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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/2986.txt b/2986.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1b0f4a3 --- /dev/null +++ b/2986.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9219 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mark Twain, A Biography, Vol. 3, Part 1, +1900-1907, 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. 3, Part 1, 1900-1907 + The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens + +Author: Albert Bigelow Paine + +Release Date: August 21, 2006 [EBook #2986] + +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 III, Part 1: 1900-1907 + + + +CCXII + + +THE RETURN OF THE CONQUEROR + +It would be hard to exaggerate the stir which the newspapers and the +public generally made over the homecoming of Mark Twain. He had left +America, staggering under heavy obligation and set out on a pilgrimage of +redemption. At the moment when this Mecca, was in view a great sorrow +had befallen him and, stirred a world-wide and soul-deep tide of human +sympathy. Then there had followed such ovation as has seldom been +conferred upon a private citizen, and now approaching old age, still in +the fullness of his mental vigor, he had returned to his native soil with +the prestige of these honors upon him and the vast added glory of having +made his financial fight single-handed-and won. + +He was heralded literally as a conquering hero. Every paper in the land +had an editorial telling the story of his debts, his sorrow, and his +triumphs. + +"He had behaved like Walter Scott," says Howells, "as millions rejoiced +to know who had not known how Walter Scott had behaved till they knew it +was like Clemens." + +Howells acknowledges that he had some doubts as to the permanency of the +vast acclaim of the American public, remembering, or perhaps assuming, a +national fickleness. Says Howells: + + He had hitherto been more intelligently accepted or more largely + imagined in Europe, and I suppose it was my sense of this that + inspired the stupidity of my saying to him when we came to consider + "the state of polite learning" among us, "You mustn't expect people + to keep it up here as they do in England." But it appeared that his + countrymen were only wanting the chance, and they kept it up in + honor of him past all precedent. + +Clemens went to the Earlington Hotel and began search for a furnished +house in New York. They would not return to Hartford--at least not yet. +The associations there were still too sad, and they immediately became +more so. Five days after Mark Twain's return to America, his old friend +and co-worker, Charles Dudley Warner, died. Clemens went to Hartford to +act as a pall-bearer and while there looked into the old home. To +Sylvester Baxter, of Boston, who had been present, he wrote a few days +later: + + It was a great pleasure to me to renew the other days with you, & + there was a pathetic pleasure in seeing Hartford & the house again; + but I realized that if we ever enter the house again to live our + hearts will break. I am not sure that we shall ever be strong + enough to endure that strain. + +Even if the surroundings had been less sorrowful it is not likely that +Clemens would have returned to Hartford at this time. He had become a +world-character, a dweller in capitals. Everywhere he moved a world +revolved about him. Such a figure in Germany would live naturally in +Berlin; in England London; in France, Paris; in Austria, Vienna; in +America his headquarters could only be New York. + +Clemens empowered certain of his friends to find a home for him, and Mr. +Frank N. Doubleday discovered an attractive and handsomely furnished +residence at 14 West Tenth Street, which was promptly approved. +Doubleday, who was going to Boston, left orders with the agent to draw +the lease and take it up to the new tenant for signature. To Clemens he +said: + +"The house is as good as yours. All you've got to do is to sign the +lease. You can consider it all settled." + +When Doubleday returned from Boston a few days later the agent called on +him and complained that he couldn't find Mark Twain anywhere. It was +reported at his hotel that he had gone and left no address. Doubleday +was mystified; then, reflecting, he had an inspiration. He walked over +to 14 West Tenth Street and found what he had suspected--Mark Twain had +moved in. He had convinced the caretaker that everything was all right +and he was quite at home. Doubleday said: + +"Why, you haven't executed the lease yet." + +"No," said Clemens, "but you said the house was as good as mine," to +which Doubleday agreed, but suggested that they go up to the real-estate +office and give the agent notice that he was in possession of the +premises. + +Doubleday's troubles were not quite over, however. Clemens began to find +defects in his new home and assumed to hold Doubleday responsible for +them. He sent a daily postal card complaining of the windows, furnace, +the range, the water-whatever he thought might lend interest to +Doubleday's life. As a matter of fact, he was pleased with the place. To +MacAlister he wrote: + + We were very lucky to get this big house furnished. There was not + another one in town procurable that would answer us, but this one is + all right-space enough in it for several families, the rooms all + old-fashioned, great size. + +The house at 14 West Tenth Street became suddenly one of the most +conspicuous residences in New York. The papers immediately made its +appearance familiar. Many people passed down that usually quiet street, +stopping to observe or point out where Mark Twain lived. There was a +constant procession of callers of every kind. Many were friends, old and +new, but there was a multitude of strangers. Hundreds came merely to +express their appreciation of his work, hoping for a personal word or a +hand-shake or an autograph; but there were other hundreds who came with +this thing and that thing--axes to grind--and there were newspaper +reporters to ask his opinion on politics, or polygamy, or woman's +suffrage; on heaven and hell and happiness; on the latest novel; on the +war in Africa, the troubles in China; on anything under the sun, +important or unimportant, interesting or inane, concerning which one +might possibly hold an opinion. He was unfailing "copy" if they could +but get a word with him. Anything that he might choose to say upon any +subject whatever was seized upon and magnified and printed with +head-lines. Sometimes opinions were invented for him. If he let fall a +few words they were multiplied into a column interview. + +"That reporter worked a miracle equal to the loaves and fishes," he said +of one such performance. + +Many men would have become annoyed and irritable as these things +continued; but Mark Twain was greater than that. Eventually he employed +a secretary to stand between him and the wash of the tide, as a sort of +breakwater; but he seldom lost his temper no matter what was the request +which was laid before him, for he recognized underneath it the great +tribute of a great nation. + +Of course his literary valuation would be affected by the noise of the +general applause. Magazines and syndicates besought him for manuscripts. +He was offered fifty cents and even a dollar a word for whatever he might +give them. He felt a child-like gratification in these evidences of his +market advancement, but he was not demoralized by them. He confined his +work to a few magazines, and in November concluded an arrangement with +the new management of Harper & Brothers, by which that firm was to have +the exclusive serial privilege of whatever he might write at a fixed rate +of twenty cents per word--a rate increased to thirty cents by a later +contract, which also provided an increased royalty for the publication of +his books. + +The United States, as a nation, does not confer any special honors upon +private citizens. We do not have decorations and titles, even though +there are times when it seems that such things might be not +inappropriately conferred. Certain of the newspapers, more lavish in +their enthusiasm than others, were inclined to propose, as one paper +phrased it, "Some peculiar recognition--something that should appeal to +Samuel L. Clemens, the man, rather than to Mark Twain, the literate. +Just what form this recognition should take is doubtful, for the case has +no exact precedent." + +Perhaps the paper thought that Mark Twain was entitled--as he himself +once humorously suggested-to the "thanks of Congress" for having come +home alive and out of debt, but it is just as well that nothing of the +sort was ever seriously considered. The thanks of the public at large +contained more substance, and was a tribute much more to his mind. The +paper above quoted ended by suggesting a very large dinner and memorial +of welcome as being more in keeping with the republican idea and the +American expression of good-will. + +But this was an unneeded suggestion. If he had eaten all the dinners +proposed he would not have lived to enjoy his public honors a month. As +it was, he accepted many more dinners than he could eat, and presently +fell into the habit of arriving when the banqueting was about over and +the after-dinner speaking about to begin. Even so the strain told on +him. + +"His friends saw that he was wearing himself out," says Howells, and +perhaps this was true, for he grew thin and pale and contracted a hacking +cough. He did not spare himself as often as he should have done. Once +to Richard Watson Gilder he sent this line of regrets: + + In bed with a chest cold and other company--Wednesday. + DEAR GILDER,--I can't. If I were a well man I could explain with + this pencil, but in the cir---ces I will leave it all to your + imagination. + + Was it Grady who killed himself trying to do all the dining and + speeching? + + No, old man, no, no! Ever yours, MARK. + +He became again the guest of honor at the Lotos Club, which had dined him +so lavishly seven years before, just previous to his financial collapse. +That former dinner had been a distinguished occasion, but never before +had the Lotos Club been so brimming with eager hospitality as on the +second great occasion. In closing his introductory speech President +Frank Lawrence said, "We hail him as one who has borne great burdens with +manliness and courage, who has emerged from great struggles victorious," +and the assembled diners roared out their applause. Clemens in his reply +said: + + Your president has referred to certain burdens which I was weighted + with. I am glad he did, as it gives me an opportunity which I + wanted--to speak of those debts. You all knew what he meant when he + referred to it, & of the poor bankrupt firm of C. L. Webster & Co. + No one has said a word about those creditors. There were ninety-six + creditors in all, & not by a finger's weight did ninety-five out of + the ninety-six add to the burden of that time. They treated me + well; they treated me handsomely. I never knew I owed them + anything; not a sign came from them. + +It was like him to make that public acknowledgment. He could not let an +unfair impression remain that any man or any set of men had laid an +unnecessary burden upon him-his sense of justice would not consent to it. +He also spoke on that occasion of certain national changes. + + How many things have happened in the seven years I have been away + from home! We have fought a righteous war, and a righteous war is a + rare thing in history. We have turned aside from our own comfort + and seen to it that freedom should exist, not only within our own + gates, but in our own neighborhood. We have set Cuba free and + placed her among the galaxy of free nations of the world. We + started out to set those poor Filipinos free, but why that righteous + plan miscarried perhaps I shall never know. We have also been + making a creditable showing in China, and that is more than all the + other powers can say. The "Yellow Terror" is threatening the world, + but no matter what happens the United States says that it has had no + part in it. + + Since I have been away we have been nursing free silver. We have + watched by its cradle, we have done our best to raise that child, + but every time it seemed to be getting along nicely along came some + pestiferous Republican and gave it the measles or something. I fear + we will never raise that child. + + We've done more than that. We elected a President four years ago. + We've found fault and criticized him, and here a day or two ago we + go and elect him for another four years, with votes enough to spare + to do it over again. + +One club followed another in honoring Mark Twain--the Aldine, the St. +Nicholas, the Press clubs, and other associations and societies. His old +friends were at these dinners--Howells, Aldrich, Depew, Rogers, +ex-Speaker Reed--and they praised him and gibed him to his and their +hearts' content. + +It was a political year, and he generally had something to say on matters +municipal, national, or international; and he spoke out more and more +freely, as with each opportunity he warmed more righteously to his +subject. + +At the dinner given to him by the St. Nicholas Club he said, with deep +irony: + + Gentlemen, you have here the best municipal government in the world, + and the most fragrant and the purest. The very angels of heaven + envy you and wish they had a government like it up there. You got + it by your noble fidelity to civic duty; by the stern and ever + watchful exercise of the great powers lodged in you as lovers and + guardians of your city; by your manly refusal to sit inert when base + men would have invaded her high places and possessed them; by your + instant retaliation when any insult was offered you in her person, + or any assault was made upon her fair fame. It is you who have made + this government what it is, it is you who have made it the envy and + despair of the other capitals of the world--and God bless you for + it, gentlemen, God bless you! And when you get to heaven at last + they'll say with joy, "Oh, there they come, the representatives of + the perfectest citizenship in the universe show them the archangel's + box and turn on the limelight!" + +Those hearers who in former years had been indifferent to Mark Twain's +more serious purpose began to realize that, whatever he may have been +formerly, he was by no means now a mere fun-maker, but a man of deep and +grave convictions, able to give them the fullest and most forcible +expression. He still might make them laugh, but he also made them think, +and he stirred them to a truer gospel of patriotism. He did not preach a +patriotism that meant a boisterous cheering of the Stars and Stripes +right or wrong, but a patriotism that proposed to keep the Stars and +Stripes clean and worth shouting for. In an article, perhaps it was a +speech, begun at this time he wrote: + + We teach the boys to atrophy their independence. We teach them to + take their patriotism at second-hand; to shout with the largest + crowd without examining into the right or wrong of the matter + --exactly as boys under monarchies are taught and have always been + taught. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion + and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, & so here in our + democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most + foreign to it & out of place--the delivery of our political + conscience into somebody else's keeping. This is patriotism on the + Russian plan. + +Howells tells of discussing these vital matters with him in "an upper +room, looking south over a quiet, open space of back yards where," he +says, "we fought our battles in behalf of the Filipinos and Boers, and he +carried on his campaign against the missionaries in China." + +Howells at the time expressed an amused fear that Mark Twain's +countrymen, who in former years had expected him to be merely a humorist, +should now, in the light of his wider acceptance abroad, demand that he +be mainly serious. + +But the American people were quite ready to accept him in any of his +phases, fully realizing that whatever his philosophy or doctrine it would +have somewhat of the humorous form, and whatever his humor, there would +somewhere be wisdom in it. He had in reality changed little; for a +generation he had thought the sort of things which he now, with advanced +years and a different audience, felt warranted in uttering openly. The +man who in '64 had written against corruption in San Francisco, who a few +years later had defended the emigrant Chinese against persecution, who at +the meetings of the Monday Evening Club had denounced hypocrisy in +politics, morals, and national issues, did not need to change to be able +to speak out against similar abuses now. And a newer generation as +willing to herald Mark Twain as a sage as well as a humorist, and on +occasion to quite overlook the absence of the cap and bells. + + + + +CCXIII + +MARK TWAIN--GENERAL SPOKESMAN + +Clemens did not confine his speeches altogether to matters of reform. At +a dinner given by the Nineteenth Century Club in November, 1900, he spoke +on the "Disappearance of Literature," and at the close of the discussion +of that subject, referring to Milton and Scott, he said: + + Professor Winchester also said something about there being no modern + epics like "Paradise Lost." I guess he's right. He talked as if he + was pretty familiar with that piece of literary work, and nobody + would suppose that he never had read it. I don't believe any of you + have ever read "Paradise Lost," and you don't want to. That's + something that you just want to take on trust. It's a classic, just + as Professor Winchester says, and it meets his definition of a + classic--something that everybody wants to have read and nobody + wants to read. + + Professor Trent also had a good deal to say about the disappearance + of literature. He said that Scott would outlive all his critics. + I guess that's true. That fact of the business is you've got to be + one of two ages to appreciate Scott. When you're eighteen you can + read Ivanhoe, and you want to wait until you're ninety to read some + of the rest. It takes a pretty well-regulated abstemious critic to + live ninety years. + +But a few days later he was back again in the forefront of reform, +preaching at the Berkeley Lyceum against foreign occupation in China. It +was there that he declared himself a Boxer. + + Why should not China be free from the foreigners, who are only + making trouble on her soil? If they would only all go home what a + pleasant place China would be for the Chinese! We do not allow + Chinamen to come here, and I say, in all seriousness, that it would + be a graceful thing to let China decide who shall go there. + + China never wanted foreigners any more than foreigners wanted + Chinamen, and on this question I am with the Boxers every time. The + Boxer is a patriot. He loves his country better than he does the + countries of other people. I wish him success. We drive the + Chinaman out of our country; the Boxer believes in driving us out of + his country. I am a Boxer, too, on those terms. + +Introducing Winston Churchill, of England, at a dinner some weeks later, +he explained how generous England and America had been in not requiring +fancy rates for "extinguished missionaries" in China as Germany had done. +Germany had required territory and cash, he said, in payment for her +missionaries, while the United States and England had been willing to +settle for produce--firecrackers and tea. + +The Churchill introduction would seem to have been his last speech for +the year 1900, and he expected it, with one exception, to be the last for +a long time. He realized that he was tired and that the strain upon him +made any other sort of work out of the question. Writing to MacAlister +at the end of the year, he said, "I seem to have made many speeches, but +it is not so. It is not more than ten, I think." Still, a respectable +number in the space of two months, considering that each was carefully +written and committed to memory, and all amid crushing social pressure. +Again to MacAlister: + + I declined 7 banquets yesterday (which is double the daily average) + & answered 29 letters. I have slaved at my mail every day since we + arrived in mid-October, but Jean is learning to typewrite & + presently I'll dictate & thereby save some scraps of time. + +He added that after January 4th he did not intend to speak again for a +year--that he would not speak then only that the matter concerned the +reform of city government. + +The occasion of January 4, 1901, was a rather important one. It was a +meeting of the City Club, then engaged in the crusade for municipal +reform. Wheeler H. Peckham presided, and Bishop Potter made the opening +address. It all seems like ancient history now, and perhaps is not very +vital any more; but the movement was making a great stir then, and Mark +Twain's declaration that he believed forty-nine men out of fifty were +honest, and that the forty-nine only needed to organize to disqualify the +fiftieth man (always organized for crime), was quoted as a sort of slogan +for reform. + +Clemens was not permitted to keep his resolution that he wouldn't speak +again that year. He had become a sort of general spokesman on public +matters, and demands were made upon him which could not be denied. He +declined a Yale alumni dinner, but he could not refuse to preside at the +Lincoln Birthday celebration at Carnegie Hall, February 11th, where he +must introduce Watterson as the speaker of the evening. + +"Think of it!" he wrote Twichell. "Two old rebels functioning there: I +as president and Watterson as orator of the day! Things have changed +somewhat in these forty years, thank God!" + +The Watterson introduction is one of the choicest of Mark Twain's +speeches--a pure and perfect example of simple eloquence, worthy of the +occasion which gave it utterance, worthy in spite of its playful +paragraphs (or even because of them, for Lincoln would have loved them), +to become the matrix of that imperishable Gettysburg phrase with which he +makes his climax. He opened by dwelling for a moment on Colonel +Watterson as a soldier, journalist, orator, statesman, and patriot; then +he said: + + It is a curious circumstance that without collusion of any kind, but + merely in obedience to a strange and pleasant and dramatic freak of + destiny, he and I, kinsmen by blood--[Colonel Watterson's forebears + had intermarried with the Lamptons.]--for we are that--and one-time + rebels--for we were that--should be chosen out of a million + surviving quondam rebels to come here and bare our heads in + reverence and love of that noble soul whom 40 years ago we tried + with all our hearts and all our strength to defeat and dispossess + --Abraham Lincoln! Is the Rebellion ended and forgotten? Are the + Blue and the Gray one to-day? By authority of this sign we may + answer yes; there was a Rebellion--that incident is closed. + + I was born and reared in a slave State, my father was a slaveowner; + and in the Civil War I was a second lieutenant in the Confederate + service. For a while. This second cousin of mine, Colonel + Watterson, the orator of this present occasion, was born and reared + in a slave State, was a colonel in the Confederate service, and + rendered me such assistance as he could in my self-appointed great + task of annihilating the Federal armies and breaking up the Union. + I laid my plans with wisdom and foresight, and if Colonel Watterson + had obeyed my orders I should have succeeded in my giant + undertaking. It was my intention to drive General Grant into the + Pacific--if I could get transportation--and I told Colonel Watterson + to surround the Eastern armies and wait till I came. But he was + insubordinate, and stood upon a punctilio of military etiquette; he + refused to take orders from a second lieutenant--and the Union was + saved. This is the first time that this secret has been revealed. + Until now no one outside the family has known the facts. But there + they stand: Watterson saved the Union. Yet to this day that man + gets no pension. Those were great days, splendid days. What an + uprising it was! For the hearts of the whole nation, North and + South, were in the war. We of the South were not ashamed; for, like + the men of the North, we were fighting for 'flags we loved; and when + men fight for these things, and under these convictions, with + nothing sordid to tarnish their cause, that cause is holy, the blood + spilt for it is sacred, the life that is laid down for it is + consecrated. To-day we no longer regret the result, to-day we are + glad it came out as it did, but we are not ashamed that we did our + endeavor; we did our bravest best, against despairing odds, for the + cause which was precious to us and which our consciences approved; + and we are proud--and you are proud--the kindred blood in your veins + answers when I say it--you are proud of the record we made in those + mighty collisions in the fields. + + What an uprising it was! We did not have to supplicate for soldiers + on either side. "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred + thousand strong!" That was the music North and South. The very + choicest young blood and brawn and brain rose up from Maine to the + Gulf and flocked to the standards--just as men always do when in + their eyes their cause is great and fine and their hearts are in it; + just as men flocked to the Crusades, sacrificing all they possessed + to the cause, and entering cheerfully upon hardships which we cannot + even imagine in this age, and upon toilsome and wasting journeys + which in our time would be the equivalent of circumnavigating the + globe five times over. + + North and South we put our hearts into that colossal struggle, and + out of it came the blessed fulfilment of the prophecy of the + immortal Gettysburg speech which said: "We here highly resolve that + these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, + shall have a new birth of freedom; and that a government of the + people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the + earth." + + We are here to honor the birthday of the greatest citizen, and the + noblest and the best, after Washington, that this land or any other + has yet produced. The old wounds are healed, you and we are + brothers again; you testify it by honoring two of us, once soldiers + of the Lost Cause, and foes of your great and good leader--with the + privilege of assisting here; and we testify it by laying our honest + homage at the feet of Abraham Lincoln, and in forgetting that you of + the North and we of the South were ever enemies, and remembering + only that we are now indistinguishably fused together and nameable + by one common great name--Americans! + + + + +CCXIV + +MARK TWAIN AND THE MISSIONARIES + +Mark Twain had really begun his crusade for reform soon after his arrival +in America in a practical hand-to-hand manner. His housekeeper, Katie +Leary, one night employed a cabman to drive her from the Grand Central +Station to the house at 14 West Tenth Street. No contract had been made +as to price, and when she arrived there the cabman's extortionate charge +was refused. He persisted in it, and she sent into the house for her +employer. Of all men, Mark Twain was the last one to countenance an +extortion. He reasoned with the man kindly enough at first; when the +driver at last became abusive Clemens demanded his number, which was at +first refused. In the end he paid the legal fare, and in the morning +entered a formal complaint, something altogether unexpected, for the +American public is accustomed to suffering almost any sort of imposition +to avoid trouble and publicity. + +In some notes which Clemens had made in London four years earlier he +wrote: + + If you call a policeman to settle the dispute you can depend on one + thing--he will decide it against you every time. And so will the + New York policeman. In London if you carry your case into court the + man that is entitled to win it will win it. In New York--but no one + carries a cab case into court there. It is my impression that it is + now more than thirty years since any one has carried a cab case into + court there. + +Nevertheless, he was promptly on hand when the case was called to sustain +the charge and to read the cabdrivers' union and the public in general a +lesson in good-citizenship. At the end of the hearing, to a +representative of the union he said: + +"This is not a matter of sentiment, my dear sir. It is simply practical +business. You cannot imagine that I am making money wasting an hour or +two of my time prosecuting a case in which I can have no personal +interest whatever. I am doing this just as any citizen should do. He +has no choice. He has a distinct duty. He is a non-classified +policeman. Every citizen is, a policeman, and it is his duty to assist +the police and the magistracy in every way he can, and give his time, if +necessary, to do so. Here is a man who is a perfectly natural product of +an infamous system in this city--a charge upon the lax patriotism in this +city of New York that this thing can exist. You have encouraged him, in +every way you know how to overcharge. He is not the criminal here at +all. The criminal is the citizen of New York and the absence of +patriotism. I am not here to avenge myself on him. I have no quarrel +with him. My quarrel is with the citizens of New York, who have +encouraged him, and who created him by encouraging him to overcharge in +this way." + +The driver's license was suspended. The case made a stir in the +newspapers, and it is not likely that any one incident ever contributed +more to cab-driving morals in New York City. + +But Clemens had larger matters than this in prospect. His many speeches +on municipal and national abuses he felt were more or less ephemeral. He +proposed now to write himself down more substantially and for a wider +hearing. The human race was behaving very badly: unspeakable corruption +was rampant in the city; the Boers were being oppressed in South Africa; +the natives were being murdered in the Philippines; Leopold of Belgium +was massacring and mutilating the blacks in the Congo, and the allied +powers, in the cause of Christ, were slaughtering the Chinese. In his +letters he had more than once boiled over touching these matters, and for +New-Year's Eve, 1900, had written: + + A GREETING FROM THE NINETEENTH TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY + + I bring you the stately nation named Christendom, returning, + bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored, from pirate raids in Kiao- + Chou, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Philippines, with her soul + full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of + pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking- + glass.