go +the author and the financier were as old friends. Mr. Rogers urged him +to visit him at his home. He must introduce him to Mrs. Rogers, he said, +who was also his warm admirer. It was only a little while after this +that Dr. Rice said to the millionaire: + +"Mr. Rogers, I wish you would look into Clemens's finances a little: I am +afraid they are a good deal confused." + +This would be near the end of September, 1893. On October 18 Clemens +wrote home concerning a possible combination of Webster & Co. with John +Brisben Walker, of the 'Cosmopolitan', and added: + + I have got the best and wisest man of the whole Standard Oil group-a + multi-millionaire--a good deal interested in looking into the type- + setter. He has been searching into that thing for three weeks and + yesterday he said to me: + + "I find the machine to be all you represent it. I have here + exhaustive reports from my own experts, and I know every detail of + its capacity, its immense construction, its cost, its history, and + all about its inventor's character. I know that the New York + company and the Chicago company are both stupid, and that they are + unbusinesslike people, destitute of money and in a hopeless boggle." + +Then he told me the scheme he had planned and said: + + "If I can arrange with these people on this basis--it will take + several weeks to find out--I will see to it that they get the money + they need. In the mean time you 'stop walking the floor'." + +Of course, with this encouragement, Clemens was in the clouds again. +Furthermore, Rogers had suggested to his son-in-law, William Evarts +Benjamin, also a subscription publisher, that he buy from the Webster +company The Library of American Literature for fifty thousand dollars, a +sum which provided for the more insistent creditors. There was hope that +the worst was over. Clemens did in reality give up walking the floor, +and for the time, at least, found happier diversions. He must not return +to Europe as yet, for the type-setter matter was still far from +conclusion. On the 11th of November he was gorgeously entertained by the +Lotos Club in its new building. Introducing him, President Frank +Lawrence said: + +"What name is there in literature that can be likened to his? Perhaps +some of the distinguished gentlemen about this table can tell us, but I +know of none. Himself his only parallel, it seems to me. He is all our +own--a ripe and perfect product of the American soil." + + + + +CLXXXVI + +"THE BELLE OF NEW YORK" + +Those were feverish weeks of waiting, with days of alternate depression +and exaltation as the pendulum swung to and fro between hope and despair. +By daylight Clemens tried to keep himself strenuously busy; evenings and +nights he plunged into social activities--dinners, amusements, suppers, +balls, and the like. He was besieged with invitations, sought for by +the gayest and the greatest; "Jamie" Dodge conferred upon him the +appropriate title: of "The Belle of New York." In his letters home he +describes in detail many of the festivities and the wildness with which +he has flung himself into them, dilating on his splendid renewal of +health, his absolute immunity from fatigue. He attributes this to his +indifference to diet and regularities of meals and sleep; but we may +guess that it was due to a reaction from having shifted his burden to +stronger financial shoulders. Henry Rogers had taken his load upon him. + +"It rests me," Rogers said, "to experiment with the affairs of a friend +when I am tired of my own. You enjoy yourself. Let me work at the +puzzle a little." + +And Clemens, though his conscience pricked him, obeyed, as was his habit +at such times. To Mrs. Clemens (in Paris now, at the Hotel Brighton) he +wrote: + + He is not common clay, but fine-fine & delicate. I did hate to + burden his good heart & overworked head, but he took hold with + avidity & said it was no burden to work for his friends, but a + pleasure. When I arrived in September, Lord! how black the prospect + was & how desperate, how incurably desperate! Webster & Co. had to + have a small sum of money or go under at once. I flew to Hartford + --to my friends--but they were not moved, not strongly interested, & + I was ashamed that I went. It was from Mr. Rogers, a stranger, that + I got the money and was by it saved. And then--while still a + stranger--he set himself the task of saving my financial life + without putting upon me (in his native delicacy) any sense that I + was the recipient of a charity, a benevolence. He gave time to me + --time, which could not be bought by any man at $100,000 a + month--no, nor for three times the money. + +He adds that a friend has just offered to Webster & Co. a book that +arraigns the Standard Oil magnates individual by individual. + + I wanted to say the only man I care for in the world, the only man I + would give a d---n for, the only man who is lavishing his sweat & + blood to save me & mine from starvation is a Standard Oil magnate. + If you know me, you know whether I want the book or not. + + But I didn't say that. I said I didn't want any book; I wanted to + get out of this publishing business & out of all business & was here + for that purpose & would accomplish it if I could. + +He tells how he played billiards with Rogers, tirelessly as always, until +the millionaire had looked at him helplessly and asked: + +"Don't you ever get tired?" + +And he answered: + +"I don't know what it is to get tired. I wish I did." + +He wrote of going with Mr. Rogers to the Madison Square Garden to see an +exhibition of boxing given by the then splendid star of pugilism, James +J. Corbett. Dr. Rice accompanied him, and painters Robert Reid and +Edward Simmons, from The Players. They had five seats in a box, and +Stanford White came along presently and took Clemens into the champion's +dressing-room. + + Corbett has a fine face and is modest and diffident, besides being + the most perfectly & beautifully constructed human animal in the + world. I said: + + "You have whipped Mitchell & maybe you will whip Jackson in June + --but you are not done then. You will have to tackle me." + + He answered, so gravely that one might easily have thought him in + earnest: + + "No, I am not going to meet you in the ring. It is not fair or + right to require it. You might chance to knock me out, by no merit + of your own, but by a purely accidental blow, & then my reputation + would be gone & you would have a double one. You have got fame + enough & you ought not to want to take mine away from me." + + Corbett was for a long time a clerk in the Nevada Bank, in San + Francisco. + + There were lots of little boxing-matches to entertain the crowd; + then at last Corbett appeared in the ring & the 8,000 people present + went mad with enthusiasm. My two artists went mad about his form. + They said they had never seen anything that came reasonably near + equalling its perfection except Greek statues, & they didn't surpass + it. + + Corbett boxed 3 rounds with the middle-weight Australian champion + --oh, beautiful to see!--then the show was over and we struggled out + through a perfect mash of humanity. When we reached the street I + found I had left my arctics in the box. I had to have them, so + Simmons said he would go back & get them, & I didn't dissuade him. + I wouldn't see how he was going to make his way a single yard into + that solid incoming wave of people--yet he must plow through it full + 50 yards. He was back with the shoes in 3 minutes! + + How do you reckon he accomplished that miracle? By saying: + + "Way, gentlemen, please--coming to fetch Mr. Corbett's overshoes." + + The word flew from mouth to mouth, the Red Sea divided, & Simmons + walked comfortably through & back, dry-shod. This is Fire-escape + Simmons, the inveterate talker, you know: Exit--in case of Simmons. + + I had an engagement at a beautiful dwelling close to The Players for + 10.30; I was there by 10.45. Thirty cultivated & very musical + ladies & gentlemen present--all of them acquaintances & many of them + personal friends of mine. That wonderful Hungarian band was there + (they charge $500 for an evening). Conversation and band until + midnight; then a bite of supper; then the company was compactly + grouped before me & I told them about Dr. B. E. Martin & the + etchings, & followed it with the Scotch-Irish christening. My, but + the Martin is a darling story! Next, the head tenor from the Opera + sang half a dozen great songs that set the company wild, yes, mad + with delight, that nobly handsome young Damrosch accompanying on the + piano. + + Just a little pause, then the band burst out into an explosion of + weird and tremendous dance-music, a Hungarian celebrity & his wife + took the floor; I followed--I couldn't help it; the others drifted + in, one by one, & it was Onteora over again. + + By half past 4. I had danced all those people down--& yet was not + tired; merely breathless. I was in bed at 5 & asleep in ten + minutes. Up at 9 & presently at work on this letter to you. I + think I wrote until 2 or half past. Then I walked leisurely out to + Mr. Rogers's (it is called 3 miles, but is short of it), arriving at + 3.30, but he was out--to return at 5.30--so I didn't stay, but + dropped over and chatted with Howells until five. + +--[Two Mark Twain anecdotes are remembered of that winter at The Players: + +Just before Christmas a member named Scott said one day: + +"Mr. Clemens, you have an extra overcoat hanging in the coatroom. I've +got to attend my uncle's funeral and it's raining very hard. I'd like to +wear it." + +The coat was an old one, in the pockets of which Clemens kept a +melancholy assortment of pipes, soiled handkerchiefs, neckties, letters, +and what not. + +"Scott," he said, "if you won't lose anything out of the pockets of that +coat you may wear it." + +An hour or two later Clemens found a notice in his mail-box that a +package for him was in the office. He called for it and found a neat +bundle, which somehow had a Christmas look. He carried it up to the +reading-room with a showy, air. + +"Now, boys," he said, "you may make all the fun of Christmas you like, +but it's pretty nice, after all, to be remembered." + +They gathered around and he undid the package. It was filled with the +pipes, soiled handkerchiefs, and other articles from the old overcoat. +Scott had taken special precautions against losing them. + +Mark Twain regarded them a moment in silence, then he drawled: + +"Well--, d---n Scott. I hope his uncle's funeral will be a failure!" + +The second anecdote concerns The Player egg-cups. They easily hold two +eggs, but not three. One morning a new waiter came to take the breakfast +order. Clemens said: + +"Boy, put three soft eggs in that cup for me." + +By and by the waiter returned, bringing the breakfast. Clemens looked at +the egg portion and asked: + +"Boy, what was my order?" + +"Three soft eggs broken in the cup, Mr. Clemens." + +"And you've filled that order, have you?" + +"Yes, Mr. Clemens." + +"Boy, you are trifling with the truth; I've been trying all winter to get +three eggs into that cup."] + +In one letter he tells of a dinner with his old Comstock friend, John +Mackay--a dinner without any frills, just soup and raw oysters and corned +beef and cabbage, such as they had reveled in sometimes, in prosperous +moments, thirty years before. + +"The guests were old gray Pacific coasters," he said, "whom I knew when +they were young and not gray. The talk was of the days when we went +gipsying-along time ago--thirty years." + +Indeed, it was a talk of the dead. Mainly that. And of how they looked +& the harum-scarum things they did & said. For there were no cares in +that life, no aches & pains, & not time enough in the day (& +three-fourths of the night) to work off one's surplus vigor & energy. Of +the midnight highway-robbery joke played upon me with revolvers at my +head on the windswept & desolate Gold Hill Divide no witness was left but +me, the victim. Those old fools last night laughed till they cried over +the particulars of that old forgotten crime. + +In still another letter he told of a very wonderful entertainment at +Robert Reid's studio. There were present, he says: + + Coquelin; + Richard Harding Davis; + Harrison, the great outdoor painter; + Wm. H. Chase, the artist; + Bettini, inventor of the new phonograph; + Nikola Tesla, the world-wide illustrious electrician; see article + about him in Jan. or Feb. Century. + John Drew, actor; + James Barnes, a marvelous mimic; my, you should see him! + Smedley, the artist; + Zorn, " " + Zogbaum, " " + Reinhart, " " + Metcalf, " " + Ancona, head tenor at the Opera; + + Oh, & a great lot of others. Everybody there had done something & + was in his way famous. + + Somebody welcomed Coquelin in a nice little French speech, John Drew + did the like for me in English, & then the fun began. Coquelin did + some excellent French monologues--one of them an ungrammatical + Englishman telling a colorless historiette in French. It nearly + killed the fifteen or twenty people who understood it. + + I told a yarn, Ancona sang half a dozen songs, Barnes did his + darling imitations, Handing Davis sang the hanging of Danny Deever, + which was of course good, but he followed it with that mast + fascinating (for what reason I don't know) of all Kipling's poems, + "On the Road to Mandalay," sang it tenderly, & it searched me deeper + & charmed me more than the Deever. + + Young Gerrit Smith played some ravishing dance-music, & we all + danced about an hour. There couldn't be a pleasanter night than + that one was. Some of those people complained of fatigue, but I + don't seem to know what the sense of fatigue is. + +In his reprieve he was like some wild thing that had regained liberty. + +He refers to Susy's recent illness and to Mrs. Clemens's own poor state +of health. + + Dear, dear Susy! My strength reproaches me when I think of her and + you. + + It is an unspeakable pity that you should be without any one to go + about with the girls, & it troubles me, & grieves me, & makes me + curse & swear; but you see, dear heart, I've got to stick right + where I am till I find out whether we are rich or whether the + poorest person we are acquainted with in anybody's kitchen is better + off than we are. . I stand on the land-end of a springboard, with + the family clustered on the other end; if I take my foot---- + +He realized his hopes to her as a vessel trying to make port; once he +wrote: + + The ship is in sight now .... + + When the anchor is down then I shall say: + + "Farewell--a long farewell--to business! I will never touch it + again!" + + I will live in literature, I will wallow in it, revel in it; I will + swim in ink! 'Joan of Arc'--but all this is premature; the anchor + is not down yet. + +Sometimes he sent her impulsive cables calculating to sustain hope. Mrs. +Clemens, writing to her sister in January, said: + + Mr. Clemens now for ten days has been hourly expecting to send me + word that Paige had signed the (new) contract, but as yet no + despatch comes . . . . On the 5th of this month I received a + cable, "Expect good news in ten days." On the 15th I receive a + cable, "Look out for good news." On the 19th a cable, "Nearing + success." + +It appealed to her sense of humor even in these dark days. She added: + + They make me laugh, for they are so like my beloved "Colonel." + +Mr. Rogers had agreed that he would bring Paige to rational terms, and +with Clemens made a trip to Chicago. All agreed now that the machine +promised a certain fortune as soon as a contract acceptable to everybody +could be concluded--Paige and his lawyer being the last to dally and +dicker as to terms. Finally a telegram came from Chicago saying that +Paige had agreed to terms. On that day Clemens wrote in his note-book: + +This is a great date in my history. Yesterday we were paupers with but 3 +months' rations of cash left and $160,000 in debt, my wife & I, but this +telegram makes us wealthy. + +But it was not until a fortnight later that Paige did actually sign. This +was on the 1st of February, '94, and Clemens that night cabled to Paris, +so that Mrs. Clemens would have it on her breakfast-plate the morning of +their anniversary: + +"Wedding news. Our ship is safe in port. I sail the moment Rogers can +spare me." + +So this painted bubble, this thing of emptiness, had become as substance +again--the grand hope. He was as concerned with it as if it had been an +actual gold-mine with ore and bullion piled in heaps--that shadow, that +farce, that nightmare. One longs to go back through the years and face +him to the light and arouse him to the vast sham of it all. + + + + +CLXXXVII + +SOME LITERARY MATTERS + +Clemens might have lectured that winter with profit, and Major Pond did +his best to persuade him; but Rogers agreed that his presence in New York +was likely to be too important to warrant any schedule of absence. He +went once to Boston to lecture for charity, though his pleasure in the +experience was a sufficient reward. On the evening before the lecture +Mrs. James T. Fields had him to her house to dine with Dr. Holmes, then +not far from the end of his long, beautiful life.--[He died that same +year, October, 1894.] + +Clemens wrote to Paris of their evening together: + +Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes never goes out (he is in his 84th year), but he +came out this time--said he wanted to "have a time" once more with me. + +Mrs. Fields said Aldrich begged to come, & went away crying because she +wouldn't let him. She allowed only her family (Sarah Orne Jewett & +sister) to be present, because much company would overtax Dr. Holmes. + +Well, he was just delightful! He did as brilliant and beautiful talking +(& listening) as he ever did in his life, I guess. Fields and Jewett +said he hadn't been in such splendid form for years. He had ordered his +carriage for 9. The coachman sent in for him at 9, but he said, "Oh, +nonsense!--leave glories & grandeurs like these? Tell him to go away & +come in an hour!" + +At 10 he was called for again, & Mrs. Fields, getting uneasy, rose, but +he wouldn't go--& so we rattled ahead the same as ever. Twice more Mrs. +Fields rose, but he wouldn't go--& he didn't go till half past 10--an +unwarrantable dissipation for him in these days. He was prodigiously +complimentary about some of my books, & is having Pudd'nhead read to him. +I told him you & I used the Autocrat as a courting book & marked it all +through, & that you keep it in the sacred green box with the loveletters, +& it pleased him. + +One other address Clemens delivered that winter, at Fair Haven, on the +opening of the Millicent Library, a present to the town from Mrs. Rogers. +Mrs. Rogers had suggested to her husband that perhaps Mr. Clemens would +be willing to say a few words there. Mr. Rogers had replied, "Oh, +Clemens is in trouble. I don't like to ask him," but a day or two later +told him of Mrs. Rogers's wish, adding: + +"Don't feel at all that you need to do it. I know just how you are +feeling, how worried you are." + +Clemens answered, "Mr. Rogers, do you think there is anything I could do +for you that I wouldn't do?" + +It was on this occasion that he told for the first time the "stolen +watermelon" story, so often reprinted since; how once he had stolen a +watermelon, and when he found it to be a green one, had returned it to +the farmer, with a lecture on honesty, and received a ripe one in its +place. + +In spite of his cares and diversions Clemens's literary activities of +this time were considerable. He wrote an article for the Youth's +Companion--"How to Tell a Story"--and another for the North American +Review on Fenimore Cooper's "Literary Offenses." Mark Twain had not much +respect for Cooper as a literary artist. Cooper's stilted +artificialities and slipshod English exasperated him and made it hard for +him to see that in spite of these things the author of the Deerslayer was +a mighty story-teller. Clemens had also promised some stories to Walker, +of the Cosmopolitan, and gave him one for his Christmas number, +"Traveling with a Reformer," which had grown out of some incidents of +that long-ago journey with Osgood to Chicago, supplemented by others that +had happened on the more recent visit to that city with Hall. This story +had already appeared when Clemens and Rogers had made their Chicago trip. +Rogers had written for passes over the Pennsylvania road, and the +president, replying, said: + +"No, I won't give Mark Twain a pass over our road. I've been reading his +'Traveling with a Reformer,' in which he abuses our road. I wouldn't let +him ride over it again if I could help it. The only way I'll agree to +let him go over it at all is in my private car. I have stocked it with +everything he can possibly want, and have given orders that if there is +anything else he wants the train is to be stopped until they can get it." + +"Pudd'nhead Wilson" was appearing in the Century during this period, and +"Tom Sawyer Abroad" in the St. Nicholas. The Century had issued a tiny +calendar of the Pudd'nhead maxims, and these quaint bits of philosophy, +the very gems of Mark Twain mental riches, were in everybody's mouth. +With all this going on, and with his appearance at various social events, +he was rather a more spectacular figure that winter than ever before. + +From the note-book: + + The Haunted Looking-glass. The guest (at midnight a dim light + burning) wakes up & sees appear & disappear the faces that have + looked into the glass during 3 centuries. + + Love seems the swiftest but is the slowest of all growths. No man + and woman really know what perfect love is until they have been + married a quarter of a century. + + It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right. + + Of all God's creatures, there is only one that cannot be made the + slave of the lash--that one is the cat. + + Truth is stranger than fiction--to some people, but I am measurably + familiar with it. + + + + +CLXXXVIII + +FAILURE + +It was the first week in March before it was thought to be safe for +Clemens to return to France, even for a brief visit to his family. He +hurried across and remained with them what seemed an infinitesimal time, +a bare three weeks, and was back again in New York by the middle of +April. The Webster company difficulties had now reached an acute stage. +Mr. Rogers had kept a close watch on its financial affairs, hoping to be +able to pull it through or to close it without failure, paying all the +creditors in full; but on the afternoon of the 16th of April, 1894, Hall +arrived at Clemens's room at The Players in a panic. The Mount Morris +Bank had elected a new president and board of directors, and had +straightway served notice on him that he must pay his notes--two notes of +five thousand dollars each in a few days when due. Mr. Rogers was +immediately notified, of course, and said he would sleep on it and advise +them next day. He did not believe that the bank would really push them +to the wall. The next day was spent in seeing what could be done, and by +evening it was clear that unless a considerable sum of money was raised a +voluntary assignment was the proper course. The end of the long struggle +had come. Clemens hesitated less on his own than on his wife's account. +He knew that to her the word failure would be associated with disgrace. +She had pinched herself with a hundred economies to keep the business +afloat, and was willing to go on economizing to avert this final +disaster. Mr. Rogers said: + +"Mr. Clemens, assure her from me that there is not even a tinge of +disgrace in making this assignment. By doing it you will relieve +yourself of a fearful load of dread, and in time will be able to pay +everything and stand clear before the world. If you don't do it you will +probably never be free from debt, and it will kill you and Mrs. Clemens +both. If there is any disgrace it would be in not taking the course that +will give you and her your freedom and your creditors a better chance for +their claims. Most of them will be glad enough to help you." + +It was on the afternoon of the next day, April 18, 1894, that the firm of +Charles L. Webster & Co. executed assignment papers and closed its +doors. A meeting of the creditors was called, at which H. H. Rogers was +present, representing Clemens. For the most part the creditors were +liberal and willing to agree to any equitable arrangement. But there +were a few who were grumpy and fussy. They declared that Mark Twain +should turn over his copyrights, his Hartford home, and whatever other +odds and ends could be discovered. Mr. Rogers, discussing the matter in +1908, said: + +"They were bent on devouring every pound of flesh in sight and picking +the bones afterward, as Clemens and his wife were perfectly willing they +should do. I was getting a little warm all the time at the highhanded +way in which these few men were conducting the thing, and presently I got +on my feet and said, 'Gentlemen, you are not going to have this thing all +your way. I have something to say about Mr. Clemens's affairs. Mrs. +Clemens is the chief creditor of this firm. Out of her own personal +fortune she has lent it more than sixty thousand dollars. She will be a +preferred creditor, and those copyrights will be assigned to her until +her claim is paid in full. As for the home in Hartford, it is hers +already.' + +"There was a good deal of complaint, but I refused to budge. I insisted +that Mrs. Clemens had the first claims on the copyrights, though, to tell +the truth, these did not promise much then, for in that hard year the +sale of books was small enough. Besides Mrs. Clemens's claim the debts +amounted to one hundred thousand dollars, and of course there must be a +definite basis of settlement, so it was agreed that Clemens should pay +fifty cents on the dollar, when the assets were finally realized upon, +and receive a quittance. Clemens himself declared that sooner or later +he would pay the other fifty cents, dollar for dollar, though I believe +there was no one besides himself and his wife and me who believed he +would ever be able to do it. Clemens himself got discouraged sometimes, +and was about ready to give it up, for he was getting on in years--nearly +sixty--and he was in poor health. Once when we found the debt, after the +Webster salvage, was going to be at least seventy thousand dollars, he +said, 'I need not dream of paying it. I never could manage it.' But he +stuck to it. He was at my house a good deal at first. We gave him a +room there and he came and went as he chose. The worry told upon him. He +became frail during those weeks, almost ethereal, yet it was strange how +brilliant he was, how cheerful." + +The business that had begun so promisingly and prosperously a decade +before had dwindled to its end. The last book it had in hand was 'Tom +Sawyer Abroad', just ready for issue. It curiously happened that on the +day of the failure copies of it were filed in Washington for copyright. +Frank Bliss came over from Hartford, and Clemens arranged with him for +the publication of 'Pudd'nhead Wilson', thereby renewing the old +relationship with the American Publishing Company after a break of a +dozen years. + +Naturally, the failure of Mark Twain's publishing firm made a public +stir, and it showed how many and sincere were his friends, how ready they +were with sympathy and help of a more material kind. Those who +understood best, congratulated him on being out of the entanglement. + +Poultney Bigelow, Douglas Taylor, Andrew Carnegie, Charles Dudley Warner, +and others extended financial help, Bigelow and Taylor each inclosing him +a check of one thousand dollars for immediate necessities. He was +touched by these things, but the checks were returned. Many of his +creditors sent him personal letters assuring him that he was to forget +his obligation to them completely until such time as the remembering +would cost him no uneasiness. + +Clemens, in fact, felt relieved, now that the worst had come, and wrote +bright letters home. In one he said: + +Mr. Rogers is perfectly satisfied that our course was right, absolutely +right and wise--cheer up, the best is yet to come. + +And again: + + Now & then a good and dear Joe Twichell or Susy Warner condoles with + me & says, "Cheer up-don't be downhearted," and some other friend + says, "I'm glad and surprised to see how cheerful you are & how + bravely you stand it," & none of them suspect what a burden has been + lifted from me & how blithe I am inside. Except when I think of + you, dear heart--then I am not blithe; for I seem to see you + grieving and ashamed, & dreading to look people in the face. For in + the thick of the fight there is cheer, but you are far away & cannot + hear the drum nor see the wheeling squadrons. You only seem to see + rout, retreat, & dishonored colors dragging in the dirt--whereas + none of these things exist. There is temporary defeat, but no + dishonor--& we will march again. Charley Warner said to-day, "Sho, + Livy isn't worrying. So long as she's got you and the children she + doesn't care what happens. She knows it isn't her affair." Which + didn't convince me. + +Olivia Clemens wrote bravely and encouragingly to him, and more +cheerfully than she felt, for in a letter to her sister she said: + + The hideous news of Webster & Co.'s failure reached me by cable on + Thursday, and Friday morning Galignani's Messenger had a squib about + it. Of course I knew it was likely to come, but I had great hope + that it would be in some way averted. Mr. Rogers was so sure there + was no way out but failure that I suppose it was true. But I have a + perfect horror and heart-sickness over it. I cannot get away from + the feeling that business failure means disgrace. I suppose it + always will mean that to me. We have put a great deal of money into + the concern, and perhaps there would have been nothing but to keep + putting it in and losing it. We certainly now have not much to + lose. We might have mortgaged the house; that was the only thing I + could think of to do. Mr. Clemens felt that there would never be + any end, and perhaps he was right. At any rate, I know that he was + convinced that it was the only thing, because when he went back he + promised me that if it was possible to save the thing he would do so + if only on account of my sentiment in the matter. + + Sue, if you were to see me you would see that I have grown old very + fast during this last year. I have wrinkled. + + Most of the time I want to lie down and cry. Everything seems to me + so impossible. I do not make things go very well, and I feel that + my life is an absolute and irretrievable failure. Perhaps I am + thankless, but I so often feel that I should like to give it up and + die. However, I presume that if I could have the opportunity I + should at once desire to live. + + Clemens now hurried back to Paris, arriving about the middle of May, + his second trip in two months. Scarcely had he got the family + settled at La Bourboule-les-Bains, a quiet watering-place in the + southern part of France, when a cable from Mr. Rogers, stating that + the typesetter was perfected, made him decide to hurry back to + America to assist in securing the new fortune. He did not go, + however. Rogers wrote that the machine had been installed in the + Times-Herald office, Chicago, for a long and thorough trial. There + would be plenty of time, and Clemens concluded to rest with his + family at La Bourboule-les-Bains. Later in the summer they went to + Etretat, where he settled down to work. + + + + +CLXXXIX + +AN EVENTFUL YEAR ENDS + +That summer (July, '94.) the 'North American Review' published "In +Defense of Harriet Shelley," a rare piece of literary criticism and +probably the most human and convincing plea ever made for that injured, +ill-fated woman. An admirer of Shelley's works, Clemens could not resist +taking up the defense of Shelley's abandoned wife. It had become the +fashion to refer to her slightingly, and to suggest that she had not been +without blame for Shelley's behavior. A Shelley biography by Professor +Dowden, Clemens had found particularly irritating. In the midst of his +tangle of the previous year he had paused to give it attention. There +were times when Mark Twain wrote without much sequence, digressing this +way and that, as his fancy led him, charmingly and entertainingly enough, +with no large, logical idea. He pursued no such method in this instance. +The paper on Harriet Shelley is a brief as direct and compact and +cumulative as could have been prepared by a trained legal mind of the +highest order, and it has the added advantage of being the utterance of a +human soul voicing an indignation inspired by human suffering and human +wrong. By no means does it lack humor, searching and biting sarcasm. The +characterization of Professor Dowden's Life of Shelley as a "literary +cake-walk" is a touch which only Mark Twain could have laid on. Indeed, +the "Defense of Harriet Shelly," with those early chapters of Joan at +Florence, maybe counted as the beginning for Mark Twain of a genuine +literary renaissance. It was to prove a remarkable period less +voluminous than the first, but even more choice, containing, as it would, +besides Joan and the Shelley article, the rest of that remarkable series +collected now as Literary Essays; the Hadleyburg story; "Was it Heaven or +Hell?"; those masterly articles on our national policies; closing at last +with those exquisite memories, in his final days. + +The summer of 1894 found Mark Twain in the proper frame of mind for +literary work. He was no longer in a state of dread. At Etretat, a +watering-place on the French coast, he returned eagerly to the +long-neglected tale of Joan--"a book which writes itself," he wrote Mr. +Rogers"--a tale which tells itself; I merely have to hold the pen." +Etretat, originally a fishing-village, was less pretentious than to-day, +and the family had taken a small furnished cottage a little way back from +the coast--a charming place, and a cheap one--as became their means. +Clemens worked steadily at Etretat for more than a month, finishing the +second part of his story, then went over to Rouen to visit the hallowed +precincts where Joan dragged out those weary months that brought her to +the stake. Susy Clemens was taken ill at Rouen, and they lingered in +that ancient city, wandering about its venerable streets, which have been +changed but slowly by the centuries, and are still full of memories. + +They returned to Paris at length--to the Brighton; their quarters of the +previous winter--but presently engaged for the winter the studio home of +the artist Pomroy at 169 rue de l'Universite, beyond the Seine. Mark +Twain wrote of it once: + + It was a lovely house; large, rambling, quaint, charmingly furnished + and decorated, built upon no particular plan, delightfully uncertain + and full of surprises. You were always getting lost in it, and + finding nooks and corners which you did not know were there and + whose presence you had not suspected before. It was built by a rich + French artist, and he had also furnished it and decorated it + himself. The studio was coziness itself. With us it served as a + drawing-room, sitting-room, living-room, dancing-room--we used it + for everything. We couldn't get enough of it. It is odd that it + should have been so cozy, for it was 40 feet long, 40 feet high, and + 30 feet wide, with a vast fireplace on, each side, in the middle, + and a musicians' gallery at one end. + +Mrs. Clemens had hoped to return to America, to their Hartford home. That +was her heart's desire--to go back once more to their old life and +fireside, to forget all this period of exile and wandering. Her letters +were full of her home-longing; her three years of absence seemed like an +eternity. + +In its way, the Pomroy house was the best substitute for home they had +found. Its belongings were of the kind she loved. Susy had better +health, and her husband was happy in his work. They had much delightful +and distinguished company. Her letters tell of these attractive things, +and of their economies to make their income reach. + +It was near the end of the year that the other great interest--the +machine--came finally to a conclusion. Reports from the test had been +hopeful during the summer. Early in October Clemens, receiving a copy of +the Times-Herald, partly set by the machine, wrote: "The Herald has just +arrived, and that column is healing for sore eyes. It affects me like +Columbus sighting land." And again on the 28th: + + It seems to me that things couldn't well be going better at Chicago + than they are. There's no other machine that can set type eight + hours with only seventeen minutes' stoppage through cussedness. The + others do rather more stopping than working. By and by our machines + will be perfect; then they won't stop at all. + +But that was about the end of the good news. The stoppages became worse +and worse. The type began to break--the machine had its old trouble: it +was too delicately adjusted--too complicated. + +"Great guns, what is the matter with it?" wrote Clemens in November when +he received a detailed account of its misconduct. + +Mr. Rogers and his son-in-law, Mr. Broughton, went out to Chicago to +investigate. They went to the Times-Herald office to watch the +type-setter in action. Mr. Rogers once told of this visit to the writer +of these chapters. He said: + +"Certainly it was a marvelous invention. It was the nearest approach to +a human being in the wonderful things it could do of any machine I have +ever known. But that was just the trouble; it was too much of a human +being and not enough of a machine. It had all the complications of the +human mechanism, all the liability of getting out of repair, and it could +not be replaced with the ease and immediateness of the human being. It +was too costly; too difficult of construction; too hard to set up. I +took out my watch and timed its work and counted its mistakes. We +watched it a long time, for it was most interesting, most fascinating, +but it was not practical--that to me was clear." + +It had failed to stand the test. The Times-Herald would have no more of +it. Mr. Rogers himself could see the uselessness of the endeavor. He +instructed Mr. Broughton to close up the matter as best he could and +himself undertook the harder task of breaking the news to Mark Twain. His +letters seem not to have been preserved, but the replies to them tell the +story. + + 169 rue de l'Universite, + + PARIS, December 22, 1894. + + DEAR MR. ROGERS,--I seemed to be entirely expecting your letter, and + also prepared and resigned; but Lord, it shows how little we know + ourselves and how easily we can deceive ourselves. It hit me like a + thunder-clap. It knocked every rag of sense out of my head, and I + went flying here and there and yonder, not knowing what I was doing, + and only one clearly defined thought standing up visible and + substantial out of the crazy storm-drift--that my dream of ten years + was in desperate peril and out of the 60,000 or 70,000 projects for + its rescue that came flocking through my skull not one would hold + still long enough for me to examine it and size it up. Have you + ever been like that? Not so much, I reckon. + + There was another clearly defined idea--I must be there and see it + die. That is, if it must die; and maybe if I were there we might + hatch up some next-to-impossible way to make it take up its bed and + take a walk. + + So, at the end of four hours I started, still whirling, and walked + over to the rue Scribe--4 p.m.--and asked a question or two and was + told I should be running a big risk if I took the 9 p.m. train for + London and Southampton; "better come right along at 6.52 per Havre + special and step aboard the New York all easy and comfortable." + Very! and I about two miles from home and no packing done. + + Then it occurred to me that none of these salvation notions that + were whirlwinding through my head could be examined or made + available unless at least a month's time could be secured. So I + cabled you, and said to myself that I would take the French steamer + to-morrow (which will be Sunday). + + By bedtime Mrs. Clemens had reasoned me into a fairly rational and + contented state of mind; but of course it didn't last long. So I + went on thinking--mixing it with a smoke in the dressing-room once + an hour--until dawn this morning. Result--a sane resolution; no + matter what your answer to my cable might be I would hold still and + not sail until I should get an answer to this present letter which I + am now writing or a cable answer from you saying "Come" or "Remain." + + I have slept 6 hours, my pond has clarified, and I find the sediment + of my 70,000 projects to be of this character: + +He follows with a detailed plan for reconstructing the machine, using +brass type, etc., and concludes: + + Don't say I'm wild. For really I'm sane again this morning. + + I am going right along with Joan now, and wait untroubled till I + hear from you. If you think I can be of the least use cable me + "Come." I can write Joan on board ship and lose no time. Also I + could discuss my plan with the publisher for a de luxe Joan, time + being an object, for some of the pictures could be made over here, + cheaply and quickly, that would cost much more time and money in + America. + +The second letter followed five days later: + + 169 rue de l'Universite, + PARIS, December 27, 1894. + + DEAR MR. ROGERS,--Notwithstanding your heart is "old and hard" you + make a body choke up. I know you "mean every word you say" and I do + take it "in the same spirit in which you tender it." I shall keep + your regard while we two live--that I know; for I shall always + remember what you have done for me, and that will insure me against + ever doing anything that could forfeit it or impair it. + + It is six days or seven days ago that I lived through that + despairing day, and then through a night without sleep; then settled + down next day into my right mind (or thereabouts) and wrote you. I + put in the rest of that day till 7 P.m. plenty comfortably enough + writing a long chapter of my book; then went to a masked ball + blacked up as Uncle Remus, taking Clara along, and we had a good + time. I have lost no day since, and suffered no discomfort to speak + of, but drove my troubles out of my mind and had good success in + keeping them out--through watchfulness. I have done a good week's + work and put the book a good way ahead in the Great Trial [of Joan], + which is the difficult part: the part which requires the most + thought and carefulness. I cannot see the end of the Trial yet, but + I am on the road. I am creeping surely toward it. + + "Why not leave them all to me?" My business brothers? I take you by + the hand! I jump at the chance! + + I ought to be ashamed and I am trying my best to be ashamed--and yet + I do jump at the chance in spite of it. I don't want to write + Irving and I don't want to write Stoker. It doesn't seem as if I + could. But I can suggest something for you to write them; and then + if you see that I am unwise you can write them something quite + different. Now this is my idea: + + 1. To return Stoker's $100 to him and keep his stock. + + 2. And tell Irving that when luck turns with me I will make + good to him what the salvage from the dead Co. fails to pay him + of his $500. + + [P. S. Madam says No, I must face the music. So I inclose my + effort--to be used if you approve, but not otherwise.] + + We shall try to find a tenant for our Hartford house; not an easy + matter, for it costs heavily to live in. We can never live in it + again; though it would break the family's hearts if they could + believe it. + + Nothing daunts Mrs. Clemens or makes the world look black to her + --which is the reason I haven't drowned myself. + + I got the Xmas journals which you sent and I thank you for that Xmas + remembrance. + + We all send our deepest and warmest greetings to you and all of + yours and a Happy New Year! + + S. L. CLEMENS. + +--[Brain Stoker and Sir Henry Irving had each taken a small interest in +the machine. The inclosure for Stoker ran as follows:] + + MY DEAR STOKER,--I am not dating this, because it is not to be + mailed at present. + + When it reaches you it will mean that there is a hitch in my machine + enterprise--a hitch so serious as to make it take to itself the + aspect of a dissolved dream. This letter, then, will contain cheque + for the $100 which you have paid. And will you tell Irving for me + --I can't get up courage enough to talk about this misfortune myself, + except to you, whom by good luck I haven't damaged yet--that when + the wreckage presently floats ashore he will get a good deal of his + $500 back; and a dab at a time I will make up to him the rest. + + I'm not feeling as fine as I was when I saw you there in your home. + Please remember me kindly to Mrs. Stoker. I gave up that London + lecture-project entirely. Had to--there's never been a chance since + to find the time. + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +A week later he added what was about his final word on the subject: + + Yours of December 21 has arrived, containing the circular to + stockholders, and I guess the Co. will really quit--there doesn't + seem to be any other wise course. + + There's one thing which makes it difficult for me to soberly realize + that my ten-year dream is actually dissolved; and that is that it + reverses my horoscope. The proverb says, "Born lucky, always +lucky." + It was usual for one or two of our lads (per annum) to get drowned + in the Mississippi or in Bear Creek, but I was pulled out in a + drowned condition 9 times before I learned to swim, and was + considered to be a cat in disguise. When the Pennsylvania blew up + and the telegraph reported my brother as fatally injured (with 60 + others) but made no mention of me, my uncle said to my mother "it + means that Sam was somewhere else, after being on that boat a year + and a half--he was born lucky." Yes, I was somewhere else. I am so + superstitious that I have always been afraid to have business + dealings with certain relatives and friends of mine because they + were unlucky people. All my life I have stumbled upon lucky chances + of large size, and whenever they were wasted it was because of my + own stupidity and carelessness. And so I have felt entirely certain + that the machine would turn up trumps eventually. It disappointed + me lots of times, but I couldn't shake off the confidence of a + lifetime in my luck. + + Well, whatever I get out of the wreckage will be due to good luck + --the good luck of getting you into the scheme--for, but for that + there wouldn't be any wreckage; it would be total loss. + + I wish you had been in at the beginning. Then we should have had + the good luck to step promptly ashore. + +So it was that the other great interest died and was put away forever. +Clemens scarcely ever mentioned it again, even to members of his family. +It was a dead issue; it was only a pity that it had ever seemed a live +one. A combination known as the Regius Company took over Paige's +interest, but accomplished nothing. Eventually--irony of fate--the +Mergenthaler Company, so long scorned and derided, for twenty thousand +dollars bought out the rights and assets and presented that marvelous +work of genius, the mechanical wonder of the age, to the Sibley College +of Engineering, where it is shown as the costliest piece of machinery, +for its size, ever constructed. Mark Twain once received a letter from +an author who had written a book calculated to assist inventors and +patentees, asking for his indorsement. He replied: + + DEAR SIR,--I have, as you say, been interested in patents and + patentees. If your books tell how to exterminate inventors send me + nine editions. Send them by express. + + Very truly yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +The collapse of the "great hope" meant to the Clemens household that +their struggle with debt was to continue, that their economies were to +become more rigid. In a letter on her wedding anniversary, February a +(1895), Mrs. Clemens wrote to her sister: + +As I was starting down the stairs for my breakfast this morning Mr. +Clemens called me back and took out a five-franc piece and gave it to me, +saying: "It is our silver-wedding day, and so I give you a present." + +It was a symbol of their reduced circumstances--of the change that +twenty-five years had brought. + +Literary matters, however, prospered. The new book progressed amazingly. +The worst had happened; other and distracting interests were dead. He +was deep in the third part-the story of Joan's trial and condemnation, +and he forgot most other things in his determination to make that one a +reality. + +As at Viviani, Clemens read his chapters to the family circle. The story +was drawing near the end now; tragedy was closing in on the frail martyr; +the farce of her trial was wringing their hearts. Susy would say, "Wait, +wait till I get a handkerchief," and one night when the last pages had +been written and read, and Joan had made the supreme expiation for +devotion to a paltry king, Susy wrote in her diary, "To-night Joan of Arc +was burned at the stake," meaning that the book was finished. + +Susy herself had literary taste and might have written had it not been +that she desired to sing. There are fragments of her writing that show +the true literary touch. Her father, in an unpublished article which he +once wrote of her, quoted a paragraph, doubtless intended some day to +take its place at the end of a story: + + And now at last when they lie at rest they must go hence. It is + always so. Completion; perfection, satisfaction attained--a human + life has fulfilled its earthly destiny. Poor human life! It may + not pause and rest, for it must hasten on to other realms and + greater consummations. + +She was a deep reader, and she had that wonderful gift of brilliant, +flowing, scintillating speech. From her father she had inherited a rare +faculty of oral expression, born of a superior depth of mind, swiftness +and clearness of comprehension, combined with rapid, brilliant, and +forceful phrasing. Her father wrote of her gift: + + Sometimes in those days of swift development her speech was rocket- + like for vividness and for the sense it carried of visibility. I + seem to see it stream into the sky and burst full in a shower of + colored fire. + +We are dwelling here a moment on Susy, for she was at her best that +winter. + +She was more at home than the others. Her health did not permit her to +go out so freely and her father had more of her companionship. They +discussed many things--the problems of life and of those beyond life, +philosophies of many kinds, and the subtleties of literary art. He +recalled long after how once they lost themselves in trying to solve the +mystery of the emotional effect of certain word-combinations--certain +phrases and lines of verse--as, for instance, the wild, free breath of +the open that one feels in "the days when we went gipsying a long time +ago" and the tender, sunlit, grassy slope and mossy headstones suggested +by the simple words, "departed this life." Both Susy and her father +cared more for Joan than any of the former books. To Mr. Rogers, Clemens +wrote: + +"Possibly the book may not sell, but that is nothing--it was written for +love." A memorandum which he made at the time, apparently for no one but +himself, brings us very close to the personality behind it. + + Do you know that shock? I mean when you come at your regular hour + into the sick-room where you have watched for months and find the + medicine-bottles all gone, the night-table removed, the bed + stripped, the furniture set stiffly to rights, the windows up, the + room cold, stark, vacant--& you catch your breath & realize what has + happened. + + Do you know that shock? + + The man who has written a long book has that experience the morning + after he has revised it for the last time & sent it away to the + printer. He steps into his study at the hour established by the + habit of months--& he gets that little shock. All the litter & + confusion are gone. The piles of dusty reference-books are gone + from the chairs, the maps from the floor; the chaos of letters, + manuscripts, note-books, paper-knives, pipes, matches, photographs, + tobacco-jars, & cigar-boxes is gone from the writing-table, the + furniture is back where it used to be in the long-ago. The + housemaid, forbidden the place for five months, has been there & + tidied it up & scoured it clean & made it repellent & awful. + + I stand here this morning contemplating this desolation, & I realize + that if I would bring back the spirit that made this hospital home- + like & pleasant to me I must restore the aids to lingering + dissolution to their wonted places & nurse another patient through + & send it forth for the last rites, With many or few to assist + there, as may happen; & that I will do. + + + + +CXC + +STARTING ON THE LONG TRAIL + +The tragedy of 'Pudd'nhead Wilson', with its splendid illustrations by +Louis Loeb, having finished its course in the Century Magazine, had been +issued by the American Publishing Company. It proved not one of Mark +Twain's great books, but only one of his good books. From first to last +it is interesting, and there are strong situations and chapters finely +written. The character of Roxy is thoroughly alive, and her weird +relationship with her half-breed son is startling enough. There are not +many situations in fiction stronger than that where half-breed Tom sells +his mother down the river into slavery. The negro character is well +drawn, of course-Mark Twain could not write it less than well, but its +realism is hardly to be compared with similar matter in his other books +--in Tom Sawyer, for instance, or Huck Finn. With the exceptions of Tom, +Roxy, and Pudd'nhead the characters are slight. The Twins are mere +bodiless names that might have been eliminated altogether. The character +of Pudd'nhead Wilson is lovable and fine, and his final triumph at the +murder trial is thrilling in the extreme. Identification by thumb-marks +was a new feature in fiction then--in law, too, for that matter. But it +is chiefly Pudd'nhead Wilson's maxims, run at the head of each chapter, +that will stick in the memory of men. Perhaps the book would live +without these, but with them it is certainly immortal. + +Such aphorisms as: "Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits"; +"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good +example"; "When angry count four, and when very angry swear," cannot +perish; these, with the forty or so others in this volume and the added +collection of rare philosophies that head the chapters of Following the +Equator, have insured to Philosopher Pudd'nhead a respectful hearing for +all time.--[The story of Pudd'nhead Wilson was dramatized by Frank Mayo, +who played it successfully as long as he lived. It is by no means dead, +and still pays a royalty to the Mayo and Clemens estates.] + +Clemens had meant to begin another book, but he decided first to make a +trip to America, to give some personal attention to publishing matters +there. They were a good deal confused. The Harpers had arranged for the +serial and book publication of Joan, and were negotiating for the Webster +contracts. Mr. Rogers was devoting priceless time in an effort to +establish amicable relations between the Harpers and the American Company +at Hartford so that they could work on some general basis that would be +satisfactory and profitable to all concerned. It was time that Clemens +was on the scene of action. He sailed on the New York on the end of +February, and a little more than a month later returned by the Paris +--that is, at the end of March. By this time he had altogether a new +thought. It was necessary to earn a large sum of money as promptly as +possible, and he adopted the plan which twice before in his life in 1872 +and in 1884:--had supplied him with needed funds. Loathing the platform +as he did, he was going back to it. Major Pond had proposed a lecture +tour soon after his failure. + +"The loss of a fortune is tough," wrote Pond, "but there are other +resources for another fortune. You and I will make the tour together." + +Now he had resolved to make a tour-one that even Pond himself had not +contemplated. He would go platforming around the world! He would take +Pond with him as far as the Pacific coast, arranging with some one +equally familiar with the lecture circuit on the other side of the +Pacific. He had heard of R. S. Smythe, who had personally conducted +Henry M. Stanley and other great lecturers through Australia and the +East, and he wrote immediately, asking information and advice concerning +such a tour. Clemens himself has told us in one of his chapters how his +mental message found its way to Smythe long before his written one, and +how Smythe's letter, proposing just such a trip, crossed his own. + +He sailed for America, with the family on the 11th of May, and a little +more than a week later, after four years of exile, they found themselves +once more at beautiful Quarry Farm. We may imagine how happy they were +to reach that peaceful haven. Mrs. Clemens had written: + +"It is, in a way, hard to go home and feel that we are not able to open +our house. But it is an immense delight to me to think of seeing our +friends." + +Little at the farm was changed. There were more vines on the home--the +study was overgrown--that was all. Even Ellerslie remained as the +children had left it, with all the small comforts and utensils in place. +Most of the old friends were there; only Mrs. Langdon and Theodore Crane +were missing. The Beechers drove up to see them, as formerly, and the +old discussions on life and immortality were taken up in the old places. + +Mrs. Beecher once came with some curious thin layers of leaves of stone +which she had found, knowing Mark Twain's interest in geology. Later, +when they had been discussing the usual problems, he said he would write +an agreement on those imperishable leaves, to be laid away until the ages +should solve their problems. He wrote it in verse: + + If you prove right and I prove wrong, + A million years from now, + In language plain and frank and strong + My error I'll avow + To your dear waking face. + + If I prove right, by God His grace, + Full sorry I shall be, + For in that solitude no trace + There'll be of you and me. + + A million years, O patient stone, + You've waited for this message. + Deliver it a million hence; + (Survivor pays expressage.) + MARK TWAIN + + Contract with Mrs. T. K. Beecher, July 2, 1895. + + +Pond came to Elmira and the route westward was arranged. Clemens decided +to give selections from his books, as he had done with Cable, and to +start without much delay. He dreaded the prospect of setting out on that +long journey alone, nor could Mrs. Clemens find it in her heart to +consent to such a plan. It was bitterly hard to know what to do, but it +was decided at last that she and one of the elder daughters should +accompany him, the others remaining with their aunt at Quarry Farm. +Susy, who had the choice, dreaded ocean travel, and felt that she would +be happier and healthier to rest in the quiet of that peaceful hilltop. +She elected to remain with her aunt and jean; and it fell to Clara to go. +Major Pond and his wife would accompany them as far as Vancouver. They +left Elmira on the night of the 14th of July. When the train pulled away +their last glimpse was of Susy, standing with the others under the +electric light of the railway platform, waving them good-by. + + + + +CXCI + +Clemens had been ill in Elmira with a distressing carbuncle, and was +still in no condition to undertake steady travel and entertainment in +that fierce summer heat. He was fearful of failure. "I sha'n't be able +to stand on a platform," he wrote Mr. Rogers; but they pushed along +steadily with few delays. They began in Cleveland, thence by the Great +Lakes, traveling by steamer from one point to another, going constantly, +with readings at every important point--Duluth, Minneapolis, St. Paul, +Winnipeg, Butte, and through the great Northwest, arriving at Vancouver +at last on August 16th, but one day behind schedule time. + +It had been a hot, blistering journey, but of immense interest, for none +of them had traveled through the Northwest, and the wonder and grandeur +of it all, its scenery, its bigness, its mighty agriculture, impressed +them. Clemens in his notes refers more than once to the "seas" and +"ocean" of wheat. + + There is the peace of the ocean about it and a deep contentment, a + heaven-wide sense of ampleness, spaciousness, where pettiness and + all small thoughts and tempers must be out of place, not suited to + it, and so not intruding. The scattering, far-off homesteads, with + trees about them, were so homelike and remote from the warring + world, so reposeful and enticing. The most distant and faintest + under the horizon suggested fading ships at sea. + +The Lake travel impressed him; the beauties and cleanliness of the Lake +steamers, which he compares with those of Europe, to the disadvantage of +the latter. Entering Port Huron he wrote: + + The long approach through narrow ways with flat grass and wooded + land on both sides, and on the left a continuous row of summer + cottages, with small-boat accommodations for visiting across the + little canals from family to family, the groups of summer-dressed + young people all along waving flags and handkerchiefs and firing + cannon, our boat replying with toots of the hoarse whistle and now + and then a cannon, and meeting steamers in the narrow way, and once + the stately sister-ship of the line crowded with summer-dressed + people waving-the rich browns and greens of the rush-grown, far- + reaching flat-lands, with little glimpses of water away on their + farther edges, the sinking sun throwing a crinkled broad carpet of + gold on the water-well, it is the perfection of voyaging. + +It had seemed a doubtful experiment to start with Mrs. Clemens on that +journey in the summer heat; but, strange to say, her health improved, and +she reached Vancouver by no means unfit for the long voyage ahead. No +doubt the change and continuous interest and their splendid welcome +everywhere and their prosperity were accountable. Everywhere they were +entertained; flowers filled their rooms; carriages and committees were +always waiting. It was known that Mark Twain had set out for the purpose +of paying his debts, and no cause would make a deeper appeal to his +countrymen than that, or, for that matter, to the world at large. + +From Winnipeg he wrote