--[Prepared for Red Cross Society watch-meeting, which was + postponed until March. Clemens recalled his "Greeting" for that + reason and for one other, which he expressed thus: "The list of + greeters thus far issued by you contains only vague generalities and + one definite name--mine: 'Some kings and queens and Mark Twain.' Now + I am not enjoying this sparkling solitude and distinction. It makes + me feel like a circus-poster in a graveyard."] + +This was a sort of preliminary. Then, restraining himself no longer, he +embodied his sentiments in an article for the North American Review +entitled, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness." There was crying need for +some one to speak the right word. He was about the only one who could do +it and be certain of a universal audience. He took as his text some +Christmas Eve clippings from the New York Tribune and Sun which he had +been saving for this purpose. The Tribune clipping said: + + Christmas will dawn in the United States over a people full of hope + and aspiration and good cheer. Such a condition means contentment + and happiness. The carping grumbler who may here and there go forth + will find few to listen to him. The majority will wonder what is + the matter with him, and pass on. + +A Sun clipping depicted the "terrible offenses against humanity committed +in the name of politics in some of the most notorious East Side districts +"--the unmissionaried, unpoliced darker New York. The Sun declared that +they could not be pictured even verbally. But it suggested enough to +make the reader shudder at the hideous depths of vice in the sections +named. Another clipping from the same paper reported the "Rev. Mr. +Ament, of the American Board of Foreign Missions," as having collected +indemnities for Boxer damages in China at the rate of three hundred taels +for each murder, "full payment for all destroyed property belonging to +Christians, and national fines amounting to thirteen times the +indemnity." It quoted Mr. Ament as saying that the money so obtained was +used for the propagation of the Gospel, and that the amount so collected +was moderate when compared with the amount secured by the Catholics, who +had demanded, in addition to money, life for life, that is to say, "head +for head"--in one district six hundred and eighty heads having been so +collected. + +The despatch made Mr. Ament say a great deal more than this, but the gist +here is enough. Mark Twain, of course, was fiercely stirred. The +missionary idea had seldom appealed to him, and coupled with this +business of bloodshed, it was less attractive than usual. He printed the +clippings in full, one following the other; then he said: + + By happy luck we get all these glad tidings on Christmas Eve--just + the time to enable us to celebrate the day with proper gaiety and + enthusiasm. Our spirits soar and we find we can even make jokes; + taels I win, heads you lose. + +He went on to score Ament, to compare the missionary policy in China to +that of the Pawnee Indians, and to propose for him a monument +--subscriptions to be sent to the American Board. He denounced the +national policies in Africa, China, and the Philippines, and showed by +the reports and by the private letters of soldiers home, how cruel and +barbarous and fiendish had been the warfare made by those whose avowed +purpose was to carry the blessed light of civilization and Gospel "to the +benighted native"--how in very truth these priceless blessings had been +handed on the point of a bayonet to the "Person Sitting in Darkness." + +Mark Twain never wrote anything more scorching, more penetrating in its +sarcasm, more fearful in its revelation of injustice and hypocrisy, than +his article "To the Person Sitting in Darkness." He put aquafortis on +all the raw places, and when it was finished he himself doubted the +wisdom of printing it. Howells, however, agreed that it should be +published, and "it ought to be illustrated by Dan Beard," he added, "with +such pictures as he made for the Yankee in King Arthur's Court, but you'd +better hang yourself afterward." + +Meeting Beard a few days later, Clemens mentioned the matter and said: + +"So if you make the pictures, you hang with me." + +But pictures were not required. It was published in the North American +Review for February, 1901, as the opening article; after which the +cyclone. Two storms moving in opposite directions produce a cyclone, and +the storms immediately developed; one all for Mark Twain and his +principles, the other all against him. Every paper in England and +America commented on it editorially, with bitter denunciations or with +eager praise, according to their lights and convictions. + +At 14 West Tenth Street letters, newspaper clippings, documents poured in +by the bushel--laudations, vituperations, denunciations, vindications; no +such tumult ever occurred in a peaceful literary home. It was really as +if he had thrown a great missile into the human hive, one-half of which +regarded it as a ball of honey and the remainder as a cobblestone. +Whatever other effect it may have had, it left no thinking person +unawakened. + +Clemens reveled in it. W. A. Rogers, in Harper's Weekly, caricatured him +as Tom Sawyer in a snow fort, assailed by the shower of snowballs, +"having the time of his life." Another artist, Fred Lewis, pictured him +as Huck Finn with a gun. + +The American Board was naturally disturbed. The Ament clipping which +Clemens had used had been public property for more than a month--its +authenticity never denied; but it was immediately denied now, and the +cable kept hot with inquiries. + +The Rev. Judson Smith, one of the board, took up the defense of Dr. +Ament, declaring him to be one who had suffered for the cause, and asked +Mark Twain, whose "brilliant article," he said, "would produce an effect +quite beyond the reach of plain argument," not to do an innocent man an +injustice. Clemens in the same paper replied that such was not his +intent, that Mr. Ament in his report had simply arraigned himself. + +Then it suddenly developed that the cable report had "grossly +exaggerated" the amount of Mr. Ament's collections. Instead of thirteen +times the indemnity it should have read "one and a third times" the +indemnity; whereupon, in another open letter, the board demanded +retraction and apology. Clemens would not fail to make the apology--at +least he would explain. It was precisely the kind of thing that would +appeal to him--the delicate moral difference between a demand thirteen +times as great as it should be and a demand that was only one and a third +times the correct amount. "To My Missionary Critics," in the North +American Review for April (1901), was his formal and somewhat lengthy +reply. + +"I have no prejudice against apologies," he wrote. "I trust I shall +never withhold one when it is due." + +He then proceeded to make out his case categorically. Touching the +exaggerated indemnity, he said: + +To Dr. Smith the "thirteen-fold-extra" clearly stood for "theft and +extortion," and he was right, distinctly right, indisputably right. He +manifestly thinks that when it got scaled away down to a mere "one-third" +a little thing like that was some other than "theft and extortion." Why, +only the board knows! + +I will try to explain this difficult problem so that the board can get an +idea of it. If a pauper owes me a dollar and I catch him unprotected and +make him pay me fourteen dollars thirteen of it is "theft and extortion." +If I make him pay only one dollar thirty-three and a third cents the +thirty-three and a third cents are "theft and extortion," just the same. + +I will put it in another way still simpler. If a man owes me one dog +--any kind of a dog, the breed is of no consequence--and I--but let it +go; the board would never understand it. It can't understand these +involved and difficult things. + +He offered some further illustrations, including the "Tale of a King and +His Treasure" and another tale entitled "The Watermelons." + + I have it now. Many years ago, when I was studying for the gallows, + I had a dear comrade, a youth who was not in my line, but still a + scrupulously good fellow though devious. He was preparing to + qualify for a place on the board, for there was going to be a + vacancy by superannuation in about five years. This was down South, + in the slavery days. It was the nature of the negro then, as now, + to steal watermelons. They stole three of the melons of an adoptive + brother of mine, the only good ones he had. I suspected three of a + neighbor's negroes, but there was no proof, and, besides, the + watermelons in those negroes' private patches were all green and + small and not up to indemnity standard. But in the private patches + of three other negroes there was a number of competent melons. I + consulted with my comrade, the understudy of the board. He said + that if I would approve his arrangements he would arrange. I said, + "Consider me the board; I approve; arrange." So he took a gun and + went and collected three large melons for my brother-on-the- + halfshell, and one over. I was greatly pleased and asked: + + "Who gets the extra one?" + "Widows and orphans." + + "A good idea, too. Why didn't you take thirteen?" + + "It would have been wrong; a crime, in fact-theft and extortion." + + "What is the one-third extra--the odd melon--the same?" + + It caused him to reflect. But there was no result. + + The justice of the peace was a stern man. On the trial he found + fault with the scheme and required us to explain upon what we based + our strange conduct--as he called it. The understudy said: + + "On the custom of the niggers. They all do it."--[The point had + been made by the board that it was the Chinese custom to make the + inhabitants of a village responsible for individual crimes; and + custom, likewise, to collect a third in excess of the damage, such + surplus having been applied to the support of widows and orphans of + the slain converts.] + + The justice forgot his dignity and descended to sarcasm. + + "Custom of the niggers! Are our morals so inadequate that we have + to borrow of niggers?" + + Then he said to the jury: "Three melons were owing; they were + collected from persons not proven to owe them: this is theft; they + were collected by compulsion: this is extortion. A melon was added + for the widows and orphans. It was owed by no one. It is another + theft, another extortion. Return it whence it came, with the + others. It is not permissible here to apply to any purpose goods + dishonestly obtained; not even to the feeding of widows and orphans, + for this would be to put a shame upon charity and dishonor it." + + He said it in open court, before everybody, and to me it did not + seem very kind. + +It was in the midst of the tumult that Clemens, perhaps feeling the need +of sacred melody, wrote to Andrew Carnegie: + +DEAR SIR & FRIEND,--You seem to be in prosperity. Could you lend an +admirer $1.50 to buy a hymn-book with? God will bless you. I feel it; I +know it. + +N. B.--If there should be other applications, this one not to count. + Yours, MARK. + +P. S.-Don't send the hymn-book; send the money; I want to make the +selection myself. + +Carnegie answered: + + Nothing less than a two-dollar & a half hymn-book gilt will do for + you. Your place in the choir (celestial) demands that & you shall + have it. + + There's a new Gospel of Saint Mark in the North American which I + like better than anything I've read for many a day. + + I am willing to borrow a thousand dollars to distribute that sacred + message in proper form, & if the author don't object may I send that + sum, when I can raise it, to the Anti-Imperialist League, Boston, to + which I am a contributor, the only missionary work I am responsible + for. + + Just tell me you are willing & many thousands of the holy little + missals will go forth. This inimitable satire is to become a + classic. I count among my privileges in life that I know you, the + author. + +Perhaps a few more of the letters invited by Mark Twain's criticism of +missionary work in China may still be of interest to the reader: +Frederick T. Cook, of the Hospital Saturday and Sunday Association, +wrote: "I hail you as the Voltaire of America. It is a noble +distinction. God bless you and see that you weary not in well-doing in +this noblest, sublimest of crusades." + +Ministers were by no means all against him. The associate pastor of the +Every-day Church, in Boston, sent this line: "I want to thank you for +your matchless article in the current North American. It must make +converts of well-nigh all who read it." + +But a Boston school-teacher was angry. "I have been reading the North +American," she wrote, "and I am filled with shame and remorse that I have +dreamed of asking you to come to Boston to talk to the teachers." + +On the outside of the envelope Clemens made this pencil note: + +"Now, I suppose I offended that young lady by having an opinion of my +own, instead of waiting and copying hers. I never thought. I suppose +she must be as much as twenty-five, and probably the only patriot in the +country." + +A critic with a sense of humor asked: "Please excuse seeming +impertinence, but were you ever adjudged insane? Be honest. How much +money does the devil give you for arraigning Christianity and missionary +causes?" + +But there were more of the better sort. Edward S. Martin, in a grateful +letter, said: "How gratifying it is to feel that we have a man among us +who understands the rarity of the plain truth, and who delights to utter +it, and has the gift of doing so without cant and with not too much +seriousness." + +Sir Hiram Maxim wrote: "I give you my candid opinion that what you have +done is of very great value to the civilization of the world. There is +no man living whose words carry greater weight than your own, as no one's +writings are so eagerly sought after by all classes." + +Clemens himself in his note-book set down this aphorism: + +"Do right and you will be conspicuous." + + + + +CCXV + +SUMMER AT "THE LAIR" + +In June Clemens took the family to Saranac Lake, to Ampersand. They +occupied a log cabin which he called "The Lair," on the south shore, near +the water's edge, a remote and beautiful place where, as had happened +before, they were so comfortable and satisfied that they hoped to return +another summer. There were swimming and boating and long walks in the +woods; the worry and noise of the world were far away. They gave little +enough attention to the mails. They took only a weekly paper, and were +likely to allow it to lie in the postoffice uncalled for. Clemens, +especially, loved the place, and wrote to Twichell: + + I am on the front porch (lower one-main deck) of our little bijou of + a dwelling-house. The lake edge (Lower Saranac) is so nearly under + me that I can't see the shore, but only the water, small-poxed with + rain splashes--for there is a heavy down pour. It is charmingly + like sitting snuggled up on a ship's deck with the stretching sea + all around but very much more satisfactory, for at sea a rainstorm + is depressing, while here of course the effect engendered is just a + deep sense of comfort & contentment. The heavy forest shuts us + solidly in on three sides--there are no neighbors. There are + beautiful little tan-colored impudent squirrels about. They take + tea 5 P.M. (not invited) at the table in the woods where Jean does + my typewriting, & one of them has been brave enough to sit upon + Jean's knee with his tail curved over his back & munch his food. + They come to dinner 7 P.M. on the front porch (not invited), but + Clara drives them away. It is an occupation which requires some + industry & attention to business. They all have the one name + --Blennerhasset, from Burr's friend--& none of them answers to it + except when hungry. + +Clemens could work at "The Lair," often writing in shady seclusions along +the shore, and he finished there the two-part serial,--[ Published in +Harper's Magazine for January and February, 1902.]--"The Double-Barrelled +Detective Story," intended originally as a burlesque on Sherlock Holmes. +It did not altogether fulfil its purpose, and is hardly to be ranked as +one of Mark Twain's successes. It contains, however, one paragraph at +least by which it is likely to be remembered, a hoax--his last one--on +the reader. It runs as follows: + + It was a crisp and spicy morning in early October. The lilacs and + laburnums, lit with the glory-fires of autumn, hung burning and + flashing in the upper air, a fairy bridge provided by kind nature + for the wingless wild things that have their home in the tree-tops + and would visit together; the larch and the pomegranate flung their + purple and yellow flames in brilliant broad splashes along the + slanting sweep of woodland, the sensuous fragrance of innumerable + deciduous flowers rose upon the swooning atmosphere, far in the + empty sky a solitary oesophagus slept upon motionless wing; + everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and the peace of God. + +The warm light and luxury of this paragraph are factitious. The careful +reader will, note that its various accessories are ridiculously +associated, and only the most careless reader will accept the oesophagus +as a bird. But it disturbed a great many admirers, and numerous letters +of inquiry came wanting to know what it was all about. Some suspected +the joke and taunted him with it; one such correspondent wrote: + + MY DEAR MARK TWAIN,--Reading your "Double-Barrelled Detective Story" + in the January Harper's late one night I came to the paragraph where + you so beautifully describe "a crisp and spicy morning in early + October." I read along down the paragraph, conscious only of its + woozy sound, until I brought up with a start against your oesophagus + in the empty sky. Then I read the paragraph again. Oh, Mark Twain! + Mark Twain! How could you do it? Put a trap like that into the + midst of a tragical story? Do serenity and peace brood over you + after you have done such a thing? + + Who lit the lilacs, and which end up do they hang? When did larches + begin to flame, and who set out the pomegranates in that canyon? + What are deciduous flowers, and do they always "bloom in the fall, + tra la"? + + I have been making myself obnoxious to various people by demanding + their opinion of that paragraph without telling them the name of the + author. They say, "Very well done." "The alliteration is so + pretty." "What's an oesophagus, a bird?" "What's it all mean, + anyway?" I tell them it means Mark Twain, and that an oesophagus is + a kind of swallow. Am I right? Or is it a gull? Or a gullet? + + Hereafter if you must write such things won't you please be so kind + as to label them? + Very sincerely yours, + ALLETTA F. DEAN. + +Mark Twain to Miss Dean: + + Don't you give that oesophagus away again or I'll never trust you + with another privacy! + +So many wrote, that Clemens finally felt called upon to make public +confession, and as one searching letter had been mailed from Springfield, +Massachusetts, he made his reply through the Republican of that city. +After some opening comment he said: + + I published a short story lately & it was in that that I put the + oesophagus. I will say privately that I expected it to bother some + people--in fact, that was the intention--but the harvest has been + larger than I was calculating upon. The oesophagus has gathered in + the guilty and the innocent alike, whereas I was only fishing for + the innocent--the innocent and confiding. + +He quoted a letter from a schoolmaster in the Philippines who thought the +passage beautiful with the exception of the curious creature which "slept +upon motionless wings." Said Clemens: + + Do you notice? Nothing in the paragraph disturbed him but that one + word. It shows that that paragraph was most ably constructed for + the deception it was intended to put upon the reader. It was my + intention that it should read plausibly, and it is now plain that it + does; it was my intention that it should be emotional and touching, + and you see yourself that it fetched this public instructor. Alas! + if I had but left that one treacherous word out I should have + scored, scored everywhere, and the paragraph would have slidden + through every reader's sensibilities like oil and left not a + suspicion behind. + + The other sample inquiry is from a professor in a New England + university. It contains one naughty word (which I cannot bear to + suppress), but he is not in the theological department, so it is no + harm: + + "DEAR MR. CLEMENS,--'Far in the empty sky a solitary oesophagus + slept upon motionless wing.' + + "It is not often I get a chance to read much periodical literature, + but I have just gone through at this belated period, with much + gratification and edification, your 'Double-Barrelled Detective + Story.' + + "But what in hell is an oesophagus? I keep one myself, but it never + sleeps in the air or anywhere else. My profession is to deal with + words, and oesophagus interested me the moment I lighted upon it. + But, as a companion of my youth used to say, 'I'll be eternally, + co-eternally cussed' if I can make it out. Is it a joke or am I an + ignoramus?" + + Between you and me, I was almost ashamed of having fooled that man, + but for pride's sake I was not going to say so. I wrote and told + him it was a joke--and that is what I am now saying to my + Springfield inquirer. And I told him to carefully read the whole + paragraph and he would find not a vestige of sense in any detail of + it. This also I recommend to my Springfield inquirer. + + I have confessed. I am sorry--partially. I will not do so any + more--for the present. Don't ask me any more questions; let the + oesophagus have a rest--on his same old motionless wing. + +He wrote Twichell that the story had been a six-day 'tour de force', +twenty-five thousand words, and he adds: + + How long it takes a literary seed to sprout sometimes! This seed was + planted in your house many years ago when you sent me to bed with a + book not heard of by me until then--Sherlock Holmes . . . . + I've done a grist of writing here this summer, but not for + publication soon, if ever. I did write two satisfactory articles + for early print, but I've burned one of them & have buried the other + in my large box of posthumous stuff. I've got stacks of literary + remains piled up there. + +Early in August Clemens went with H. H. Rogers in his yacht Kanawha on a +cruise to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Rogers had made up a party, +including ex-Speaker Reed, Dr. Rice, and Col. A. G. Paine. Young Harry +Rogers also made one of the party. Clemens kept a log of the cruise, +certain entries of which convey something of its spirit. On the 11th, at +Yarmouth, he wrote: + + Fog-bound. The garrison went ashore. Officers visited the yacht in + the evening & said an anvil had been missed. Mr. Rogers paid for + the anvil. + + August 13th. There is a fine picture-gallery here; the sheriff + photographed the garrison, with the exception of Harry (Rogers) and + Mr. Clemens. + + August 14th. Upon complaint of Mr. Reed another dog was procured. + He said he had been a sailor all his life, and considered it + dangerous to trust a ship to a dog-watch with only one dog in it. + + Poker, for a change. + + August 15th. To Rockland, Maine, in the afternoon, arriving about 6 + P.M. In the night Dr. Rice baited the anchor with his winnings & + caught a whale 90 feet long. He said so himself. It is thought + that if there had been another witness like Dr. Rice the whale would + have been longer. + + August 16th. We could have had a happy time in Bath but for the + interruptions caused by people who wanted Mr. Reed to explain votes + of the olden time or give back the money. Mr. Rogers recouped them. + + Another anvil missed. The descendant of Captain Kidd is the only + person who does not blush for these incidents. Harry and Mr. + Clemens blush continually. It is believed that if the rest of the + garrison were like these two the yacht would be welcome everywhere + instead of being quarantined by the police in all the ports. Mr. + Clemens & Harry have attracted a great deal of attention, & men have + expressed a resolve to turn over a new leaf & copy after them from + this out. + + Evening. Judge Cohen came over from another yacht to pay his + respects to Harry and Mr. Clemens, he having heard of their + reputation from the clergy of these coasts. He was invited by the + gang to play poker apparently as a courtesy & in a spirit of seeming + hospitality, he not knowing them & taking it all at par. Mr. Rogers + lent him clothes to go home in. + + August 17th. The Reformed Statesman growling and complaining again + --not in a frank, straightforward way, but talking at the Commodore, + while letting on to be talking to himself. This time he was + dissatisfied about the anchor watch; said it was out of date, + untrustworthy, & for real efficiency didn't begin with the + Waterbury, & was going on to reiterate, as usual, that he had been a + pilot all his life & blamed if he ever saw, etc., etc., etc. + + But he was not allowed to finish. We put him ashore at Portland. + +That is to say, Reed landed at Portland, the rest of the party returning +with the yacht. + +"We had a noble good time in the yacht," Clemens wrote Twichell on their +return. "We caught a Chinee missionary and drowned him." + +Twichell had been invited to make one of the party, and this letter was +to make him feel sorry he had not accepted. + + + + +CCXVI + +RIVERDALE--A YALE DEGREE + +The Clemens household did not return to 14 West Tenth Street. They spent +a week in Elmira at the end of September, and after a brief stop in New +York took up their residence on the northern metropolitan boundary, at +Riverdale-on-the-Hudson, in the old Appleton home. They had permanently +concluded not to return to Hartford. They had put the property there +into an agent's hands for sale. Mrs. Clemens never felt that she had the +strength to enter the house again. + +They had selected the Riverdale place with due consideration. They +decided that they must have easy access to the New York center, but they +wished also to have the advantage of space and spreading lawn and trees, +large rooms, and light. The Appleton homestead provided these things. It +was a house built in the first third of the last century by one of the +Morris family, so long prominent in New York history. On passing into +the Appleton ownership it had been enlarged and beautified and named +"Holbrook Hall." It overlooked the Hudson and the Palisades. It had +associations: the Roosevelt family had once lived there, Huxley, Darwin, +Tyndall, and others of their intellectual rank had been entertained there +during its occupation by the first Appleton, the founder of the +publishing firm. The great hall of the added wing was its chief feature. +Clemens once remembered: + +"We drifted from room to room on our tour of inspection, always with a +growing doubt as to whether we wanted that house or not; but at last, +when we arrived in a dining-room that was 60 feet long, 30 feet wide, and +had two great fireplaces in it, that settled it." + +There were pleasant neighbors at Riverdale, and had it not been for the +illnesses that seemed always ready to seize upon that household the home +there might have been ideal. They loved the place presently, so much so +that they contemplated buying it, but decided that it was too costly. +They began to prospect for other places along the Hudson shore. They +were anxious to have a home again--one that they could call their own. + +Among the many pleasant neighbors at Riverdale were the Dodges, the +Quincy Adamses, and the Rev. Mr. Carstensen, a liberal-minded minister +with whom Clemens easily affiliated. Clemens and Carstensen visited back +and forth and exchanged views. Once Mr. Carstensen told him that he was +going to town to dine with a party which included the Reverend Gottheil, +a Catholic bishop, an Indian Buddhist, and a Chinese scholar of the +Confucian faith, after which they were all going to a Yiddish theater. +Clemens said: + +"Well, there's only one more thing you need to make the party complete +--that is, either Satan or me." + +Howells often came to Riverdale. He was living in a New York apartment, +and it was handy and made an easy and pleasant outing for him. He says: + +"I began to see them again on something like the sweet old terms. They +lived far more unpretentiously than they used, and I think with a notion +of economy, which they had never very successfully practised. I recall +that at the end of a certain year in Hartford, when they had been saving +and paying cash for everything, Clemens wrote, reminding me of their +avowed experiment, and asking me to guess how many bills they had at +New-Year's; he hastened to say that a horse-car would not have held them. +At Riverdale they kept no carriage, and there was a snowy night when I +drove up to their handsome old mansion in the station carryall, which was +crusted with mud, as from the going down of the Deluge after transporting +Noah and his family from the Ark to whatever point they decided to settle +provisionally. But the good talk, the rich talk, the talk that could +never suffer poverty of mind or soul was there, and we jubilantly found +ourselves again in our middle youth." + +Both Howells and Clemens were made doctors of letters by Yale that year +and went over in October to receive their degrees. It was Mark Twain's +second Yale degree, and it was the highest rank that an American +institution of learning could confer. + +Twichell wrote: + +I want you to understand, old fellow, that it will be in its intention +the highest public compliment, and emphatically so in your case, for it +will be tendered you by a corporation of gentlemen, the majority of whom +do not at all agree with the views on important questions which you have +lately promulgated in speech and in writing, and with which you are +identified to the public mind. They grant, of course, your right to hold +and express those views, though for themselves they don't like 'em; but +in awarding you the proposed laurel they will make no count of that +whatever. Their action will appropriately signify simply and solely +their estimate of your merit and rank as a man of letters, and so, as I +say, the compliment of it will be of the pure, unadulterated quality. + +Howells was not especially eager to go, and tried to conspire with +Clemens to arrange some excuse which would keep them at home. + +I remember with satisfaction [he wrote] our joint success in keeping away +from the Concord Centennial in 1875, and I have been thinking we might +help each other in this matter of the Yale Anniversary. What are your +plans for getting left, or shall you trust to inspiration? + +Their plans did not avail. Both Howells and Clemens went to New Haven to +receive their honors. + +When they had returned, Howells wrote formally, as became the new rank: + + DEAR SIR,--I have long been an admirer of your complete works, + several of which I have read, and I am with you shoulder to shoulder + in the cause of foreign missions. I would respectfully request a + personal interview, and if you will appoint some day and hour most + inconvenient to you I will call at your baronial hall. I cannot + doubt, from the account of your courtesy given me by the Twelve + Apostles, who once visited you in your Hartford home and were + mistaken for a syndicate of lightning-rod men, that our meeting will + be mutually agreeable. + + Yours truly, + W. D. HOWELLS. + DR. CLEMENS. + + + + +CCXVII + +MARK TWAIN IN POLITICS + +There was a campaign for the mayoralty of New York City that fall, with +Seth Low on the Fusion ticket against Edward M. Shepard as the Tammany +candidate. Mark Twain entered the arena to try to defeat Tammany Hall. +He wrote and he spoke in favor of clean city government and police +reform. He was savagely in earnest and openly denounced the clan of +Croker, individually and collectively. He joined a society called 'The +Acorns'; and on the 17th of October, at a dinner given by the order at +the Waldorf-Astoria, delivered a fierce arraignment, in which he +characterized Croker as the Warren Hastings of New York. His speech was +really a set of extracts from Edmund Burke's great impeachment of +Hastings, substituting always the name of Croker, and paralleling his +career with that of the ancient boss of the East India Company. + +It was not a humorous speech. It was too denunciatory for that. It +probably contained less comic phrasing than any former effort. There is +hardly even a suggestion of humor from beginning to end. It concluded +with this paraphrase of Burke's impeachment: + + I impeach Richard Croker of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach + him in the name of the people, whose trust he has betrayed. + + I impeach him in the name of all the people of America, whose + national character he has dishonored. + + I impeach him in the name and by virtue of those eternal laws of + justice which he has violated. + + I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has + cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed, in both sexes, in every + age, rank, situation, and condition of life. + +The Acorn speech was greatly relied upon for damage to the Tammany ranks, +and hundreds of thousands of copies of it were printed and circulated. +--[The "Edmund Burke on Croker and Tammany" speech had originally been +written as an article for the North American Review.] + +Clemens was really heart and soul in the campaign. He even joined a +procession that marched up Broadway, and he made a speech to a great +assemblage at Broadway and Leonard Street, when, as he said, he had been +sick abed two days and, according to the doctor, should be in bed then. + + But I would not stay at home for a nursery disease, and that's what + I've got. Now, don't let this leak out all over town, but I've been + doing some indiscreet eating--that's all. It wasn't drinking. If + it had been I shouldn't have said anything about it. + + I ate a banana. I bought it just to clinch the Italian vote for + fusion, but I got hold of a Tammany banana by mistake. Just one + little nub of it on the end was nice and white. That was the + Shepard end. The other nine-tenths were rotten. Now that little + white end won't make the rest of the banana good. The nine-tenths + will make that little nub rotten, too. + + We must get rid of the whole banana, and our Acorn Society is going + to do its share, for it is pledged to nothing but the support of + good government all over the United States. We will elect the + President next time. + + It won't be I, for I have ruined my chances by joining the Acorns, + and there can be no office-holders among us. + +There was a movement which Clemens early nipped in the bud--to name a +political party after him. + +"I should be far from willing to have a political party named after me," +he wrote, "and I would not be willing to belong to a party which allowed +its members to have political aspirations or push friends forward for +political preferment." + +In other words, he was a knight-errant; his sole purpose for being in +politics at all--something he always detested--was to do what he could +for the betterment of his people. + +He had his reward, for when Election Day came, and the returns were in, +the Fusion ticket had triumphed and Tammany had fallen. Clemens received +his share of the credit. One paper celebrated him in verse: + + Who killed Croker? + I, said Mark Twain, + I killed Croker, + I, the jolly joker! + +Among Samuel Clemens's literary remains there is an outline plan for a +"Casting-Vote party," whose main object was "to compel the two great +parties to nominate their best man always." It was to be an organization +of an infinite number of clubs throughout the nation, no member of which +should seek or accept a nomination for office in any political +appointment, but in each case should cast its vote as a unit for the +candidate of one of the two great political parties, requiring that the +man be of clean record and honest purpose. + + From constable up to President [runs his final clause] there is no + office for which the two great parties cannot furnish able, clean, + and acceptable men. Whenever the balance of power shall be lodged + in a permanent third party, with no candidate of its own and no + function but to cast its whole vote for the best man put forward by + the Republicans and Democrats, these two parties will select the + best man they have in their ranks. Good and clean government will + follow, let its party complexion be what it may, and the country + will be quite content. + +It was a Utopian idea, very likely, as human nature is made; full of that +native optimism which was always overflowing and drowning his gloomier +logic. Clearly he forgot his despair of humanity when he formulated that +document, and there is a world of unselfish hope in these closing lines: + + If in the hands of men who regard their citizenship as a high trust + this scheme shall fail upon trial a better must be sought, a better + must be invented; for it cannot be well or safe to let the present + political conditions continue indefinitely. They can be improved, + and American citizenship should arouse up from its disheartenment + and see that it is done. + +Had this document been put into type and circulated it might have founded +a true Mark Twain party. + +Clemens made not many more speeches that autumn, closing the year at last +with the "Founder's Night" speech at The Players, the short address +which, ending on the stroke of midnight, dedicates each passing year to +the memory of Edwin Booth, and pledges each new year in a loving-cup +passed in his honor. + + + + +CCXVIII + +NEW INTERESTS AND INVESTMENTS + +The spirit which a year earlier had prompted Mark Twain to prepare his +"Salutation from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century" inspired him +now to conceive the "Stupendous International Procession," a gruesome +pageant described in a document (unpublished) of twenty-two typewritten +pages which begin: + + THE STUPENDOUS PROCESSION + + At the appointed hour it moved across the world in following order: + + The Twentieth Century + + A fair young creature, drunk and disorderly, borne in the arms of + Satan. Banner with motto, "Get What You Can, Keep What You Get." + + Guard of Honor--Monarchs, Presidents, Tammany Bosses, Burglars, Land + Thieves, Convicts, etc., appropriately clothed and bearing the + symbols of their several trades. + + Christendom + + A majestic matron in flowing robes drenched with blood. On her head + a golden crown of thorns; impaled on its spines the bleeding heads + of patriots who died for their countries Boers, Boxers, Filipinos; + in one hand a slung-shot, in the other a Bible, open at the text "Do + unto others," etc. Protruding from pocket bottle labeled "We bring + you the blessings of civilization." Necklace-handcuffs and a + burglar's jimmy. + Supporters--At one elbow Slaughter, at the other Hypocrisy. + Banner with motto--"Love Your Neighbor's Goods as Yourself." + Ensign--The Black Flag. + Guard of Honor--Missionaries and German, French, Russian, and + British soldiers laden with loot. + +And so on, with a section for each nation of the earth, headed each by +the black flag, each bearing horrid emblems, instruments of torture, +mutilated prisoners, broken hearts, floats piled with bloody corpses. At +the end of all, banners inscribed: + + "All White Men are Born Free and Equal." + + "Christ died to make men holy, + Christ died to make men free." + +with the American flag furled and draped in crepe, and the shade of +Lincoln towering vast and dim toward the sky, brooding with sorrowful +aspect over the far-reaching pageant. With much more of the same sort. +It is a fearful document, too fearful, we may believe, for Mrs. Clemens +ever to consent to its publication. + +Advancing years did little toward destroying Mark Twain's interest in +human affairs. At no time in his life was he more variously concerned +and employed than in his sixty-seventh year--matters social, literary, +political, religious, financial, scientific. He was always alive, young, +actively cultivating or devising interests--valuable and otherwise, +though never less than important to him. + +He had plenty of money again, for one thing, and he liked to find +dazzlingly new ways for investing it. As in the old days, he was always +putting "twenty-five or forty thousand dollars," as he said, into +something that promised multiplied returns. Howells tells how he found +him looking wonderfully well, and when he asked the name of his elixir he +learned that it was plasmon. + + I did not immediately understand that plasmon was one of the + investments which he had made from "the substance of things hoped + for," and in the destiny of a disastrous disappointment. But after + paying off the creditors of his late publishing firm he had to do + something with his money, and it was not his fault if he did not + make a fortune out of plasmon. + +It was just at this period (the beginning of 1902) that he was promoting +with his capital and enthusiasm the plasmon interests in America, +investing in it one of the "usual amounts," promising to make Howells +over again body and soul with the life-giving albuminate. Once he wrote +him explicit instructions: + + Yes--take it as a medicine--there is nothing better, nothing surer + of desired results. If you wish to be elaborate--which isn't + necessary--put a couple of heaping teaspoonfuls of the powder in an + inch of milk & stir until it is a paste; put in some more milk and + stir the paste to a thin gruel; then fill up the glass and drink. + + Or, stir it into your soup. + + Or, into your oatmeal. + + Or, use any method you like, so's you get it down--that is the only + essential. + +He put another "usual sum" about this time in a patent cash register +which was acknowledged to be "a promise rather than a performance," and +remains so until this day. + +He capitalized a patent spiral hat-pin, warranted to hold the hat on in +any weather, and he had a number of the pins handsomely made to present +to visitors of the sex naturally requiring that sort of adornment and +protection. It was a pretty and ingenious device and apparently +effective enough, though it failed to secure his invested thousands. + +He invested a lesser sum in shares of the Booklover's Library, which was +going to revolutionize the reading world, and which at least paid a few +dividends. Even the old Tennessee land will-o'-the-wisp-long since +repudiated and forgotten--when it appeared again in the form of a +possible equity in some overlooked fragment, kindled a gentle interest, +and was added to his list of ventures. + +He made one substantial investment at this period. They became more and +more in love with the Hudson environment, its beauty and its easy access +to New York. Their house was what they liked it to be--a gathering +--place for friends and the world's notables, who could reach it easily +and quickly from New York. They had a steady procession of company when +Mrs. Clemens's health would permit, and during a single week in the early +part of this year entertained guests at no less than seventeen out of +their twenty-one meals, and for three out of the seven nights--not an +unusual week. Their plan for buying a home on the Hudson ended with the +purchase of what was known as Hillcrest, or the Casey place, at +Tarrytown, overlooking that beautiful stretch of river, the Tappan Zee, +close to the Washington Irving home. The beauty of its outlook and +surroundings appealed to them all. The house was handsome and finely +placed, and they planned to make certain changes that would adapt it to +their needs. The price, which was less than fifty thousand dollars, made +it an attractive purchase; and without doubt it would have made them a +suitable and happy home had it been written in the future that they +should so inherit it. + +Clemens was writing pretty steadily these days. The human race was +furnishing him with ever so many inspiring subjects, and he found time to +touch more or less on most of them. He wreaked his indignation upon the +things which exasperated him often--even usually--without the expectation +of print; and he delivered himself even more inclusively at such times as +he walked the floor between the luncheon or dinner courses, amplifying on +the poverty of an invention that had produced mankind as a supreme +handiwork. In a letter to Howells he wrote: + +Your comments on that idiot's "Ideals" letter reminds me that I preached +a good sermon to my family yesterday on his particular layer of the human +race, that grotesquest of all the inventions of the Creator. It was a +good sermon, but coldly received, & it seemed best not to try to take up +a collection. + +He once told Howells, with the wild joy of his boyish heart, how Mrs. +Clemens found some compensation, when kept to her room by illness, in the +reflection that now she would not hear so much about the "damned human +race." + +Yet he was always the first man to champion that race, and the more +unpromising the specimen the surer it was of his protection, and he never +invited, never expected gratitude. + +One wonders how he found time to do all the things that he did. Besides +his legitimate literary labors and his preachments, he was always writing +letters to this one and that, long letters on a variety of subjects, +carefully and picturesquely phrased, and to people of every sort. He +even formed a curious society, whose members were young girls--one in +each country of the earth. They were supposed to write to him at +intervals on some subject likely to be of mutual interest, to which +letters he agreed to reply. He furnished each member with a typewritten +copy of the constitution and by-laws of the juggernaut Club, as he called +it, and he apprised each of her election, usually after this fashion: + + I have a club--a private club, which is all my own. I appoint the + members myself, & they can't help themselves, because I don't allow + them to vote on their own appointment & I don't allow them to + resign! They are all friends whom I have never seen (save one), but + who have written friendly letters to me. By the laws of my club + there can be only one member in each country, & there can be no male + member but myself. Some day I may admit males, but I don't know + --they are capricious & inharmonious, & their ways provoke me a good + deal. It is a matter, which the club shall decide. I have made + four appointments in the past three or four months: You as a member + for Scotland--oh, this good while! a young citizeness of Joan of + Arc's home region as a member for France; a Mohammedan girl as + member for Bengal; & a dear & bright young niece of mine as member + for the United States--for I do not represent a country myself, but + am merely member-at-large for the human race. You must not try to + resign, for the laws of the club do not allow that. You must + console yourself by remembering that you are in the best company; + that nobody knows of your membership except yourself; that no member + knows another's name, but only her country; that no taxes are levied + and no meetings held (but how dearly I should like to attend one!). + One of my members is a princess of a royal house, another is the + daughter of a village bookseller on the continent of Europe, for the + only qualification for membership is intellect & the spirit of good- + will; other distinctions, hereditary or acquired, do not count. May + I send you the constitution & laws of the club? I shall be so glad + if I may. + +It was just one of his many fancies, and most of the active memberships +would not long be maintained; though some continued faithful in their +reports, as he did in his replies, to the end. + +One of the more fantastic of his conceptions was a plan to advertise for +ante-mortem obituaries of himself--in order, as he said, that he might +look them over and enjoy them and make certain corrections in the matter +of detail. Some of them he thought might be appropriate to read from the +platform. + + I will correct them--not the facts, but the verdicts--striking out + such clauses as could have a deleterious influence on the other + side, and replacing them with clauses of a more judicious character. + +He was much taken with the new idea, and his request for such obituaries, +with an offer of a prize for the best--a portrait of himself drawn by his +own hand--really appeared in Harper's Weekly later in the year. Naturally +he got a shower of responses--serious, playful, burlesque. Some of them +were quite worth while. + +The obvious "Death loves a shining Mark" was of course numerously +duplicated, and some varied it "Death loves an Easy Mark," and there was +"Mark, the perfect man." + +The two that follow gave him especial pleasure. + + OBITUARY FOR "MARK TWAIN" + + Worthy of his portrait, a place on his monument, as well as a place + among his "perennial-consolation heirlooms": + + "Got up; washed; went to bed." + + The subject's own words (see Innocents Abroad). Can't go back on + your own words, Mark Twain. There's nothing "to strike out"; + nothing "to replace." What more could be said of any one? + + "Got up!"--Think of the fullness of meaning! The possibilities of + life, its achievements--physical, intellectual, spiritual. Got up + to the top!--the climax of human aspiration on earth! + + "Washed"--Every whit clean; purified--body, soul, thoughts, + purposes. + + "Went to bed"--Work all done--to rest, to sleep. The culmination of + the day well spent! + + God looks after the awakening. + + Mrs. S. A. OREN-HAYNES. + + Mark Twain was the only man who ever lived, so far as we know, whose + lies were so innocent, and withal so helpful, as to make them worth + more than a whole lot of fossilized priests' eternal truths. + + D. H. KENNER. + + + + +CCXIX + +YACHTING AND THEOLOGY + +Clemens made fewer speeches during the Riverdale period. He was as +frequently demanded, but he had a better excuse for refusing, especially +the evening functions. He attended a good many luncheons with friendly +spirits like Howells, Matthews, James L. Ford, and Hamlin Garland. At +the end of February he came down to the Mayor's dinner given to Prince +Henry of Prussia, but he did not speak. Clemens used to say afterward +that he had not been asked to speak, and that it was probably because of +his supposed breach of etiquette at the Kaiser's dinner in Berlin; but +the fact that Prince Henry sought him out, and was most cordially and +humanly attentive during a considerable portion of the evening, is +against the supposition. + +Clemens attended a Yale alumni dinner that winter and incidentally +visited Twichell in Hartford. The old question of moral responsibility +came up and Twichell lent his visitor a copy of Jonathan Edwards's +'Freedom of the Will' for train perusal. Clemens found it absorbing. +Later he wrote Twichell his views. + + DEAR JOE,--(After compliments.)--[Meaning "What a good time you gave + me; what a happiness it was to be under your roof again," etc. See + opening sentence of all translations of letters passing between Lord + Roberts and Indian princes and rulers.]--From Bridgeport to New + York, thence to home, & continuously until near midnight I wallowed + & reeked with Jonathan in his insane debauch; rose immensely + refreshed & fine at ten this morning, but with a strange & haunting + sense of having been on a three days' tear with a drunken lunatic. + It is years since I have known these sensations. All through the + book is the glare of a resplendent intellect gone mad--a marvelous + spectacle. No, not all through the book--the drunk does not come + on till the last third, where what I take to be Calvinism & its God + begins to show up & shine red & hideous in the glow from the fires + of hell, their only right and proper adornment. + + Jonathan seems to hold (as against the Armenian position) that the + man (or his soul or his will) never creates an impulse itself, but + is moved to action by an impulse back of it. That's sound! + + Also, that of two or more things offered it, it infallibly chooses + the one which for the moment is most pleasing to ITSELF. Perfectly + correct! An immense admission for a man not otherwise sane. + + Up to that point he could have written Chapters III & IV of my + suppressed Gospel. But there we seem to separate. He seems to + concede the indisputable & unshaken dominion of Motive & Necessity + (call them what he may, these are exterior forces & not under the + man's authority, guidance, or even suggestion); then he suddenly + flies the logical track & (to all seeming) makes the man & not those + exterior forces responsible to God for the man's thoughts, words, & + acts. It is frank insanity. + + I think that when he concedes the autocratic dominion of Motive and + Necessity he grants a third position of mine--that a man's mind is a + mere machine--an automatic machine--which is handled entirely from + the outside, the man himself furnishing it absolutely nothing; not + an ounce of its fuel, & not so much as a bare suggestion to that + exterior engineer as to what the machine shall do nor how it shall + do it nor when. + + After that concession it was time for him to get alarmed & shirk + --for he was pointed straight for the only rational & possible next + station on that piece of road--the irresponsibility of man to God. + + And so he shirked. Shirked, and arrived at this handsome result: + + Man is commanded to do so & so. + + It has been ordained from the beginning of time that some men + sha'n't & others can't. + + These are to blame: let them be damned. + + I enjoy the Colonel very much, & shall enjoy the rest of him with an + obscene delight. + + Joe, the whole tribe shout love to you & yours! + MARK. + +Clemens was moved to set down some theology of his own, and did so in a +manuscript which he entitled, "If I Could Be There." It is in the +dialogue form he often adopted for polemic writing. It is a colloquy +between the Master of the Universe and a Stranger. It begins: +I + +If I could be there, hidden under the steps of the throne, I should hear +conversations like this: + +A STRANGER. Lord, there is one who needs to be punished, and has been +overlooked. It is in the record. I have found it. + +LORD. By searching? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. Who is it? What is it? + +S. A man. + +L. Proceed. + +S. He died in sin. Sin committed by his great-grandfather. + +L. When was this? + +S. Eleven million years ago. + +L. Do you know what a microbe is? + +S. Yes, Lord. It is a creature too small to be detected by my eye. + +L. He commits depredations upon your blood? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. I give you leave to subject him to a billion years of misery for this +offense. Go! Work your will upon him. + +S. But, Lord, I have nothing against him; I am indifferent to him. + +L. Why? + +S. He is so infinitely small and contemptible. I am to him as is a +mountain-range to a grain of sand. + +L. What am I to man? + +S. (Silent.) + +L. Am I not, to a man, as is a billion solar systems to a grain of sand? + +S. It is true, Lord. + +L. Some microbes are larger than others. Does man regard the +difference? + +S. No, Lord. To him there is no difference of consequence. To him they +are all microbes, all infinitely little and equally inconsequential. + +L. To me there is no difference of consequence between a man & a +microbe. Man looks down upon the speck at his feet called a microbe from +an altitude of a thousand miles, so to speak, and regards him with +indifference; I look down upon the specks called a man and a microbe from +an altitude of a billion leagues, so to speak, and to me they are of a +size. To me both are inconsequential. Man kills the microbes when he +can? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. Then what? Does he keep him in mind years and years and go on +contriving miseries for him? + +S. No, Lord. + +L. Does he forget him? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. Why? + +S. He cares nothing more about him. + +L. Employs himself with more important matters? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. Apparently man is quite a rational and dignified person, and can +divorce his mind from uninteresting trivialities. Why does he affront me +with the fancy that I interest Myself in trivialities--like men and +microbes? +II + +L. Is it true the human race thinks the universe was created for its +convenience? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. The human race is modest. Speaking as a member of it, what do you +think the other animals are for? + +S. To furnish food and labor for man. + +L. What is the sea for? + +S. To furnish food for man. Fishes. + +L. And the air? + +S. To furnish sustenance for man. Birds and breath. + +L. How many men are there? + +S. Fifteen hundred millions. + +L. (Referring to notes.) Take your pencil and set down some statistics. +In a healthy man's lower intestine 28,000,000 microbes are born daily and +die daily. In the rest of a man's body 122,000,000 microbes are born +daily and die daily. The two sums aggregate-what? + +S. About 150,000,000. + +L. In ten days the aggregate reaches what? + +S. Fifteen hundred millions. + +L. It is for one person. What would it be for the whole human +population? + +S. Alas, Lord, it is beyond the power of figures to set down that +multitude. It is billions of billions multiplied by billions of +billions, and these multiplied again and again by billions of billions. +The figures would stretch across the universe and hang over into space on +both sides. + +L. To what intent are these uncountable microbes introduced into the +human race? + +S. That they may eat. + +L. Now then, according to man's own reasoning, what is man for? + +S. Alas-alas! + +L. What is he for? + +S. To-to-furnish food for microbes. + +L. Manifestly. A child could see it. Now then, with this common-sense +light to aid your perceptions, what are the air, the land, and the ocean +for? + +S. To furnish food for man so that he may nourish, support, and multiply +and replenish the microbes. + +L. Manifestly. Does one build a boarding-house for the sake of the +boarding-house itself or for the sake of the boarders? + +S. Certainly for the sake of the boarders. + +L. Man's a boarding-house. + +S. I perceive it, Lord. + +L. He is a boarding-house. He was never intended for anything else. If +he had had less vanity and a clearer insight into the great truths that +lie embedded in statistics he would have found it out early. As concerns +the man who has gone unpunished eleven million years, is it your belief +that in life he did his duty by his microbes? + +S. Undoubtedly, Lord. He could not help it. + +L. Then why punish him? He had no other duty to perform. + +Whatever else may be said of this kind of doctrine, it is at least +original and has a conclusive sound. Mark Twain had very little use for +orthodoxy and conservatism. When it was announced that Dr. Jacques Loeb, +of the University of California, had demonstrated the creation of life by +chemical agencies he was deeply interested. When a newspaper writer +commented that a "consensus of opinion among biologists" would probably +rate Dr. Loeb as a man of lively imagination rather than an inerrant +investigator of natural phenomena, he felt called to chaff the consensus +idea. + + I wish I could be as young as that again. Although I seem so old + now I was once as young as that. I remember, as if it were but + thirty or forty years ago, how a paralyzing consensus of opinion + accumulated from experts a-setting around about brother experts who + had patiently and laboriously cold-chiseled their way into one or + another of nature's safe-deposit vaults and were reporting that they + had found something valuable was plenty for me. It settled it. + + But it isn't so now-no. Because in the drift of the years I by and + by found out that a Consensus examines a new thing with its feelings + rather oftener than with its mind. + + There was that primitive steam-engine-ages back, in Greek times: a + Consensus made fun of it. There was the Marquis of Worcester's + steam-engine 250 years ago: a Consensus made fun of it. There was + Fulton's steamboat of a century ago: a French Consensus, including + the great Napoleon, made fun of it. There was Priestley, with his + oxygen: a Consensus scoffed at him, mobbed him, burned him out, + banished him. While a Consensus was proving, by statistics and + things, that a steamship could not cross the Atlantic, a steamship + did it. + +And so on through a dozen pages or more of lively satire, ending with an +extract from Adam's Diary. + + Then there was a Consensus about it. It was the very first one. It + sat six days and nights. It was then delivered of the verdict that + a world could not be made out of nothing; that such small things as + sun and moon and stars might, maybe, but it would take years and + years if there was considerable many of them. Then the Consensus + got up and looked out of the window, and there was the whole outfit, + spinning and sparkling in space! You never saw such a disappointed + lot. + ADAM. + +He was writing much at this time, mainly for his own amusement, though +now and then he offered one of his reflections for print. That beautiful +fairy tale, "The Five Boons of Life," of which the most precious is +"Death," was written at this period. Maeterlinck's lovely story of the +bee interested him; he wrote about that. Somebody proposed a Martyrs' +Day; he wrote a paper ridiculing the suggestion. In his note-book, too, +there is a memorandum for a love-story of the Quarternary Epoch which +would begin, "On a soft October afternoon 2,000,000 years ago." John +Fiske's Discovery of America, Volume I, he said, was to furnish the +animals and scenery, civilization and conversation to be the same as +to-day; but apparently this idea was carried no further. He ranged +through every subject from protoplasm to infinity, exalting, condemning, +ridiculing, explaining; his brain was always busy--a dynamo that rested +neither night nor day. + +In April Clemens received notice of another yachting trip on the Kanawha, +which this time would sail for the Bahama and West India islands. The +guests were to be about the same.--[The invited ones of the party were +Hon. T. B. Reed, A. G. Paine, Laurence Hutton, Dr. C. C. Rice, W. T. +Foote, and S. L. Clemens. "Owners of the yacht," Mr. Rogers called them, +signing himself as "Their Guest."] + +He sent this telegram: + +H. H. ROGERS, Fairhaven, Mass. + +Can't get away this week. I have company here from tonight till middle +of next week. Will Kanawha be sailing after that & can I go as +Sunday-school superintendent at half rate? Answer and prepay. + DR. CLEMENS. + +The sailing date was conveniently arranged and there followed a happy +cruise among those balmy islands. Mark Twain was particularly fond of +"Tom" Reed, who had been known as "Czar" Reed in Congress, but was +delightfully human in his personal life. They argued politics a good +deal, and Reed, with all his training and intimate practical knowledge of +the subject, confessed that he "couldn't argue with a man like that." + +"Do you believe the things you say?" he asked once, in his thin, falsetto +voice. + +"Yes," said Clemens. "Some of them." + +"Well, you want to look out. If you go on this way, by and by you'll get +to believing nearly everything you say." + +Draw poker appears to have been their favorite diversion. Clemens in his +notes reports that off the coast of Florida Reed won twenty-three pots in +succession. It was said afterward that they made no stops at any harbor; +that when the chief officer approached the poker-table and told them they +were about to enter some important port he received peremptory orders to +"sail on and not interrupt the game." This, however, may be regarded as +more or less founded on fiction. + + + + +CCXX + +MARK TWAIN AND THE PHILIPPINES + +Among the completed manuscripts of the early part of 1902 was a North +American Review article (published in April)--"Does the Race of Man Love +a Lord?"--a most interesting treatise on snobbery as a universal +weakness. There were also some papers on the Philippine situation. In +one of these Clemens wrote: + + We have bought some islands from a party who did not own them; with + real smartness and a good counterfeit of disinterested friendliness + we coaxed a confiding weak nation into a trap and closed it upon + them; we went back on an honored guest of the Stars and Stripes when + we had no further use for him and chased him to the mountains; we + are as indisputably in possession of a wide-spreading archipelago as + if it were our property; we have pacified some thousands of the + islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their + villages, and turned their widows and orphans out-of-doors; + furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable + patriots; subjugated the remaining ten millions by Benevolent + Assimilation, which is the pious new name of the musket; we have + acquired property in the three hundred concubines and other slaves + of our business partner, the Sultan of Sulu, and hoisted our + protecting flag over that swag. + + And so, by these Providences of God--the phrase is the government's, + not mine--we are a World Power; and are glad and proud, and have a + back seat in the family. With tacks in it. At least we are letting + on to be glad and proud; it is the best way. Indeed, it is the only + way. We must maintain our dignity, for people are looking. We are + a World Power; we cannot get out of it now, and we must make the + best of it. + +And again he wrote: + + I am not finding fault with this use of our flag, for in order not + to seem eccentric I have swung around now and joined the nation in + the conviction that nothing can sully a flag. I was not properly + reared, and had the illusion that a flag was a thing which must be + sacredly guarded against shameful uses and unclean contacts lest it + suffer pollution; and so when it was sent out to the Philippines to + float over a wanton war and a robbing expedition I supposed it was + polluted, and in an ignorant moment I said so. But I stand + corrected. I concede and acknowledge that it was only the + government that sent it on such an errand that was polluted. Let us + compromise on that. I am glad to have it that way. For our flag + could not well stand pollution, never having been used to it, but it + is different with the administration. + +But a much more conspicuous comment on the Philippine policy was the +so-called "Defense of General Funston" for what Funston himself referred +to as a "dirty Irish trick"; that is to say, deception in the capture of +Aguinaldo. Clemens, who found it hard enough to reconcile himself to-any +form of warfare, was especially bitter concerning this particular +campaign. The article appeared in the North American Review for May, +1902, and stirred up a good deal of a storm. He wrote much more on the +subject--very much more--but it is still unpublished. + + + + +CCXXI + +THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE + +One day in April, 1902, Samuel Clemens received the following letter from +the president of the University of Missouri: + +MY DEAR MR. CLEMENS, Although you received the degree of doctor of +literature last fall from Yale, and have had other honors conferred upon +you by other great universities, we want to adopt you here as a son of +the University of Missouri. In asking your permission to confer upon you +the degree of LL.D. the University of Missouri does not aim to confer an +honor upon you so much as to show her appreciation of you. The rules of +the University forbid us to confer the degree upon any one in absentia. I +hope very much that you can so arrange your plans as to be with us on the +fourth day of next June, when we shall hold our Annual Commencement. + + Very truly yours, + R. H. JESSE. + +Clemens had not expected to make another trip to the West, but a +proffered honor such as this from one's native State was not a thing to +be declined. + +It was at the end of May when he arrived in St. Louis, and he was met at +the train there by his old river instructor and friend, Horace Bixby--as +fresh, wiry, and capable as he had been forty-five years before. + +"I have become an old man. You are still thirty-five," Clemens said. + +They went to the Planters Hotel, and the news presently got around that +Mark Twain was there. There followed a sort of reception in the hotel +lobby, after which Bixby took him across to the rooms of the Pilots +Association, where the rivermen gathered in force to celebrate his +return. A few of his old comrades were still alive, among them Beck +Jolly. The same afternoon he took the train for Hannibal. + +It was a busy five days that he had in Hannibal. High-school +commencement day came first. He attended, and willingly, or at least +patiently, sat through the various recitals and orations and +orchestrations, dreaming and remembering, no doubt, other high-school +commencements of more than half a century before, seeing in some of those +young people the boys and girls he had known in that vanished time. A +few friends of his youth were still there, but they were among the +audience now, and no longer fresh and looking into the future. Their +heads were white, and, like him, they were looking down the recorded +years. Laura Hawkins was there and Helen Kercheval (Mrs. Frazer and Mrs. +Garth now), and there were others, but they were few and scattering. + +He was added to the program, and he made himself as one of the graduates, +and told them some things of the young people of that earlier time that +brought their laughter and their tears. + +He was asked to distribute the diplomas, and he undertook the work in his +own way. He took an armful of them and said to the graduates: + +"Take one. Pick out a good one. Don't take two, but be sure you get a +good one." + +So each took one "unsight and unseen" aid made the more exact +distributions among themselves later. + +Next morning it was Saturday--he visited the old home on Hill Street, and +stood in the doorway all dressed in white while a battalion of +photographers made pictures of "this return of the native" to the +threshold of his youth. + +"It all seems so small to me," he said, as he looked through the house; +"a boy's home is a big place to him. I suppose if I should come back +again ten years from now it would be the size of a birdhouse." + +He went through the rooms and up-stairs where he had slept and looked out +the window down in the back yard where, nearly sixty years before, Tom +Sawyer, Huck Finn, Joe Harper, and the rest--that is to say, Tom +Blankenship, John Briggs, Will Pitts, and the Bowen boys--set out on +their nightly escapades. Of that lightsome band Will Pitts and John +Briggs still remained, with half a dozen others--schoolmates of the less +adventurous sort. Buck Brown, who had been his rival in the spelling +contests, was still there, and John Robards, who had worn golden curls +and the medal for good conduct, and Ed Pierce. And while these were +assembled in a little group on the pavement outside the home a small old +man came up and put out his hand, and it was Jimmy MacDaniel, to whom so +long before, sitting on the river-bank and eating gingerbread, he had +first told the story of Jim Wolfe and the cats. + +They put him into a carriage, drove him far and wide, and showed the +hills and resorts and rendezvous of Tom Sawyer and his marauding band. + +He was entertained that evening by the Labinnah Club (whose name was +achieved by a backward spelling of Hannibal), where he found most of the +survivors of his youth. The news report of that occasion states that he +was introduced by Father McLoughlin, and that he "responded in a very +humorous and touchingly pathetic way, breaking down in tears at the +conclusion. Commenting on his boyhood days and referring to his mother +was too much for the great humorist. Before him as he spoke were sitting +seven of his boyhood friends." + +On Sunday morning Col. John Robards escorted him to the various churches +and Sunday-schools. They were all new churches to Samuel Clemens, but he +pretended not to recognize this fact. In each one he was asked to speak +a few words, and he began by saying how good it was to be back in the old +home Sunday-school again, which as a boy he had always so loved, and he +would go on and point out the very place he had sat, and his escort +hardly knew whether or not to enjoy the proceedings. At one place he +told a moral story. He said: + +Little boys and girls, I want to tell you a story which illustrates the +value of perseverance--of sticking to your work, as it were. It is a +story very proper for a Sunday-school. When I was a little boy in +Hannibal I used to play a good deal up here on Holliday's Hill, which of +course you all know. John Briggs and I played up there. I don't suppose +there are any little boys as good as we were then, but of course that is +not to be expected. Little boys in those days were 'most always good +little boys, because those were the good old times when everything was +better than it is now, but never mind that. Well, once upon a time, on +Holliday's Hill, they were blasting out rock, and a man was drilling for +a blast. He sat there and drilled and drilled and drilled perseveringly +until he had a hole down deep enough for the blast. Then he put in the +powder and tamped and tamped it down, but maybe he tamped it a little too +hard, for the blast went off and he went up into the air, and we watched +him. He went up higher and higher and got smaller and smaller. First he +looked as big as a child, then as big as a dog, then as big as a kitten, +then as big as a bird, and finally he went out of sight. John Briggs was +with me, and we watched the place where he went out of sight, and by and +by we saw him coming down first as big as a bird, then as big as a +kitten, then as big as a dog, then as big as a child, and then he was a +man again, and landed right in his seat and went to drilling just +persevering, you see, and sticking to his work. Little boys and girls, +that's the secret of success, just like that poor but honest workman on +Holliday's Hill. Of course you won't always be appreciated. He wasn't. +His employer was a hard man, and on Saturday night when he paid him he +docked him fifteen minutes for the time he was up in the air--but never +mind, he had his reward. + +He told all this in his solemn, grave way, though the Sunday-school was +in a storm of enjoyment when he finished. There still remains a doubt in +Hannibal as to its perfect suitability, but there is no doubt as to its +acceptability. + +That Sunday afternoon, with John Briggs, he walked over Holliday's Hill +--the Cardiff Hill of Tom Sawyer. It was jest such a Sunday as that one +when they had so nearly demolished the negro driver and had damaged a +cooper-shop. They calculated that nearly three thousand Sundays had +passed since then, and now here they were once more, two old men with the +hills still fresh and green, the river still sweeping by and rippling in +the sun. Standing there together and looking across to the low-lying +Illinois shore, and to the green islands where they had played, and to +Lover's Leap on the south, the man who had been Sam Clemens said: + +"John, that is one of the loveliest sights I ever saw. Down there by the +island is the place we used to swim, and yonder is where a man was +drowned, and there's where the steamboat sank. Down there on Lover's +Leap is where the Millerites put on their robes one night to go to +heaven. None of them went that night, but I suppose most of them have +gone now." + +John Briggs said: + +"Sam, do you remember the day we stole the peaches from old man Price and +one of his bow-legged niggers came after us with the dogs, and how we +made up our minds that we'd catch that nigger and drown him?" + +They came to the place where they had pried out the great rock that had +so nearly brought them to grief. Sam Clemens said: + +"John, if we had killed that man we'd have had a dead nigger on our hands +without a cent to pay for him." + +And so they talked on of this thing and that, and by and by they drove +along the river, and Sam Clemens pointed out the place where he swam it +and was taken with a cramp on the return swim, and believed for a while +that his career was about to close. + +"Once, near the shore, I thought I would let down," he said, "but was +afraid to, knowing that if the water was deep I was a goner, but finally +my knees struck the sand and I crawled out. That was the closest call I +ever had." + +They drove by the place where the haunted house had stood. They drank +from a well they had always known, and from the bucket as they had always +drunk, talking and always talking, fondling lovingly and lingeringly that +most beautiful of all our possessions, the past. + +"Sam," said John, when they parted, "this is probably the last time we +shall meet on this earth. God bless you. Perhaps somewhere we shall +renew our friendship." + +"John," was the answer, "this day has been worth thousands of dollars to +me. We were like brothers once, and I feel that we are the same now. +Good-by, John. I'll try to meet you--somewhere." + + + + +CCXXII + +A PROPHET HONORED IN HIS COUNTRY + +Clemens left next day for Columbia. Committees met him at Rensselaer, +Monroe City, Clapper, Stoutsville, Paris, Madison, Moberly--at every +station along the line of his travel. At each place crowds were gathered +when the train pulled in, to cheer and wave and to present him with +flowers. Sometimes he spoke a few words; but oftener his eyes were full +of tears--his voice would not come. + +There is something essentially dramatic in official recognition by one's +native State--the return of the lad who has set out unknown to battle +with life, and who, having conquered, is invited back to be crowned. No +other honor, however great and spectacular, is quite like that, for there +is in it a pathos and a completeness that are elemental and stir emotions +as old as life itself. + +It was on the 4th of June, 1902, that Mark Twain received his doctor of +laws degree from the State University at Columbia, Missouri. James +Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, and Ethan Allen Hitchcock, Secretary of +the Interior, were among those similarly honored. Mark Twain was +naturally the chief attraction. Dressed in his Yale scholastic gown he +led the procession of graduating students, and, as in Hannibal, awarded +them their diplomas. The regular exercises were made purposely brief in +order that some time might be allowed for the conferring of the degrees. +This ceremony was a peculiarly impressive one. Gardner Lathrop read a +brief statement introducing "America's foremost author and best-loved +citizen, Samuel Langhorne Clemens--Mark Twain." + +Clemens rose, stepped out to the center of the stage, and paused. He +seemed to be in doubt as to whether he should make a speech or simply +express his thanks and retire. Suddenly, and without a signal, the great +audience rose as one man and stood in silence at his feet. He bowed, but +he could not speak. Then that vast assembly began a peculiar chant, +spelling out slowly the word Missouri, with a pause between each letter. +It was dramatic; it was tremendous in its impressiveness. He had +recovered himself when they finished. He said he didn't know whether he +was expected to make a speech or not. They did not leave him in doubt. +They cheered and demanded a speech, a speech, and he made them one--one +of the speeches he could make best, full of quaint phrasing, happy humor, +gentle and dramatic pathos. He closed by telling the watermelon story +for its "moral effect." + +He was the guest of E. W. Stevens in Columbia, and a dinner was given in +his honor. They would have liked to keep him longer, but he was due in +St. Louis again to join in the dedication of the grounds, where was to be +held a World's Fair, to celebrate the Louisiana Purchase. Another +ceremony he attended was the christening of the St. Louis harbor-boat, or +rather the rechristening, for it had been decided to change its name from +the St. Louis--[Originally the Elon G. Smith, built in 1873.]