to Mr. Rogers: + + At the end of an hour and a half I offered to let the audience go, + but they said "go on," and I did. + +He had five thousand dollars to forward to Rogers to place against his +debt account by the time he reached the Coast, a fine return for a +month's travel in that deadly season. At no more than two places were +the houses less than crowded. One of these was Anaconda, then a small +place, which they visited only because the manager of the entertainment +hall there had known Clemens somewhere back in the sixties and was eager +to have him. He failed to secure the amount of the guarantee required by +Pond, and when Pond reported to Clemens that he had taken "all he had" +Clemens said: + +"And you took the last cent that poor fellow had. Send him one hundred +dollars, and if you can't afford to stand your share charge it all to me. +I'm not going around robbing my friends who are disappointed in my +commercial value. I don't want to get money that way." + +"I sent the money," said Pond afterward, "and was glad of the privilege +of standing my share." + +Clemens himself had not been in the best of health during the trip. He +had contracted a heavy cold and did not seem to gain strength. But in a +presentation copy of 'Roughing It', given to Pond as a souvenir, he +wrote: + +"Here ends one of the smoothest and pleasantest trips across the +continent that any group of five has ever made." + +There were heavy forest fires in the Northwest that year, and smoke +everywhere. The steamer Waryimoo, which was to have sailed on the 16th, +went aground in the smoke, and was delayed a week. While they were +waiting, Clemens lectured in Victoria, with the Governor-General and Lady +Aberdeen and their little son in the audience. His note-book says: + + They came in at 8.45, 15 minutes late; wish they would always be + present, for it isn't permissible to begin until they come; by that + time the late-comers are all in. + +Clemens wrote a number of final letters from Vancouver. In one of them +to Mr. J. Henry Harper, of Harper & Brothers, he expressed the wish that +his name might now be printed as the author of "Joan," which had begun +serially in the April Magazine. He thought it might, help his lecturing +tour and keep his name alive. But a few days later, with Mrs. Clemens's +help, he had reconsidered, and wrote: + + My wife is a little troubled by my wanting my nom de plume put to + the "Joan of Arc" so soon. She thinks it might go counter to your + plans, and that you ought to be left free and unhampered in the + matter. + + All right-so be it. I wasn't strenuous about it, and wasn't meaning + to insist; I only thought my reasons were good, and I really think + so yet, though I do confess the weight and fairness of hers. + +As a matter of fact the authorship of "Joan" had been pretty generally +guessed by the second or third issue. Certain of its phrasing and humor +could hardly have come from another pen than Mark Twain's. The +authorship was not openly acknowledged, however, until the publication of +the book, the following May. + +Among the letters from Vancouver was this one to Rudyard Kipling + + DEAR KIPLING,--It is reported that you are about to visit India. + This has moved me to journey to that far country in order that I may + unload from my conscience a debt long due to you. Years ago you + came from India to Elmira to visit me, as you said at the time. It + has always been my purpose to return that visit & that great + compliment some day. I shall arrive next January & you must be + ready. I shall come riding my ayah with his tusks adorned with + silver bells & ribbons & escorted by a troop of native howdahs + richly clad & mounted upon a herd of wild bungalows; & you must be + on hand with a few bottles of ghee, for I shall be thirsty. + +To the press he gave this parting statement: + + It has been reported that I sacrificed for the benefit of the + creditors the property of the publishing firm whose financial backer + I was and that I am now lecturing for my own benefit. This is an + error. I intend the lectures as well as the property for the + creditors. The law recognizes no mortgage on a man's brain, and a + merchant who has given up all he has may take advantage of the laws + of insolvency and start free again for himself. But I am not a + business man, and honor is a harder master than the law. It cannot + compromise for less than 100 cents on the dollar and its debts never + outlaw. From my reception thus far on my lecturing tour I am + confident that if I live I can pay off the last debt within four + years, after which, at the age of sixty-four, I can make a fresh and + unincumbered start in life. I am going to Australia, India, and + South Africa, and next year I hope to make a tour of the great + cities of the United States. I meant, when I began, to give my + creditors all the benefit of this, but I am beginning to feel that I + am gaining something from it, too, and that my dividends, if not + available for banking purposes, may be even more satisfactory than + theirs. + +There was one creditor, whose name need, not be "handed down to infamy," +who had refused to consent to any settlement except immediate payment in +full, and had pursued with threatened attachment of earnings and +belongings, until Clemens, exasperated, had been disposed to turn over to +his creditors all remaining properties and let that suffice, once and for +all. But this was momentary. He had presently instructed Mr. Rogers to +"pay Shylock in full," and to assure any others that he would pay them, +too, in the end. But none of the others annoyed him. + +It was on the afternoon of August 23, 1895, that they were off at last. +Major Pond and his wife lunched with them on board and waved them good-by +as long as they could see the vessel. The far voyage which was to carry +them for the better part of the year to the under side of the world had +begun. + + + + +CXCII + +"FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR" + +Mark Twain himself has written with great fulness the story of that +traveling--setting down what happened, and mainly as it happened, with +all the wonderful description, charm, and color of which he was so great +a master. We need do little more than summarize then--adding a touch +here and there, perhaps, from another point of view. + +They had expected to stop at the Sandwich Islands, but when they arrived +in the roadstead of Honolulu, word came that cholera had broken out and +many were dying daily. They could not land. It was a double +disappointment; not only were the lectures lost, but Clemens had long +looked forward to revisiting the islands he had so loved in the days of +his youth. There was nothing for them to do but to sit on the decks in +the shade of the awnings and look at the distant shore. In his book he +says: + + We lay in luminous blue water; shoreward the water was green-green + and brilliant; at the shore itself it broke in a long, white ruffle, + and with no crash, no sound that we could hear. The town was buried + under a mat of foliage that looked like a cushion of moss. The + silky mountains were clothed in soft, rich splendors of melting + color, and some of the cliffs were veiled in slanting mists. I + recognized it all. It was just as I had seen it long before, with + nothing of its beauty lost, nothing of its charm wanting. + +In his note-book he wrote: "If I might, I would go ashore and never +leave." + +This was the 31 st of August. Two days later they were off again, +sailing over the serene Pacific, bearing to the southwest for Australia. +They crossed the equator, which he says was wisely put where it is, +because if it had been run through Europe all the kings would have tried +to grab it. They crossed it September 6th, and he notes that Clara +kodaked it. A day or two later the north star disappeared behind them +and the constellation of the Cross came into view above the southern +horizon. Then presently they were among the islands of the southern +Pacific, and landed for a little time on one of the Fiji group. They had +twenty-four days of halcyon voyaging between Vancouver and Sydney with +only one rough day. A ship's passengers get closely acquainted on a trip +of that length and character. They mingle in all sorts of diversions to +while away the time; and at the end have become like friends of many +years. + +On the night of September 15th-a night so dark that from the ship's deck +one could not see the water--schools of porpoises surrounded the ship, +setting the water alive with phosphorescent splendors: "Like glorified +serpents thirty to fifty feet long. Every curve of the tapering long +body perfect. The whole snake dazzlingly illumined. It was a weird +sight to see this sparkling ghost come suddenly flashing along out of the +solid gloom and stream past like a meteor." + +They were in Sydney next morning, September 16, 1895, and landed in a +pouring rain, the breaking up of a fierce drought. Clemens announced +that he had brought Australia good-fortune, and should expect something +in return. + +Mr. Smythe was ready for them and there was no time lost in getting to +work. All Australia was ready for them, in fact, and nowhere in their +own country were they more lavishly and royally received than in that +faraway Pacific continent. Crowded houses, ovations, and gorgeous +entertainment--public and private--were the fashion, and a little more +than two weeks after arrival Clemens was able to send back another two +thousand dollars to apply on his debts. But he had hard luck, too, for +another carbuncle developed at Melbourne and kept him laid up for nearly +a week. When he was able to go before an audience again he said: + +"The doctor says I am on the verge of being a sick man. Well, that may +be true enough while I am lying abed all day trying to persuade his +cantankerous, rebellious medicines to agree with each other; but when I +come out at night and get a welcome like this I feel as young and healthy +as anybody, and as to being on the verge of being a sick man I don't take +any stock in that. I have been on the verge of being an angel all my +life, but it's never happened yet." + +In his book Clemens has told us his joy in Australia, his interest in the +perishing native tribes, in the wonderfully governed cities, in the +gold-mines, and in the advanced industries. The climate he thought +superb; "a darling climate," he says in a note-book entry. + +Perhaps one ought to give a little idea of the character of his +entertainment. His readings were mainly from his earlier books, +'Roughing It' and 'Innocents Abroad'. The story of the dead man which, +as a boy, he had discovered in his father's office was one that he often +told, and the "Mexican Plug" and his "Meeting with Artemus Ward" and the +story of Jim Blaine's old ram; now and again he gave chapters from 'Huck +Finn' and 'Tom Sawyer'. He was likely to finish with that old fireside +tale of his early childhood, the "Golden Arm." But he sometimes told the +watermelon story, written for Mrs. Rogers, or gave extracts from Adam's +Diary, varying his program a good deal as he went along, and changing it +entirely where he appeared twice in one city. + +Mrs. Clemens and Clara, as often as they had heard him, generally went +when the hour of entertainment came: They enjoyed seeing his triumph with +the different audiences, watching the effect of his subtle art. + +One story, the "Golden Arm," had in it a pause, an effective, delicate +pause which must be timed to the fraction of a second in order to realize +its full value. Somewhere before we have stated that no one better than +Mark Twain knew the value of a pause. Mrs. Clemens and Clara were +willing to go night after night and hear that tale time and again, for +its effect on each new, audience. + +From Australia to New Zealand--where Clemens had his third persistent +carbuncle,--[In Following the Equator the author says: "The dictionary +says a carbuncle is a kind of jewel. Humor is out of place in a +dictionary."]--and again lost time in consequence. It was while he was +in bed with this distressing ailment that he wrote Twichell: + + I think it was a good stroke of luck that knocked me on my back here + at Napier instead of in some hotel in the center of a noisy city. + Here we have the smooth & placidly complaining sea at our door, with + nothing between us & it but 20 yards of shingle--& hardly a + suggestion of life in that space to mar it or to make a noise. Away + down here fifty-five degrees south of the equator this sea seems to + murmur in an unfamiliar tongue--a foreign tongue--a tongue bred + among the ice-fields of the antarctic--a murmur with a note of + melancholy in it proper to the vast unvisited solitudes it has come + from. It was very delicious and solacing to wake in the night & + find it still pulsing there. I wish you were here--land, but it + would be fine! + +Mrs. Clemens and himself both had birthdays in New Zealand; Clemens +turned sixty, and his wife passed the half-century mark. + +"I do not like it one single bit," she wrote to her sister. "Fifty years +old-think of it; that seems very far on." + +And Clemens wrote: + + Day before yesterday was Livy's birthday (underworld time) & + tomorrow will be mine. I shall be 60--no thanks for it! + +From New Zealand back to Australia, and then with the new year away to +Ceylon. Here they were in the Orient at last, the land of color, +enchantment, and gentle races. Clemens was ill with a heavy cold when +they arrived; and in fact, at no time during this long journeying was his +health as good as that of his companions. The papers usually spoke of +him as looking frail, and he was continually warned that he must not +remain in India until the time of the great heat. He was so determined +to work, however, and working was so profitable, that he seldom spared +himself. + +He traveled up and down and back and forth the length and breadth of +India--from Bombay to Allahabad, to Benares, to Calcutta and Darjeeling, +to Lahore, to Lucknow, to Delhi--old cities of romance--and to Jeypore +--through the heat and dust on poor, comfortless railways, fighting his +battle and enjoying it too, for he reveled in that amazing land--its +gorgeous, swarming life, the patience and gentleness of its servitude, +its splendid pageantry, the magic of its architecture, the maze and +mystery of its religions, the wonder of its ageless story. + +One railway trip he enjoyed--a thirty-five-mile flight down the steep +mountain of Darjeeling in a little canopied hand-car. In his book he +says: + + That was the most enjoyable time I have spent in the earth. For + rousing, tingling, rapturous pleasure there is no holiday trip that + approaches the bird-flight down the Himalayas in a handcar. It has + no fault, no blemish, no lack, except that there are only thirty- + five miles of it, instead of five hundred. + +Mark Twain found India all that Rudyard Kipling had painted it and more. +"INDIA THE MARVELOUS" he printed in his note-book in large capitals, as +an effort to picture his thought, and in his book he wrote: + + So far as I am able to judge nothing has been left undone, either by + man or Nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the + sun visits on his rounds. "Where every prospect pleases, and only + man is vile." + +Marvelous India is, certainly; and he saw it all to the best advantage, +for government official and native grandee spared no effort to do honor +to his party--to make their visit something to be remembered for a +lifetime. It was all very gratifying, and most of it of extraordinary +interest. There are not many visitors who get to see the inner household +of a native prince of India, and the letter which Mark Twain wrote to +Kumar Shri Samatsinhji, a prince of the Palitana state, at Bombay, gives +us a notion of how his unostentatious, even if lavish, hospitality was +appreciated. + + DEAR KUMAR SAHIB,--It would be hard for me to put into words how + much my family & I enjoyed our visit to your hospitable house. It + was our first glimpse of the home of an Eastern Prince, & the charm + of it, the grace & beauty & dignity of it realized to us the + pictures which we had long ago gathered from books of travel & + Oriental tales. We shall not forget that happy experience, nor your + kind courtesies to us, nor those of her Highness to my wife & + daughter. We shall keep always the portrait & the beautiful things + you gave us; & as long as we live a glance at them will bring your + house and its life & its sumptuous belongings & rich harmonies of + color instantly across the years & the oceans, & we shall see them + again, & how welcome they will be! + + We make our salutation to your Highness & to all members of your + family--including, with affectionate regard, that littlest little + sprite of a Princess--& I beg to sign myself + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + BENARES, February 5, 1896. + +They had been entertained in truly royal fashion by Prince Kumar, who, +after refreshments, had ordered in "bales of rich stuffs" in the true +Arabian Nights fashion, and commanded his servants to open them and allow +his guests to select for themselves. + +With the possible exception of General Grant's long trip in '78 and '79 +there has hardly been a more royal progress than Mark Twain's trip around +the world. Everywhere they were overwhelmed with honors and invitations, +and their gifts became so many that Mrs. Clemens wrote she did not see +how they were going to carry them all. In a sense, it was like the Grant +trip, for it was a tribute which the nations paid not only to a beloved +personality, but to the American character and people. + +The story of that East Indian sojourn alone would fill a large book, and +Mark Twain, in his own way, has written that book, in the second volume +of Following the Equator, an informing, absorbing, and enchanting story +of Indian travel. + +Clemens lectured everywhere to jammed houses, which were rather less +profitable than in Australia, because in India the houses were not built +for such audiences as he could command. He had to lecture three times in +Calcutta, and then many people were turned away. At one place, however, +his hall was large enough. This was in the great Hall of the Palace, +where durbars are held, at Bombay. + +Altogether they were two months in India, and then about the middle of +March an English physician at Jeypore warned them to fly for Calcutta and +get out of the country immediately before the real heat set in. + +They sailed toward the end of March, touched at Madras and again at +Ceylon, remaining a day or two at Colombo, and then away to sea again, +across the Indian Ocean on one of those long, peaceful, eventless, tropic +voyages, where at night one steeps on deck and in daytime wears the +whitest and lightest garments and cares to do little more than sit +drowsily in a steamer-chair and read and doze and dream. + +From the note-book: + + Here in the wastes of the Indian Ocean just under the equator the + sea is blue, the motion gentle, the sunshine brilliant, the broad + decks with their grouped companies of talking, reading, or game- + playing folk suggestive of a big summer hotel--but outside of the + ship is no life visible but the occasional flash of a flying-fish. + I would like the voyage, under these conditions, to continue + forever. + + The Injian Ocean sits and smiles + So sof', so bright, so bloomin' blue, + There aren't a wave for miles an' miles + Excep' the jiggle of the screw. + + --KIP. + + How curiously unanecdotical the colonials and the ship-going English + are--I believe I haven't told an anecdote or heard one since I left + America, but Americans when grouped drop into anecdotes as soon as + they get a little acquainted. + + Preserve your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, + but not live. + + Swore off from profanity early this morning--I was on deck in the + peaceful dawn, the calm of holy dawn. Went down, dressed, bathed, + put on white linen, shaved--a long, hot, troublesome job and no + profanity. Then started to breakfast. Remembered my tonic--first + time in 3 months without being told--poured it into measuring-glass, + held bottle in one hand, it in the other, the cork in my teeth + --reached up & got a tumbler--measuring-glass slipped out of my + fingers--caught it, poured out another dose, first setting the + tumbler on wash-stand--just got it poured, ship lurched, heard a + crash behind me--it was the tumbler, broken into millions of + fragments, but the bottom hunk whole. Picked it up to throw out of + the open port, threw out the measuring-glass instead--then I + released my voice. Mrs. Clemens behind me in the door. + + "Don't reform any more. It is not an improvement." + + This is a good time to read up on scientific matters and improve the + mind, for about us is the peace of the great deep. It invites to + dreams, to study, to reflection. Seventeen days ago this ship + sailed out of Calcutta, and ever since, barring a day or two in + Ceylon, there has been nothing in sight but the tranquil blue sea & + a cloudless blue sky. All down the Bay of Bengal it was so. It is + still so in the vast solitudes of the Indian Ocean--17 days of + heaven. In 11 more it will end. There will be one passenger who + will be sorry. One reads all day long in this delicious air. Today + I have been storing up knowledge from Sir John Lubbock about the + ant. The thing which has struck me most and most astonished me is + the ant's extraordinary powers of identification--memory of his + friend's person. I will quote something which he says about Formica + fusca. Formica fusca is not something to eat; it's the name of a + breed of ants. + +He does quote at great length and he transferred most of it later to his +book. In another note he says: + + In the past year have read Vicar of Wakefield and some of Jane + Austen--thoroughly artificial. Have begun Children of the Abbey. + It begins with this "Impromptu" from the sentimental heroine: + + "Hail, sweet asylum of my infancy! Content and innocence reside + beneath your humble roof and charity unboastful of the good it + renders . . . . Here unmolested may I wait till the rude storm + of sorrow is overblown and my father's arms are again extended to + receive me." + + Has the ear-marks of preparation. + +They were at the island of Mauritius by the middle of April, that curious +bit of land mainly known to the world in the romance of Paul and +Virginia, a story supposed by some in Mauritius to be "a part of the +Bible." They rested there for a fortnight and then set sail for South +Africa on the ship Arundel Castle, which he tells us is the finest boat +he has seen in those waters. + +It was the end of the first week in May when they reached Durban and felt +that they were nearing home. + +One more voyage and they would be in England, where they had planned for +Susy and Jean to join them. + +Mrs. Clemens, eager for letters, writes of her disappointment in not +finding one from Susy. The reports from Quarry Farm had been cheerful, +and there had been small snap-shot photographs which were comforting, but +her mother heart could not be entirely satisfied that Susy did not send +letters. She had a vague fear that some trouble, some illness, had come +to Susy which made her loath to write. Susy was, in fact, far from well, +though no one, not even Susy herself, suspected how serious was her +condition. + +Mrs. Clemens writes of her own hopefulness, but adds that her husband is +often depressed. + + Mr. Clemens has not as much courage as I wish he had, but, poor old + darling, he has been pursued with colds and inabilities of various + sorts. Then he is so impressed with the fact that he is sixty years + old. Naturally I combat that thought all I can, trying to make him + rejoice that he is not seventy . . . . + + He does not believe that any good thing will come, but that we must + all our lives live in poverty. He says he never wants to go back to + America. I cannot think that things are as black as he paints them, + and I trust that if I get him settled down for work in some quiet + English village he will get back much of his cheerfulness; in fact, + I believe he will because that is what he wants to do, and that is + the work that he loves: The platform he likes for the two hours that + he is on it, but all the rest of the time it grinds him, and he says + he is ashamed of what he is doing. Still, in spite of this sad + undercurrent, we are having a delightful trip. People are so nice, + and with people Mr. Clemens seems cheerful. Then the ocean trips + are a great rest to him. + +Mrs. Clemens and Clara remained at the hotel in Durban while Clemens made +his platform trip to the South African cities. It was just at the time +when the Transvaal invasion had been put down--when the Jameson raid had +come to grief and John Hares Hammond, chief of the reformers, and fifty +or more supporters were lying in the jail at Pretoria under various +sentences, ranging from one to fifteen years, Hammond himself having +received the latter award. Mrs. Hammond was a fellow-Missourian; Clemens +had known her in America. He went with her now to see the prisoners, who +seemed to be having a pretty good time, expecting to be pardoned +presently; pretending to regard their confinement mainly as a joke. +Clemens, writing of it to Twichell, said: + + A Boer guard was at my elbow all the time, but was courteous & + polite, only he barred the way in the compound (quadrangle or big + open court) & wouldn't let me cross a white mark that was on the + ground--the "deathline," one of the prisoners called it. Not in + earnest, though, I think. I found that I had met Hammond once when + he was a Yale senior & a guest of General Franklin's. I also found + that I had known Captain Mein intimately 32 years ago. One of the + English prisoners had heard me lecture in London 23 years ago.... + + These prisoners are strong men, prominent men, & I believe they are + all educated men. They are well off; some of them are wealthy. + They have a lot of books to read, they play games & smoke, & for a + while they will be able to bear up in their captivity; but not for + long, not for very long, I take it. I am told they have times of + deadly brooding and depression. I made them a speech--sitting down. + It just happened so. I don't prefer that attitude. Still, it has + one advantage--it is only a talk, it doesn't take the form of a + speech . . . . I advised them at considerable length to stay + where they were--they would get used to it & like it presently; if + they got out they would only get in again somewhere else, by the + look of their countenances; & I promised to go and see the President + & do what I could to get him to double their jail terms.... + We had a very good sociable time till the permitted time was up &. + a little over & we outsiders had to go. I went again to-day, but + the Rev. Mr. Gray had just arrived, & the warden, a genial, elderly + Boer named Du Plessis, explained that his orders wouldn't allow him + to admit saint & sinner at the same time, particularly on a Sunday. + Du Plessis descended from the Huguenot fugitives, you see, of 200 + years ago--but he hasn't any French left in him now--all Dutch. + +Clemens did visit President Kruger a few days later, but not for the +purpose explained. John Hayes Hammond, in a speech not long ago (1911), +told how Mark Twain was interviewed by a reporter after he left the jail, +and when the reporter asked if the prisoners were badly treated Clemens +had replied that he didn't think so, adding: + +"As a matter of fact, a great many of these gentlemen have fared far +worse in the hotels and mining-camps of the West." + +Said Hammond in his speech: "The result of this was that the interview +was reported literally and a leader appeared in the next morning's issue +protesting against such lenience. The privations, already severe enough, +were considerably augmented by that remark, and it required some three or +four days' search on the part of some of our friends who were already +outside of jail to get hold of Mark Twain and have him go and explain to +Kruger that it was all a joke." + +Clemens made as good a plea to "Oom Paul" as he could, and in some degree +may have been responsible for the improved treatment and the shortened +terms of the unlucky reformers. + +They did not hurry away from South Africa. Clemens gave many readings +and paid a visit to the Kimberley mines. His note-book recalls how poor +Riley twenty-five years before had made his fatal journey. + +It was the 14th of July, 1896, a year to a day since they left Elmira, +that they sailed by the steamer Norman for England, arriving at +Southampton the 31st. It was from Southampton that they had sailed for +America fourteen months before. They had completed the circuit of the +globe. + + + + +CXCII + +THE PASSING OF SUSY + +It had been arranged that Katie Leary should bring Jean and Susy to +England. It was expected that they would arrive soon, not later than the +12th, by which time the others would be established. The travelers +proceeded immediately to London and engaged for the summer a house in +Guildford, modest quarters, for they were still economizing, though Mark +Twain had reason to hope that with the money already earned and the +profits of the book he would write of his travels he could pay himself +free. Altogether, the trip had been prosperous. Now that it was behind +him, his health and spirits had improved. The outlook was brighter. + +August 12th came, but it did not bring Katie and the children. A letter +came instead. Clemens long afterward wrote: + + It explained that Susy was slightly ill-nothing of consequence. But + we were disquieted and began to cable for later news. This was + Friday. All day no answer--and the ship to leave Southampton next + day at noon. Clara and her mother began packing, to be ready in + case the news should be bad. Finally came a cablegram saying, "Wait + for cablegram in the morning." This was not satisfactory--not + reassuring. I cabled again, asking that the answer be sent to + Southampton, for the day was now closing. I waited in the post- + office that night till the doors were closed, toward midnight, in + the hope that good news might still come, but there was no message. + We sat silent at home till one in the morning waiting--waiting for + we knew not what. Then we took the earlier morning train, and when + we reached Southampton the message was there. It said the recovery + would be long but certain. This was a great relief to me, but not + to my wife. She was frightened. She and Clara went aboard the + steamer at once and sailed for America, to nurse Susy. I remained + behind to search for another and larger house in Guildford. + + That was the 15th of August, 1896. Three days later, when my wife + and Clara were about half-way across the ocean, I was standing in + our dining-room, thinking of nothing in particular, when a cablegram + was put into my hand. It said, "Susy was peacefully released + to-day." + +Some of those who in later years wondered at Mark Twain's occasional +attitude of pessimism and bitterness toward all creation, when his +natural instinct lay all the other way, may find here some reasons in his +logic of gloom. For years he and his had been fighting various impending +disasters. In the end he had