--to the +Mark Twain. A short trip was made on it for the ceremony. Governor +Francis and Mayor Wells were of the party, and Count and Countess +Rochambeau and Marquis de Lafayette, with the rest of the French group +that had come over for the dedication of the World's Fair grounds. + +Mark Twain himself was invited to pilot the harbor boat, and so returned +for the last time to his old place at the wheel. They all collected in +the pilot-house behind him, feeling that it was a memorable occasion. +They were going along well enough when he saw a little ripple running out +from the shore across the bow. In the old days he could have told +whether it indicated a bar there or was only caused by the wind, but he +could not be sure any more. Turning to the pilot languidly, he said: "I +feel a little tired. I guess you had better take the wheel." + +Luncheon was served aboard, and Mayor Wells made the christening speech; +then the Countess Rochambeau took a bottle of champagne from the hand of +Governor Francis and smashed it on the deck, saying, "I christen thee, +good boat, Mark Twain." So it was, the Mississippi joined in according +him honors. In his speech of reply he paid tribute to those illustrious +visitors from France and recounted something of the story of French +exploration along that great river. + +"The name of La Salle will last as long as the river itself," he said; +"will last until commerce is dead. We have allowed the commerce of the +river to die, but it was to accommodate the railroads, and we must be +grateful." + +Carriages were waiting for them when the boat landed in the afternoon, +and the party got in and were driven to a house which had been identified +as Eugene Field's birthplace. A bronze tablet recording this fact had +been installed, and this was to be the unveiling. The place was not in +an inviting quarter of the town. It stood in what is known as Walsh's +Row--was fashionable enough once, perhaps, but long since fallen into +disrepute. Ragged children played in the doorways, and thirsty lodgers +were making trips with tin pails to convenient bar-rooms. A curious +nondescript audience assembled around the little group of dedicators, +wondering what it was all about. The tablet was concealed by the +American flag, which could be easily pulled away by an attached cord. +Governor Francis spoke a few words, to the effect that they had gathered +here to unveil a tablet to an American poet, and that it was fitting that +Mark Twain should do this. They removed their hats, and Clemens, his +white hair blowing in the wind, said: + +"My friends; we are here with reverence and respect to commemorate and +enshrine in memory the house where was born a man who, by his life, made +bright the lives of all who knew him, and by his literary efforts cheered +the thoughts of thousands who never knew him. I take pleasure in +unveiling the tablet of Eugene Field." + +The flag fell and the bronze inscription was revealed. By this time the +crowd, generally, had recognized who it was that was speaking. A +working-man proposed three cheers for Mark Twain, and they were heartily +given. Then the little party drove away, while the neighborhood +collected to regard the old house with a new interest. + +It was reported to Clemens later that there was some dispute as to the +identity of the Field birthplace. He said: + +"Never mind. It is of no real consequence whether it is his birthplace +or not. A rose in any other garden will bloom as sweet." + + + + +CCXXIII + +AT YORK HARBOR + +They decided to spend the summer at York Harbor, Maine. They engaged a +cottage, there, and about the end of June Mr. Rogers brought his yacht +Kanawha to their water-front at Riverdale, and in perfect weather took +them to Maine by sea. They landed at York Harbor and took possession of +their cottage, The Pines, one of their many attractive summer lodges. +Howells, at Kittery Point, was not far away, and everything promised a +happy summer. + +Mrs. Clemens wrote to Mrs. Crane: + + We are in the midst of pines. They come up right about us, and the + house is so high and the roots of the trees are so far below the + veranda that we are right in the branches. We drove over to call on + Mr. and Mrs. Howells. The drive was most beautiful, and never in my + life have I seen such a variety of wild flowers in so short a space. + +Howells tells us of the wide, low cottage in a pine grove overlooking +York River, and how he used to sit with Clemens that summer at a corner +of the veranda farthest away from Mrs. Clemens's window, where they could +read their manuscripts to each other, and tell their stories and laugh +their hearts out without disturbing her. + +Clemens, as was his habit, had taken a work-room in a separate cottage +"in the house of a friend and neighbor, a fisherman and a boatman": + + There was a table where he could write, and a bed where he could lie + down and read; and there, unless my memory has played me one of + those constructive tricks that people's memories indulge in, he read + me the first chapters of an admirable story. The scene was laid in + a Missouri town, and the characters such as he had known in boyhood; + but often as I tried to make him own it, he denied having written + any such story; it is possible that I dreamed it, but I hope the MS. + will yet be found. + +Howells did not dream it; but in one way his memory misled him. The +story was one which Clemens had heard in Hannibal, and he doubtless +related it in his vivid way. Howells, writing at a later time, quite +naturally included it among the several manuscripts which Clemens read +aloud to him. Clemens may have intended to write the tale, may even have +begun it, though this is unlikely. The incidents were too well known and +too notorious in his old home for fiction. + +Among the stories that Clemens did show, or read, to Howells that summer +was "The Belated Passport," a strong, intensely interesting story with +what Howells in a letter calls a "goat's tail ending," perhaps meaning +that it stopped with a brief and sudden shake--with a joke, in fact, +altogether unimportant, and on the whole disappointing to the reader. A +far more notable literary work of that summer grew out of a true incident +which Howells related to Clemens as they sat chatting together on the +veranda overlooking the river one summer afternoon. It was a pathetic +episode in the life of some former occupants of The Pines--the tale of a +double illness in the household, where a righteous deception was carried +on during several weeks for the benefit of a life that was about to slip +away. Out of this grew the story, "Was it Heaven? or Hell?" a +heartbreaking history which probes the very depths of the human soul. +Next to "Hadleyburg," it is Mark Twain's greatest fictional sermon. + +Clemens that summer wrote, or rather finished, his most pretentious poem. +One day at Riverdale, when Mrs. Clemens had been with him on the lawn, +they had remembered together the time when their family of little folks +had filled their lives so full, conjuring up dream-like glimpses of them +in the years of play and short frocks and hair-plaits down their backs. +It was pathetic, heart-wringing fancying; and later in the day Clemens +conceived and began the poem which now he brought to conclusion. It was +built on the idea of a mother who imagines her dead child still living, +and describes to any listener the pictures of her fancy. It is an +impressive piece of work; but the author, for some reason, did not offer +it for publication.--[This poem was completed on the anniversary of +Susy's death and is of considerable length. Some selections from it will +be found under Appendix U, at the end of this work.] + +Mrs. Clemens, whose health earlier in the year had been delicate, became +very seriously ill at York Harbor. Howells writes: + +At first she had been about the house, and there was one gentle afternoon +when she made tea for us in the parlor, but that was the last time I +spoke with her. After that it was really a question of how soonest and +easiest she could be got back to Riverdale. + +She had seemed to be in fairly good health and spirits for several weeks +after the arrival at York. Then, early in August, there came a great +celebration of some municipal anniversary, and for two or three days +there were processions, mass-meetings, and so on by day, with fireworks +at night. Mrs. Clemens, always young in spirit, was greatly interested. +She went about more than her strength warranted, seeing and hearing and +enjoying all that was going on. She was finally persuaded to forego the +remaining ceremonies and rest quietly on the pleasant veranda at home; +but she had overtaxed herself and a collapse was inevitable. Howells and +two friends called one afternoon, and a friend of the Queen of Rumania, a +Madame Hartwig, who had brought from that gracious sovereign a letter +which closed in this simple and modest fashion: + + I beg your pardon for being a bore to one I so deeply love and + admire, to whom I owe days and days of forgetfulness of self and + troubles, and the intensest of all joys-hero-worship! People don't + always realize what a happiness that is! God bless you for every + beautiful thought you poured into my tired heart, and for every + smile on a weary way. CARMEN SYLVA. + +This was the occasion mentioned by Howells when Mrs. Clemens made tea for +them in the parlor for the last time. Her social life may be said to +have ended that afternoon. Next morning the break came. Clemens, in his +notebook for that day, writes: + +Tuesday, August 12, 1902. At 7 A.M. Livy taken violently ill. +Telephoned and Dr. Lambert was here in 1/2 hour. She could not +breathe-was likely to stifle. Also she had severe palpitation. She +believed she was dying. I also believed it. + +Nurses were summoned, and Mrs. Crane and others came from Elmira. Clara +Clemens took charge of the household and matters generally, and the +patient was secluded and guarded from every disturbing influence. Clemens +slipped about with warnings of silence. A visitor found notices in Mark +Twain's writing pinned to the trees near Mrs. Clemens's window warning +the birds not to sing too loudly. + +The patient rallied, but she remained very much debilitated. On +September 3d the note-book says: + + Always Mr. Rogers keeps his yacht Kanawha in commission & ready to + fly here and take us to Riverdale on telegraphic notice. + +But Mrs. Clemens was unable to return by sea. When it was decided at +last, in October, that she could be removed to Riverdale, Clemens and +Howells went to Boston and engaged an invalid car to make the journey +from York Harbor to Riverdale without change. Howells tells us that +Clemens gave his strictest personal attention to the arrangement of these +details, and that they absorbed him. + + There was no particular of the business which he did not scrutinize + and master . . . . With the inertness that grows upon an aging + man he had been used to delegate more and more things, but of that + thing I perceived that he would not delegate the least detail. + +They made the journey on the 16th, in nine and a half hours. With the +exception of the natural weariness due to such a trip, the invalid was +apparently no worse on their arrival. The stout English butler carried +her to her room. It would be many months before she would leave it +again. In one of his memoranda Clemens wrote: + + Our dear prisoner is where she is through overwork-day & night + devotion to the children & me. We did not know how to value it. We + know now. + +And in a notation, on a letter praising him for what he had done for the +world's enjoyment, and for his splendid triumph over debt, he said: + + Livy never gets her share of these applauses, but it is because the + people do not know. Yet she is entitled to the lion's share. + +He wrote Twichell at the end of October: + + Livy drags along drearily. It must be hard times for that turbulent + spirit. It will be a long time before she is on her feet again. It + is a most pathetic case. I wish I could transfer it to myself. + Between ripping & raging & smoking & reading I could get a good deal + of holiday out of it. Clara runs the house smoothly & capitally. + +Heavy as was the cloud of illness, he could not help pestering Twichell a +little about a recent mishap--a sprained shoulder: + + I should like to know how & where it happened. In the pulpit, as + like as not, otherwise you would not be taking so much pains to + conceal it. This is not a malicious suggestion, & not a personally + invented one: you told me yourself once that you threw artificial + power & impressiveness in your sermons where needed by "banging the + Bible"--(your own words). You have reached a time of life when it + is not wise to take these risks. You would better jump around. We + all have to change our methods as the infirmities of age creep upon + us. Jumping around will be impressive now, whereas before you were + gray it would have excited remark. + +Mrs. Clemens seemed to improve as the weeks passed, and they had great +hopes of her complete recovery. Clemens took up some work--a new Huck +Finn story, inspired by his trip to Hannibal. It was to have two parts +--Huck and Tom in youth, and then their return in old age. He did some +chapters quite in the old vein, and wrote to Howells of his plan. Howells +answered: + + It is a great lay-out: what I shall enjoy most will be the return of + the old fellows to the scene and their tall lying. There is a + matchless chance there. I suppose you will put in plenty of pegs in + this prefatory part. + +But the new story did not reach completion. Huck and Tom would not come +back, even to go over the old scenes. + + + + +CCXXIV + +THE SIXTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY DINNER + +It was on the evening of the 27th of November, 1902, I at the +Metropolitan Club, New York City, that Col. George Harvey, president of +the Harper Company, gave Mark Twain a dinner in celebration of his +sixty-seventh birthday. The actual date fell three days later; but that +would bring it on Sunday, and to give it on Saturday night would be more +than likely to carry it into Sabbath morning, and so the 27th was chosen. +Colonel Harvey himself presided, and Howells led the speakers with a +poem, "A Double-Barreled Sonnet to Mark Twain," which closed: + + Still, to have everything beyond cavil right, + We will dine with you here till Sunday night. + +Thomas Brackett Reed followed with what proved to be the last speech he +would ever make, as it was also one of his best. All the speakers did +well that night, and they included some of the country's foremost in +oratory: Chauncey Depew, St. Clair McKelway, Hamilton Mabie, and Wayne +MacVeagh. Dr. Henry van Dyke and John Kendrick Bangs read poems. The +chairman constantly kept the occasion from becoming too serious by +maintaining an attitude of "thinking ambassador" for the guest of the +evening, gently pushing Clemens back in his seat when he attempted to +rise and expressing for him an opinion of each of the various tributes. + +"The limit has been reached," he announced at the close of Dr. van Dyke's +poem. "More that is better could not be said. Gentlemen, Mr. Clemens." + +It is seldom that Mark Twain has made a better after-dinner speech than +he delivered then. He was surrounded by some of the best minds of the +nation, men assembled to do him honor. They expected much of him--to +Mark Twain always an inspiring circumstance. He was greeted with cheers +and hand-clapping that came volley after volley, and seemed never ready +to end. When it had died away at last he stood waiting a little in the +stillness for his voice; then he said, "I think I ought to be allowed to +talk as long as I want to," and again the storm broke. + +It is a speech not easy to abridge--a finished and perfect piece of +after-dinner eloquence,--[The "Sixty-seventh Birthday Speech" entire is +included in the volume Mark Twain's Speeches.]--full of humorous stories +and moving references to old friends--to Hay; and Reed, and Twichell, and +Howells, and Rogers, the friends he had known so long and loved so well. +He told of his recent trip to his boyhood home, and how he had stood with +John Briggs on Holliday's Hill and they had pointed out the haunts of +their youth. Then at the end he paid a tribute to the companion of his +home, who could not be there to share his evening's triumph. This +peroration--a beautiful heart-offering to her and to those that had +shared in long friendship--demands admission: + + Now, there is one invisible guest here. A part of me is not + present; the larger part, the better part, is yonder at her home; + that is my wife, and she has a good many personal friends here, and + I think it won't distress any one of them to know that, although she + is going to be confined to her bed for many months to come from that + nervous prostration, there is not any danger and she is coming along + very well--and I think it quite appropriate that I should speak of + her. I knew her for the first time just in the same year that I + first knew John Hay and Tom Reed and Mr. Twichell--thirty-six years + ago--and she has been the best friend I have ever had, and that is + saying a good deal--she has reared me--she and Twichell together + --and what I am I owe to them. Twichell--why, it is such a pleasure + to look upon Twichell's face! For five and twenty years I was under + the Rev. Mr. Twichell's tuition, I was in his pastorate occupying a + pew in his church and held him in due reverence. That man is full + of all the graces that go to make a person companionable and + beloved; and wherever Twichell goes to start a church the people + flock there to buy the land; they find real estate goes up all + around the spot, and the envious and the thoughtful always try to + get Twichell to move to their neighborhood and start a church; and + wherever you see him go you can go and buy land there with + confidence, feeling sure that there will be a double price for you + before very long. + + I have tried to do good in this world, and it is marvelous in how + many different ways I have done good, and it is comfortable to + reflect--now, there's Mr. Rogers--just out of the affection I bear + that man many a time I have given him points in finance that he had + never thought of--and if he could lay aside envy, prejudice, and + superstition, and utilize those ideas in his business, it would make + a difference in his bank-account. + + Well, I liked the poetry. I liked all the speeches and the poetry, + too. I liked Dr. van Dyke's poem. I wish I could return thanks in + proper measure to you, gentlemen, who have spoken and violated your + feelings to pay me compliments; some were merited and some you + overlooked, it is true; and Colonel Harvey did slander every one of + you, and put things into my mouth that I never said, never thought + of at all. + + And now my wife and I, out of our single heart, return you our + deepest and most grateful thanks, and--yesterday was her birthday. + +The sixty-seventh birthday dinner was widely celebrated by the press, and +newspaper men generally took occasion to pay brilliant compliments to +Mark Twain. Arthur Brisbane wrote editorially: + + For more than a generation he has been the Messiah of a genuine + gladness and joy to the millions of three continents. + +It was little more than a week later that one of the old friends he had +mentioned, Thomas Brackett Reed, apparently well and strong that birthday +evening, passed from the things of this world. Clemens felt his death +keenly, and in a "good-by" which he wrote for Harper's Weekly he said: + + His was a nature which invited affection--compelled it, in fact--and + met it half-way. Hence, he was "Tom" to the most of his friends and + to half of the nation . . . . + + I cannot remember back to a time when he was not "Tom" Reed to me, + nor to a time when he could have been offended at being so addressed + by me. I cannot remember back to a time when I could let him alone + in an after-dinner speech if he was present, nor to a time when he + did not take my extravagance concerning him and misstatements about + him in good part, nor yet to a time when he did not pay them back + with usury when his turn came. The last speech he made was at my + birthday dinner at the end of November, when naturally I was his + text; my last word to him was in a letter the next day; a day later + I was illustrating a fantastic article on art with his portrait + among others--a portrait now to be laid reverently away among the + jests that begin in humor and end in pathos. These things happened + only eight days ago, and now he is gone from us, and the nation is + speaking of him as one who was. It seems incredible, impossible. + Such a man, such a friend, seems to us a permanent possession; his + vanishing from our midst is unthinkable, as was the vanishing of the + Campanile, that had stood for a thousand years and was turned to + dust in a moment. + +The appreciation closes: + + I have only wished to say how fine and beautiful was his life and + character, and to take him by the hand and say good-by, as to a + fortunate friend who has done well his work and gees a pleasant + journey. + + + + +CCXXV + +CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CONTROVERSIES + +The North American Review for December (1902) contained an instalment of +the Christian Science series which Mark Twain had written in Vienna +several years before. He had renewed his interest in the doctrine, and +his admiration for Mrs. Eddy's peculiar abilities and his antagonism +toward her had augmented in the mean time. Howells refers to the "mighty +moment when Clemens was building his engines of war for the destruction +of Christian Science, which superstition nobody, and he least of all, +expected to destroy": + + He believed that as a religious machine the Christian Science Church + was as perfect as the Roman Church, and destined to be more + formidable in its control of the minds of men . . . . + + An interesting phase of his psychology in this business was not. + only his admiration for the masterly policy of the Christian Science + hierarchy, but his willingness to allow the miracles of its healers + to be tried on his friends and family if they wished it. He had a + tender heart for the whole generation of empirics, as well as the + newer sorts of scienticians, but he seemed to base his faith in them + largely upon the failure of the regulars, rather than upon their own + successes, which also he believed in. He was recurrently, but not + insistently, desirous that you should try their strange magics when + you were going to try the familiar medicines. + +Clemens never had any quarrel with the theory of Christian Science or +mental healing, or with any of the empiric practices. He acknowledged +good in all of them, and he welcomed most of them in preference to +materia medica. It is true that his animosity for the founder of the +Christian Science cult sometimes seems to lap over and fringe the +religion itself; but this is apparent rather than real. Furthermore, he +frequently expressed a deep obligation which humanity owed to the founder +of the faith, in that she had organized a healing element ignorantly and +indifferently employed hitherto. His quarrel with Mrs. Eddy lay in the +belief that she herself, as he expressed it, was "a very unsound +Christian Scientist." + + I believe she has a serious malady--self-edification--and that it + will be well to have one of the experts demonstrate over her. [But + he added]: Closely examined, painstakingly studied, she is easily + the most interesting person on the planet, and in several ways as + easily the most extraordinary woman that was ever born upon it. + +Necessarily, the forces of Christian Science were aroused by these +articles, and there were various replies, among them, one by the founder +herself, a moderate rejoinder in her usual literary form. + + "Mrs. Eddy in Error," in the North American Review for April, 1903, + completed what Clemens had to say on the matter for this time. + +He was putting together a book on the subject, comprised of his various +published papers and some added chapters. It would not be a large +volume, and he offered to let his Christian Science opponents share it +with him, stating their side of the case. Mr. William D. McCrackan, one +of the church's chief advocates, was among those invited to participate. +McCrackan and Clemens, from having begun as enemies, had become quite +friendly, and had discussed their differences face to face at +considerable length. Early in the controversy Clemens one night wrote +McCrackan a pretty savage letter. He threw it on the hall table for +mailing, but later got out of bed and slipped down-stairs to get it. It +was too late--the letters had been gathered up and mailed. Next evening +a truly Christian note came from McCrackan, returning the hasty letter, +which he said he was sure the writer would wish to recall. Their +friendship began there. For some reason, however, the collaborated +volume did not materialize. In the end, publication was delayed a number +of years, by which time Clemens's active interest was a good deal +modified, though the practice itself never failed to invite his +attention. + +Howells refers to his anti-Christian Science rages, which began with the +postponement of the book, and these Clemens vented at the time in another +manuscript entitled, "Eddypus," an imaginary history of a thousand years +hence, when Eddyism should rule the world. By that day its founder would +have become a deity, and the calendar would be changed to accord with her +birth. It was not publishable matter, and really never intended as such. +It was just one of the things which Mark Twain wrote to relieve mental +pressure. + + + + +CCXXVI + +"WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?" + +The Christmas number of Harper's Magazine for 1902 contained the story, +"Was it Heaven? or Hell?" and it immediately brought a flood of letters +to its author from grateful readers on both sides of the ocean. An +Englishman wrote: "I want to thank you for writing so pathetic and so +profoundly true a story"; and an American declared it to be the best +short story ever written. Another letter said: + + I have learned to love those maiden liars--love and weep over them + --then put them beside Dante's Beatrice in Paradise. + +There were plenty of such letters; but there was one of a different sort. +It was a letter from a man who had but recently gone through almost +precisely the experience narrated in the tale. His dead daughter had +even borne the same name--Helen. She had died of typhus while her mother +was prostrated with the same malady, and the deception had been +maintained in precisely the same way, even to the fictitiously written +letters. Clemens replied to this letter, acknowledging the striking +nature of the coincidence it related, and added that, had he invented the +story, he would have believed it a case of mental telegraphy. + + I was merely telling a true story just as it had been told to me by + one who well knew the mother and the daughter & all the beautiful & + pathetic details. I was living in the house where it had happened, + three years before, & I put it on paper at once while it was fresh + in my mind, & its pathos still straining at my heartstrings. + +Clemens did not guess that the coincidences were not yet complete, that +within a month the drama of the tale would be enacted in his own home. In +his note-book, under the date of December 24(1902), he wrote: + + Jean was hit with a chill: Clara was completing her watch in her + mother's room and there was no one able to force Jean to go to bed. + As a result she is pretty ill to-day-fever & high temperature. + +Three days later he added: + + It was pneumonia. For 5 days jean's temperature ranged between 103 + & 104 2/5, till this morning, when it got down to 101. She looks + like an escaped survivor of a forest fire. For 6 days now my story + in the Christmas Harper's "Was it Heaven? or Hell?"--has been + enacted in this household. Every day Clara & the nurses have lied + about Jean to her mother, describing the fine times she is having + outdoors in the winter sports. + +That proved a hard, trying winter in the Clemens home, and the burden of +it fell chiefly, indeed almost entirely, upon Clara Clemens. Mrs. +Clemens became still more frail, and no other member of the family, not +even her husband, was allowed to see her for longer than the briefest +interval. Yet the patient was all the more anxious to know the news, and +daily it had to be prepared--chiefly invented--for her comfort. In an +account which Clemens once set down of the "Siege and Season of +Unveracity," as he called it, he said: + + Clara stood a daily watch of three or four hours, and hers was a + hard office indeed. Daily she sealed up in her heart a dozen + dangerous truths, and thus saved her mother's life and hope and + happiness with holy lies. She had never told her mother a lie in + her life before, and I may almost say that she never told her a + truth afterward. It was fortunate for us all that Clara's + reputation for truthfulness was so well established in her mother's + mind. It was our daily protection from disaster. The mother never + doubted Clara's word. Clara could tell her large improbabilities + without exciting any suspicion, whereas if I tried to market even a + small and simple one the case would have been different. I was + never able to get a reputation like Clara's. Mrs. Clemens + questioned Clara every day concerning Jean's health, spirits, + clothes, employments, and amusements, and how she was enjoying + herself; and Clara furnished the information right along in minute + detail--every word of it false, of course. Every day she had to + tell how Jean dressed, and in time she got so tired of using Jean's + existing clothes over and over again, and trying to get new effects + out of them, that finally, as a relief to her hard-worked invention, + she got to adding imaginary clothes to Jean's wardrobe, and probably + would have doubled it and trebled it if a warning note in her + mother's comments had not admonished her that she was spending more + money on these spectral gowns and things than the family income + justified. + +Some portions of detailed accounts of Clara's busy days of this period, +as written at the time by Clemens to Twichell and to Mrs. Crane, are +eminently worth preserving. To Mrs. Crane: + + Clara does not go to her Monday lesson in New York today [her mother + having seemed not so well through the night], but forgets that fact + and enters her mother's room (where she has no business to be) + toward train-time dressed in a wrapper. + + LIVY. Why, Clara, aren't you going to your lesson? + CLARA (almost caught). Yes. + L. In that costume? + CL. Oh no. + L. Well, you can't make your train; it's impossible. + CL. I know, but I'm going to take the other one. + L. Indeed that won't do--you'll be ever so much too late for + your lesson. + CL. No, the lesson-time has been put an hour later. + L. (satisfied, then suddenly). But, Clara, that train and the late + lesson together will make you late to Mrs. Hapgood's luncheon. + CL. No, the train leaves fifteen minutes earlier than it used to. + L. (satisfied). Tell Mrs. Hapgood, etc., etc., etc. (which Clara + promises to do). Clara, dear, after the luncheon--I hate to put + this on you--but could you do two or three little shopping-errands + for me? + CL. Oh, it won't trouble me a bit-I can do it. (Takes a list of + the things she is to buy-a list which she will presently hand to + another.) + + At 3 or 4 P.M. Clara takes the things brought from New York, + studies over her part a little, then goes to her mother's room. + + LIVY. It's very good of you, dear. Of course, if I had known it + was going to be so snowy and drizzly and sloppy I wouldn't have + asked you to buy them. Did you get wet? + CL. Oh, nothing to hurt. + L. You took a cab both ways? + CL. Not from the station to the lesson-the weather was good enough + till that was over. + L. Well, now, tell me everything Mrs. Hapgood said. + + Clara tells her a long yarn-avoiding novelties and surprises and + anything likely to inspire questions difficult to answer; and of + course detailing the menu, for if it had been the feeding of the + 5,000 Livy would have insisted on knowing what kind of bread it was + and how the fishes were served. By and by, while talking of + something else: + + LIVY. Clams!