torn his family apart and set out on a +weary pilgrimage to pay, for long financial unwisdom, a heavy price--a +penance in which all, without complaint, had joined. Now, just when it +seemed about ended, when they were ready to unite and be happy once more, +when he could hold up his head among his fellows--in this moment of +supreme triumph had come the message that Susy's lovely and blameless +life was ended. There are not many greater dramas in fiction or in +history than this. The wonder is not that Mark Twain so often preached +the doctrine of despair during his later life, but that he did not +exemplify it--that he did not become a misanthrope in fact. + +Mark Twain's life had contained other tragedies, but no other that +equaled this one. This time none of the elements were lacking--not the +smallest detail. The dead girl had been his heart's pride; it was a year +since he had seen her face, and now by this word he knew that he would +never see it again. The blow had found him alone absolutely alone among +strangers--those others--half-way across the ocean, drawing nearer and +nearer to it, and he with no way to warn them, to prepare them, to +comfort them. + +Clemens sought no comfort for himself. Just as nearly forty years before +he had writhed in self-accusation for the death of his younger brother, +and as later he held himself to blame for the death of his infant son, so +now he crucified himself as the slayer of Susy. To Mrs. Clemens he +poured himself out in a letter in which he charged himself categorically +as being wholly and solely responsible for the tragedy, detailing step by +step with fearful reality his mistakes and weaknesses which had led to +their downfall, the separation from Susy, and this final incredible +disaster. Only a human being, he said, could have done these things. + +Susy Clemens had died in the old Hartford home. She had been well for a +time at Quarry Farm, well and happy, but during the summer of '96 she had +become restless, nervous, and unlike herself in many ways. Her health +seemed to be gradually failing, and she renewed the old interest in +mental science, always with the approval of her parents. Clemens had +great faith in mind over matter, and Mrs. Clemens also believed that +Susy's high-strung nature was especially calculated to receive benefit +from a serene and confident mental attitude. From Bombay, in January, +she wrote Mrs. Crane: + +I am very glad indeed that Susy has taken up Mental Science, and I do +hope it may do her as much good as she hopes. Last winter we were so +very anxious to have her get hold of it, and even felt at one time that +we must go to America on purpose to have her have the treatment, so it +all seems very fortunate that it should have come about as it has this +winter. + +Just how much or how little Susy was helped by this treatment cannot be +known. Like Stevenson, she had "a soul of flame in a body of gauze," a +body to be guarded through the spirit. She worked continuously at her +singing and undoubtedly overdid herself. Early in the year she went over +to Hartford to pay some good-by visit, remaining most of the time in the +home of Charles Dudley Warner, working hard at her singing. Her health +did not improve, and when Katie Leary went to Hartford to arrange for +their departure she was startled at the change in her. + +"Miss Susy; you are sick," she said. "You must have the doctor come." + +Susy refused at first, but she grew worse and the doctor was sent for. He +thought her case not very serious--the result, he said, of overwork. He +prescribed some soothing remedies, and advised that she be kept very +quiet, away from company, and that she be taken to her own home, which +was but a step away. It was then that the letter was written and the +first cable sent to England. Mrs. Crane was summoned from Elmira, also +Charles Langdon. Mr. Twichell was notified and came down from his summer +place in the Adirondacks. + +Susy did not improve. She became rapidly worse, and a few days later the +doctor pronounced her ailment meningitis. This was on the 15th of +August--that hot, terrible August of 1896. Susy's fever increased and +she wandered through the burning rooms in delirium and pain; then her +sight left her, an effect of the disease. She lay down at last, and +once, when Katie Leary was near her, she put her hands on Katie's face +and said, "mama." She did not speak after that, but sank into +unconsciousness, and on the evening of Tuesday, August 18th, the flame +went out forever. + +To Twichell Clemens wrote of it: + + Ah, well, Susy died at home. She had that privilege. Her dying + eyes rested upon no thing that was strange to them, but only upon + things which they had known & loved always & which had made her + young years glad; & she had you & Sue & Katie & & John & Ellen. + This was happy fortune--I am thankful that it was vouchsafed to her. + If she had died in another house--well, I think I could not have + borne that. To us our house was not unsentient matter--it had a + heart & a soul & eyes to see us with, & approvals & solicitudes & + deep sympathies; it was of us, & we were in its confidence, & lived + in its grace & in the peace of its benediction. We never came home + from an absence that its face did not light up & speak out its + eloquent welcome--& we could not enter it unmoved. And could we + now? oh, now, in spirit we should enter it unshod. + +A tugboat with Dr. Rice, Mr. Twichell, and other friends of the family +went down the bay to meet the arriving vessel with Mrs. Clemens and Clara +on board. It was night when the ship arrived, and they did not show +themselves until morning; then at first to Clara. There had been little +need to formulate a message--their presence there was enough--and when a +moment later Clara returned to the stateroom her mother looked into her +face and she also knew. Susy already had been taken to Elmira, and at +half past ten that night Mrs. Clemens and Clara arrived there by the +through train--the same train and in the same coach which they had taken +one year and one month before on their journey westward around the world. + +And again Susy was there, not waving her welcome in the glare of the +lights as she had waved her farewell to us thirteen months before, but +lying white and fair in her coffin in the house where she was born. + +They buried her with the Langdon relatives and the little brother, and +ordered a headstone with some lines which they had found in Australia: + + Warm summer sun shine kindly here; + Warm southern wind blow softly here; + Green sod above lie light, lie light + Good night, dear heart, good night, good night. + +--[These lines at first were generally attributed to Clemens himself. +When this was reported to him he ordered the name of the Australian poet, +Robert Richardson, cut beneath them. The word "southern" in the original +read "northern," as in Australia, the warm wind is from the north. +Richardson died in England in 1901.] + + + + +CXCIV + +WINTER IN TEDWORTH SQUARE + +Mrs. Clemens, Clara, and Jean, with Katie Leary, sailed for England +without delay. Arriving there, they gave up the house in Guildford, and +in a secluded corner of Chelsea, on the tiny and then almost unknown +Tedworth Square (No. 23), they hid themselves away for the winter. They +did not wish to be visited; they did not wish their whereabouts known +except to a few of their closest friends. They wanted to be alone with +their sorrow, and not a target for curious attention. Perhaps not a +dozen people in London knew their address and the outside world was +ignorant of it altogether. It was through this that a wild report +started that Mark Twain's family had deserted him--that ill and in +poverty he was laboring alone to pay his debts. This report--exploited +in five-column head-lines by a hyper-hysterical paper of that period +received wide attention. + +James Ross Clemens, of the St. Louis branch, a nephew of Frau von Versen, +was in London just then, and wrote at once, through Chatto & Windus, +begging Mark Twain to command his relative's purse. The reply to this +kind offer was an invitation to tea, and "Young Doctor Jim," as he was +called, found his famous relative by no means abandoned or in want, but +in pleasant quarters, with his family still loyal. The general +impression survived, however, that Mark Twain was sorely pressed, and the +New York Herald headed a public benefit fund for the payment of his +debts. The Herald subscribed one thousand dollars on its own account, +and Andrew Carnegie followed with another thousand, but the enterprise +was barely under way when Clemens wrote a characteristic letter, in which +he declared that while he would have welcomed the help offered, being +weary of debt, his family did not wish him to accept and so long as he +was able to take care of them through his own efforts. + +Meantime he was back into literary harness; a notebook entry for October +24, 1896, says: + +"Wrote the fist chapter of the book to-day-'Around the World'." + +He worked at it uninterruptedly, for in work; there was respite, though +his note-books show something of his mental torture, also his spiritual +heresies. His series of mistakes and misfortunes, ending with the death +of Susy, had tended to solidify his attitude of criticism toward things +in general and the human race in particular. + +"Man is the only animal that blushes, or that needs to," was one of his +maxims of this period, and in another place he sets down the myriad +diseases which human flesh is heir to and his contempt for a creature +subject to such afflictions and for a Providence that could invent them. +Even Mrs. Clemens felt the general sorrow of the race. "Poor, poor human +nature," she wrote once during that long, gloomy winter. + +Many of Mark Twain's notes refer to Susy. In one he says: + +"I did not hear her glorious voice at its supremest--that was in Hartford +a month or two before the end." + +Notes of heavy regret most of them are, and self-reproach and the +hopelessness of it all. In one place he records her accomplishment of +speech, adding: + +"And I felt like saying 'you marvelous child,' but never said it; to my +sorrow I remember it now. But I come of an undemonstrative race." + +He wrote to Twichell: + + But I have this consolation: that dull as I was I always knew enough + to be proud when she commended me or my work--as proud as if Livy + had done it herself--& I took it as the accolade from the hand of + genius. I see now--as Livy always saw--that she had greatness in + her, & that she herself was dimly conscious of it. + + And now she is dead--& I can never tell her. + +And closing a letter to Howells: + + Good-by. Will healing ever come, or life have value again? + + And shall we see Susy? Without doubt! without a shadow of doubt if + it can furnish opportunity to break our hearts again. + +On November 26th, Thanksgiving, occurs this note: + + "We did not celebrate it. Seven years ago Susy gave her play for + the first time." + +And on Christmas: + + London, 11.30 Xmas morning. The Square & adjacent streets are not + merely quiet, they are dead. There is not a sound. At intervals a + Sunday-looking person passes along. The family have been to + breakfast. We three sat & talked as usual, but the name of the day + was not mentioned. It was in our minds, but we said nothing. + +And a little later: + + Since bad luck struck us it is risky for people to have to do with + us. Our cook's sweetheart was healthy. He is rushing for the grave + now. Emily, one of the maids, has lost the sight of one eye and the + other is in danger. Wallace carried up coal & blacked the boots two + months--has suddenly gone to the hospital--pleurisy and a bad case. + We began to allow ourselves to see a good deal of our friends, the + Bigelows--straightway their baby sickened & died. Next Wilson got + his skull fractured. + + January 23, 1897. I wish the Lord would disguise Himself in + citizen's clothing & make a personal examination of the sufferings + of the poor in London. He would be moved & would do something for + them Himself. + + + + +CXCV + +"PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC". + +Meantime certain publishing events had occurred. During his long voyage +a number of Mark Twain's articles had appeared in the magazines, among +them "Mental Telegraphy Again," in Harpers, and in the North American +Review that scorching reply to Paul Bourget's reflections upon America. +Clemens could criticize his own nation freely enough, but he would hardly +be patient under the strictures of a Frenchman, especially upon American +women. + +There had been book publication also during this period. The Harpers had +issued an edition of 'Tom Sawyer Abroad', which included another Tom and +Huck story 'Tom Sawyer, Detective', written in Paris, and the contents of +the old White Elephant book. + +But there had been a much more important book event. The chapters of his +story of Joan having run their course in Harper's Magazine had been +issued as a volume. + +As already mentioned, Joan had been early recognized as Mark Twain's +work, and it was now formally acknowledged as such on the title-page. It +is not certain now that the anonymous beginning had been a good thing. +Those who began reading it for its lofty charm, with the first hint of +Mark Twain as the author became fearful of some joke or burlesque. Some +who now promptly hastened to read it as Mark Twain's, were inclined to be +disappointed at the very lack of these features. When the book itself +appeared the general public, still doubtful as to its merits, gave it a +somewhat dubious reception. The early sales were disappointing. + +Nor were the reviewers enthusiastic, as a rule. Perhaps they did not +read it over-carefully, or perhaps they were swayed a good deal by a sort +of general verdict that, in attempting 'Joan of Arc', Mark Twain had gone +out of his proper field. Furthermore, there were a number of Joan books +published just then, mainly sober, somber books, in which Joan was +pictured properly enough as a saint, and never as anything else--never +being permitted to smile or enjoy the lighter side of life, to be a human +being, in fact, at all. + +But this is just the very wonder of Mark Twain's Joan. She is a saint; +she is rare, she is exquisite, she is all that is lovely, and she is a +human being besides. Considered from every point of view, Joan of Arc is +Mark Twain's supreme literary expression, the loftiest, the most +delicate, the most luminous example of his work. It is so from the first +word of its beginning, that wonderful "Translator's Preface," to the last +word of the last chapter, where he declares that the figure of Joan with +the martyr's crown upon her head shall stand for patriotism through all +time. + +The idyllic picture of Joan's childhood with her playmates around the +fairy tree is so rare in its delicacy and reality that any attempt to +recall it here would disturb its bloom. The little poem, "L'Arbre fee de +Bourlemont," Mark Twain's own composition, is a perfect note, and that +curiously enough, for in versification he was not likely to be strong. +Joan's girlhood, the picture of her father's humble cottage, the singing +there by the wandering soldier of the great song of Roland which stirred +her deepest soul with the love of France, Joan's heroism among her +playmates, her wisdom, her spiritual ideals-are not these all reverently +and nobly told, and with that touch of tenderness which only Mark Twain +could give? And the story of her voices, and her march, and of her first +appearance before the wavering king. And then the great coronation scene +at Rheims, and the dramatic moment when Joan commands the march on Paris +--the dragging of the hopeless trial, and that last, fearful day of +execution, what can surpass these? Nor must we forget those charming, +brighter moments where Joan is shown just as a human being, laughing +until the tears run at the absurdities of the paladin or the simple home +prattle of her aged father and uncle. Only here and there does one find +a touch--and it is never more than that--of the forbidden thing, the +burlesque note which was so likely to be Mark Twain's undoing. + +It seems incredible to-day that any reader, whatever his preconceived +notions of the writer might have been, could have followed these chapters +without realizing their majesty, and that this tale of Joan was a book +such as had not before been written. Let any one who read it then and +doubted, go back and consider it now. A surprise will await him, and it +will be worth while. He will know the true personality of Joan of Arc +more truly than ever before, and he will love her as the author loved +her, for "the most innocent, the most lovely, the most adorable child the +ages have produced." + +The tale is matchless in its workmanship. The quaint phrasing of the old +Sieur de Conte is perfectly adapted to the subject-matter, and the lovely +character of the old narrator himself is so perfectly maintained that we +find ourselves all the time as in an atmosphere of consecration, and feel +that somehow we are helping him to weave a garland to lay on Joan's tomb. +Whatever the tale he tells, he is never more than a step away. We are +within sound of his voice, we can touch his presence; we ride with him +into battle; we laugh with him in the by-play and humors of warfare; we +sit hushed at his side through the long, fearful days of the deadly +trial, and when it is all ended it is to him that we turn to weep for +Joan--with him only would we mingle our tears. It is all bathed in the +atmosphere of romance, but it is the ultimate of realism, too; not hard, +sordid, ugly realism, but noble, spiritual, divine realism, belonging to +no particular class or school--a creation apart. Not all of Mark Twain's +tales have been convincing, but there is no chapter of his Joan that we +doubt. We believe it all happened--we know that it must have happened, +for our faith in the Sieur de Conte never for an instant wavers. + +Aside from the personality of the book--though, in truth, one never is +aside from it--the tale is a marvel in its pageantry, its splendid +panorama and succession of stirring and stately scenes. The fight before +Orleans, the taking of the Tourelles and of Jargeau, all the movement of +that splendid march to Rheims, there are few better battle-pictures than +these. Howells, always interested mainly in the realism of to-day, in +his review hints at staginess in the action and setting and even in Joan +herself. But Howells himself did not accept his earlier judgment as +final. Five years later he wrote: + +"She is indeed realized to the modern sense as few figures of the past +have been realized in fiction." + +As for the action, suppose we consider a brief bit of Joan's warfare. It +is from the attack on the Tourelles: + + Joan mounted her horse now with her staff about her, and when our + people saw us coming they raised a great shout, and were at once + eager for another assault on the boulevard. Joan rode straight to + the foss where she had received her wound, and, standing there in + the rain of bolts and arrows, she ordered the paladin to let her + long standard blow free, and to note when its fringes should touch + the fortress. Presently he said: + + "It touches." + + "Now, then," said Joan to the waiting battalions, "the place is + yours--enter in! Bugles, sound the assault! Now, then--all + together--go!" + + And go it was. You never saw anything like it. We swarmed up the + ladders and over the battlements like a wave--and the place was our + property. Why, one might live a thousand years and never see so + gorgeous a thing as that again.... + + We were busy and never heard the five cannon-shots fired, but they + were fired a moment after Joan had ordered the assault; and so, + while we were hammering and being hammered in the smaller fortress, + the reserve on the Orleans side poured across the bridge and + attacked the Tourelles from that side. A fireboat was brought down + and moored under the drawbridge which connected the Tourelles with + our boulevard; wherefore, when at last we drove our English ahead of + us, and they tried to cross that drawbridge and join their friends + in the Tourelles, the burning timbers gave way under them and + emptied them in a mass into the river in their heavy armor--and a + pitiful sight it was to see brave men die such a death as that. + + "God pity them!" said Joan, and wept to see that sorrowful + spectacle. She said those gentle words and wept those compassionate + tears, although one of those perishing men had grossly insulted her + with a coarse name three days before when she had sent him a message + asking him to surrender. That was their leader, Sir William + Glasdale, a most valorous knight. He was clothed all in steel; so + he plunged under the water like a lance, and of course came up no + more. + + We soon patched a sort of bridge together and threw ourselves + against the last stronghold of the English power that barred Orleans + from friends and supplies. Before the sun was quite down Joan's + forever memorable day's work was finished, her banner floated from + the fortress of the Tourelles, her promise was fulfilled, she had + raised the siege of Orleans! + +England had resented the Yankee, but it welcomed Joan. Andrew Lang +adored it, and some years later contemplated dedicating his own book, +'The Maid of France', to Mark Twain.'--[His letter proposing this +dedication, received in 1909, appears to have been put aside and +forgotten by Mr. Clemens, whose memory had not improved with failing +health.] + +Brander Matthews ranks Huck Finn before Joan of Arc, but that is +understandable. His literary culture and research enable him, in some +measure, to comprehend the production of Joan; whereas to him Huck is +pure magic. Huck is not altogether magic to those who know the West--the +character of that section and the Mississippi River, especially of an +older time--it is rather inspiration resulting from these existing +things. Joan is a truer literary magic--the reconstruction of a +far-vanished life and time. To reincarnate, as in a living body of the +present, that marvelous child whose life was all that was pure and +exalted and holy, is veritable necromancy and something more. It is the +apotheosis of history. + +Throughout his life Joan of Arc had been Mark Twain's favorite character +in the world's history. His love for her was a beautiful and a sacred +thing. He adored young maidenhood always and nobility of character, and +he was always the champion of the weak and the oppressed. The +combination of these characteristics made him the ideal historian of an +individuality and of a career like hers. It is fitting that in his old +age (he was nearing sixty when it was finished) he should have written +this marvelously beautiful thing. He could not have written it at an +earlier time. It had taken him all these years to prepare for it; to +become softened, to acquire the delicacy of expression, the refinement of +feeling, necessary to the achievement. + +It was the only book of all he had written that Mark Twain considered +worthy of this dedication: + + 1870 To MY WIFE 1895 + OLIVIA LANGDON CLEMENS + THIS BOOK + + is tendered on our wedding anniversary in grateful recognition + of her twenty-five years of valued service as my literary + adviser and editor. + THE AUTHOR + +The Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc was a book not understood in +the beginning, but to-day the public, that always renders justice in the +end, has reversed its earlier verdict. The demand for Joan has +multiplied many fold and it continues to multiply with every year. Its +author lived long enough to see this change and to be comforted by it, +for though the creative enthusiasm in his other books soon passed, his +glory in the tale of Joan never died. On his seventy-third birthday, +when all of his important books were far behind him, and he could judge +them without prejudice, he wrote as his final verdict: + + Nov. 30, 1908 + +I like the Joan of Arc best of all my books; & it is the best; I know it +perfectly well. And besides, it furnished me seven times the pleasure +afforded me by any of the others: 12 years of preparation & a years of +writing. The others needed no preparation, & got none. + + MARK TWAIN. + + + + +CXCVI + +MR. ROGERS AND HELEN KELLER + +It was during the winter of '96, in London, that Clemens took an active +interest in the education of Helen Keller and enlisted the most valuable +adherent in that cause, that is to say, Henry H. Rogers. It was to Mrs. +Rogers that he wrote, heading his letter: + + For & in behalf + of Helen Keller, + Stone blind & deaf, + & formerly dumb. + + DEAR MRS. ROGERS,--Experience has convinced me that when one + wished to set a hard-worked man at something which he mightn't + prefer to be bothered with it is best to move upon him behind his + wife. If she can't convince him it isn't worth while for other + people to try. + + Mr. Rogers will remember our visit with that astonishing girl at + Lawrence Hutton's house when she was fourteen years old. Last July, + in Boston, when she was 16 she underwent the Harvard examination for + admission to Radcliffe College. She passed without a single + condition. She was allowed only the same amount of time that is + granted to other applicants, & this was shortened in her case by the + fact that the question-papers had to be read to her. Yet she scored + an average of 90, as against an average of 78 on the part of the + other applicants. + + It won't do for America to allow this marvelous child to retire from + her studies because of poverty. If she can go on with them she will + make a fame that will endure in history for centuries. Along her + special lines she is the most extraordinary product of all the ages. + + There is danger that she must retire from the struggle for a college + degree for lack of support for herself & for Miss Sullivan (the + teacher who has been with her from the start--Mr. Rogers will + remember her). Mrs. Hutton writes to ask me to interest rich + Englishmen in her case, & I would gladly try, but my secluded life + will not permit it. I see nobody. Nobody knows my address. + Nothing but the strictest hiding can enable me to write my book in + time. + + So I thought of this scheme: Beg you to lay siege to your husband & + get him to interest himself and Messrs. John D. & William + Rockefeller & the other Standard Oil chiefs in Helen's case; get + them to subscribe an annual aggregate of six or seven hundred or a + thousand dollars--& agree to continue this for three or four years, + until she has completed her college course. I'm not trying to limit + their generosity--indeed no; they may pile that Standard Oil Helen + Keller College Fund as high as they please; they have my consent. + + Mrs. Hutton's idea is to raise a permanent fund, the interest upon + which shall support Helen & her teacher & put them out of the fear + of want. I sha'n't say a word against it, but she will find it a + difficult & disheartening job, & meanwhile what is to become of that + miraculous girl? + + No, for immediate and sound effectiveness, the thing is for you to + plead with Mr. Rogers for this hampered wonder of your sex, & send + him clothed with plenary powers to plead with the other chiefs--they + have spent mountains of money upon the worthiest benevolences, & I + think that the same spirit which moved them to put their hands down + through their hearts into their pockets in those cases will answer. + "Here!" when its name is called in this one. + + There--I don't need to apologize to you or to H. H. for this appeal + that I am making; I know you too well for that: + + Good-by, with love to all of you, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +The result of this letter was that Mr. Rogers personally took charge of +Helen Keller's fortunes, and out of his own means made it possible for +her to continue her education and to achieve for herself the enduring +fame which Mark Twain had foreseen. + +Mr. Rogers wrote that, by a curious coincidence, a letter had come to him +from Mrs. Hutton on the same morning that Mrs. Rogers had received hers +from Tedworth Square. Clemens sent grateful acknowledgments to Mrs. +Rogers. + + DEAR MRS. ROGERS,--It is superb! And I am beyond measure grateful + to you both. I knew you would be interested in that wonderful girl, + & that Mr. Rogers was already interested in her & touched by her; & + I was sure that if nobody else helped her you two would; but you + have gone far & away beyond the sum I expected--may your lines fall + in pleasant places here, & Hereafter for it! + + The Huttons are as glad & grateful as they can be, & I am glad for + their sakes as well as for Helen's. + + I want to thank Mr. Rogers for crucifying himself on the same old + cross between Bliss & Harper; & goodness knows I hope he will come + to enjoy it above all other dissipations yet, seeing that it has + about it the elements of stability & permanency. However, at any + time that he says sign we're going to do it. + + Ever sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + + +CXCVII + +FINISHING THE BOOK OF TRAVEL + +One reading the Equator book to-day, and knowing the circumstances under +which it was written, might be puzzled to reconcile the secluded +household and its atmosphere of sorrow with certain gaieties of the +subject matter. The author himself wondered at it, and to Howells wrote: + I don't mean that I am miserable; no-worse than that--indifferent. + Indifferent to nearly everything but work. I like that; I enjoy it, + & stick to it. I do it without purpose & without ambition; merely + for the love of it. Indeed, I am a mud-image; & it puzzles me to + know what it is in me that writes & has comedy fancies & finds + pleasure in phrasing them. It is the law of our nature, of course, + or it wouldn't happen; the thing in me forgets the presence of the + mud-image, goes its own way wholly unconscious of it & apparently of + no kinship with it. + +He saw little company. Now and, then a good friend, J.Y.W. MacAlister, +came in for a smoke with him. Once Clemens sent this line: + + You speak a language which I understand. I would like to see you. + Could you come and smoke some manilas; I would, of course, say dine, + but my family are hermits & cannot see any one, but I would have a + fire in my study, & if you came at any time after your dinner that + might be most convenient for you you would find me & a welcome. + +Clemens occasionally went out to dinner, but very privately. He dined +with Bram Stoker, who invited Anthony Hope and one or two others, and +with the Chattos and Mr. Percy Spalding; also with Andrew Lang, who +wrote, "Your old friend, Lord Lome, wants to see you again"; with the +Henry M. Stanleys and Poultney Bigelow, and with Francis H. Skrine, a +government official he had met in India. But in all such affairs he was +protected from strangers and his address was kept a secret from the +public. Finally, the new-found cousin, Dr. Jim Clemens, fell ill, and +the newspapers had it presently that Mark Twain was lying at the point of +death. A reporter ferreted him out and appeared at Tedworth Square with +cabled instructions from his paper. He was a young man, and innocently +enough exhibited his credentials. His orders read: + +"If Mark Twain very ill, five hundred words. If dead, send one +thousand." + +Clemens smiled grimly as he handed back the cable. + +"You don't need as much as that," he said. "Just say the report of my +death has been grossly exaggerated." + +The young man went away quite seriously, and it was not until he was +nearly to his office that he saw the joke. Then, of course, it was +flashed all over the world. + +Clemens kept grinding steadily at the book, for it was to be a very large +volume--larger than he had ever written before. To MacAlister, April 6, +1897, he wrote, replying to some invitation: + + Ah, but I mustn't stir from my desk before night now when the + publisher is hurrying me & I am almost through. I am up at work + now--4 o'clock in the morning-and a few more spurts will pull me + through. You come down here & smoke; that is better than tempting a + working-man to strike & go to tea. + + And it would move me too deeply to see Miss Corelli. When I saw her + last it was on the street in Homburg, & Susy was walking with me. + +On April 13th he makes a note-book entry: "I finished my book to-day," +and on the 15th he wrote MacAlister, inclosing some bits of manuscript: + + I finished my book yesterday, and the madam edited this stuff out of + it--on the ground that the first part is not delicate & the last + part is indelicate. Now, there's a nice distinction for you--& + correctly stated, too, & perfectly true. + +It may interest the reader to consider briefly the manner in which Mark +Twain's "editor" dealt with his manuscript, and a few pages of this +particular book remain as examples. That he was not always entirely +tractable, or at least submissive, but that he did yield, and graciously, +is clearly shown. + +In one of her comments Mrs. Clemens wrote: + + Page 597. I hate to say it, but it seems to me that you go too + minutely into particulars in describing the feats of the + aboriginals. I felt it in the boomerang-throwing. + +And Clemens just below has written: + + Boomerang has been furnished with a special train--that is, I've + turned it into "Appendix." Will that answer? + + Page 1002. I don't like the "shady-principled cat that has a family + in every port." + + Then I'll modify him just a little. + + Page 1020. 