--in the end of December. Are you sure it was clams? + CL. I didn't say cl---I meant Blue Points. + L. (tranquilized). It seemed odd. What is Jean doing? + CL. She said she was going to do a little typewriting. + L. Has she been out to-day? + CL. Only a moment, right after luncheon. She was determined to go + out again, but---- + L. How did you know she was out? + CL. (saving herself in time). Katie told me. She was determined + to go out again in the rain and snow, but I persuaded her to stay + in. + L. (with moving and grateful admiration). Clara, you are + wonderful! the wise watch you keep over Jean, and the influence you + have over her; it's so lovely of you, and I tied here and can't take + care of her myself. (And she goes on with these undeserved praises + till Clara is expiring with shame.) + +To Twichell: + + I am to see Livy a moment every afternoon until she has another bad + night; and I stand in dread, for with all my practice I realize that + in a sudden emergency I am but a poor, clumsy liar, whereas a fine + alert and capable emergency liar is the only sort that is worth + anything in a sick-chamber. + + Now, Joe, just see what reputation can do. All Clara's life she has + told Livy the truth and now the reward comes; Clara lies to her + three and a half hours every day, and Livy takes it all at par, + whereas even when I tell her a truth it isn't worth much without + corroboration . . . . + + Soon my brief visit is due. I've just been up listening at Livy's + door. + + 5 P.M. A great disappointment. I was sitting outside Livy's door + waiting. Clara came out a minute ago and said L ivy is not so well, + and the nurse can't let me see her to-day. + +That pathetic drama was to continue in some degree for many a long month. +All that winter and spring Mrs. Clemens kept but a frail hold on life. +Clemens wrote little, and refused invitations everywhere he could. He +spent his time largely in waiting for the two-minute period each day when +he could stand at the bed-foot and say a few words to the invalid, and he +confined his writing mainly to the comforting, affectionate messages +which he was allowed to push under her door. He was always waiting there +long before the moment he was permitted to enter. Her illness and her +helplessness made manifest what Howells has fittingly characterized as +his "beautiful and tender loyalty to her, which was the most moving +quality of his most faithful soul." + + + + +CCXXVII + +THE SECOND RIVERDALE WINTER + +Most of Mark Twain's stories have been dramatized at one time or another, +and with more or less success. He had two plays going that winter, one +of them the little "Death Disk," which--in story form had appeared a year +before in Harper's Magazine. It was put on at the Carnegie Lyceum with +considerable effect, but it was not of sufficient importance to warrant a +long continuance. + +Another play of that year was a dramatization of Huckleberry Finn, by Lee +Arthur. This was played with a good deal of success in Baltimore, +Philadelphia, and elsewhere, the receipts ranging from three hundred to +twenty-one hundred dollars per night, according to the weather and +locality. Why the play was discontinued is not altogether apparent; +certainly many a dramatic enterprise has gone further, faring worse. + +Huck in book form also had been having adventures a little earlier, in +being tabooed on account of his morals by certain librarians of Denver +and Omaha. It was years since Huck had been in trouble of that sort, and +he acquired a good deal of newspaper notoriety in consequence. + +Certain entries in Mark Twain's note-book reveal somewhat of his life and +thought at this period. We find such entries as this: + + Saturday, January 3, 1903. The offspring of riches: Pride, vanity, + ostentation, arrogance, tyranny. + + Sunday, January 4, 1903. The offspring of poverty: Greed, + sordidness, envy, hate, malice, cruelty, meanness, lying, shirking, + cheating, stealing, murder. + + Monday, February 2, 1903. 33d wedding anniversary. I was allowed + to see Livy 5 minutes this morning in honor of the day. She makes + but little progress toward recovery, still there is certainly some, + we are sure. + + Sunday, March 1, 1903. We may not doubt that society in heaven + consists mainly of undesirable persons. + + Thursday, March 19, 1903. Susy's birthday. She would be 31 now. + +The family illnesses, which presently included an allotment for himself, +his old bronchitis, made him rage more than ever at the imperfections of +the species which could be subject to such a variety of ills. Once he +wrote: + + Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired. + +And again: + + Adam, man's benefactor--he gave him all that he has ever received + that was worth having--death. + +The Riverdale home was in reality little more than a hospital that +spring. Jean had scarcely recovered her physical strength when she was +attacked by measles, and Clara also fell a victim to the infection. +Fortunately Mrs. Clemens's health had somewhat improved. + +It was during this period that Clemens formulated his eclectic +therapeutic doctrine. Writing to Twichell April 4, 1903, he said: + + Livy does make a little progress these past 3 or 4 days, progress + which is visible to even the untrained eye. The physicians are + doing good work for her, but my notion is, that no art of healing is + the best for all ills. I should distribute the ailments around: + surgery cases to the surgeon; lupus to the actinic-ray specialist; + nervous prostration to the Christian Scientist; most ills to the + allopath & the homeopath; & (in my own particular case) rheumatism, + gout, & bronchial attack to the osteopathist. + +He had plenty of time to think and to read during those weeks of +confinement, and to rage, and to write when he felt the need of that +expression, though he appears to have completed not much for print beyond +his reply to Mrs. Eddy, already mentioned, and his burlesque, +"Instructions in Art," with pictures by himself, published in the +Metropolitan for April and May. + +Howells called his attention to some military outrages in the +Philippines, citing a case where a certain lieutenant had tortured one of +his men, a mild offender, to death out of pure deviltry, and had been +tried but not punished for his fiendish crime.--[The torture to death of +Private Edward C. Richter, an American soldier, by orders of a +commissioned officer of the United States army on the night of February +7, 1902. Private Richter was bound and gagged and the gag held in his +mouth by means of a club while ice-water was slowly poured into his face, +a dipper full at a time, for two hours and a half, until life became +extinct.] + +Clemens undertook to give expression to his feelings on this subject, but +he boiled so when he touched pen to paper to write of it that it was +simply impossible for him to say anything within the bounds of print. +Then his only relief was to rise and walk the floor, and curse out his +fury at the race that had produced such a specimen. + +Mrs. Clemens, who perhaps got some drift or the echo of these tempests, +now and then sent him a little admonitory, affectionate note. + +Among the books that Clemens read, or tried to read, during his +confinement were certain of the novels of Sir Walter Scott. He had never +been able to admire Scott, and determined now to try to understand this +author's popularity and his standing with the critics; but after wading +through the first volume of one novel, and beginning another one, he +concluded to apply to one who could speak as having authority. He wrote +to Brander Matthews: + + DEAR BRANDER,--I haven't been out of my bed for 4 weeks, but-well, I + have been reading a good deal, & it occurs to me to ask you to sit + down, some time or other when you have 8 or 9 months to spare, & jot + me down a certain few literary particulars for my help & elevation. + Your time need not be thrown away, for at your further leisure you + can make Columbian lectures out of the results & do your students a + good turn. + + 1. Are there in Sir Walter's novels passages done in good English + --English which is neither slovenly nor involved? + + 2. Are there passages whose English is not poor & thin & + commonplace, but is of a quality above that? + + 3. Are there passages which burn with real fire--not punk, fox- + fire, make-believe? + 4. Has he heroes & heroines who are not cads and cadesses? + + 5. Has he personages whose acts & talk correspond with their + characters as described by him? + + 6. Has he heroes & heroines whom the reader admires--admires and + knows why? + + 7. Has he funny characters that are funny, and humorous passages + that are humorous? + + 8. Does he ever chain the reader's interest & make him reluctant to + lay the book down? + + 9. Are there pages where he ceases from posing, ceases from + admiring the placid flood & flow of his own dilution, ceases from + being artificial, & is for a time, long or short, recognizably + sincere & in earnest? + + 10. Did he know how to write English, & didn't do it because he + didn't want to? + + 11. Did he use the right word only when he couldn't think of + another one, or did he run so much to wrong words because he didn't + know the right one when he saw it? + + 12. Can you read him and keep your respect for him? Of course a + person could in his day--an era of sentimentality & sloppy + romantics--but land! can a body do it to-day? + + Brander, I lie here dying; slowly dying, under the blight of Sir + Walter. I have read the first volume of Rob Roy, & as far as + Chapter XIX of Guy Mannering, & I can no longer hold my head up or + take my nourishment. Lord, it's all so juvenile! so artificial, so + shoddy; & such wax figures & skeletons & specters. Interest? Why, + it is impossible to feel an interest in these bloodless shams, these + milk-&-water humbugs. And oh, the poverty of invention! Not + poverty in inventing situations, but poverty in furnishing reasons + for them. Sir Walter usually gives himself away when he arranges + for a situation--elaborates & elaborates & elaborates till, if you + live to get to it, you don't believe in it when it happens. + + I can't find the rest of Rob Roy, I, can't stand any more Mannering + --I do not know just what to do, but I will reflect, & not quit this + great study rashly .... + + My, I wish I could see you & Leigh Hunt! + + Sincerely yours, + + S. L. CLEMENS. + +But a few days later he experienced a revelation. It came when he +perseveringly attacked still a third work of Scott--Quentin Durward. +Hastily he wrote to Matthews again: + +I'm still in bed, but the days have lost their dullness since I broke +into Sir Walter & lost my temper. I finished Guy Mannering that curious, +curious book, with its mob of squalid shadows gibbering around a single +flesh-&-blood being--Dinmont; a book crazily put together out of the very +refuse of the romance artist's stage properties--finished it & took up +Quentin Durward & finished that. + +It was like leaving the dead to mingle with the living; it was like +withdrawing from the infant class in the college of journalism to sit +under the lectures in English literature in Columbia University. + +I wonder who wrote Quentin Durward?--[This letter, enveloped, addressed, +and stamped, was evidently mislaid. It was found and mailed seven years +later, June, 1910 message from the dead.] + +Among other books which he read that winter and spring was Helen Keller's +'The Story of My Life', then recently published. That he finished it in +a mood of sweet gentleness we gather from a long, lovely letter which he +wrote her--a letter in which he said: + +I am charmed with your book--enchanted. You are a wonderful creature, +the most wonderful in the world--you and your other half together--Miss +Sullivan, I mean--for it took the pair of you to make a complete & +perfect whole. How she stands out in her letters! her brilliancy, +penetration, originality, wisdom, character, & the fine literary +competencies of her pen--they are all there. + +When reading and writing failed as diversion, Mark Twain often turned to +mathematics. With no special talent for accuracy in the matter of +figures, he had a curious fondness for calculations, scientific and +financial, and he used to cover pages, ciphering at one thing and +another, arriving pretty inevitably at the wrong results. When the +problem was financial, and had to do with his own fortunes, his figures +were as likely as not to leave him in a state of panic. The expenditures +were naturally heavy that spring; and one night, when he had nothing +better to do, he figured the relative proportion to his income. The +result showed that they were headed straight for financial ruin. He put +in the rest of the night fearfully rolling and tossing, and +reconstructing his figures that grew always worse, and next morning +summoned Jean and Clara and petrified them with the announcement that the +cost of living was one hundred and twenty-five per cent. more than the +money-supply. + +Writing to MacAlister three days later he said: + + It was a mistake. When I came down in the morning, a gray and aged + wreck, I found that in some unaccountable way (unaccountable to a + business man, but not to me) I had multiplied the totals by two. By + God, I dropped seventy-five years on the floor where I stood! + + Do you know it affected me as one is affected when one wakes out of + a hideous dream & finds it was only a dream. It was a great comfort + & satisfaction to me to call the daughters to a private meeting of + the board again. Certainly there is a blistering & awful reality + about a well-arranged unreality. It is quite within the + possibilities that two or three nights like that of mine would drive + a man to suicide. He would refuse to examine the figures, they + would revolt him so, & he would go to his death unaware that there + was nothing serious about them. I cannot get that night out of my + head, it was so vivid, so real, so ghastly: In any other year of + these thirty-three the relief would have been simple: go where you + can, cut your cloth to fit your income. You can't do that when your + wife can't be moved, even from one room to the next. + + The doctor & a specialist met in conspiracy five days ago, & in + their belief she will by and by come out of this as good as new, + substantially. They ordered her to Italy for next winter--which + seems to indicate that by autumn she will be able to undertake the + voyage. So Clara is writing to a Florence friend to take a look + around among the villas for us in the regions near that city. + + + + +CCXXVIII + +PROFFERED HONORS + +Mark Twain had been at home well on toward three years; but his +popularity showed no signs of diminishing. So far from having waned, it +had surged to a higher point than ever before. His crusade against +public and private abuses had stirred readers, and had set them to +thinking; the news of illness in his household; a report that he was +contemplating another residence abroad--these things moved deeply the +public heart, and a tide of letters flowed in, letters of every sort--of +sympathy, of love, or hearty endorsement, whatever his attitude of +reform. + +When a writer in a New York newspaper said, "Let us go outside the realm +of practical politics next time in choosing our candidates for the +Presidency," and asked, "Who is our ablest and most conspicuous private +citizen?" another editorial writer, Joseph Hollister, replied that Mark +Twain was "the greatest man of his day in private life, and entitled to +the fullest measure of recognition." + +But Clemens was without political ambitions. He knew the way of such +things too well. When Hollister sent him the editorial he replied only +with a word of thanks, and did not, even in jest, encourage that tiny +seed of a Presidential boom. One would like to publish many of the +beautiful letters received during this period, for they are beautiful, +most of them, however illiterate in form, however discouraging in length +--beautiful in that they overflow with the writers' sincerity and +gratitude. + +So many of them came from children, usually without the hope of a reply, +some signed only with initials, that the writers might not be open to the +suspicion of being seekers for his autograph. Almost more than any other +reward, Mark Twain valued this love of the children. + +A department in the St. Nicholas Magazine offered a prize for a +caricature drawing of some well-known man. There were one or two of +certain prominent politicians and capitalists, and there was literally a +wheelbarrow load of Mark Twain. When he was informed of this he wrote: +"No tribute could have pleased me more than that--the friendship of the +children." + +Tributes came to him in many forms. In his native State it was proposed +to form a Mark Twain Association, with headquarters at Hannibal, with the +immediate purpose of having a week set apart at the St. Louis World's +Fair, to be called the Mark Twain week, with a special Mark Twain day, on +which a national literary convention would be held. But when his consent +was asked, and his co-operation invited, he wrote characteristically: + +It is indeed a high compliment which you offer me, in naming an +association after me and in proposing the setting apart of a Mark Twain +day at the great St. Louis Fair, but such compliments are not proper for +the living; they are proper and safe for the dead only. I value the +impulse which moves you to tender me these honors. I value it as highly +as any one can, and am grateful for it, but I should stand in a sort of +terror of the honors themselves. So long as we remain alive we are not +safe from doing things which, however righteously and honorably intended, +can wreck our repute and extinguish our friendships. + +I hope that no society will be named for me while I am still alive, for I +might at some time or other do something which would cause its members to +regret having done me that honor. After I shall have joined the dead I +shall follow the custom of those people, and be guilty of no conduct that +can wound any friend; but until that time shall come I shall be a +doubtful quantity, like the rest of our race. + +The committee, still hoping for his consent, again appealed to him. But +again he wrote: + +While I am deeply touched by the desire of my friends of Hannibal to +confer these great honors upon me I must still forbear to accept them. +Spontaneous and unpremeditated honors, like those which came to me at +Hannibal, Columbia, St. Louis, and at the village stations all down the +line, are beyond all price and are a treasure for life in the memory, for +they are a free gift out of the heart and they come without solicitation; +but I am a Missourian, and so I shrink from distinctions which have to be +arranged beforehand and with my privity, for I then become a party to my +own exalting. I am humanly fond of honors that happen, but chary of +those that come by canvass and intention. + +Somewhat later he suggested a different feature for the fair; one that +was not practical, perhaps, but which certainly would have aroused +interest--that is to say, an old-fashioned six-day steamboat-race from +New Orleans to St. Louis, with the old-fashioned accessories, such as +torch-baskets, forecastle crowds of negro singers, with a negro on the +safety-valve. In his letter to President Francis he said: + +As to particulars, I think that the race should be a genuine reproduction +of the old-time race, not just an imitation of it, and that it should +cover the whole course. I think the boats should begin the trip at New +Orleans, and side by side (not an interval between), and end it at North +St. Louis, a mile or two above the Big Mound. + +In a subsequent letter to Governor Francis he wrote: + +It has been a dear wish of mine to exhibit myself at the great Fair & get +a prize, but circumstances beyond my control have interfered . . . . + +I suppose you will get a prize, because you have created the most +prodigious Fair the planet has ever seen. Very well, you have indeed +earned it, and with it the gratitude of the State and the nation. + +Newspaper men used every inducement to get interviews from him. They +invited him to name a price for any time he could give them, long or +short. One reporter offered him five hundred dollars for a two-hour +talk. Another proposed to pay him one hundred dollars a week for a +quarter of a day each week, allowing him to discuss any subject he +pleased. One wrote asking him two questions: the first, "Your favorite +method of escaping from Indians"; the second, "Your favorite method of +escaping capture by the Indians when they were in pursuit of you." They +inquired as to his favorite copy-book maxim; as to what he considered +most important to a young man's success; his definition of a gentleman. +They wished to know his plan for the settlement of labor troubles. But +they did not awaken his interest, or his cupidity. To one applicant he +wrote: + +No, there are temptations against which we are fire-proof. Your +proposition is one which comes to me with considerable frequency, but it +never tempts me. The price isn't the objection; you offer plenty. It is +the nature of the work that is the objection--a kind of work which I +could not do well enough to satisfy me. To multiply the price by twenty +would not enable me to do the work to my satisfaction, & by consequence +would make no impression upon me. + +Once he allowed himself to be interviewed for the Herald, when from Mr. +Rogers's yacht he had watched Sir Thomas Lipton's Shamrock go down to +defeat; but this was a subject which appealed to him--a kind of +hotweather subject--and he could be as light-minded about it as he chose. + + + + +CCXXXIX + +THE LAST SUMMER AT ELMIRA + +The Clemenses were preparing to take up residence in Florence, Italy. The +Hartford house had been sold in May, ending forever the association with +the city that had so long been a part of their lives. The Tarrytown +place, which they had never occupied, they also agreed to sell, for it +was the belief now that Mrs. Clemens's health would never greatly prosper +there. Howells says, or at least implies, that they expected their +removal to Florence to be final. He tells us, too, of one sunny +afternoon when he and Clemens sat on the grass before the mansion at +Riverdale, after Mrs. Clemens had somewhat improved, and how they "looked +up toward a balcony where by and by that lovely presence made itself +visible, as if it had stooped there from a cloud. A hand frailly waved a +handkerchief; Clemens ran over the lawn toward it, calling tenderly." It +was a greeting to Howells the last he would ever receive from her. + +Mrs. Clemens was able to make a trip to Elmira by the end of June, and on +the 1st of July Mr. Rogers brought Clemens and his wife down the river on +his yacht to the Lackawanna pier, and they reached Quarry Farm that +evening. She improved in the quietude and restfulness of that beloved +place. Three weeks later Clemens wrote to Twichell: + +Livy is coming along: eats well, sleeps some, is mostly very gay, not +very often depressed; spends all day on the porch, sleeps there a part of +the night; makes excursions in carriage & in wheel-chair; &, in the +matter of superintending everything & everybody, has resumed business at +the old stand. + +During three peaceful months she spent most of her days reclining on the +wide veranda, surrounded by those dearest to her, and looking out on the +dreamlike landscape--the long, grassy slope, the drowsy city, and the +distant hills--getting strength for the far journey by sea. Clemens did +some writing, occupying the old octagonal study--shut in now and +overgrown with vines--where during the thirty years since it was built so +many of his stories had been written. 'A Dog's Tale'--that pathetic +anti-vivisection story--appears to have been the last manuscript ever +completed in the spot consecrated by Huck and Tom, and by Tom Canty the +Pauper and the little wandering Prince. + +It was October 5th when they left Elmira. Two days earlier Clemens had +written in his note-book: + + Today I placed flowers on Susy's grave--for the last time probably + --& read words: + + "Good-night, dear heart, good-night." + +They did not return to Riverdale, but went to the Hotel Grosvenor for the +intervening weeks. They had engaged passage for Italy on the Princess +Irene, which would sail on the 24th. It was during the period of their +waiting that Clemens concluded his final Harper contract. On that day, +in his note-book, he wrote: + + THE PROPHECY + +In 1895 Cheiro the palmist examined my hand & said that in my 68th year +(1903) I would become suddenly rich. I was a bankrupt & $94,000 in debt +at the time through the failure of Charles L. Webster & Co. Two years +later--in London--Cheiro repeated this long-distance prediction, & added +that the riches would come from a quite unexpected source. I am +superstitious. I kept the prediction in mind & often thought of it. When +at last it came true, October 22, 1903, there was but a month & 9 days to +spare. + +The contract signed that day concentrates all my books in Harper's hands +& now at last they are valuable; in fact they are a fortune. They +guarantee me $25,000 a year for 5 years, and they will yield twice as +much as that.--[In earlier note-books and letters Clemens more than once +refers to this prophecy and wonders if it is to be realized. The Harper +contract, which brought all of his books into the hands of one publisher +(negotiated for him by Mr. Rogers), proved, in fact, a fortune. The +books yielded always more than the guarantee; sometimes twice that +amount, as he had foreseen.] + +During the conclusion of this contract Clemens made frequent visits to +Fairhaven on the Kanawha. Joe Goodman came from the Pacific to pay him a +good-by visit during this period. Goodman had translated the Mayan +inscriptions, and his work had received official recognition and +publication by the British Museum. It was a fine achievement for a man +in later life and Clemens admired it immensely. Goodman and Clemens +enjoyed each other in the old way at quiet resorts where they could talk +over the old tales. Another visitor of that summer was the son of an old +friend, a Hannibal printer named Daulton. Young Daulton came with +manuscripts seeking a hearing of the magazine editors, so Clemens wrote a +letter which would insure that favor: +INTRODUCING MR. GEO. DAULTON: + +TO GILDER, ALDEN, HARVEY, McCLURE, WALKER, PAGE, BOK, COLLIER, and such +other members of the sacred guild as privilege me to call them +friends-these: + +Although I have no personal knowledge of the bearer of this, I have what +is better: He comes recommended to me by his own father--a thing not +likely to happen in any of your families, I reckon. I ask you, as a +favor to me, to waive prejudice & superstition for this once & examine +his work with an eye to its literary merit, instead of to the chastity of +its spelling. I wish to God you cared less for that particular. + +I set (or sat) type alongside of his father, in Hannibal, more than 50 +years ago, when none but the pure in heart were in that business. A true +man he was; and if I can be of any service to his son--and to you at the +same time, let me hope--I am here heartily to try. + +Yours by the sanctions of time & deserving, + + Sincerely, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +Among the kindly words which came to Mark Twain before leaving America +was this one which Rudyard Kipling had written to his publisher, Frank +Doubleday: + + I love to think of the great and godlike Clemens. He is the biggest + man you have on your side of the water by a damn sight, and don't + you forget it. Cervantes was a relation of his. + +It curiously happened that Clemens at the same moment was writing to +Doubleday about Kipling: + + I have been reading "The Bell Buoy" and "The Old Man" over and over + again-my custom with Kipling's work--and saving up the rest for + other leisurely and luxurious meals. A bell-buoy is a deeply + impressive fellow-being. In these many recent trips up and down the + Sound in the Kanawha he has talked to me nightly sometimes in his + pathetic and melancholy way, sometimes with his strenuous and urgent + note, and I got his meaning--now I have his words! No one but + Kipling could do this strong and vivid thing. Some day I hope to + hear the poem chanted or sung-with the bell-buoy breaking in out of + the distance. + + P. S.--Your letter has arrived. It makes me proud and glad--what + Kipling says. I hope Fate will fetch him to Florence while we are + there. I would rather see him than any other man. + + + + +CCXXX + +THE RETURN TO FLORENCE + +From the note-book: + + Saturday, October 24, 1903. Sailed in the Princess Irene for Genoa + at 11. Flowers & fruit from Mrs. Rogers & Mrs. Coe. We have with + us Katie Leary (in our domestic service 23 years) & Miss Margaret + Sherry (trained nurse). + +Two days later he wrote: + + Heavy storm all night. Only 3 stewardesses. Ours served 60 meals + in rooms this morning. + +On the 27th: + + Livy is enduring the voyage marvelously well. As well as Clara & + Jean, I think, & far better than the trained nurse. + + She has been out on deck an hour. + + November 2. Due at Gibraltar 10 days from New York. 3 days to + Naples, then 2 day to Genoa. + At supper the band played "Cavalleria Rusticana," which is forever + associated in my mind with Susy. I love it better than any other, + but it breaks my heart. + +It was the "Intermezzo" he referred to, which had been Susy's favorite +music, and whenever he heard it he remembered always one particular +opera-night long ago, and Susy's face rose before him. + +They were in Naples on the 5th; thence to Genoa, and to Florence, where +presently they were installed in the Villa Reale di Quarto, a fine old +Italian palace built by Cosimo more than four centuries ago. In later +times it has been occupied and altered by royal families of Wurtemberg +and Russia. Now it was the property of the Countess Massiglia, from whom +Clemens had leased it. + +They had hoped to secure the Villa Papiniano, under Fiesole, near +Professor Fiske, but negotiations for it had fallen through. The Villa +Quarto, as it is usually called, was a more pretentious place and as +beautifully located, standing as it does in an ancient garden looking out +over Florence toward Vallombrosa and the Chianti hills. Yet now in the +retrospect, it seems hardly to have been the retreat for an invalid. Its +garden was supernaturally beautiful, all that one expects that a garden +of Italy should be--such a garden as Maxfield Parrish might dream; but +its beauty was that which comes of antiquity--the accumulation of dead +years. Its funereal cypresses, its crumbling walls and arches, its +clinging ivy and moldering marbles, and a clock that long ago forgot the +hours, gave it a mortuary look. In a way it suggested Arnold Bocklin's +"Todteninsel," and it might well have served as the allegorical setting +for a gateway to the bourne of silence. + +The house itself, one of the most picturesque of the old Florentine +suburban palaces, was historically interesting, rather than cheerful. The +rooms, in number more than sixty, though richly furnished, were vast and +barnlike, and there were numbers of them wholly unused and never entered. +There was a dearth of the modern improvements which Americans have +learned to regard as a necessity, and the plumbing, such as it was, was +not always in order. The place was approached by narrow streets, along +which the more uninviting aspects of Italy were not infrequent. Youth and +health and romance might easily have reveled in the place; but it seems +now not to have been the best choice for that frail invalid, to whom +cheer and brightness and freshness and the lovelier things of hope meant +always so much.--[Villa Quarto has recently been purchased by Signor P. +de Ritter Lahony, and thoroughly restored and refreshed and beautified +without the sacrifice of any of its romantic features.]--Neither was the +climate of Florence all that they had hoped for. Their former sunny +winter had misled them. Tradition to the contrary, Italy--or at least +Tuscany--is not one perpetual dream of sunlight. It is apt to be damp +and cloudy; it is likely to be cold. Writing to MacAlister, Clemens +said: + +Florentine sunshine? Bless you, there isn't any. We have heavy fogs +every morning & rain all day. This house is not merely large, it is +vast--therefore I think it must always lack the home feeling. + +His dissatisfaction in it began thus early, and it grew as one thing +after another went wrong. With it all, however, Mrs. Clemens seemed to +gain a little, and was glad to see company--a reasonable amount of +company--to brighten her surroundings. + +Clemens began to work and wrote a story or two, and those lively articles +about the Italian language. + +To Twichell he reported progress: + + I have a handsome success in one way here. I left New York under a + sort of half-promise to furnish to the Harper magazines 30,000 words + this year. Magazining is difficult work because every third page + represents two pages that you have put in the fire (you are nearly + sure to start wrong twice), & so when you have finished an article & + are willing to let it go to print it represents only 10 cents a word + instead of 30. + + But this time I had the curious (& unprecedented) luck to start + right in each case. I turned out 37,000 words in 25 working days; & + the reason I think I started right every time is, that not only have + I approved and accepted the several articles, but the court of last + resort (Livy) has done the same. + + On many of the between-days I did some work, but only of an idle & + not necessarily necessary sort, since it will not see print until I + am dead. I shall continue this (an hour per day), but the rest of + the year I expect to put in on a couple of long books (half- + completed ones). No more magazine work hanging over my head. + + This secluded & silent solitude, this clean, soft air, & this + enchanting view of Florence, the great valley & snow-mountains that + frame it, are the right conditions for work. They are a persistent + inspiration. To-day is very lovely; when the afternoon arrives + there will be a new picture every hour till dark, & each of them + divine--or progressing from divine to diviner & divinest. On this + (second) floor Clara's room commands the finest; she keeps a window + ten feet high wide open all the time & frames it in that. I go in + from time to time every day & trade sass for a look. The central + detail is a distant & stately snow-hump that rises above & behind + black-forested hills, & its sloping vast buttresses, velvety & sun- + polished, with purple shadows between, make the sort of picture we + knew that time we walked in Switzerland in the days of our youth. + +From this letter, which is of January 7, 1904, we gather that the weather +had greatly improved, and with it Mrs. Clemens's health, notwithstanding +she had an alarming attack in December. One of the stories he had +finished was "The $30,000 Bequest." The work mentioned, which would not +see print until after his death, was a continuation of those +autobiographical chapters which for years he had been setting down as the +mood seized him. + +He experimented with dictation, which he had tried long before with +Redpath, and for a time now found it quite to his liking. He dictated +some of his copyright memories, and some anecdotes and episodes; but his +amanuensis wrote only longhand, which perhaps hampered him, for he tired +of it by and by and the dictations were discontinued. + +Among these notes there is one elaborate description of the Villa di +Quarto, dictated at the end of the winter, by which time we are not +surprised to find he had become much attached to the place. The Italian +spring was in the air, and it was his habit to grow fond of his +surroundings. Some atmospheric paragraphs of these impressions invite us +here: + + We are in the extreme south end of the house, if there is any such + thing as a south end to a house, whose orientation cannot be + determined by me, because I am incompetent in all cases where an + object does not point directly north & south. This one slants + across between, & is therefore a confusion. This little private + parlor is in one of the two corners of what I call the south end of + the house. The sun rises in such a way that all the morning it is + pouring its light through the 33 glass doors or windows which pierce + the side of the house which looks upon the terrace & garden; the + rest of the day the light floods this south end of the house, as I + call it; at noon the sun is directly above Florence yonder in the + distance in the plain, directly across those architectural features + which have been so familiar to the world in pictures for some + centuries, the Duomo, the Campanile, the Tomb of the Medici, & the + beautiful tower of the Palazzo Vecchio; in this position it begins + to reveal the secrets of the delicious blue mountains that circle + around into the west, for its light discovers, uncovers, & exposes a + white snowstorm of villas & cities that you cannot train yourself to + have confidence in, they appear & disappear so mysteriously, as if + they might not be villas & cities at all, but the ghosts of perished + ones of the remote & dim Etruscan times; & late in the afternoon the + sun sets down behind those mountains somewhere, at no particular + time & at no particular place, so far as I can see. + +Again at the end of March he wrote: + + Now that we have lived in this house four and a half months my + prejudices have fallen away one by one & the place has become very + homelike to me. Under certain conditions I should like to go on + living in it indefinitely. I should wish the Countess to move out + of Italy, out of Europe, out of the planet. I should want her + bonded to retire to her place in the next world & inform me which of + the two it was, so that I could arrange for my own hereafter. + +Complications with their landlady had begun early, and in time, next to +Mrs. Clemens's health, to which it bore such an intimate and vital +relation, the indifference of the Countess Massiglia to their needs +became the supreme and absorbing concern of life at the villa, and led to +continued and almost continuous house-hunting. + +Days when the weather permitted, Clemens drove over the hills looking for +a villa which he could lease or buy--one with conveniences and just the +right elevation and surroundings. There were plenty of villas; but some +of them were badly situated as to altitude or view; some were falling to +decay, and the search was rather a discouraging one. Still it was not +abandoned, and the reports of these excursions furnished new interest and +new hope always to the invalid at home. + +"Even if we find it," he wrote Howells, "I am afraid it will be months +before we can move Mrs. Clemens. Of course it will. But it comforts us +to let on that we think otherwise, and these pretensions help to keep +hope alive in her." + +She had her bad days and her good days, days when it was believed she had +passed the turning-point and was traveling the way to recovery; but the +good days were always a little less hopeful, the bad days a little more +discouraging. On February 22d Clemens wrote in his note-book: + +At midnight Livy's pulse went to 192 & there was a collapse. Great +alarm. Subcutaneous injection of brandy saved her. + +And to MacAlister toward the end of March: + +We are having quite perfect weather now & are hoping that it will bring +effects for Mrs. Clemens. + +But a few days later he added that he was watching the driving rain +through the windows, and that it was bad weather for the invalid. "But +it will not last," he said. + +The invalid improved then, and there was a concert in Florence at which +Clara Clemens sang. Clemens in his note-book says: + + April 8. Clara's concert was a triumph. Livy woke up & sent for + her to tell her all about it, near midnight. + +But a day or two later she was worse again--then better. The hearts in +that household were as pendulums, swinging always between hope and +despair. + +One familiar with the Clemens history might well have been filled with +forebodings. Already in January a member of the family, Mollie Clemens, +Orion's wife, died, news which was kept from Mrs. Clemens, as was the +death of Aldrich's son, and that of Sir Henry M. Stanley, both of which +occurred that spring. + +Indeed, death harvested freely that year among the Clemens friendships. +Clemens wrote Twichell: + + Yours has just this moment arrived-just as I was finishing a note to + poor Lady Stanley. I believe the last country-house visit we paid + in England was to Stanley's. Lord! how my friends & acquaintances + fall about me now in my gray-headed days! Vereshchagin, Mommsen, + Dvorak, Lenbach, & Jokai, all so recently, & now Stanley. I have + known Stanley 37 years. Goodness, who is there I haven't known? + + + + +CCXXXI + +THE CLOSE OF A BEAUTIFUL LIFE + +In one of his notes near the end of April Clemens writes that once more, +as at Riverdale, he has been excluded from Mrs. Clemens's room except for +the briefest moment at a time. But on May 12th, to R. W. Gilder, he +reported: + + For two days now we have not been anxious about Mrs. Clemens + (unberufen). After 20 months of bedridden solitude & bodily misery + she all of a sudden ceases to be a pallid, shrunken shadow, & looks + bright & young & pretty. She remains what she always was, the most + wonderful creature of fortitude, patience, endurance, and + recuperative power that ever was. But ah, dear! it won't last; + this fiendish malady will play new treacheries upon her, and I shall + go back to my prayers again--unutterable from any pulpit! + + May 13, A.M. I have just paid one of my pair of permitted 2-minute + visits per day to the sick-room. And found what I have learned to + expect--retrogression. + +There was a day when she was brought out on the terrace in a wheel-chair +to see the wonder of the early Italian summer. She had been a prisoner +so long that she was almost overcome with the delight of it all--the more +so, perhaps, in the feeling that she might so soon be leaving it. + +It was on Sunday, the 5th of June, that the end came. Clemens and Jean +had driven out to make some calls, and had stopped at a villa, which +promised to fulfil most of the requirements. They came home full of +enthusiasm concerning it, and Clemens, in his mind, had decided on the +purchase. In the corridor Clara said: + +"She is better to-day than she has been for three months." + +Then quickly, under her breath, "Unberufen," which the others, too, added +hastily--superstitiously. + +Mrs. Clemens was, in fact, bright and cheerful, and anxious to hear all +about the new property which was to become their home. She urged him to +sit by her during the dinner-hour and tell her the details; but once, +when the sense of her frailties came upon her, she said they must not +mind if she could not go very soon, but be content where they were. He +remained from half past seven until eight--a forbidden privilege, but +permitted because she was so animated, feeling so well. Their talk was +as it had been in the old days, and once during it he reproached himself, +as he had so often done, and asked forgiveness for the tears he had +brought into her life. When he was summoned to go at last he chided +himself for remaining so long; but she said there was no harm, and kissed +him, saying: "You will come back," and he answered, "Yes, to say good +night," meaning at half past nine, as was the permitted custom. He stood +a moment at the door throwing kisses to her, and she returning them, her +face bright with smiles. + +He was so hopeful and happy that it amounted to exaltation. He went to +his room at first, then he was moved to do a thing which he had seldom +done since Susy died. He went to the piano up-stairs and sang the old +jubilee songs that Susy had liked to hear him sing. Jean came in +presently, listening. She had not done this before, that he could +remember. He sang "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and "My Lord He Calls Me." +He noticed Jean then and stopped, but she asked him to go on. + +Mrs. Clemens, in her room, heard the distant music, and said to her +attendant: + +"He is singing a good-night carol to me." + +The music ceased presently, and then a moment later she asked to be +lifted up. Almost in that instant life slipped away without a sound. + +Clemens, coming to say good night, saw a little group about her bed, +Clara and Jean standing as if dazed. He went and bent over and looked +into her face, surprised that she did not greet him. He did not suspect +what had happened until he heard one of the daughters ask: + +"Katie, is it true? Oh, Katie, is it true?" + +He realized then that she was gone. + +In his note-book that night he wrote: + + At a quarter past 9 this evening she that was the life of my life + passed to the relief & the peace of death after as months of unjust + & unearned suffering. I first saw her near 37 years ago, & now I + have looked upon her face for the last time. Oh, so unexpected!... + I was full of remorse for things done & said in these 34 years of + married life that hurt Livy's heart. + +He envied her lying there, so free from it all, with the great peace upon +her face. He wrote to Howells and to Twichell, and to Mrs. Crane, those +nearest and dearest ones. To Twichell he said: + + How sweet she was in death, how young, how beautiful, how like her + dear girlish self of thirty years ago, not a gray hair showing! + This rejuvenescence was noticeable within two hours after her death; + & when I went down again (2.30) it was complete. In all that night + & all that day she never noticed my caressing hand--it seemed + strange. + +To Howells he recalled the closing scene: + + I bent over her & looked in her face & I think I spoke--I was + surprised & troubled that she did not notice me. Then we understood + & our hearts broke. How poor we are to-day! + + But how thankful I am that her persecutions are ended! I would not + call her back if I could. + + To-day, treasured in her worn, old Testament, I found a dear & + gentle letter from you dated Far Rockaway, September 13, 1896, about + our poor Susy's death. I am tired & old; I wish I were with Livy. + +And in a few days: + +It would break Livy's heart to see Clara. We excuse ourself from all the +friends that call--though, of course, only intimates come. Intimates +--but they are not the old, old friends, the friends of the old, old +times when we laughed. Shall we ever laugh again? If I could only see a +dog that I knew in the old times & could put my arms around his neck and +tell him all, everything, & ease my heart! + + + + +CCXXXII + +THE SAD JOURNEY HOME + +A tidal wave of sympathy poured in. Noble and commoner, friend and +stranger--humanity of every station--sent their messages of condolence to +the friend of mankind. The cablegrams came first--bundles of them from +every corner of the world--then the letters, a steady inflow. Howells, +Twichell, Aldrich--those oldest friends who had themselves learned the +meaning of grief--spoke such few and futile words as the language can +supply to allay a heart's mourning, each recalling the rarity and beauty +of the life that had slipped away. Twichell and his wife wrote: + +DEAR, DEAR MARK,--There is nothing we can say. What is there to say? +But here we are--with you all every hour and every minute--filled with +unutterable thoughts; unutterable affection for the dead and for the +living. + HARMONY AND JOE. + +Howells in his letter said: + +She hallowed what she touched far beyond priests . . . . What are you +going to do, you poor soul? + +A hundred letters crowd in for expression here, but must be denied--not, +however, the beam of hope out of Helen Keller's illumined night: + + Do try to reach through grief and feel the pressure of her hand, as + I reach through darkness and feel the smile on my friends' lips and + the light in their eyes though mine are closed. + +They were adrift again without plans for the future. They would return +to America to lay Mrs. Clemens to rest by Susy and little Langdon, but +beyond that they could not see. Then they remembered a quiet spot in +Massachusetts, Tyringham, near Lee, where the Gilders lived, and so, on +June 7th, he wrote: + + DEAR GILDER FAMILY,--I have been worrying and worrying to know what + to do; at last I went to the girls with an idea--to ask the Gilders + to get us shelter near their summer home. It was the first time + they have not shaken their heads. So to-morrow I will cable to you + and shall hope to be in time. + + An hour ago the best heart that ever beat for me and mine was + carried silent out of this house, and I am as one who wanders and + has lost his way. She who is gone was our head, she was our hands. + We are now trying to make plans--we: we who have never made a plan + before, nor ever needed to. If she could speak to us she would make + it all simple and easy with a word, & our perplexities would vanish + away. If she had known she was near to death she would have told us + where to go and what to do, but she was not suspecting, neither were + we. She was all our riches and she is gone; she was our breath, she + was our life, and now we are nothing. + + We send you our love-and with it the love of you that was in her + heart when she died. + S. L. CLEMENS. + +They arranged to sail on the Prince Oscar on the 29th of June. There was +an earlier steamer, but it was the Princess Irene, which had brought +them, and they felt they would not make the return voyage on that vessel. +During the period of waiting a curious thing happened. Clemens one day +got up in a chair in his room on the second floor to pull down the high +window-sash. It did not move easily and his hand slipped. It was only +by the merest chance that he saved himself from falling to the ground far +below. He mentions this in his note-book, and once, speaking of it to +Frederick Duneka, he said: + +"Had I fallen it would probably have killed me, and in my bereaved +circumstances the world would have been convinced that it was suicide. It +was one of those curious coincidences which are always happening and +being misunderstood." + +The homeward voyage and its sorrowful conclusion are pathetically +conveyed in his notes: + + June 29, 1904. Sailed last night at 10. The bugle-call to + breakfast. I recognized the notes and was distressed. When I heard + them last Livy heard them with me; now they fall upon her ear + unheeded. + + In my life there have been 68 Junes--but how vague & colorless 67 of + them are contrasted with the deep blackness of this one! + + July 1, 1904. I cannot reproduce Livy's face in my mind's eye--I + was never in my life able to reproduce a face. It is a curious + infirmity--& now at last I realize it is a calamity. + + July 2, 1904. In these 34 years we have made many voyages together, + Livy dear--& now we are making our last; you down below & lonely; I + above with the crowd & lonely. + + July 3, 1904. Ship-time, 8 A.M. In 13 hours & a quarter it will be + 4 weeks since Livy died. + + Thirty-one years ago we made our first voyage together--& this is + our last one in company. Susy was a year old then. She died at 24 + & had been in her grave 8 years. + + July 10, 1904. To-night it will be 5 weeks. But to me it remains + yesterday--as it has from the first. But this funeral march--how + sad & long it is! + + Two days more will end the second stage of it. + + July 14, 1904 (ELMIRA). Funeral private in the house of Livy's + young maidenhood. Where she stood as a bride 34 years ago there her + coffin rested; & over it the same voice that had made her a wife + then committed her departed spirit to God now. + +It was Joseph Twichell who rendered that last service. Mr. Beecher was +long since dead. It was a simple, touching utterance, closing with this +tender word of farewell: + + Robert Browning, when he was nearing the end of his earthly days, + said that death was the thing that we did not believe in. Nor do we + believe in it. We who journeyed through the bygone years in + companionship with the bright spirit now withdrawn are growing old. + The way behind is long; the way before is short. The end cannot be + far off. But what of that? Can we not say, each one: + + "So long that power hath blessed me, sure it still + Will lead me on; + O'er moor and fen; o'er crag and torrent, till + The night is gone; + And with the morn, their angel faces smile, + Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!" + + And so good-by. Good-by, dear heart! Strong, tender, and true. + Good-by until for us the morning break and these shadows fly away. + +Dr. Eastman, who had succeeded Mr. Beecher, closed the service with a +prayer, and so the last office we can render in this life for those we +love was finished. + +Clemens ordered that a simple marker should be placed at the grave, +bearing, besides the name, the record of birth and death, followed by the +German line: + + 'Gott sei dir gnadig, O meine Wonne'! + + + + +CCXXXIII + +BEGINNING ANOTHER HOME + +There was an extra cottage on the Gilder place at Tyringham, and this +they occupied for the rest of that sad summer. Clemens, in his +note-book, has preserved some of its aspects and incidents. + +July 24, 1904. Rain--rain--rain. Cold. We built a fire in my room. +Then clawed the logs out & threw water, remembering there was a brood of +swallows in the chimney. The tragedy was averted. + +July 31. LEE, MASSACHUSETTS (BERKSHIRE HILLS). Last night the young +people out on a moonlight ride. Trolley frightened Jean's horse +--collision--horse killed. Rodman Gilder picked Jean up, unconscious; +she was taken to the doctor, per the car. Face, nose, side, back +contused; tendon of left ankle broken. + +August 10. NEW YORK. Clam here sick--never well since June 5. Jean is +at the summer home in the Berkshire Hills crippled. + +The next entry records the third death in the Clemens family within a +period of eight months--that of Mrs. Moffett, who had been Pamela +Clemens. Clemens writes: + + September 1. Died at Greenwich, Connecticut, my sister, Pamela + Moffett, aged about 73. + + Death dates this year January 14, June 5, September 1. + +That fall they took a house in New York City, on the corner of Ninth +Street and Fifth Avenue, No. 21, remaining for a time at the Grosvenor +while the new home was being set in order. The home furniture was +brought from Hartford, unwrapped, and established in the light of strange +environment. Clemens wrote: + +We have not seen it for thirteen years. Katie Leary, our old +housekeeper, who has been in our service more than twenty-four years, +cried when she told me about it to-day. She said, "I had forgotten it +was so beautiful, and it brought Mrs. Clemens right back to me--in that +old time when she was so young and lovely." + +Clara Clemens had not recovered from the strain of her mother's long +illness and the shock of her death, and she was ordered into retirement +with the care of a trained nurse. The life at 21 Fifth Avenue, +therefore, began with only two remaining members of the broken family +--Clemens and Jean. + +Clemens had undertaken to divert himself with work at Tyringham, though +without much success. He was not well; he was restless and disturbed; +his heart bleak with a great loneliness. He prepared an article on +Copyright for the 'North American Review',--[Published Jan., 7905. A +dialogue presentation of copyright conditions, addressed to Thorwald +Stolberg, Register of Copyrights, Washington, D. C. One of the best of +Mark Twain's papers on the subject.]