9th line from the top. I think some other word would be + better than "stench." You have used that pretty often. + + But can't I get it in anywhere? You've knocked it out every time. + Out it goes again. And yet "stench" is a noble, good word. + + Page 1038. I hate to have your father pictured as lashing a slave + boy. + + It's out, and my father is whitewashed. + + Page 1050. 2d line from the bottom. Change breech-clout. It's a + word that you love and I abominate. I would take that and "offal" + out of the language. + + You are steadily weakening the English tongue, Livy. + + Page 1095. Perhaps you don't care, but whoever told you that the + Prince's green stones were rubies told an untruth. They were superb + emeralds. Those strings of pearls and emeralds were famous all over + Bombay. + + All right, I'll make them emeralds, but it loses force. Green + rubies is a fresh thing. And besides it was one of the Prince's own + staff liars that told me. + +That the book was not quite done, even after the triumphant entry of +April 13th, is shown by another note which followed something more than a +month later: + + May 18, 1897. Finished the book again--addition of 30,000 words. + +And to MacAlister he wrote: + + I have finished the book at last--and finished it for good this + time. Now I am ready for dissipation with a good conscience. What + night will you come down & smoke? + +His book finished, Clemens went out rather more freely, and one evening +allowed MacAlister to take him around to the Savage Club. There happened +to be a majority of the club committee present, and on motion Mark Twain +was elected an honorary life member. There were but three others on whom +this distinction had been conferred--Stanley, Nansen, and the Prince of +Wales. When they told Mark Twain this he said: + +"Well, it must make the Prince feel mighty fine."--[In a volume of Savage +Club anecdotes the date of Mark Twain's election to honorary membership +is given as 1899. Clemens's notebook gives it in 1897.] + +He did not intend to rest; in another entry we find: + + May 23, 1897. Wrote first chapter of above story to-day. + +The "above story" is a synopsis of a tale which he tried then and later +in various forms--a tale based on a scientific idea that one may dream an +episode covering a period of years in minute detail in what, by our +reckoning, may be no more than a few brief seconds. In this particular +form of the story a man sits down to write some memories and falls into a +doze. The smell of his cigarette smoke causes him to dream of the +burning of his home, the destruction of his family, and of a long period +of years following. Awakening a few seconds later, and confronted by his +wife and children, he refuses to believe in their reality, maintaining +that this condition, and not the other, is the dream. Clemens tried the +psychological literary experiment in as many as three different ways +during the next two or three years, and each at considerable length; but +he developed none of them to his satisfaction, or at least he brought +none of them to conclusion. Perhaps the most weird of these attempts, +and the most intensely interesting, so long as the verisimilitude is +maintained, is a dream adventure in a drop of water which, through an +incredible human reduction to microbic, even atomic, proportions, has +become a vast tempestuous sea. Mark Twain had the imagination for these +undertakings and the literary workmanship, lacking only a definite plan +for development of his tale--a lack which had brought so many of his +literary ventures to the rocks. + + + + +CXCVIII + +A SUMMER IN SWITZERLAND + +The Queen's Jubilee came along--June 22, 1897, being the day chosen to +celebrate the sixty-year reign. Clemens had been asked to write about it +for the American papers, and he did so after his own ideas, illustrating +some of his material with pictures of his own selection. The selections +were made from various fashion-plates, which gave him a chance to pick +the kind of a prince or princess or other royal figure that he thought +fitted his description without any handicap upon his imagination. Under +his portrait of Henry V. (a very correctly dressed person in top hat and +overcoat) he wrote: + + In the original the King has a crown on. That is no kind of a thing + for the King to wear when he has come home on business. He ought to + wear something he can collect taxes in. You will find this + represenation of Henry V. active, full of feeling, full of + sublimity. I have pictured him looking out over the battle of + Agincourt and studying up where to begin. + +Mark Twain's account of the Jubilee probably satisfied most readers; but +James Tufts, then managing editor of the San Francisco Examiner, had a +rather matter-of-fact Englishman on the staff, who, after reading the +report, said: + +"Well, Jim Tufts, I hope you are satisfied with that Mark Twain cable." + +"Why, yes," said Tufts; "aren't you?" + +"I should say not. Just look what he says about the number of soldiers. +He says, 'I never saw so many soldiers anywhere except on the stage of a +theater.' Why, Tufts, don't you know that the soldiers in the theater +are the same old soldiers marching around and around? There aren't more +than a hundred soldiers in the biggest army ever put on the stage." + +It was decided to vacate the house in Tedworth Square and go to +Switzerland for the summer. Mrs. Crane and Charles Langdon's daughter, +Julia, joined them early in July, and they set out for Switzerland a few +days later. Just before leaving, Clemens received an offer from Pond of +fifty thousand dollars for one hundred and twenty-five nights on the +platform in America. It was too great a temptation to resist at once, +and they took it under advisement. Clemens was willing to accept, but +Mrs. Clemens opposed the plan. She thought his health no longer equal to +steady travel. She believed that with continued economy they would be +able to manage their problem without this sum. In the end the offer was +declined. + +They journeyed to Switzerland by way of Holland and Germany, the general +destination being Lucerne. They did not remain there, however. They +found a pretty little village farther up the lake--Weggis, at the foot of +the Rigi--where, in the Villa Buhlegg, they arranged for the summer at +very moderate rates indeed. Weggis is a beautiful spot, looking across +the blue water to Mount Pilatus, the lake shore dotted with white +villages. Down by the water, but a few yards from the cottage--for it +was scarcely a villa except by courtesy--there was a little inclosure, +and a bench under a large tree, a quiet spot where Clemens often sat to +rest and smoke. The fact is remembered there to-day, and recorded. A +small tablet has engraved upon it "Mark Twain Ruhe." Farther along the +shore he discovered a neat, white cottage were some kindly working-people +agreed to rent him an upper room for a study. It was a sunny room with +windows looking out upon the lake, and he worked there steadily. To +Twichell he wrote: + +This is the charmingest place we have ever lived in for repose and +restfulness, superb scenery whose beauty undergoes a perpetual change +from one miracle to another, yet never runs short of fresh surprises and +new inventions. We shall always come here for the summers if we can. + +The others have climbed the Rigi, he says, and he expects to some day if +Twichell will come and climb it with him. They had climbed it together +during that summer vagabondage, nineteen years before. + +He was full of enthusiasm over his work. To F. H. Skrine, in London, he +wrote that he had four or five books all going at once, and his note-book +contains two or three pages merely of titles of the stories he proposed +to write. + +But of the books begun that summer at Weggis none appears to have been +completed. There still exists a bulky, half-finished manuscript about +Tom and Huck, most of which was doubtless written at this time, and there +is the tale already mentioned, the "dream" story; and another tale with a +plot of intricate psychology and crime; still another with the burning +title of "Hell-Fire Hotchkiss"--a story of Hannibal life--and some short +stories. Clemens appeared to be at this time out of tune with fiction. +Perhaps his long book of travel had disqualified his invention. He +realized that these various literary projects were leading nowhere, and +one after another he dropped them. The fact that proofs of the big book +were coming steadily may also have interfered with his creative faculty. + +As was his habit, Clemens formed the acquaintance of a number of the +native residents, and enjoyed talking to them about their business and +daily affairs. They were usually proud and glad of these attentions, +quick to see the humor of his remarks. + +But there was an old watchmaker-an 'Uhrmacher' who remained indifferent. +He would answer only in somber monosyllables, and he never smiled. +Clemens at last brought the cheapest kind of a watch for repairs. + +"Be very careful of this watch," he said. "It is a fine one." + +The old man merely glared at him. + +"It is not a valuable watch. It is a worthless watch." + +"But I gave six francs for it in Paris." + +"Still, it is a cheap watch," was the unsmiling answer. Defeat waits +somewhere for every conqueror. + +Which recalls another instance, though of a different sort. On one of +his many voyages to America, he was sitting on deck in a steamer-chair +when two little girls stopped before him. One of them said, +hesitatingly: + +"Are you Mr. Mark Twain?" + +"Why, yes, dear, they call me that." + +"Won't you please say something funny?" + +And for the life of him he couldn't make the required remark. + +In one of his letters to Twichell of that summer, Clemens wrote of the +arrival there of the colored jubilee singers, always favorites of his, +and of his great delight in them. + + We went down to the village hotel & bought our tickets & entered the + beer-hall, where a crowd of German & Swiss men & women sat grouped + around tables with their beer-mugs in front of them--self-contained + & unimpressionable-looking people--an indifferent & unposted & + disheartening audience--& up at the far end of the room sat the + jubilees in a row. The singers got up & stood--the talking & glass- + jingling went on. Then rose & swelled out above those common + earthly sounds one of those rich chords, the secret of whose make + only the jubilees possess, & a spell fell upon that house. It was + fine to see the faces light up with the pleased wonder & surprise of + it. No one was indifferent any more; & when the singers finished + the camp was theirs. It was a triumph. It reminded me of Lancelot + riding in Sir Kay's armor, astonishing complacent knights who + thought they had struck a soft thing. The jubilees sang a lot of + pieces. Arduous & painstaking cultivation has not diminished or + artificialized their music, but on the contrary--to my surprise--has + mightily reinforced its eloquence and beauty. Away back in the + beginning--to my mind--their music made all other vocal music cheap; + & that early notion is emphasized now. It is entirely beautiful to + me; & it moves me infinitely more than any other music can. I think + that in the jubilees & their songs America has produced the + perfectest flower of the ages; & I wish it were a foreign product, + so that she would worship it & lavish money on it & go properly + crazy over it. + + Now, these countries are different: they would do all that if it + were native. It is true they praise God, but that is merely a + formality, & nothing in it; they open out their whole hearts to no + foreigner. + +As the first anniversary of Susy's death drew near the tension became +very great. A gloom settled on the household, a shadow of restraint. On +the morning of the 18th Clemens went early to his study. Somewhat later +Mrs. Clemens put on her hat and wrap, and taking a small bag left the +house. The others saw her go toward the steamer-landing, but made no +inquiries as to her destination. They guessed that she would take the +little boat that touched at the various points along the lake shore. This +she did, in fact, with no particular plan as to where she would leave it. +One of the landing-places seemed quiet and inviting, and there she went +ashore, and taking a quiet room at a small inn spent the day in reading +Susy's letters. It was evening when she returned, and her husband, +lonely and anxious, was waiting for her at the landing. He had put in +the day writing the beautiful poem, "In Memoriam," a strain lofty, +tender, and dirge-like-liquidly musical, though irregular in form.--[Now +included in the Uniform Edition.] + + + + +CXCIX + +WINTER IN VIENNA + +They remained two months in Weggis--until toward the end of September; +thence to Vienna, by way of Innsbruck, in the Tyrol, "where the mountains +seem more approachable than in Switzerland." Clara Clemens wished to +study the piano under Leschetizky, and this would take them to Austria +for the winter. Arriving at Vienna, they settled in the Hotel Metropole, +on the banks of the Danube. Their rooms, a corner suite, looked out on a +pretty green square, the Merzimplatz, and down on the Franz Josef quay. A +little bridge crosses the river there, over which all kinds of life are +continually passing. On pleasant days Clemens liked to stand on this +bridge and watch the interesting phases of the Austrian capital. The +Vienna humorist, Poetzl, quickly formed his acquaintance, and they +sometimes stood there together. Once while Clemens was making some +notes, Poetzl interested the various passers by asking each one--the +errand-boy, the boot-black, the chestnut-vender, cabmen, and others--to +guess who the stranger was and what he wanted. Most of them recognized +him when their attention was called, for the newspapers had proudly +heralded his arrival and his picture was widely circulated. + +Clemens had scarcely arrived in Vienna, in fact, before he was pursued by +photographers, journalists, and autograph-hunters. The Viennese were his +fond admirers, and knowing how the world elsewhere had honored him they +were determined not to be outdone. The 'Neues Viener Tageblatt', a +fortnight after his arrival, said: + + It is seldom that a foreign author has found such a hearty reception + in Vienna as that accorded to Mark Twain, who not only has the + reputation of being the foremost humorist in the whole civilized. + world, but one whose personality arouses everywhere a peculiar + interest on account of the genuine American character which sways + it. + +He was the guest of honor at the Concordia Club soon after his arrival, +and the great ones of Vienna assembled to do him honor. Charlemagne +Tower, then American minister, was also one of the guests. Writers, +diplomats, financiers, municipal officials, everybody in Vienna that was +worth while, was there. Clemens gave them a surprise, for when Ferdinand +Gross, Concordia president, introduced him first in English, then in +German, Mark Twain made his reply wholly in the latter language. + +The paper just quoted gives us a hint of the frolic and wassail of that +old 'Festkneipe' when it says: + + At 9 o'clock Mark Twain appeared in the salon, and amid a storm of + applause took his seat at the head of the table. His characteristic + shaggy and flowing mane of hair adorning a youthful countenance + attracted the attention at once of all present. After a few formal + convivial commonplaces the president of the Concordia, Mr. Ferdinand + Gross, delivered an excellent address in English, which he wound up + with a few German sentences. Then Mr. Tower was heard in praise of + his august countryman. In the course of his remarks he said he + could hardly find words enough to express his delight at the + presence of the popular American. Then followed the greatest + attraction of the evening, an impromptu speech by Mark Twain in the + German language, which it is true he has not fully mastered, but + which he nevertheless controls sufficiently well to make it + difficult to detect any harsh foreign accent. He had entitled his + speech, "Die Schrecken der Deutschen Sprache" (the terrors of the + German language). At times he would interrupt himself in English + and ask, with a stuttering smile, "How do you call this word in + German" or "I only know that in mother-tongue." The Festkneipe + lasted far into the morning hours. + +It was not long after their arrival in Vienna that the friction among the +unamalgamated Austrian states flamed into a general outbreak in the +Austrian Reichsrath, or Imperial Parliament. We need not consider just +what the trouble was. Any one wishing to know can learn from Mark +Twain's article on the subject, for it is more clearly pictured there +than elsewhere. It is enough to say here that the difficulty lay mainly +between the Hungarian and German wings of the house; and in the midst of +it Dr. Otto Lecher made his famous speech, which lasted twelve hours +without a break, in order to hold the floor against the opposing forces. +Clemens was in the gallery most of the time while that speech, with its +riotous accompaniment, was in progress.--["When that house is legislating +you can't tell it from artillery practice." From Mark Twain's report, +"Stirring Times in Austria," in Literary Essays,]--He was intensely +interested. Nothing would appeal to him more than that, unless it should +be some great astronomic or geologic change. He was also present +somewhat later when a resolution was railroaded through which gave the +chair the right to invoke the aid of the military, and he was there when +the military arrived and took the insurgents in charge. It was a very +great occasion, a "tremendous episode," he says. + + The memory of it will outlast all the others that exist to-day. In + the whole history of free parliament the like of it had been seen + but three times before. It takes imposing place among the world's + unforgetable things. I think that in my lifetime I have not twice + seen abiding history made before my eyes, but I know that I have + seen it once. + +Wild reports were sent to the American press; among them one that Mark +Twain had been hustled out with the others, and that, having waved his +handkerchief and shouted "Hoch die Deutschen!" he had been struck by an +officer of the law. Of course nothing of the kind happened. The +sergeant-at-arms, who came to the gallery where he sat, said to a friend +who suggested that Clemens be allowed to remain: + +"Oh, I know him very well. I recognize him by his pictures, and I should +be very glad to let him stay, but I haven't any choice because of the +strictness of the order." + +Clemens, however, immediately ran across a London Times correspondent, +who showed him the way into the first gallery, which it seems was not +emptied, so he lost none of the exhibit. + +Mark Twain's report of the Austrian troubles, published in Harper's +Magazine the following March and now included with the Literary Essays, +will keep that episode alive and important as literature when otherwise +it would have been merely embalmed, and dimly remembered, as history. + +It was during these exciting political times in Vienna that a +representative of a New York paper wrote, asking for a Mark Twain +interview. Clemens replied, giving him permission to call. When the +reporter arrived Clemens was at work writing in bed, as was so much his +habit. At the doorway the reporter paused, waiting for a summons to +enter. The door was ajar and he heard Mrs. Clemens say: + +"Youth, don't you think it will be a little embarrassing for him, your +being in bed?" + +And he heard Mark Twain's easy, gentle, deliberate voice reply: + +"Why, Livy, if you think so, we might have the other bed made up for +him." + +Clemens became a privileged character in Vienna. Official rules were +modified for his benefit. Everything was made easy for him. Once, on a +certain grand occasion, when nobody was permitted to pass beyond a +prescribed line, he was stopped by a guard, when the officer in charge +suddenly rode up: + +"Let him pass," he commanded. "Lieber Gott! Don't you see it's Herr +Mark Twain?" + +The Clemens apartments at the Metropole were like a court, where with +those of social rank assembled the foremost authors, journalists, +diplomats, painters, philosophers, scientists, of Europe, and therefore +of the world. A sister of the Emperor of Germany lived at the Metropole +that winter and was especially cordial. Mark Twain's daily movements +were chronicled as if he had been some visiting potentate, and, as usual, +invitations and various special permissions poured in. A Vienna paper +announced: + + He has been feted and dined from morn till eve. The homes of the + aristocracy are thrown open to him, counts and princes delight to do + him honor, and foreign audiences hang upon the words that fall from + his lips, ready to burst out any instant into roars of laughter. + +Deaths never came singly in the Clemens family. It was on the 11th of +December, 1897, something more than a year after the death of Susy, that +Orion Clemens died, at the age of seventy-two. Orion had remained the +same to the end, sensitively concerned as to all his brother's doings, +his fortunes and misfortunes: soaring into the clouds when any good news +came; indignant, eager to lend help and advice in the hour of defeat; +loyal, upright, and generally beloved by those who knew and understood +his gentle nature. He had not been ill, and, in fact, only a few days +before he died had written a fine congratulatory letter on his brother's +success in accumulating means for the payment of his debts, entering +enthusiastically into some literary plans which Mark Twain then had in +prospect, offering himself for caricature if needed. + +I would fit in as a fool character, believing, what the Tennessee +mountaineers predicted, that I would grow up to be a great man and go to +Congress. I did not think it worth the trouble to be a common great man +like Andy Johnson. I wouldn't give a pinch of snuff, little as I needed +it, to be anybody, less than Napoleon. So when a farmer took my father's +offer for some chickens under advisement till the next day I said to +myself, "Would Napoleon Bonaparte have taken under advisement till the +next day an offer to sell him some chickens?" + +To his last day and hour Orion was the dreamer, always with a new plan. +It was one morning early that he died. He had seated himself at a table +with pencil and paper and was setting down the details of his latest +project when death came to him, kindly enough, in the moment of new hope. + +There came also, just then, news of the death of their old Hartford +butler, George. It saddened them as if it had been a member of the +household. Jean, especially, wept bitterly. + + + + +CC + +MARK TWAIN PAYS HIS DEBTS + +'Following the Equator'--[In England, More Tramps Abroad.]--had come from +the press in November and had been well received. It was a large, +elaborate subscription volume, more elaborate than artistic in +appearance. Clemens, wishing to make some acknowledgment to his +benefactor, tactfully dedicated it to young Harry Rogers: + +"With recognition of what he is, and an apprehension of what he may +become unless he form himself a little more closely upon the model of the +author." + +Following the Equator was Mark Twain's last book of travel, and it did +not greatly resemble its predecessors. It was graver than the Innocents +Abroad; it was less inclined to cynicism and burlesque than the Tramp. It +was the thoughtful, contemplative observation and philosophizing of the +soul-weary, world-weary pilgrim who has by no means lost interest, but +only his eager, first enthusiasm. It is a gentler book than the Tramp +Abroad, and for the most part a pleasanter one. It is better history and +more informing. Its humor, too, is of a worthier sort, less likely to be +forced and overdone. The holy Hindoo pilgrim's "itinerary of salvation" +is one of the richest of all Mark Twain's fancies, and is about the best +thing in the book. The revised philosophies of Pudd'nhead Wilson, that +begin each chapter, have many of them passed into our daily speech. That +some of Mark Twain's admirers were disappointed with the new book is very +likely, but there were others who could not praise it enough. James +Whitcomb Riley wrote: + +DEAR MR. CLEMENS,--For a solid week-night sessions--I have been glorying +in your last book-and if you've ever done anything better, stronger, or +of wholesomer uplift I can't recall it. So here's my heart and here's my +hand with all the augmented faith and applause of your proudest +countryman! It's just a hail I'm sending you across the spaces--not to +call you from your blessed work an instant, but simply to join my voice +in the universal cheer that is steadfastly going up for you. + +As gratefully as delightedly, + Your abiding friend, + JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. + +Notwithstanding the belief that the sale of single subscription volumes +had about ended, Bliss did well with the new book. Thirty or forty +thousand copies were placed without much delay, and the accumulated +royalties paid into Mr. Rogers's hands. The burden of debt had become a +nightmare. Clemens wrote: + +Let us begin on those debts. I cannot bear the weight any longer. It +totally unfits me for work. + +This was November 10, 1897. December 29th he wrote: + +Land, we are glad to see those debts diminishing. For the first time in +my life I am getting more pleasure from paying money out than pulling it +in. + +To Howells, January 3d, Clemens wrote that they had "turned the corner," +and a month later: + +We've lived close to the bone and saved every cent we could, & there's no +undisputed claim now that we can't cash. There are only two claims which +I dispute & which I mean to look into personally before I pay them. But +they are small. Both together they amount to only $12,500. I hope you +will never get the like of the load saddled onto you that was saddled +onto me 3 years ago. And yet there is such a solid pleasure in paying +the things that I reckon maybe it is worth while to get into that kind of +a hobble after all. Mrs. Clemens gets millions of delight out of it; & +the children have never uttered one complaint about the scrimping from +the beginning. + +By the end of January, 1898, Mark Twain had accumulated enough money to +make the final payment to his creditors and stand clear of debt. At the +time of his failure he said he had given himself five years in which to +clear himself of the heavy obligation. He had achieved that result in +less than three. The world heralded it as a splendid triumph. + +Miss Katharine I. Harrison, Henry Rogers's secretary, who had been in +charge of the details, wrote in her letter announcing his freedom: + +"I wish I could shout it across the water to you so that you would get it +ten days ahead of this letter." + +Miss Harrison's letter shows that something like thirteen thousand +dollars would remain to his credit after the last accounts were wiped +away. + +Clemens had kept his financial progress from the press, but the payment +of the final claims was distinctly a matter of news and the papers made +the most of it. Head-lines shouted it, there were long editorials in +which Mark Twain was heralded as a second Walter Scott, though it was +hardly necessary that he should be compared with anybody; he had been in +that--as in those peculiarities which had invited his disaster--just +himself. + +One might suppose now that he had had enough of inventions and commercial +enterprises of every sort that is, one who did not know Mark Twain might +suppose this; but it would not be true. Within a month after the debts +were paid he had negotiated with the great Austrian inventor, Szczepanik, +and his business manager for the American rights of a wonderful +carpet-pattern machine, obtained an option for these rights at fifteen +hundred thousand dollars, and, Sellers-like, was planning to organize a +company with a capital of fifteen hundred million dollars to control +carpet-weaving industries of the world. He records in his note-book that +a certain Mr. Wood, representing the American carpet interests, called +upon him and, in the course of their conversation, asked him at what +price he would sell his option. + + I declined, and got away from the subject. I was afraid he would + offer me $500,000 for it. I should have been obliged to take it, + but I was born with a speculative instinct & I did not want that + temptation put in my way. + +He wrote to Mr. Rogers about the great scheme, inviting the Standard Oil +to furnish the capital for it--but it appears not to have borne the test +of Mr. Rogers's scrutiny, and is heard of no more. + +Szczepanik had invented the 'Fernseher', or Telelectroscope, the machine +by which one sees at a distance. Clemens would have invested heavily in +this, too, for he had implicit faith in its future, but the 'Fernseher' +was already controlled for the Paris Exposition; so he could only employ +Szczepanik as literary material, which he did in two instances: "The +Austrian Edison Keeping School Again" and "From the London Times of +1904"--magazine articles published in the Century later in the year. He +was fond of Szczepanik and Szczepanik's backer, Mr. Kleinburg. In one of +his note-book entries he says: + +Szczepanik is not a Paige. He is a gentleman; his backer, Mr. Kleinburg, +is a gentleman, too, yet is not a Clemens--that is to say, he is not an +ass. + +Clemens did not always consult his financial adviser, Rogers, any more +than he always consulted his spiritual adviser, Twichell, or his literary +adviser, Howells, when he intended to commit heresies in their respective +provinces. Somewhat later an opportunity came along to buy an interest +in a preparation of skimmed milk, an invalid food by which the human race +was going to be healed of most of its ills. When Clemens heard that +Virchow had recommended this new restorative, the name of which was +plasmon, he promptly provided MacAlister with five thousand pounds to +invest in a company then organizing in London. It should be added that +this particular investment was not an entire loss, for it paid very good +dividends for several years. We shall hear of it again. + +For the most part Clemens was content to let Henry Rogers do his +financiering, and as the market was low with an upward incline, Rogers +put the various accumulations into this thing and that, and presently had +some fifty thousand dollars to Mark Twain's credit, a very comfortable +balance for a man who had been twice that amount in debt only a few years +before. It has been asserted most strenuously, by those in a position to +know least about the matter, that Henry Rogers lent, and even gave, Mark +Twain large sums, and pointed out opportunities whereby he could make +heavily by speculation. No one of these statements is true. Mr. Rogers +neither lent nor gave Mark Twain money for investment, and he never +allowed him to speculate when he could prevent it. He invested for him +wisely, but he never bought for him a share of stock that he did not have +the money in hand to pay for in full-money belonging to and earned by +Clemens himself. What he did give to Mark Twain was his priceless +counsel and time--gifts more precious than any mere sum of money--boons +that Mark Twain could accept without humiliation. He did accept them and +was unceasingly grateful.--[Mark Twain never lost an opportunity for +showing his gratitude to Henry Rogers. The reader is referred to +Appendix T, at the end of the last volume, for a brief tribute which +Clemens prepared in 1902. Mr. Rogers would not consent to its +publication.] + + + + +CCI + +SOCIAL LIFE IN VIENNA + +Clemens, no longer worried about finances and full of ideas and +prospects, was writing now at a great rate, mingling with all sorts of +social events, lecturing for charities, and always in the lime-light. + +I have abundant peace of mind again--no sense of burden. Work is become +a pleasure--it is not labor any longer. + +He was the lion of the Austrian capital, and it was natural that he +should revel in his new freedom and in the universal tribute. Mrs. +Clemens wrote that they were besieged with callers of every description: + + Such funny combinations are here sometimes: one duke, several + counts, several writers, several barons, two princes, newspaper + women, etc. I find so far, without exception, that the high-up + aristocracy are simple and cordial and agreeable. + +When Clemens appeared as a public entertainer all society turned out to +hear him and introductions were sought by persons of the most exclusive +rank. Once a royal introduction led to an adventure. He had been giving +a charity reading in Vienna, and at the end of it was introduced, with +Mrs. Clemens, to her Highness, Countess Bardi, a princess of the +Portuguese royal house by marriage and sister to the Austrian Archduchess +Maria Theresa. They realized that something was required after such an +introduction; that, in fact, they must go within a day or two and pay +their respects by writing their names in the visitors' book, kept in a +sort of anteroom of the royal establishment. A few days later, about +noon, they drove to the archducal palace, inquired their way to the royal +anteroom, and informed the grandly uniformed portier that they wished to +write their names in the visitors' book. The portier did not produce the +book, but summoned a man in livery and gold lace and directed him to take +them up-stairs, remarking that her Royal Highness was out, but would be +in presently. They protested that her Royal Highness was not looking for +them, that they were not calling, but had merely come to sign the +visitors' book, but he said: + +"You are Americans, are you not?" + +"Yes, we are Americans." + +"Then you are expected. Please go up-stairs." + +Mrs. Clemens said: + +"Oh no, we are not expected; there is some mistake. Please let us sign +the book and we will go away." + +But it was no use. He insisted that her Royal Highness would be back in +a very little while; that she had commanded him to say so and that they +must wait. They were shown up-stairs, Clemens going willingly enough, +for he scented an adventure; but Mrs. Clemens was far from happy. They +were taken to a splendid drawing-room, and at the doorway she made her +last stand, refusing to enter. She declared that there was certainly +some mistake, and begged them to let her sign her name in the book and +go, without parleying. It was no use. Their conductor insisted that +they remove their wraps and sit down, which they finally did--Mrs. +Clemens miserable, her husband in a delightful state of anticipation. +Writing of it to Twichell that night he said: + + I was hoping and praying that the Princess would come and catch us + up there, & that those other Americans who were expected would + arrive and be taken as impostors by the portier & be shot by the + sentinels & then it would all go into the papers & be cabled all + over the world & make an immense stir and be perfectly lovely. + + Livy was in a state of mind; she said it was too theatrically + ridiculous & that I would never be able to keep my mouth shut; that + I would be sure to let it out & it would get into the papers, & she + tried to make me promise. + + "Promise what?" I said. + + "To be quiet about this." + + "Indeed I won't; it's the best thing ever happened. I'll tell it + and add to it & I wish Joe & Howells were here to make it perfect; I + can't make all the rightful blunders by myself--it takes all three + of us to do justice to an opportunity like this. I would just like + to see Howells get down to his work & explain & lie & work his + futile & inventionless subterfuges when that Princess comes raging + in here & wanting to know." + + But Livy could not hear fun--it was not a time to be trying to be + funny. We were in a most miserable & shameful situation, & it + --Just then the door spread wide & our Princess & 4 more & 3 little + Princes flowed in! Our Princess & her sister, the Archduchess Maria + Theresa (mother to the imperial heir & to the a young girl + Archduchesses present, & aunt to the 3 little Princes), & we shook + hands all around & sat down & had a most sociable time for half an + hour, & by & by it turned out that we were the right ones & had been + sent for by a messenger who started too late to catch us at the + hotel. We were invited for a o'clock, but we beat that arrangement + by an hour & a half. + + Wasn't it a rattling good comedy situation? Seems a kind of pity we + were the right ones. It would have been such nuts to see the right + ones come and get fired out, & we chatting along comfortably & + nobody suspecting us for impostors. + +Mrs. Clemens to Mrs. Crane: + + Of course I know that I should have courtesied to her Imperial + Majesty & not quite so deep to her Royal Highness, and that Mr. + Clemens should have kissed their hands; but it was all so unexpected + that I had no time to prepare, and if I had had I should not have + been there; I only went in to help Mr. C. with my bad German. When + our minister's wife is going to be presented to the Archduchess she + practises her courtesying beforehand. + +They had met royalty in simple American fashion and no disaster had +followed. + +We have already made mention of the distinguished visitors who gathered +in the Clemens apartments at the Hotel Metropole. They were of many +nations and ranks. It was the winter in London of twenty-five years +before over again. Only Mark Twain was not the same. Then he had been +unsophisticated, new, not always at his ease; now he was the polished +familiar of courts and embassies--at home equally with poets and princes, +authors and ambassadors and kings. Such famous ones were there as +Vereshchagin, Leschetizky, Mark Hambourg, Dvorak, Lenbach, and Jokai, +with diplomats of many nations. A list of foreign names may mean little +to the American reader, but among them were Neigra, of Italy; Paraty, of +Portugal; Lowenhaupt, of Sweden; and Ghiki, of Rumania. The Queen of +Rumania, Carmen Sylva, a poetess in her own right, was a friend and warm +admirer of Mark Twain. The Princess Metternich, and Madame de +Laschowska, of Poland, were among those who came, and there were Nansen +and his wife, and Campbell-Bannerman, who was afterward British Premier. +Also there was Spiridon, the painter, who made portraits of Clara Clemens +and her father, and other artists and potentates--the list is too long. + +Those were brilliant, notable gatherings and are remembered in Vienna +today. They were not always entirely harmonious, for politics was in the +air and differences of opinion were likely to be pretty freely expressed. + +Clemens and his family, as Americans, did not always have a happy time of +it. It was the eve of the Spanish American War and most of continental +Europe sided with Spain. Austria, in particular, was friendly to its +related nation; and from every side the Clemenses heard how America was +about to take a brutal and unfair advantage of a weaker nation for the +sole purpose of annexing Cuba. + +Charles Langdon and his son Jervis happened to arrive in Vienna about +this time, bringing straight from America the comforting assurance that +the war was not one of conquest or annexation, but a righteous defense of +the weak. Mrs. Clemens gave a dinner for them, at which, besides some +American students, were Mark Hambourg, Gabrilowitsch, and the great +Leschetizky himself. Leschetizky, an impetuous and eloquent talker, took +this occasion to inform the American visitors that their country was only +shamming, that Cuba would soon be an American dependency. No one not +born to the language could argue with Leschetizky. Clemens once wrote of +him: + +He is a most capable and felicitous talker-was born for an orator, I +think. What life, energy, fire in a man past 70! & how he does play! He +is easily the greatest pianist in the world. He is just as great & just +as capable today as ever he was. + +Last Sunday night, at dinner with us, he did all the talking for 3 hours, +and everybody was glad to let him. He told his experiences as a +revolutionist 50 years ago in '48, & his battle-pictures were +magnificently worded. Poetzl had never met him before. He is a talker +himself & a good one--but he merely sat silent & gazed across the table +at this inspired man, & drank in his words, & let his eyes fill & the +blood come & go in his face & never said a word. + +Whatever may have been his doubts in the beginning concerning the Cuban +War, Mark Twain, by the end of May, had made up his mind as to its +justice. When Theodore Stanton invited him to the Decoration Day banquet +to be held in Paris, he replied: + +I thank you very much for your invitation and I would accept if I were +foot-free. For I should value the privilege of helping you do honor to +the men who rewelded our broken Union and consecrated their great work +with their lives; and also I should like to be there to do, homage to our +soldiers and sailors of today who are enlisted for another most righteous +war, and utter the hope that they may make short and decisive work of it +and leave Cuba free and fed when they face for home again. And finally I +should like to be present and see you interweave those two flags which, +more than any others, stand for freedom and progress in the earth-flags +which represent two kindred nations, each great and strong by itself, +competent sureties for the peace of the world when they stand together. + +That is to say, the flags of England and America. To an Austrian friend +he emphasized this thought: + +The war has brought England and America close together--and to my mind +that is the biggest dividend that any war in this world has ever paid. If +this feeling is ever to grow cold again I do not wish to live to see it. + +And to Twichell, whose son David had enlisted: + +You are living your war-days over again in Dave & it must be strong +pleasure mixed with a sauce of apprehension . . . . + +I have never enjoyed a war, even in history, as I am enjoying this one, +for this is the worthiest one that was ever fought, so far as my +knowledge goes. It is a worthy thing to fight for one's own country. It +is another sight finer to fight for another man's. And I think this is +the first time it has been done. + +But it was a sad day for him when he found that the United States really +meant to annex the Philippines, and his indignation flamed up. He said: + +"When the United States sent word to Spain that the Cuban atrocities must +end she occupied the highest moral position ever taken by a nation since +the Almighty made the earth. But when she snatched the Philippines she +stained the flag." + + + + +CCII + +LITERARY WORK IN VIENNA + +One must wonder, with all the social demands upon him, how Clemens could +find time to write as much as he did during those Vienna days. He piled +up a great heap of manuscript of every sort. He wrote Twichell: + + There may be idle people in the world, but I am not one of them. + +And to Howells: + + I couldn't get along without work now. I bury myself in it up to + the ears. Long hours--8 & 9 on a stretch sometimes. It isn't all + for print, by any means, for much of it fails to suit me; 50,000 + words of it in the past year. It was because of the deadness which + invaded me when Susy died. + +He projected articles, stories, critiques, essays, novels, autobiography, +even plays; he covered the whole literary round. Among these activities +are some that represent Mark Twain's choicest work. "Concerning the +Jews," which followed the publication of his "Stirring Times in Austria" +(grew out of it, in fact), still remains the best presentation of the +Jewish character and racial situation. Mark Twain was always an ardent +admirer of the Jewish race, and its oppression naturally invited his +sympathy. Once he wrote to Twichell: + +The difference between the brain of the average Christian and that of the +average Jew--certainly in Europe--is about the difference between a +tadpole's brain & an archbishop's. It is a marvelous race; by long odds +the most marvelous race the world has produced, I suppose. + +Yet he did not fail to see its faults and to set them down in his summary +of Hebrew character. It was a reply to a letter written to him by a +lawyer, and he replied as a lawyer might, compactly, logically, +categorically, conclusively. The result pleased him. To Mr. Rogers he +wrote: + +The Jew article is my "gem of the ocean." I have taken a world of +pleasure in writing it & doctoring it & fussing at it. Neither Jew nor +Christian will approve of it, but people who are neither Jews nor +Christian will, for they are in a condition to know the truth when they +see it. + +Clemens was not given to race distinctions. In his article he says: + +I am quite sure that (bar one) I have no race prejudices, and I think I +have no color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. +Indeed I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is +that a man is a human being, that is enough for me; he can't be any +worse. + +We gather from something that follows that the one race which he bars is +the French, and this, just then, mainly because of the Dreyfus +agitations. + +He also states in this article: + +I have no special regard for Satan, but I can at least claim that I have +no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way on +account of his not having a fair show. + +Clemens indeed always had a friendly feeling toward Satan (at least, as +he conceived him), and just at this time addressed a number of letters to +him concerning affairs in general--cordial, sympathetic, informing +letters enough, though apparently not suited for publication. A good +deal of the work done at this period did not find its way into print. An +interview with Satan; a dream-story concerning a platonic sweetheart, and +some further comment on Austrian politics, are among the condemned +manuscripts. + +Mark Twain's interest in Satan would seem later to have extended to his +relatives, for there are at least three bulky manuscripts in which he has +attempted to set down some episodes in the life of one "Young Satan," a +nephew, who appears to have visited among the planets and promoted some +astonishing adventures in Austria several centuries ago. The idea of a +mysterious, young, and beautiful stranger who would visit the earth and +perform mighty wonders, was always one which Mark Twain loved to play +with, and a nephew of Satan's seemed to him properly qualified to carry +out his intention. His idea was that this celestial visitant was not +wicked, but only indifferent to good and evil and suffering, having no +personal knowledge of any of these things. Clemens tried the experiment +in various ways, and portions of the manuscript are absorbingly +interesting, lofty in conception, and rarely worked out--other portions +being merely grotesque, in which the illusion of reality vanishes. + +Among the published work of the Vienna period is an article about a +morality play, the "Master of Palmyra,"--[About play-acting, Forum, +October, 1898.]--by Adolf Wilbrandt, an impressive play presenting Death, +the all-powerful, as the principal part. + +The Cosmopolitan Magazine for August published "At the Appetite-Cure," in +which Mark Twain, in the guise of humor, set forth a very sound and +sensible idea concerning dietetics, and in October the same magazine +published his first article on "Christian Science and the Book of Mrs. +Eddy." As we have seen, Clemens had been always deeply interested in +mental healing, and in closing this humorous skit he made due +acknowledgments to the unseen forces which, properly employed, through +the imagination work physical benefits: + +"Within the last quarter of a century," he says, "in America, several +sects of curers have appeared under various names and have done notable +things in the way of healing ailments without the use of medicines." + +Clemens was willing to admit that Mrs. Eddy and her book had benefited +humanity, but he could not resist the fun-making which certain of her +formulas and her phrasing invited. The delightful humor of the +Cosmopolitan article awoke a general laugh, in which even devout +Christian Scientists were inclined to join.--[It was so popular that John +Brisben Walker voluntarily added a check for two hundred dollars to the +eight hundred dollars already paid.]--Nothing that he ever did exhibits +more happily that peculiar literary gift upon which his fame rests. + +But there is another story of this period that will live when most of +those others mentioned are but little remembered. It is the story of +"The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg." This is a tale that in its own way +takes its place with the half-dozen great English short stories of the +world-with such stories as "The Fall of the House of Usher," by Poe; "The +Luck of Roaring Camp," by Harte; "The Man Who Would be King," by Kipling; +and "The Man Without a Country," by Hale. As a study of the human soul, +its flimsy pretensions and its pitiful frailties, it outranks all the +rest. In it Mark Twain's pessimistic philosophy concerning the "human +animal" found a free and moral vent. Whatever his contempt for a thing, +he was always amused at it; and in this tale we can imagine him a +gigantic Pantagruel dangling a ridiculous manikin, throwing himself back +and roaring out his great bursting guffaws at its pitiful antics. The +temptation and the downfall of a whole town was a colossal idea, a +sardonic idea, and it is colossally and sardonically worked out. + +Human weakness and rotten moral force were never stripped so bare or so +mercilessly jeered at in the marketplace. For once Mark Twain could hug +himself with glee in derision of self-righteousness, knowing that the +world would laugh with him, and that none would be so bold as to gainsay +his mockery. Probably no one but Mark Twain ever conceived the idea of +demoralizing a whole community--of making its "nineteen leading citizens" +ridiculous by leading them into a cheap, glittering temptation, and +having them yield and openly perjure themselves at the very moment when +their boasted incorruptibility was to amaze the world. And it is all +wonderfully done. The mechanism of the story is perfect, the drama of it +is complete. The exposure of the nineteen citizens in the very sanctity +of the church itself, and by the man they have discredited, completing +the carefully prepared revenge of the injured stranger, is supreme in its +artistic triumph. "The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg" is one of the +mightiest sermons against self-righteousness ever preached. Its +philosophy, that every man is strong until his price is named; the +futility of the prayer not to be led into temptation, when it is only by +resisting temptation that men grow strong--these things blaze out in a +way that makes us fairly blink with the truth of them. + +It is Mark Twain's greatest short story. It is fine that it should be +that, as well as much more than that; for he was no longer essentially a +story-teller. He had become more than ever a moralist and a sage. Having +seen all of the world, and richly enjoyed and deeply suffered at its +hands, he sat now as in a seat of judgment, regarding the passing show +and recording his philosophies. + + + + +CCIII + +AN IMPERIAL TRAGEDY + +For the summer they went to Kaltenleutgeben, just out of Vienna, where +they had the Villa Paulhof, and it was while they were there, September +10, 1898, that the Empress Elizabeth of Austria was assassinated at +Geneva by an Italian vagabond, whose motive seemed to have been to gain +notoriety. The news was brought to them one evening, just at +supper-time, by Countess Wydenbouck-Esterhazy. + +Clemens wrote to Twichell: + + That good & unoffending lady, the Empress, is killed by a madman, & + I am living in the midst of world-history again. The Queen's + Jubilee last year, the invasion of the Reichsrath by the police, & + now this murder, which will still be talked of & described & painted + a thousand years from now. To have a personal friend of the wearer + of two crowns burst in at the gate in the deep dusk of the evening & + say, in a voice broken with tears, "My God! the Empress is + murdered," & fly toward her home before we can utter a question + --why, it brings the giant event home to you, makes you a part of it + & personally interested; it is as if your neighbor Antony should come + flying & say, "Caesar is butchered--the head of the world is + fallen!" + +Of course there is no talk but of this. The mourning is universal and +genuine, the consternation is stupefying. The Austrian Empire is being +draped with black. Vienna will be a spectacle to see by next Saturday, +when the funeral cortege marches. + +Clemens and the others went into Vienna for the funeral ceremonies and +witnessed them from the windows of the new Krantz Hotel, which faces the +Capuchin church where the royal dead lie buried. It was a grandly +impressive occasion, a pageant of uniforms of the allied nations that +made up the Empire of Austria. Clemens wrote of it at considerable +length, and sent the article to Mr. Rogers to offer to the magazines. +Later, however, he recalled it just why is not clear. In one place he +wrote: + +Twice the Empress entered Vienna in state; the first time was in 1854, +when she was a bride of seventeen, & when she rode in measureless pomp +through a world of gay flags & decorations down the streets, walled on +both hands with the press of shouting & welcoming subjects; & the second +time was last Wednesday, when she entered the city in her coffin, & moved +down the same streets in the dead of night under waving black flags, +between human walls again, but everywhere was a deep stillness now & a +stillness emphasized rather than broken by the muffled hoofbeats of the +long cavalcade over pavements cushioned with sand, & the low sobbing of +gray-headed women who had witnessed the first entrance, forty-four years +before, when she & they were young & unaware.... She was so +blameless--the Empress; & so beautiful in mind & heart, in person & +spirit; & whether with the crown upon her head, or without it & nameless, +a grace to the human race, almost a justification of its creation; would +be, indeed, but that the animal that struck her down re-establishes the +doubt. + +They passed a quiet summer at Kaltenleutgeben. Clemens wrote some +articles, did some translating of German plays, and worked on his +"Gospel," an elaboration of his old essay on contenting one's soul +through selfishness, later to be published as 'What is Man?' A. C. +Dunham and Rev. Dr. Parker, of Hartford, came to Vienna, and Clemens +found them and brought them out to Kaltenleutgeben and read them chapters +of his doctrines, which, he said, Mrs. Clemens would not let him print. +Dr. Parker and Dunham returned to Hartford and reported Mark Twain more +than ever a philosopher; also that he was the "center of notability and +his house a court." + + + + +CCIV + +THE SECOND WINTER IN VIENNA + +The Clemens family did not return to the Metropole for the winter, but +went to the new Krantz, already mentioned, where they had a handsome and +commodious suite looking down on the Neuer Markt and on the beautiful +facade of the Capuchin church, with the great cathedral only a step away. +There they passed another brilliant and busy winter. Never in Europe had +they been more comfortably situated; attention had been never more +lavishly paid to them. Their drawing-room was a salon which acquired the +name of the "Second Embassy." Clemens in his note-book wrote: + +During 8 years now I have filled the position--with some credit, I trust, +of self-appointed ambassador-at-large of the United States of America +--without salary. + +Which was a joke; but there was a large grain of truth in it, for Mark +Twain, more than any other American in Europe, was regarded as typically +representing his nation and received more lavish honors. + +It had become the fashion to consult him on every question of public +interest, for he was certain to say something worth printing, whether +seriously or otherwise. When the Tsar of Russia proposed the disarmament +of the nations William T. Stead, editor of the Review of Reviews, wrote +for Mark Twain's opinion. He replied: + +DEAR MR. STEADY,--The Tsar is ready to disarm. I am ready to disarm. +Collect the others; it should not be much of a task now. + + MARK TWAIN. + +He was on a tide of prosperity once more, one that was to continue now +until the end. He no longer had any serious financial qualms. He could +afford to be independent. He refused ten thousand dollars for a tobacco +indorsement, though he liked the tobacco well enough; and he was aware +that even royalty was willing to put a value on its opinions. He +declined ten thousand dollars a year for five years to lend his name as +editor of a humorous periodical, though there was no reason to suppose +that the paper would be otherwise than creditably conducted. He declined +lecture propositions from Pond at the rate of about one a month. He +could get along without these things, he said, and still preserve some +remnants of self-respect. In a letter to Rogers he said: + +Pond offers me $10,000 for 10 nights, but I do not feel strongly tempted. +Mrs. Clemens ditto. + +Early in 1899 he wrote to Howells that Mrs. Clemens had proved to him +that they owned a house and furniture in Hartford, that his English and +American copyrights paid an income on the equivalent of two hundred +thousand dollars, and that they had one hundred and seven thousand +dollars' accumulation in the bank. + +"I have been out and bought a box of 6c. cigars," he says; "I was smoking +4 1/2c. before." + +The things that men are most likely to desire had come to Mark Twain, and +no man was better qualified to rejoice in them. That supreme, elusive +thing which we call happiness might have been his now but for the tragedy +of human bereavement and the torture of human ills. That he did rejoice +--reveled indeed like a boy in his new fortunes, the honors paid him, and +in all that gay Viennese life-there is no doubt. He could wave aside +care and grief and remorse, forget their very existence, it seemed; but +in the end he had only driven them ahead a little way and they waited by +his path. Once, after reciting his occupations and successes, he wrote: + + All these things might move and interest one. But how, desperately + more I have been moved to-night by the thought of a little old copy + in the nursery of 'At the Back of the North Wind'. Oh, what happy + days they were when that book was read, and how Susy loved it!... + Death is so kind, benignant, to whom he loves, but he goes by us + others & will not look our way. + +And to Twichell a few days later: + + A Hartford with no Susy in it--& no Ned Bunce!--It is not the city + of Hartford, it is the city of Heartbreak.... It seems only a few + weeks since I saw Susy last--yet that was 1895 & this is 1899.... + + My work does not go well to-day. It failed yesterday--& the day + before & the day before that. And so I have concluded to put the + MS. in the waste-basket & meddle with some other subject. I was + trying to write an article advocating the quadrupling of the + salaries of our ministers & ambassadors, & the devising of an + official dress for them to wear. It seems an easy theme, yet I + couldn't do the thing to my satisfaction. All I got out of it was + an article on Monaco & Monte Carlo--matters not connected with the + subject at all. Still, that was something--it's better than a total + loss. + +He finished the article--"Diplomatic Pay and Clothes"--in which he shows +how absurd it is for America to expect proper representation on the +trifling salaries paid to her foreign ministers, as compared with those +allowed by other nations. + +He prepared also a reminiscent article--the old tale of the shipwrecked +Hornet and the magazine article intended as his literary debut a +generation ago. Now and again he worked on some one of the several +unfinished longer tales, but brought none of them to completion. The +German drama interested him. Once he wrote to Mr. Rogers that he had +translated "In Purgatory" and sent it to Charles Frohman, who pronounced +it "all jabber and no play." + +Curious, too, for it tears these Austrians to pieces with laughter. When +I read it, now, it seems entirely silly; but when I see it on the stage +it is exceedingly funny. + +He undertook a play for the Burg Theater, a collaboration with a Vienna +journalist, Siegmund Schlesinger. Schlesinger had been successful with +several dramas, and agreed with Clemens to do some plays dealing with +American themes. One of them was to be called "Die Goldgraeberin," that +is, "The Woman Gold-Miner." Another, "The Rival Candidates," was to +present the humors of female suffrage. Schlesinger spoke very little +English, and Clemens always had difficulty in comprehending rapid-fire +German. So the work did not progress very well. By the time they had +completed a few scenes of mining-drama the interest died, and they +good-naturedly agreed that it would be necessary to wait until they +understood each other's language more perfectly before they could go on +with the project. Frau Kati Schratt, later morganatic wife of Emperor +Franz Josef, but then leading comedienne of the Burg Theater, is said to +have been cast for the leading part in the mining-play; and +Director-General Herr Schlenther, head of the Burg Theater management, +was deeply disappointed. He had never doubted that a play built by +Schlesinger and Mark Twain, with Frau Schratt in the leading role, would +have been a great success. + +Clemens continued the subject of Christian Science that winter. He wrote +a number of articles, mainly criticizing Mrs. Eddy and her financial +methods, and for the first time conceived the notion of a book on the +subject. The new hierarchy not only amused but impressed him. He +realized that it was no ephemeral propaganda, that its appeal to human +need was strong, and that its system of organization was masterful and +complete. To Twichell he wrote: + +Somehow I continue to feel sure of that cult's colossal future.... I am +selling my Lourdes stock already & buying Christian Science trust. I +regard it as the Standard Oil of the future. + +He laid the article away for the time and, as was his custom, put the +play quite out of his mind and invented a postal-check which would be far +more simple than post-office orders, because one could buy them in any +quantity and denomination and keep them on hand for immediate use, making +them individually payable merely by writing in the name of the payee. It +seems a fine, simple scheme, one that might have been adopted by the +government long ago; but the idea has been advanced in one form or +another several times since then, and still remains at this writing +unadopted. He wrote John Hay about it, remarking at the close that the +government officials would probably not care to buy it as soon as they +found they couldn't kill Christians with it. + +He prepared a lengthy article on the subject, in dialogue form, making it +all very clear and convincing, but for some reason none of the magazines +would take it. Perhaps it seemed too easy, too simple, too obvious. +Great ideas, once developed, are often like that. + + + + +CCV + +SPEECHES THAT WERE NOT MADE + +In a volume of Mark Twain's collected speeches there is one entitled +"German for the Hungarians--Address at the jubilee Celebration of the +Emancipation of the Hungarian Press, March 26, 1899." An introductory +paragraph states that the ministers and members of Parliament were +present, and that the subject was the "Ausgleich"--i.e., the arrangement +for the apportionment of the taxes between Hungary and Austria. The +speech as there set down begins: + + Now that we are all here together I think that it will be a good + idea to arrange the Ausgleich. If you will act for Hungary I shall + be quite willing to act for Austria, and this is the very time for + it. + +It is an excellent speech, full of good-feeling and good-humor, but it +was never delivered. It is only a speech that Mark Twain intended to +deliver, and permitted to be copied by a representative of the press +before he started for Budapest. + +It was a grand dinner, brilliant and inspiring, and when, Mark Twain was +presented to that distinguished company he took a text from something the +introducer had said and became so interested in it that his prepared +speech wholly disappeared from his memory. + +I think I will never embarrass myself with a set speech again [he wrote +Twichell]. My memory is old and rickety and cannot stand the strain. But +I had this luck. What I did was to furnish a text for a part of the +splendid speech which was made by the greatest living orator of the +European world--a speech which it was a great delight to listen to, +although I did not understand any word of it, it being in Hungarian. I +was glad I came, it was a great night, & I heard all the great men in the +German tongue. + +The family accompanied Clemens to Budapest, and while there met Franz, +son of Louis Kossuth, and dined with him. + +I assure you [wrote Mrs. Clemens] that I felt stirred, and I kept saying +to myself "This is Louis Kossuth's son." He came to our room one day, +and we had quite a long and a very pleasant talk together. He is a man +one likes immensely. He has a quiet dignity about him that is very +winning. He seems to be a man highly esteemed in Hungary. If I am not +mistaken, the last time I saw the old picture of his father it was +hanging in a room that we turned into a music-room for Susy at the farm. + +They were most handsomely treated in Budapest. A large delegation +greeted them on arrival, and a carriage and attendants were placed +continually at their disposal. They remained several days, and Clemens +showed his appreciation by giving a reading for charity. + +It was hinted to Mark Twain that spring, that before leaving Vienna, it +would be proper for him to pay his respects to Emperor Franz Josef, who +had expressed a wish to meet him. Clemens promptly complied with the +formalities and the meeting was arranged. He had a warm admiration for +the Austrian Emperor, and naturally prepared himself a little for what he +wanted to say to him. He claimed afterward that he had compacted a sort +of speech into a single German sentence of eighteen words. He did not +make use of it, however. When he arrived at the royal palace and was +presented, the Emperor himself began in such an entirely informal way +that it did no occur to his visitor to deliver his prepared German +sentence. When he returned from the audience he said: + +"We got along very well. I proposed to him a plan to exterminate the +human race by withdrawing the oxygen from the air for a period of two +minutes. I said Szczepanik would invent it for him. I think it +impressed him. After a while, in the course of our talk I remembered and +told the Emperor I had prepared and memorized a very good speech but had +forgotten it. He was very agreeable about it. He said a speech wasn't +necessary. He seemed to be a most kind-hearted emperor, with a great +deal of plain, good, attractive human nature about him. Necessarily he +must have or he couldn't have unbent to me as he did. I couldn't unbend +if I were an emperor. I should feel the stiffness of the position. Franz +Josef doesn't feel it. He is just a natural man, although an emperor. I +was greatly impressed by him, and I liked him exceedingly. His face is +always the face of a pleasant man and he has a fine sense of humor. It +is the Emperor's personality and the confidence all ranks have in him +that preserve the real political serenity in what has an outside +appearance of being the opposite. He is a man as well as an emperor--an +emperor and a man." + +Clemens and Howells were corresponding with something of the old-time +frequency. The work that Mark Twain was doing--thoughtful work with +serious intent--appealed strongly to Howells. He wrote: + + You are the greatest man of your sort that ever lived, and there is + no use saying anything else . . . . You have pervaded your + century almost more than any other man of letters, if not more; and + it is astonishing how you keep spreading . . . . You are my + "shadow of a great rock in a weary land" more than any other writer. + +Clemens, who was reading Howells's serial, "Their Silver-Wedding +journey," then running in Harper's Magazine, responded: + + You are old enough to be a weary man with paling interests, but you + do not show it; you do your work in the same old, delicate & + delicious & forceful & searching & perfect way. I don't know how + you can--but I suspect. I suspect that to you there is still + dignity in human life, & that man is not a joke--a poor joke--the + poorest that was ever contrived. Since I wrote my Bible--[The + "Gospel," What is Man?]--(last year), which Mrs. Clemens loathes & + shudders over & will not listen to the last half nor allow me to + print any part of it, man is not to me the respect-worthy person he + was before, & so I have lost my pride in him & can't write gaily nor + praisefully about him any more . . . . + + Next morning. I have been reading the morning paper. I do it every + morning--well knowing that I shall find in it the usual depravities + & basenesses & hypocrisies and cruelties that make up civilization & + cause me to put in the rest of the day pleading for the damnation of + the human race. I cannot seem to get my prayers answered, yet I do + not despair. + +He was not greatly changed. Perhaps he had fewer illusions and less +iridescent ones, and certainly he had more sorrow; but the letters to +Howells do not vary greatly from those written twenty-five years before. +There is even in them a touch of the old pretense as to Mrs. Clemens's +violence. + +I mustn't stop to play now or I shall never get those helfiard letters +answered. (That is not my spelling. It is Mrs. Clemens's, I have told +her the right way a thousand times, but it does no good, she never +remembers.) + +All through this Vienna period (as during several years before and after) +Henry Rogers was in full charge of Mark Twain's American affairs. Clemens +wrote him almost daily, and upon every matter, small or large, that +developed, or seemed likely to develop, in his undertakings. The +complications growing out of the type machine and Webster failures were +endless.--["I hope to goodness I sha'n't get you into any more jobs such +as the type-setter and Webster business and the Bliss-Harper campaigns +have been. Oh, they were sickeners." (Clemens to Rogers, November 15, +1898.)]--The disposal of the manuscripts alone was work for a literary +agent. The consideration of proposed literary, dramatic, and financial +schemes must have required not only thought, but time. Yet Mr. Rogers +comfortably and genially took care of all these things and his own +tremendous affairs besides, and apologized sometimes when he felt, +perhaps, that he had wavered a little in his attention. Clemens once +wrote him: + + Oh, dear me, you don't have to excuse yourself for neglecting me; + you are entitled to the highest praise for being so limitlessly + patient and good in bothering with my confused affairs, and pulling + me out of a hole every little while. + + It makes me lazy, the way that Steel stock is rising. If I were + lazier--like Rice--nothing could keep me from retiring. But I work + right along, like a poor person. I shall figure up the rise, as the + figures come in, and push up my literary prices accordingly, till I + get my literature up to where nobody can afford it but the family. + (N. B.--Look here, are you charging storage? I am not going to + stand that, you know.) Meantime, I note those encouraging illogical + words of yours about my not worrying because I am to be rich when I + am 68; why didn't you have Cheiro make it 90, so that I could have + plenty of room? + + It would be jolly good if some one should succeed in making a play + out of "Is He Dead?"--[Clemens himself had attempted to make a play + out of his story "Is He Dead?" and had forwarded the MS. to Rogers. + Later he wrote: "Put 'Is He Dead?' in the fire. God will bless you. + I too. I started to convince myself that I could write a play, or + couldn't. I'm convinced. Nothing can disturb that conviction."] + --From what I gather from dramatists, he will have his hands + something more than full--but let him struggle, let him struggle. + + Is there some way, honest or otherwise, by which you can get a copy + of Mayo's play, "Pudd'nhead Wilson," for me? There is a capable + young Austrian here who saw it in New York and wants to translate it + and see if he can stage it here. I don't think these people here + would understand it or take to it, but he thinks it will pay us to + try. + + A couple of London dramatists want to bargain with me for the right + to make a high comedy out of the "Million-Pound Note." Barkis is + willing. + +This is but one of the briefer letters. Most of them were much longer +and of more elaborate requirements. Also they overflowed with the gaiety +of good-fortune and with gratitude. From Vienna in 1899 Clemens wrote: + + Why, it is just splendid! I have nothing to do but sit around and + watch you set the hen and hatch out those big broods and make my + living for me. Don't you wish you had somebody to do the same for + you?--a magician who can turn steel add copper and Brooklyn gas into + gold. I mean to raise your wages again--I begin to feel that I can + afford it. + + I think the hen ought to have a name; she must be called Unberufen. + That is a German word which is equivalent to it "sh! hush' don't let + the spirits hear you!" The superstition is that if you happen to + let fall any grateful jubilation over good luck that you've had or + are hoping to have you must shut square off and say "Unberufen!" and + knock wood. The word drives the evil spirits away; otherwise they + would divine your joy or your hopes and go to work and spoil your + game. Set her again--do! + + Oh, look here! You are just like everybody; merely because I am + literary you think I'm a commercial somnambulist, and am not + watching you with all that money in your hands. Bless you, I've got + a description of you and a photograph in every police-office in + Christendom, with the remark appended: "Look out for a handsome, + tall, slender young man with a gray mustache and courtly manners and + an address well calculated to deceive, calling himself by the name + of Smith." Don't you try to get away--it won't work. + +From the note-book: + + Midnight. At Miss Bailie's home for English governesses. Two + comedies & some songs and ballads. Was asked to speak & did it. + (And rung in the "Mexican Plug.") + + A Voice. "The Princess Hohenlohe wishes you to write on her fan." + + "With pleasure--where is she?" + + "At your elbow." + + I turned & took the fan & said, "Your Highness's place is in a fairy + tale; & by & by I mean to write that tale," whereat she laughed a + happy girlish laugh, & we moved through the crowd to get to a + writing-table--& to get in a strong light so that I could see her + better. Beautiful little creature, with the dearest friendly ways & + sincerities & simplicities & sweetnesses--the ideal princess of the + fairy tales. She is 16 or 17, I judge. + + Mental Telegraphy. Mrs. Clemens was pouring out the coffee this + morning; I unfolded the Neue Freie Presse, began to read a paragraph + & said: + + "They've found a new way to tell genuine gems from false----" + + "By the Roentgen ray!" she exclaimed. + + That is what I was going to say. She had not seen the paper, & + there had been no talk about the ray or gems by herself or by me. + It was a plain case of telegraphy. + + No man that ever lived has ever done a thing to please God + --primarily. It was done to please himself, then God next. + + The Being who to me is the real God is the one who created this + majestic universe & rules it. He is the only originator, the only + originator of thoughts; thoughts suggested from within, not from + without; the originator of colors & of all their possible + combinations; of forces & the laws that govern them; of forms & + shapes of all forms-man has never invented a new one. He is the + only originator. He made the materials of all things; He made the + laws by which, & by which only, man may combine them into the + machines & other things which outside influences suggest to him. He + made character--man can portray it but not "create" it, for He is + the only creator. + + He, is the perfect artisan, the perfect artist. + + + + +CCVI + +A SUMMER IN SWEDEN + +A part of the tragedy of their trip around the world had been the +development in Jean Clemens of a malady which time had identified as +epilepsy. The loss of one daughter and the invalidism of another was the +burden which this household had now to bear. Of course they did not for +a moment despair of a cure for the beautiful girl who had been so cruelly +stricken, and they employed any agent that promised relief. + +They decided now to go to London, in the hope of obtaining beneficial +treatment. They left Vienna at the end of May, followed to the station +by a great crowd, who loaded their compartment with flowers and lingered +on the platform waving and cheering, some of them in tears, while the +train pulled away. Leschetizky himself was among them, and Wilbrandt, +the author of the Master of Palmyra, and many artists and other notables, +"most of whom," writes Mrs. Clemens, "we shall probably never see again +in this world." + +Their Vienna sojourn had been one of the most brilliant periods of their +life, as well as one of the saddest. The memory of Susy had been never +absent, and the failing health of Jean was a gathering cloud. + +They stopped a day or two at Prague, where they were invited by the +Prince of Thurn and Taxis to visit his castle. It gave them a glimpse of +the country life of the Bohemian nobility which was most interesting. The +Prince's children were entirely familiar with Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry +Finn, which they had read both in English and in the translation. + +They journeyed to London by way of Cologne, arriving by the end of May. +Poultney Bigelow was there, and had recently been treated with great +benefit by osteopathy (then known as the Swedish movements), as practised +by Heinrick Kellgren at Sanna, Sweden. Clemens was all interest +concerning Kellgren's method and eager to try it for his daughter's +malady. He believed she could be benefited, and they made preparation to +spend some months at least in Sanna. They remained several weeks in +London, where they were welcomed with hospitality extraordinary. They +had hardly arrived when they were invited by Lord Salisbury to Hatfield +House, and by James Bryce to Portland Place, and by Canon Wilberforce to +Dean's Yard. A rather amusing incident happened at one of the +luncheon-parties. Canon Wilberforce was there and left rather early. +When Clemens was ready to go there was just one hat remaining. It was +not his, and he suspected, by the initials on the inside, that it +belonged to Canon Wilberforce. However, it fitted him exactly and he +wore it away. That evening he wrote: + + PRINCE OF WALES HOTEL, DE VERE GARDENS, + July,3, 1899. + +DEAR CANON WILBERFORCE,--It is 8 P.M. During the past four hours I have +not been able to take anything that did not belong to me; during all that +time I have not been able to stretch a fact beyond the frontiers of truth +try as I might, & meantime, not only my morals have moved the +astonishment of all who have come in contact with me, but my manners have +gained more compliments than they have been accustomed to. This mystery +is causing my family much alarm. It is difficult to account for it. I +find I haven't my own hat. Have you developed any novelties of conduct +since you left Mr. Murray's, & have they been of a character to move the +concern of your friends? I think it must be this that has put me under +this happy charm; but, oh dear! I tremble for the other man! + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +Scarcely was this note on its way to Wilberforce when the following one +arrived, having crossed it in transit: + +July 3, 1899. + +DEAR MR. CLEMENS,--I have been conscious of a vivacity and facility of +expression this afternoon beyond the normal and I have just discovered +the reason!! I have seen the historic signature "Mark Twain" in my hat!! +Doubtless you have been suffering from a corresponding dullness & have +wondered why. I departed precipitately, the hat stood on my umbrella and +was a new Lincoln & Bennett--it fitted me exactly and I did not discover +the mistake till I got in this afternoon. Please forgive me. If you +should be passing this way to-morrow will you look in and change hats? +or shall I send it to the hotel? + + I am, very sincerely yrs., +20 Dean's Yard. BASIL WILBERFORCE. + +Clemens was demanded by all the bohemian clubs, the White Friars, the +Vagabonds, the Savage, the Beefsteak, and the Authors. He spoke to them, +and those "Mark Twain Evenings" have become historic occasions in each of +the several institutions that gave him welcome. At the Vagabonds he told +them the watermelon story, and at the White Friars he reviewed the old +days when he had been elected to that society; "days," he said, "when all +Londoners were talking about nothing else than that they had discovered +Livingstone, and that the lost Sir Roger Tichborne had been found and +they were trying him for it." + +At the Savage Club, too, he recalled old times and old friends, and +particularly that first London visit, his days in the club twenty-seven +years before. + +"I was 6 feet 4 in those days," he said. "Now I am 5 feet 8 1/2 and +daily diminishing in altitude, and the shrinkage of my principles goes on +. . . . Irving was here then, is here now. Stanley is here, and Joe +Hatton, but Charles Reade is gone and Tom Hood and Harry Lee and Canon +Kingsley. In those days you could have carried Kipling around in a +lunch-basket; now he fills the world. I was young and foolish then; now +I am old and foolisher." + +At the Authors Club he paid a special tribute to Rudyard Kipling, whose +dangerous illness in New York City and whose daughter's death had aroused +the anxiety and sympathy of the entire American nation. It had done much +to bring England and America closer together, Clemens said. Then he +added that he had been engaged the past eight days compiling a pun and +had brought it there to lay at their feet, not to ask for their +indulgence, but for their applause. It was this: + +"Since England and America have been joined in Kipling, may they not be +severed in Twain." + +Hundreds of puns had been made on his pen-name, but this was probably his +first and only attempt, and it still remains the best. + +They arrived in Sweden early in July and remained until October. Jean +was certainly benefited by the Kellgren treatment, and they had for a +time the greatest hopes of her complete recovery. Clemens became +enthusiastic over osteopathy, and wrote eloquently to every one, urging +each to try the great new curative which was certain to restore universal +health. He wrote long articles on Kellgren and his science, largely +justified, no doubt, for certainly miraculous benefits were recorded; +though Clemens was not likely to underestimate a thing which appealed to +both his imagination and his reason. Writing to Twichell he concluded, +with his customary optimism over any new benefit: + + Ten years hence no sane man will call a doctor except when the knife + must be used--& such cases will be rare. The educated physician + will himself be an osteopath. Dave will become one after he has + finished his medical training. Young Harmony ought to become one + now. I do not believe there is any difference between Kellgren's + science and osteopathy; but I am sending to America to find out. I + want osteopathy to prosper; it is common sense & scientific, & cures + a wider range of ailments than the doctor's methods can reach. + +Twichell was traveling in Europe that summer, and wrote from Switzerland: + + I seemed ever and anon to see you and me swinging along those + glorious Alpine woods, staring at the new unfoldings of splendor + that every turn brought into view-talking, talking, endlessly + talking the days through-days forever memorable to me. That was + twenty-one years ago; think of it! We were youngsters then, Mark, + and how keen our relish of everything was! Well, I can enjoy myself + now; but not with that zest and rapture. Oh, a lot of items of our + tramp travel in 1878 that I had long forgotten came back to me as we + sped through that enchanted region, and if I wasn't on duty with + Venice I'd stop and set down some of them, but Venice must be + attended to. For one thing, there is Howells's book to be read at + such intervals as can be snatched from the quick-time march on which + our rustling leader keeps us. However, in Venice so far we want to + be gazing pretty steadily from morning till night, and by the grace + of the gondola we can do it without exhaustion. Really I am drunk + with Venice. + +But Clemens was full of Sweden. The skies there and the sunsets be +thought surpassed any he had ever known. On an evening in September he +wrote: + + DEAR JOE,--I've no business in here-I ought to be outside. I shall + never see another sunset to begin with it this side of heaven. + Venice? land, what a poor interest that is! This is the place to + be. I have seen about 60 sunsets here; & a good 40 of them were + away & beyond anything I had ever imagined before for dainty & + exquisite & marvelous beauty & infinite change & variety. America? + Italy? the tropics? They have no notion of what a sunset ought to + be. And this one--this unspeakable wonder! It discounts all the + rest. It brings the tears, it is so unutterably beautiful. + +Clemens read a book during his stay in Sweden which interested him +deeply. It was the Open Question, by Elizabeth Robbins--a fine study of +life's sterner aspects. When he had finished he was moved to write the +author this encouraging word: + + DEAR MISS ROBBINS,--A relative of Matthew Arnold lent us your 'Open + Question' the other day, and Mrs. Clemens and I are in your debt. I + am not able to put in words my feeling about the book--my admiration + of its depth and truth and wisdom and courage, and the fine and + great literary art and grace of the setting. At your age you cannot + have lived the half of the things that are in the book, nor + personally penetrated to the deeps it deals in, nor covered its wide + horizons with your very own vision--and so, what is your secret? + how have you written this miracle? Perhaps one must concede that + genius has no youth, but starts with the ripeness of age and old + experience. + + Well, in any case, I am grateful to you. I have not been so + enriched by a book for many years, nor so enchanted by one. I seem + to be using strong language; still, I have weighed it. + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + + +CCVII + +30, WELLINGTON COURT + +Clemens himself took the Kellgren treatment and received a good deal of +benefit. + +"I have come back in sound condition and braced for work," he wrote +MacAlister, upon his return to London. "A long, steady, faithful siege +of it, and I begin now in five minutes." + +They had settled in a small apartment at 30, Wellington Court, Albert +Gate, where they could be near the London branch of the Kellgren +institution, and he had a workroom with Chatto & Windus, his publishers. +His work, however, was mainly writing speeches, for he was entertained +constantly, and it seemed impossible for him to escape. His note-book +became a mere jumble of engagements. He did write an article or a story +now and then, one of which, "My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It," was +made the important Christmas feature of the 'New York Sunday World.' +--[Now included in the Hadleyburg volume; "Complete Works."] + +Another article of this time was the "St. Joan of Arc," which several +years later appeared in Harper's Magazine. This article was originally +written as the Introduction of the English translation of the official +record of the trials and rehabilitation of Joan, then about to be +elaborately issued. Clemens was greatly pleased at being invited to +prepare the Introduction of this important volume, but a smug person with +pedagogic proclivities was in charge of the copy and proceeded to edit +Mark Twain's manuscript; to alter its phrasing to conform to his own +ideas of the Queen's English. Then he had it all nicely typewritten, and +returned it to show how much he had improved it, and to receive thanks +and compliments. He did not receive any thanks. Clemens recorded a few +of the remarks that he made when he saw his edited manuscript: + + I will not deny that my feelings rose to 104 in the shade. "The + idea! That this long-eared animal this literary kangaroo this + illiterate hostler with his skull full of axle-grease--this....." + But I stopped there, for this was not the Christian spirit. + +His would-be editor received a prompt order to return the manuscript, +after which Clemens wrote a letter, some of which will go very well here. + + DEAR MR. X.,--I have examined the first page of my amended + Introduction,--& will begin now & jot down some notes upon your + corrections. If I find any changes which shall not seem to me to be + improvements I will point out my reasons for thinking so. In this + way I may chance to be helpful to you, & thus profit you perhaps as + much as you have desired to profit me. + + First Paragraph. "Jeanne d'Arc." This is rather cheaply pedantic, + & is not in very good taste. Joan is not known by that name among + plain people of our race & tongue. I notice that the name of the + Deity occurs several times in the brief instalment of the Trials + which you have favored me with. To be consistent, it will be + necessary that you strike out "God" & put in "Dieu." Do not neglect + this. + + Second Paragraph. Now you have begun on my punctuation. Don't you + realize that you ought not to intrude your help in a delicate art + like that with your limitations? And do you think that you have + added just the right smear of polish to the closing clause of the + sentence? + + Third Paragraph. Ditto. + + Fourth Paragraph. Your word "directly" is misleading; it could be + construed to mean "at once." Plain clarity is better than ornate + obscurity. I note your sensitive marginal remark: "Rather unkind to + French feelings--referring to Moscow." Indeed I have not been + concerning myself about French feelings, but only about stating the + facts. I have said several uncourteous things about the French + --calling them a "nation of ingrates" in one place--but you have + been so busy editing commas & semicolons that you overlooked them & + failed to get scared at them. The next paragraph ends with a slur + at the French, but I have reasons for thinking you mistook it for a + compliment. It is discouraging to try to penetrate a mind like + yours. You ought to get it out & dance on it. + + That would take some of the rigidity out of it. And you ought to + use it sometimes; that would help. If you had done this every now & + then along through life it would not have petrified. + + Fifth Paragraph. Thus far I regard this as your masterpiece! You + are really perfect in the great art of reducing simple & dignified + speech to clumsy & vapid commonplace. + + Sixth Paragraph. You have a singularly fine & aristocratic + disrespect for homely & unpretending English. Every time I use "go + back" you get out your polisher & slick it up to "return." "Return" + is suited only to the drawing-room--it is ducal, & says itself with + a simper & a smirk. + + Seventh Paragraph. "Permission" is ducal. Ducal and affected. + "Her" great days were not "over," they were only half over. Didn't + you know that? Haven't you read anything at all about Joan of Arc? + The truth is you do not pay any attention; I told you on my very + first page that the public part of her career lasted two years, & + you have forgotten it already. You really must get your mind out + and have it repaired; you see yourself that it is all caked + together. + + Eighth Paragraph. She "rode away to assault & capture a + stronghold." Very well; but you do not tell us whether she + succeeded or not. You should not worry the reader with + uncertainties like that. I will remind you once more that clarity + is a good thing in literature. An apprentice cannot do better than + keep this useful rule in mind. + + Ninth Paragraph. "Known" history. That word has a polish which is + too indelicate for me; there doesn't seem to be any sense in it. + This would have surprised me last week. + + . . . "Breaking a lance" is a knightly & sumptuous phrase, & I + honor it for its hoary age & for the faithful service it has done in + the prize-composition of the school-girl, but I have ceased from + employing it since I got my puberty, & must solemnly object to + fathering it here. And, besides, it makes me hint that I have + broken one of those things before in honor of the Maid, an + intimation not justified by the facts. I did not break any lances + or other furniture; I only wrote a book about her. + + Truly yours, + MARK TWAIN. + + It cost me something to restrain myself and say these smooth & half- + flattering things of this immeasurable idiot, but I did it, & have + never regretted it. For it is higher & nobler to be kind to even a + shad like him than just . . . . I could have said hundreds of + unpleasant things about this tadpole, but I did not even feel them. + +Yet, in the end, he seems not to have sent the letter. Writing it had +served every purpose. + +An important publishing event of 1899 was the issue by the American +Publishing Company of Mark Twain's "Complete Works in Uniform Edition." +Clemens had looked forward to the day when this should be done, perhaps +feeling that an assembling of his literary family in symmetrical dress +constituted a sort of official recognition of his authorship. Brander +Matthews was selected to write the Introduction and prepared a fine +"Biographical Criticism," which pleased Clemens, though perhaps he did +not entirely agree with its views. Himself of a different cast of mind, +he nevertheless admired Matthews. + +Writing to Twichell he said: + + When you say, "I like Brander Matthews, he impresses me as a man of + parts & power," I back you, right up to the hub--I feel the same + way. And when you say he has earned your gratitude for cuffing me + for my crimes against the Leather-stockings & the Vicar I ain't + making any objection. Dern your gratitude! + + His article is as sound as a nut. Brander knows literature & loves + it; he can talk about it & keep his temper; he can state his case so + lucidly & so fairly & so forcibly that you have to agree with him + even when you don't agree with him; & he can discover & praise such + merits as a book has even when they are merely half a dozen diamonds + scattered through an acre of mud. And so he has a right to be a + critic. + + To detail just the opposite of the above invoice is to describe me. + I haven't any right to criticize books, & I don't do it except when + I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books + madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; & + therefore I have to stop every time I begin.'--[Once at a dinner + given to Matthews, Mark Twain made a speech which consisted almost + entirely of intonations of the name "Brander Matthews" to express + various shades of human emotion. It would be hopeless, of course, + to attempt to convey in print any idea of this effort, which, by + those who heard it, is said to have been a masterpiece of + vocalization.] + +Clemens also introduced the "Uniform Edition" with an Author's Preface, +the jurisdiction of which, he said, was "restricted to furnishing reasons +for the publication of the collection as a whole." + + This is not easy to do. Aside from the ordinary commercial reasons + I find none that I can offer with dignity: I cannot say without + immodesty that the books have merit; I cannot say without immodesty + that the public want a "Uniform Edition"; I cannot say without + immodesty that a "Uniform Edition" will turn the nation toward high + ideals & elevated thought; I cannot say without immodesty that a + "Uniform Edition" will eradicate crime, though I think it will. I + find no reason that I can offer without immodesty except the rather + poor one that I should like to see a "Uniform Edition" myself. It + is nothing; a cat could say it about her kittens. Still, I believe + I will stand upon that. I have to have a Preface & a reason, by law + of custom, & the reason which I am putting forward is at least + without offense. + + + + +CCVIII + +MARK TWAIN AND THE WARS + +English troubles in South Africa came to a head that autumn. On the day +when England's ultimatum to the Boers expired Clemens wrote: + + LONDON, 3.07 P.m., Wednesday, October 11, 1899. The time is up! + Without a doubt the first shot in the war is being fired to-day in + South Africa at this moment. Some man had to be the first to fall; + he has fallen. Whose heart is broken by this murder? For, be he + Boer or be he Briton, it is murder, & England committed it by the + hand of Chamberlain & the Cabinet, the lackeys of Cecil Rhodes & his + Forty Thieves, the South Africa Company. + +Mark Twain would naturally sympathize with the Boer--the weaker side, the +man defending his home. He knew that for the sake of human progress +England must conquer and must be upheld, but his heart was all the other +way. In January, 1900, he wrote a characteristic letter to Twichell, +which conveys pretty conclusively his sentiments concerning the two wars +then in progress. + + DEAR JOE,--Apparently we are not proposing to set the Filipinos free + & give their islands to them; & apparently we are not proposing to + hang the priests & confiscate their property. If these things are + so the war out there has no interest for me. + + I have just been examining Chapter LXX of Following the Equator to + see if the Boer's old military effectiveness is holding out. It + reads curiously as if it had been written about the present war. + + I believe that in the next chapter my notion of the Boer was rightly + conceived. He is popularly called uncivilized; I do not know why. + Happiness, food, shelter, clothing, wholesome labor, modest & + rational ambitions, honesty, kindliness, hospitality, love of + freedom & limitless courage to fight for it, composure & fortitude + in time of disaster, patience in time of hardship & privation, + absence of noise & brag in time of victory, contentment with humble + & peaceful life void of insane excitements--if there is a higher & + better form of civilization than this I am not aware of it & do not + know where to look for it. I suppose that we have the habit of + imagining that a lot of artistic & intellectual & other + artificialities must be added or it isn't complete. We & the + English have these latter; but as we lack the great bulk of those + others I think the Boer civilization is the best of the two. My + idea of our civilization is that it is a shoddy, poor thing & full + of cruelties, vanities, arrogancies, meannesses, & hypocrisies. + + Provided we could get something better in the place of it. But that + is not possible perhaps. Poor as it is, it is better than real + savagery, therefore we must stand by it, extend it, & (in public) + praise it. And so we must not utter any hurtful word about England + in these days, nor fail to hope that she will win in this war, for + her defeat & fall would be an irremediable disaster for the mangy + human race. Naturally, then, I am for England; but she is + profoundly in the wrong, Joe, & no (instructed) Englishman doubts + it. At least that is my belief. + +Writing to Howells somewhat later, he calls the conflict in South Africa, +a "sordid and criminal war," and says that every day he is writing (in +his head) bitter magazine articles against it. + + But I have to stop with that. Even if wrong--& she is wrong England + must be upheld. He is an enemy of the human race who shall speak + against her now. Why was the human race created? Or at least why + wasn't something creditable created in place of it? . . . I talk + the war with both sides--always waiting until the other man + introduces the topic. Then I say, "My head is with the Briton, but + my heart & such rags of morals as I have are with the Boer--now we + will talk, unembarrassed and without prejudice." And so we discuss + & have no trouble. + + I notice that God is on both sides in this war; thus history repeats + itself. But I am the only person who has noticed this; everybody + here thinks He is playing the game for this side, & for this side + only. + +Clemens wrote one article for anonymous publication in the Times. But +when the manuscript was ready to mail in an envelope stamped and +addressed to Moberly Bell--he reconsidered and withheld it. It still +lies in the envelope with the accompanying letter, which says: + +Don't give me away, whether you print it or not. But I think you ought +to print it and get up a squabble, for the weather is just suitable. + + + + +CCIX + +PLASMON, AND A NEW MAGAZINE + +Clemens was not wholly wedded to osteopathy. The financial interest +which he had taken in the new milk albumen, "a food for invalids," tended +to divide his faith and make him uncertain as to which was to be the +chief panacea for all ills--osteopathy or plasmon. + +MacAlister, who was deeply interested in the plasmon fortunes, was +anxious to get the product adopted by the army. He believed, if he could +get an interview with the Medical Director-General, he could convince him +of its merits. Discussing the matter with Clemens, the latter said: + +"MacAlister, you are going at it from the wrong end. You can't go direct +to that man, a perfect stranger, and convince him of anything. Who is +his nearest friend?" + +MacAlister knew a man on terms of social intimacy with the official. + +Clemens said, "That is the man to speak to the Director-General." + +"But I don't know him, either," said MacAlister. + +"Very good. Do you know any one who does know him?" + +"Yes, I know his most intimate friend." + +"Then he is the man for you to approach. Convince him that plasmon is +what the army needs, that the military hospitals are suffering for it. +Let him understand that what you want is to get this to the +Director-General, and in due time it will get to him in the proper way. +You'll see." + +This proved to be a true prophecy. It was only a little while until the +British army had experimented with plasmon and adopted it. MacAlister +reported the success of the scheme to Clemens, and out of it grew the +story entitled, "Two Little Tales," published in November of the +following year (1901) in the Century Magazine. Perhaps the reader will +remember that in the "Two Little Tales" the Emperor is very ill and the +lowest of all his subjects knows a certain remedy, but he cannot seek the +Emperor direct, so he wisely approaches him through a series of +progressive stages--finally reaching and curing his stricken Majesty. + +Clemens had the courage of his investments. He adopted plasmon as his +own daily food, and induced various members of the family to take it in +its more palatable forms, one of these being a preparation of chocolate. +He kept the reading-table by his bed well stocked with a variety of the +products and invited various callers to try a complimentary sample lot. +It was really an excellent and harmless diet, and both the company and +its patients would seem to have prospered--perhaps are prospering still. + +There was another business opportunity came along just at this time. S. +S. McClure was in England with a proposition for starting a new magazine +whose complexion was to be peculiarly American, with Mark Twain as its +editor. The magazine was to be called 'The Universal', and by the +proposition Clemens was to receive a tenth interest in it for his first +year's work, and an added twentieth interest for each of the two +succeeding years, with a guarantee that his shares should not earn him +less than five thousand dollars the first year, with a proportionate +increase as his holdings grew. + +The scheme appealed to Clemens, it being understood in the beginning that +he was to give very little time to the work, with the privilege of doing +it at his home, wherever that might happen to be. He wrote of the matter +to Mr. Rogers, explaining in detail, and Rogers replied, approving the +plan. Mr. Rogers said he knew that he [Rogers] would have to do most of +the work in editing the magazine, and further added: + + One thing I shall insist upon, however, if I have anything to do + with the matter, and it is this: that when you have made up your + mind on the subject you will stick to it. I have not found in your + composition that element of stubbornness which is a constant source + of embarrassment to me in all friendly and social ways, but which, + when applied to certain lines of business, brings in the dollar and + fifty-cent pieces. If you accept the position, of course that means + that you have to come to this country. If you do, the yachting will + be a success. + +There was considerable correspondence with McClure over the new +periodical. In one letter Clemens set forth his general views of the +matter quite clearly: + + Let us not deceive any one, nor allow any one to deceive himself, if + it can be prevented. This is not to be comic magazine. It is to be + simply a good, clean, wholesome collection of well-written & + enticing literary products, like the other magazines of its class; + not setting itself to please but one of man's moods, but all of + them. It will not play but one kind of music, but all kinds. I + should not be able to edit a comic periodical satisfactorily, for + lack of interest in the work. I value humor highly, & am + constitutionally fond of it, but I should not like it as a steady + diet. For its own best interests, humor should take its outings in + grave company; its cheerful dress gets heightened color from the + proximity of sober hues. For me to edit a comic magazine would be + an incongruity & out of character, for of the twenty-three books + which I have written eighteen do not deal in humor as their chiefs + feature, but are half & half admixtures of fun & seriousness. I + think I have seldom deliberately set out to be humorous, but have + nearly always allowed the humor to drop in or stay out, according to + its fancy. Although I have many times been asked to write something + humorous for an editor or a publisher I have had wisdom enough to + decline; a person could hardly be humorous with the other man + watching him like that. I have never tried to write a humorous + lecture; I have only tried to write serious ones--it is the only way + not to succeed. + + I shall write for this magazine every time the spirit moves me; but + I look for my largest entertainment in editing. I have been edited + by all kinds of people for more than thirty-eight years; there has + always been somebody in authority over my manuscript & privileged to + improve it; this has fatigued me a good deal, & I have often longed + to move up from the dock to the bench & rest myself and fatigue + others. My opportunity is come, but I hope I shall not abuse it + overmuch. I mean to do my best to make a good magazine; I mean to + do my whole duty, & not shirk any part of it. There are plenty of + distinguished artists, novelists, poets, story-tellers, + philosophers, scientists, explorers, fighters, hunters, followers of + the sea, & seekers of adventure; & with these to do the hard & the + valuable part of the work with the pen & the pencil it will be + comfort & joy to me to walk the quarter-deck & superintend. + +Meanwhile McClure's enthusiasm had had time to adjust itself to certain +existing facts. Something more than a month later he wrote from America +at considerable length, setting forth the various editorial duties and +laying stress upon the feature of intimate physical contact with the +magazine. He went into the matter of the printing schedule, the various +kinds of paper used, the advertising pages, illustrations--into all the +detail, indeed, which a practical managing editor must compass in his +daily rounds. It was pretty evident that Clemens would not be able to go +sailing about on Mr. Rogers's yacht or live at will in London or New York +or Vienna or Elmira, but that he would be more or less harnessed to a +revolving chair at an editorial desk, the thing which of all fates he +would be most likely to dread The scheme appears to have died there--the +correspondence to have closed. + +Somewhat of the inducement in the McClure scheme had been the thought in +Clemens's mind that it would bring him back to America. In a letter to +Mr. Rogers (January 8, 1900) he said, "I am tired to death of this +everlasting exile." Mrs. Clemens often wrote that he was restlessly +impatient to return. They were, in fact, constantly discussing the +practicability of returning to their own country now and opening the +Hartford home. Clemens was ready to do that or to fall in with any plan +that would bring him across the water and settle him somewhere +permanently. He was tired of the wandering life they had been leading. +Besides the long trip of '95 and '96 they had moved two or three times a +year regularly since leaving Hartford, nine years before. It seemed to +him that they were always packing and unpacking. + +"The poor man is willing to live anywhere if we will only let him 'stay +put," wrote Mrs. Clemens, but he did want to settle in his own land. +Mrs. Clemens, too, was weary with wandering, but the Hartford home no +longer held any attraction for her. There had been a time when her every +letter dwelt on their hope of returning to it. Now the thought filled +her with dread. To her sister she wrote: + +Do you think we can live through the first going into the house in +Hartford? I feel if we had gotten through the first three months all +might be well, but consider the first night. + +The thought of the responsibility of that great house--the taking up +again of the old life-disheartened her, too. She had added years and she +had not gained in health or strength. + + When I was comparatively young I found the burden of that house very + great. I don't think I was ever fitted for housekeeping. I dislike + the practical part of it so much. I hate it when the servants don't + do well, and I hate the correcting them. + + Yet no one ever had better discipline in her domestic affairs or + ever commanded more devoted service. Her strength of character and + the proportions of her achievement show large when we consider this + confession. + +They planned to return in the spring, but postponed the date for sailing. +Jean was still under Kellgren's treatment, and, though a cure had been +promised her, progress was discouragingly slow. They began to look about +for summer quarters in or near London. + + + + +CCX + +LONDON SOCIAL AFFAIRS + +All this time Clemens had been tossing on the London social tide. There +was a call for him everywhere. No distinguished visitor of whatever +profession or rank but must meet Mark Twain. The King of Sweden was +among his royal conquests of that season. + +He was more happy with men of his own kind. He was often with Moberly +Bell, editor of the Times; E. A. Abbey, the painter; Sir Henry Lucy, of +Punch (Toby, M.P.); James Bryce, and Herbert Gladstone; and there were a +number of brilliant Irishmen who were his special delight. Once with +Mrs. Clemens he dined with the author of his old favorite, 'European +Morals', William E. H. Lecky. Lady Gregory was there and Sir Dennis +Fitz-Patrick; who had been Governor-General at Lahore when they were in +India, and a number of other Irish ladies and gentlemen. It was a +memorable evening. To Twichell Clemens wrote: + + Joe, do you know the Irish gentleman & the Irish lady, the Scotch + gentleman & the Scotch lady? These are darlings, every one. Night + before last it was all Irish--24. One would have to travel far to + match their ease & sociability & animation & sparkle & absence of + shyness & self-consciousness. It was American in these fine + qualities. This was at Mr. Lecky's. He is Irish, you know. Last + night it was Irish again, at Lady Gregory's. Lord Roberts is Irish, + & Sir William Butler, & Kitchener, I think, & a disproportion of the + other prominent generals are of Irish & Scotch breed keeping up the + traditions of Wellington & Sir Colin Campbell, of the Mutiny. You + will have noticed that in S. A., as in the Mutiny, it is usually the + Irish & Scotch that are placed in the forefront of the battle.... + Sir William Butler said, "the Celt is the spearhead of the British + lance." + +He mentions the news from the African war, which had been favorable to +England, and what a change had come over everything in consequence. The +dinner-parties had been lodges of sorrow and depressing. Now everybody +was smiling again. In a note-book entry of this time he wrote: + + Relief of Mafeking (May 18, 1900). The news came at 9.17 P.M. + Before 10 all London was in the streets, gone mad with joy. By then + the news was all over the American continent. + +Clemens had been talking copyright a good deal in London, and introducing +it into his speeches. Finally, one day he was summoned before a +committee of the House of Lords to explain his views. His old idea that +the product of a man's brain is his property in perpetuity and not for +any term of years had not changed, and they permitted him to dilate on +this (to them) curious doctrine. The committee consisted of Lords +Monkswell, Knutsford, Avebury, Farrar, and Thwing. When they asked for +his views he said: + +"In my opinion the copyright laws of England and America need only the +removal of the forty-two-year limit and the return to perpetual copyright +to be perfect. I consider that at least one of the reasons advanced in +justification of limited copyright is fallacious--namely, the one which +makes a distinction between an author's property and real estate, and +pretends that the two are not created, produced, or acquired in the same +way, thus warranting a different treatment of the two by law." + +Continuing, he dwelt on the ancient doctrine that there was no property +in an idea, showing how the far greater proportion of all property +consisted of nothing more than elaborated ideas--the steamship, +locomotive, telephone, the vast buildings in the world, how all of these +had been constructed upon a basic idea precisely as a book is +constructed, and were property only as a book is property, and therefore +rightly subject to the same laws. He was carefully and searchingly +examined by that shrewd committee. He kept them entertained and +interested and left them in good-nature, even if not entirely converted. +The papers printed his remarks, and London found them amusing. + +A few days after the copyright session, Clemens, responding to the toast, +"Literature," at the Royal Literary Fund Banquet, made London laugh +again, and early in June he was at the Savoy Hotel welcoming Sir Henry +Irving back to England after one of his successful American tours. + +On the Fourth of July (1900) Clemens dined with the Lord Chief-Justice, +and later attended an American banquet at the Hotel Cecil. He arrived +late, when a number of the guests were already going. They insisted, +however, that he make a speech, which he did, and considered the evening +ended. It was not quite over. A sequel to his "Luck" story, published +nine years before, suddenly developed. + +To go back a little, the reader may recall that "Luck" was a story which +Twichell had told him as being supposedly true. The hero of it was a +military officer who had risen to the highest rank through what at least +seemed to be sheer luck, including a number of fortunate blunders. +Clemens thought the story improbable, but wrote it and laid it away for +several years, offering it at last in the general house-cleaning which +took place after the first collapse of the machine. It was published in +Harper's Magazine for August, 1891, and something less than a year later, +in Rome, an English gentleman--a new acquaintance--said to him: + +"Mr. Clemens, shall you go to England?" + +"Very likely." + +"Shall you take your tomahawk with you?" + +"Why--yes, if it shall seem best." + +"Well, it will. Be advised. Take it with you." + +"Why?" + +"Because of that sketch of yours entitled 'Luck.' That sketch is current +in England, and you will surely need your tomahawk." + +"What makes you think so?" + +"I think so because the hero of the sketch will naturally want your +scalp, and will probably apply for it. Be advised. Take your tomahawk +along." + +"Why, even with it I sha'n't stand any chance, because I sha'n't know him +when he applies, and he will have my scalp before I know what his errand +is." + +"Come, do you mean to say that you don't know who the hero of that sketch +is?" + +"Indeed I haven't any idea who the hero of the sketch is. Who is it?" + +His informant hesitated a moment, then named a name of world-wide +military significance. + +As Mask Twain finished his Fourth of July speech at the Cecil and started +to sit down a splendidly uniformed and decorated personage at his side +said: + +"Mr. Clemens, I have been wanting to know you a long time," and he was +looking down into the face of the hero of "Luck." + +"I was caught unprepared," he said in his notes of it. "I didn't sit +down--I fell down. I didn't have my tomahawk, and I didn't know what +would happen. But he was, composed, and pretty soon I got composed and +we had a good, friendly time. If he had ever heard of that sketch of +mine he did not manifest it in any way, and at twelve, midnight, I took +my scalp home intact." + + + + +CCXI + +DOLLIS HILL AND HOME + +It was early in July, 1900, that they removed to Dollis Hill House, a +beautiful old residence surrounded by trees on a peaceful hilltop, just +outside of London. It was literally within a stone's-throw of the city +limits, yet it was quite rural, for the city had not overgrown it then, +and it retained all its pastoral features--a pond with lily-pads, the +spreading oaks, the wide spaces of grassy lawn. Gladstone, an intimate +friend of the owner, had made it a favorite retreat at one period of his +life, and the place to-day is converted into a public garden called +Gladstone Park. The old English diplomat used to drive out and sit in +the shade of the trees and read and talk and translate Homer, and pace +the lawn as he planned diplomacy, and, in effect, govern the English +empire from that retired spot. + +Clemens, in some memoranda made at the moment, doubts if Gladstone was +always at peace in his mind in this retirement. + +"Was he always really tranquil within," he says, "or was he only +externally so--for effect? We cannot know; we only know that his rustic +bench under his favorite oak has no bark on its arms. Facts like this +speak louder than words." + +The red-brick residential wave of London was still some distance away in +1900. Clemens says: + + The rolling sea of green grass still stretches away on every hand, + splotches with shadows of spreading oaks in whose black coolness + flocks of sheep lie peacefully dreaming. Dreaming of what? That + they are in London, the metropolis of the world, Post-office + District, N. W.? Indeed no. They are not aware of it. I am aware + of it, but that is all. It is not possible to realize it. For + there is no suggestion of city here; it is country, pure & simple, + & as still & reposeful as is the bottom of the sea. + +They all loved Dollis Hill. Mrs. Clemens wrote as if she would like to +remain forever in that secluded spot. + + It is simply divinely beautiful & peaceful; . . . the great old + trees are beyond everything. I believe nowhere in the world do you + find such trees as in England . . . . Jean has a hammock swung + between two such great trees, & on the other side of a little pond, + which is full of white & yellow pond-lilies, there is tall grass & + trees & Clara & Jean go there in the afternoons, spread down a rug + on the grass in the shade & read & sleep. + +They all spent most of their time outdoors at Dollis Hill under those +spreading trees. + +Clemens to Twichell in midsummer wrote: + + I am the only person who is ever in the house in the daytime, but I + am working & deep in the luxury of it. But there is one tremendous + defect. Livy is all so enchanted with the place & so in love with + it that she doesn't know how she is going to tear herself away from + it. + +Much company came to them at Dollis Hill. Friends drove out from London, +and friends from America came often, among them--the Sages, Prof. Willard +Fiske, and Brander Matthews with his family. Such callers were served +with tea and refreshment on the lawn, and lingered, talking and talking, +while the sun got lower and the shadows lengthened, reluctant to leave +that idyllic spot. + +"Dollis Hill comes nearer to being a paradise than any other home I ever +occupied," he wrote when the summer was about over. + +But there was still a greater attraction than Dollis Hill. Toward the +end of summer they willingly left that paradise, for they had decided at +last to make that home-returning voyage which had invited them so long. +They were all eager enough to go--Clemens more eager than the rest, +though he felt a certain sadness, too, in leaving the tranquil spot which +in a brief summer they had so learned to love. + +Writing to W. H. Helm, a London newspaper man who had spent pleasant +hours with him chatting in the shade, he said: + + . . . The packing & fussing & arranging have begun, for the + removal to America &, by consequence, the peace of life is marred & + its contents & satisfactions are departing. There is not much + choice between a removal & a funeral; in fact, a removal is a + funeral, substantially, & I am tired of attending them. + +They closed Dollis Hill, spent a few days at Brown's Hotel, and sailed +for America, on the Minnehaha, October 6, 1900, bidding, as Clemens +believed, and hoped, a permanent good-by to foreign travel. They reached +New York on the 15th, triumphantly welcomed after their long nine years +of wandering. How glad Mark Twain was to get home may be judged from his +remark to one of the many reporters who greeted him. + + "If I ever get ashore I am going to break both of my legs so I + can't, get away again." + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mark Twain, A Biography, Vol. 2, Part +2, 1886-1900, by Albert Bigelow Paine + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY, *** + +***** This file should be named 2985.txt or 2985.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/8/2985/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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