--and he began, or at least +contemplated, that beautiful fancy, 'Eve's Diary', which in the widest +and most reverential sense, from the first word to the last, conveys his +love, his worship, and his tenderness for the one he had laid away. +Adam's single comment at the end, "Wheresoever she was, there was Eden," +was his own comment, and is perhaps the most tenderly beautiful line he +ever wrote. These two books, Adam's Diary and Eve's--amusing and +sometimes absurd as they are, and so far removed from the literal--are as +autobiographic as anything he has done, and one of them as lovely in its +truth. Like the first Maker of men, Mark Twain created Adam in his own +image; and his rare Eve is no less the companion with whom, half a +lifetime before, he had begun the marriage journey. Only here the +likeness ceases. No Serpent ever entered their Eden. And they never +left it; it traveled with them so long as they remained together. + +In the Christmas Harper for 1904 was published "Saint Joan of Arc"--the +same being the Joan introduction prepared in London five years before. +Joan's proposed beatification had stirred a new interest in the martyred +girl, and this most beautiful article became a sort of key-note of the +public heart. Those who read it were likely to go back and read the +Recollections, and a new appreciation grew for that masterpiece. In his +later and wider acceptance by his own land, and by the world at large, +the book came to be regarded with a fresh understanding. Letters came +from scores of readers, as if it were a newly issued volume. A +distinguished educator wrote: + + I would rather have written your history of Joan of Arc than any + other piece of literature in any language. + +And this sentiment grew. The demand for the book increased, and has +continued to increase, steadily and rapidly. In the long and last +analysis the good must prevail. A day will come when there will be as +many readers of Joan as of any other of Mark Twain's works. + +[The growing appreciation of Joan is shown by the report of sales for the +three years following 1904. The sales for that year in America were +1,726; for 1905, 2,445 for 1906, 5,381; for 1907, 6,574. At this point +it passed Pudd'nhead Wilson, the Yankee, The Gilded Age, Life on the +Mississippi, overtook the Tramp Abroad, and more than doubled The +American Claimant. Only The Innocents Abroad, Huckleberry Finn, Tom +Sawyer, and Roughing It still ranged ahead of it, in the order named.] + + + + +CCXXXIV + +LIFE AT 21 FIFTH AVENUE + +The house at 21 Fifth Avenue, built by the architect who had designed +Grace Church, had a distinctly ecclesiastical suggestion about its +windows, and was of fine and stately proportions within. It was a proper +residence for a venerable author and a sage, and with the handsome +Hartford furnishings distributed through it, made a distinctly suitable +setting for Mark Twain. But it was lonely for him. It lacked soul. He +added, presently, a great AEolian Orchestrelle, with a variety of music +for his different moods. He believed that he would play it himself when +he needed the comfort of harmony, and that Jean, who had not received +musical training, or his secretary could also play to him. He had a +passion for music, or at least for melody and stately rhythmic measures, +though his ear was not attuned to what are termed the more classical +compositions. For Wagner, for instance, he cared little, though in a +letter to Mrs. Crane he said: + +Certainly nothing in the world is so solemn and impressive and so +divinely beautiful as "Tannhauser." It ought to be used as a religious +service. + +Beethoven's sonatas and symphonies also moved him deeply. Once, writing +to Jean, he asked: + +What is your favorite piece of music, dear? Mine is Beethoven's Fifth +Symphony. I have found that out within a day or two. + +It was the majestic movement and melodies of the second part that he +found most satisfying; but he oftener inclined to the still tenderer +themes of Chopin's nocturnes and one of Schubert's impromptus, while the +"Lorelei" and the "Erlking" and the Scottish airs never wearied him. +Music thus became a chief consolation during these lonely days--rich +organ harmonies that filled the emptiness of his heart and beguiled from +dull, material surroundings back into worlds and dreams that he had known +and laid away. + +He went out very little that winter--usually to the homes of old and +intimate friends. Once he attended a small dinner given him by George +Smalley at the Metropolitan Club; but it was a private affair, with only +good friends present. Still, it formed the beginning of his return to +social life, and it was not in his nature to retire from the brightness +of human society, or to submerge himself in mourning. As the months wore +on he appeared here and there, and took on something of his old-time +habit. Then his annual bronchitis appeared, and he was confined a good +deal to his home, where he wrote or planned new reforms and enterprises. + +The improvement of railway service, through which fewer persons should be +maimed and destroyed each year, interested him. He estimated that the +railroads and electric lines killed and wounded more than all of the wars +combined, and he accumulated statistics and prepared articles on the +subject, though he appears to have offered little of such matter for +publication. Once, however, when his sympathy was awakened by the victim +of a frightful trolley and train collision in Newark, New Jersey, he +wrote a letter which promptly found its way into print. + + DEAR MISS MADELINE, Your good & admiring & affectionate brother has + told me of your sorrowful share in the trolley disaster which + brought unaccustomed tears to millions of eyes & fierce resentment + against those whose criminal indifference to their responsibilities + caused it, & the reminder has brought back to me a pang out of that + bygone time. I wish I could take you sound & whole out of your bed + & break the legs of those officials & put them in it--to stay there. + For in my spirit I am merciful, and would not break their necks & + backs also, as some would who have no feeling. + + It is your brother who permits me to write this line--& so it is not + an intrusion, you see. + + May you get well-& soon! + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +A very little later he was writing another letter on a similar subject to +St. Clair McKelway, who had narrowly escaped injury in a railway +accident. + + DEAR McKELWAY, Your innumerable friends are grateful, most grateful. + + As I understand the telegrams, the engineers of your train had never + seen a locomotive before . . . . The government's official + report, showing that our railways killed twelve hundred persons last + year & injured sixty thousand, convinces me that under present + conditions one Providence is not enough properly & efficiently to + take care of our railroad business. But it is characteristically + American--always trying to get along short-handed & save wages. + +A massacre of Jews in Moscow renewed his animosity for semi-barbaric +Russia. Asked for a Christmas sentiment, he wrote: + + It is my warm & world-embracing Christmas hope that all of us that + deserve it may finally be gathered together in a heaven of rest & + peace, & the others permitted to retire into the clutches of Satan, + or the Emperor of Russia, according to preference--if they have a + preference. + +An article, "The Tsar's Soliloquy," written at this time, was published +in the North American Review for March (1905). He wrote much more, but +most of the other matter he put aside. On a subject like that he always +discarded three times as much as he published, and it was usually about +three times as terrific as that which found its way into type. "The +Soliloquy," however, is severe enough. It represents the Tsar as +contemplating himself without his clothes, and reflecting on what a poor +human specimen he presents: + + Is it this that 140,000,000 Russians kiss the dust before and + worship?--manifestly not! No one could worship this spectacle which + is Me. Then who is it, what is it, that they worship? Privately, + none knows better than I: it is my clothes! Without my clothes I + should be as destitute of authority as any other naked person. No + one could tell me from a parson and barber tutor. Then who is the + real Emperor of Russia! My clothes! There is no other. + +The emperor continues this fancy, and reflects on the fierce cruelties +that are done in his name. It was a withering satire on Russian +imperialism, and it stirred a wide response. This encouraged Clemens to +something even more pretentious and effective in the same line. He wrote +"King Leopold's Soliloquy," the reflections of the fiendish sovereign who +had maimed and slaughtered fifteen millions of African subjects in his +greed--gentle, harmless blacks-men, women, and little children whom he +had butchered and mutilated in his Congo rubber-fields. Seldom in the +history of the world have there been such atrocious practices as those of +King Leopold in the Congo, and Clemens spared nothing in his picture of +them. The article was regarded as not quite suitable for magazine +publication, and it was given to the Congo Reform Association and issued +as a booklet for distribution, with no return to the author, who would +gladly have written a hundred times as much if he could have saved that +unhappy race and have sent Leopold to the electric chair.--[The book was +price-marked twenty-five cents, but the returns from such as were sold +went to the cause. Thousands of them were distributed free. The Congo, +a domain four times as large as the German empire, had been made the ward +of Belgium at a convention in Berlin by the agreement of fourteen +nations, America and thirteen European states. Leopold promptly seized +the country for his personal advantage and the nations apparently found +themselves powerless to depose him. No more terrible blunder was ever +committed by an assemblage of civilized people.] + +Various plans and movements were undertaken for Congo reform, and Clemens +worked and wrote letters and gave his voice and his influence and +exhausted his rage, at last, as one after another of the half-organized +and altogether futile undertakings showed no results. His interest did +not die, but it became inactive. Eventually he declared: "I have said +all I can say on that terrible subject. I am heart and soul in any +movement that will rescue the Congo and hang Leopold, but I cannot write +any more." + +His fires were likely to burn themselves out, they raged so fiercely. His +final paragraph on the subject was a proposed epitaph for Leopold when +time should have claimed him. It ran: + + Here under this gilded tomb lies rotting the body of one the smell + of whose name will still offend the nostrils of men ages upon ages + after all the Caesars and Washingtons & Napoleons shall have ceased + to be praised or blamed & been forgotten--Leopold of Belgium. + +Clemens had not yet lost interest in the American policy in the +Philippines, and in his letters to Twichell he did not hesitate to +criticize the President's attitude in this and related matters. Once, +in a moment of irritation, he wrote: + + DEAR JOE,--I knew I had in me somewhere a definite feeling about the + President. If I could only find the words to define it with! Here + they are, to a hair--from Leonard Jerome: + + "For twenty years I have loved Roosevelt the man, and hated + Roosevelt the statesman and politician." + + It's mighty good. Every time in twenty-five years that I have met + Roosevelt the man a wave of welcome has streaked through me with the + hand-grip; but whenever (as a rule) I meet Roosevelt the statesman & + politician I find him destitute of morals & not respect-worthy. It + is plain that where his political self & party self are concerned he + has nothing resembling a conscience; that under those inspirations + he is naively indifferent to the restraints of duty & even unaware + of them; ready to kick the Constitution into the back yard whenever + it gets in his way.... + + But Roosevelt is excusable--I recognize it & (ought to) concede it. + We are all insane, each in his own way, & with insanity goes + irresponsibility. Theodore the man is sane; in fairness we ought to + keep in mind that Theodore, as statesman & politician, is insane & + irresponsible. + +He wrote a great deal more from time to time on this subject; but that is +the gist of his conclusions, and whether justified by time, or otherwise, +it expresses today the deduction of a very large number of people. It is +set down here, because it is a part of Mark Twain's history, and also +because a little while after his death there happened to creep into print +an incomplete and misleading note (since often reprinted), which he once +made in a moment of anger, when he was in a less judicial frame of mind. +It seems proper that a man's honest sentiments should be recorded +concerning the nation's servants. + +Clemens wrote an article at this period which he called the "War Prayer." +It pictured the young recruits about to march away for war--the +excitement and the celebration--the drum-beat and the heart-beat of +patriotism--the final assembly in the church where the minister utters +that tremendous invocation: + + God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, + Thunder, Thy clarion, and lightning, Thy sword! + +and the "long prayer" for victory to the nation's armies. As the prayer +closes a white-robed stranger enters, moves up the aisle, and takes the +preacher's place; then, after some moments of impressive silence, he +begins: + + "I come from the Throne-bearing a message from Almighty God!..... + He has heard the prayer of His servant, your shepherd, & will grant + it if such shall be your desire after I His messenger shall have + explained to you its import--that is to say its full import. For it + is like unto many of the prayers of men in that it asks for more + than he who utters it is aware of--except he pause & think. + + "God's servant & yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused & taken + thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two--one uttered, the other + not. Both have reached the ear of Him who heareth all + supplications, the spoken & the unspoken . . . . + + "You have heard your servant's prayer--the uttered part of it. I am + commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it--that + part which the pastor--and also you in your hearts--fervently + prayed, silently. And ignorantly & unthinkingly? God grant that it + was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our + God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is + completed into those pregnant words. + + "Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken + part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen! + + "O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go + forth to battle--be Thou near them! With them--in spirit--we + also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to + smite the foe. + + "O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody + shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields + with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the + thunder of the guns with the wounded, writhing in pain; help us + to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help + us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with + unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their + little children to wander unfriended through wastes of their + desolated land in rags & hunger & thirst, sport of the sun- + flames of summer & the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, + worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave & + denied it--for our sakes, who adore Thee, Lord, blast their + hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, + make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain + the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask of + one who is the Spirit of love & who is the ever-faithful refuge + & friend of all that are sore beset, & seek His aid with humble + & contrite hearts. Grant our prayer, O Lord; & Thine shall be + the praise & honor & glory now & ever, Amen." + + (After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, + speak!--the messenger of the Most High waits." + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + + It was believed, afterward, that the man was a lunatic, because + there was no sense in what he said. + +To Dan Beard, who dropped in to see him, Clemens read the "War Prayer," +stating that he had read it to his daughter Jean, and others, who had +told him he must not print it, for it would be regarded as sacrilege. + +"Still you--are going to publish it, are you not?" + +Clemens, pacing up and down the room in his dressing-gown and slippers, +shook his head. + +"No," he said, "I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead men +can tell the truth in this world. It can be published after I am dead." + +He did not care to invite the public verdict that he was a lunatic, or +even a fanatic with a mission to destroy the illusions and traditions and +conclusions of mankind. To Twichell he wrote, playfully but sincerely: + +Am I honest? I give you my word of honor (privately) I am not. For +seven years I have suppressed a book which my conscience tells me I ought +to publish. I hold it a duty to publish it. There are other difficult +duties which I am equal to, but I am not equal to that one. Yes, even I +am dishonest. Not in many ways, but in some. Forty-one, I think it is. +We are certainly all honest in one or several ways--every man in the +world--though I have a reason to think I am the only one whose blacklist +runs so light. Sometimes I feel lonely enough in this lofty solitude. + +It was his Gospel he referred to as his unpublished book, his doctrine of +Selfishness, and of Man the irresponsible Machine. To Twichell he +pretended to favor war, which he declared, to his mind, was one of the +very best methods known of diminishing the human race. + +What a life it is!--this one! Everything we try to do, somebody intrudes +& obstructs it. After years of thought & labor I have arrived within one +little bit of a step of perfecting my invention for exhausting the oxygen +in the globe's air during a stretch of two minutes, & of course along +comes an obstructor who is inventing something to protect human life. +Damn such a world anyway. + +He generally wrote Twichell when he had things to say that were outside +of the pale of print. He was sure of an attentive audience of one, and +the audience, whether it agreed with him or not, would at least +understand him and be honored by his confidence. In one letter of that +year he said: + +I have written you to-day, not to do you a service, but to do myself one. +There was bile in me. I had to empty it or lose my day to-morrow. If I +tried to empty it into the North American Review--oh, well, I couldn't +afford the risk. No, the certainty! The certainty that I wouldn't be +satisfied with the result; so I would burn it, & try again to-morrow; +burn that and try again the next day. It happens so nearly every time. I +have a family to support, & I can't afford this kind of dissipation. Last +winter when I was sick I wrote a magazine article three times before I +got it to suit me. I Put $500 worth of work on it every day for ten +days, & at last when I got it to suit me it contained but 3,000 +words-$900. I burned it & said I would reform. + +And I have reformed. I have to work my bile off whenever it gets to +where I can't stand it, but I can work it off on you economically, +because I don't have to make it suit me. It may not suit you, but that +isn't any matter; I'm not writing it for that. I have used you as an +equilibrium--restorer more than once in my time, & shall continue, I +guess. I would like to use Mr. Rogers, & he is plenty good-natured +enough, but it wouldn't be fair to keep him rescuing me from my +leather-headed business snarls & make him read interminable +bile-irruptions besides; I can't use Howells, he is busy & old & lazy, & +won't stand it; I dasn't use Clara, there's things I have to say which +she wouldn't put up with--a very dear little ashcat, but has claws. And +so--you're It. + + [See the preface to the "Autobiography of Mark Twain": 'I am writing + from the grave. On these terms only can a man be approximately + frank. He cannot be straitly and unqualifiedly frank either in the + grave or out of it.' D.W.] + + + + +CCXXXV + +A SUMMER IN NEW HAMPSHIRE + +He took for the summer a house at Dublin, New Hampshire, the home of +Henry Copley Greene, Lone Tree Hill, on the Monadnock slope. It was in a +lovely locality, and for neighbors there were artists, literary people, +and those of kindred pursuits, among them a number of old friends. +Colonel Higginson had a place near by, and Abbott H. Thayer, the painter, +and George de Forest Brush, and the Raphael Pumpelly family, and many +more. + +Colonel Higginson wrote Clemens a letter of welcome as soon as the news +got out that he was going to Dublin; and Clemens, answering, said: + + I early learned that you would be my neighbor in the summer & I + rejoiced, recognizing in you & your family a large asset. I hope + for frequent intercourse between the two households. I shall have + my youngest daughter with me. The other one will go from the rest- + cure in this city to the rest-cure in Norfolk, Connecticut; & we + shall not see her before autumn. We have not seen her since the + middle of October. + + Jean, the younger daughter, went to Dublin & saw the house & came + back charmed with it. I know the Thayers of old--manifestly there + is no lack of attractions up there. Mrs. Thayer and I were + shipmates in a wild excursion perilously near 40 years ago. + + Aldrich was here half an hour ago, like a breeze from over the + fields, with the fragrance still upon his spirit. I am tired + wanting for that man to get old. + +They went to Dublin in May, and became at once a part of the summer +colony which congregated there. There was much going to and fro among +the different houses, pleasant afternoons in the woods, mountain-climbing +for Jean, and everywhere a spirit of fine, unpretentious comradeship. + +The Copley Greene house was romantically situated, with a charming +outlook. Clemens wrote to Twichell: + + We like it here in the mountains, in the shadows of Monadnock. It + is a woody solitude. We have no near neighbors. We have neighbors + and I can see their houses scattered in the forest distances, for we + live on a hill. I am astonished to find that I have known 8 of + these 14 neighbors a long time; 10 years is the shortest; then seven + beginning with 25 years & running up to 37 years' friendship. It is + the most remarkable thing I ever heard of. + +This letter was written in July, and he states in it that he has turned +out one hundred thousand words of a large manuscript. . It was a +fantastic tale entitled "3,000 Years among the Microbes," a sort of +scientific revel--or revelry--the autobiography of a microbe that had +been once a man, and through a failure in a biological experiment +transformed into a cholera germ when the experimenter was trying to turn +him into a bird. His habitat was the person of a disreputable tramp +named Blitzowski, a human continent of vast areas, with seething microbic +nations and fantastic life problems. It was a satire, of course +--Gulliver's Lilliput outdone--a sort of scientific, socialistic, +mathematical jamboree. + +He tired of it before it reached completion, though not before it had +attained the proportions of a book of size. As a whole it would hardly +have added to his reputation, though it is not without fine and humorous +passages, and certainly not without interest. Its chief mission was to +divert him mentally that summer during, those days and nights when he +would otherwise have been alone and brooding upon his loneliness.--[For +extracts from "3,000 Years among the Microbes" see Appendix V, at the end +of this work.] +MARK TWAIN'S SUGGESTED TITLE-PAGE FOR HIS MICROBE BOOK: + + 3000 YEARS + AMONG THE MICROBES + + By a Microbe + + WITH NOTES + added by the same Hand + 7000 years later + + Translated from the Original + Microbic + by + + Mark Twain + +His inability to reproduce faces in his mind's eye he mourned as an +increasing calamity. Photographs were lifeless things, and when he tried +to conjure up the faces of his dead they seemed to drift farther out of +reach; but now and then kindly sleep brought to him something out of that +treasure-house where all our realities are kept for us fresh and fair, +perhaps for a day when we may claim them again. Once he wrote to Mrs. +Crane: + + SUSY DEAR,--I have had a lovely dream. Livy, dressed in black, was + sitting up in my bed (here) at my right & looking as young & sweet + as she used to when she was in health. She said, "What is the name + of your sweet sister?" I said, "Pamela." "Oh yes, that is it, I + thought it was--(naming a name which has escaped me) won't you write + it down for me?" I reached eagerly for a pen & pad, laid my hands + upon both, then said to myself, "It is only a dream," and turned + back sorrowfully & there she was still. The conviction flamed + through me that our lamented disaster was a dream, & this a reality. + I said, "How blessed it is, how blessed it is, it was all a dream, + only a dream!" She only smiled and did not ask what dream I meant, + which surprised me. She leaned her head against mine & kept saying, + "I was perfectly sure it was a dream; I never would have believed it + wasn't." I think she said several things, but if so they are gone + from my memory. I woke & did not know I had been dreaming. She was + gone. I wondered how she could go without my knowing it, but I did + not spend any thought upon that. I was too busy thinking of how + vivid & real was the dream that we had lost her, & how unspeakably + blessed it was to find that it was not true & that she was still + ours & with us. + +He had the orchestrelle moved to Dublin, although it was no small +undertaking, for he needed the solace of its harmonies; and so the days +passed along, and he grew stronger in body and courage as his grief +drifted farther behind him. Sometimes, in the afternoon or in the +evening; when the neighbors had come in for a little while, he would walk +up and down and talk in his old, marvelous way of all the things on land +and sea, of the past and of the future, "Of Providence, foreknowledge, +will, and fate," of the friends he had known and of the things he had +done, of the sorrow and absurdities of the world. + +It was the same old scintillating, incomparable talk of which Howells +once said: + +"We shall never know its like again. When he dies it will die with him." + +It was during the summer at Dublin that Clemens and Rogers together made +up a philanthropic ruse on Twichell. Twichell, through his own prodigal +charities, had fallen into debt, a fact which Rogers knew. Rogers was a +man who concealed his philanthropies when he could, and he performed many +of them of which the world will never know: In this case he said: + +"Clemens, I want to help Twichell out of his financial difficulty. I +will supply the money and you will do the giving. Twichell must think it +comes from you." + +Clemens agreed to this on the condition that he be permitted to leave a +record of the matter for his children, so that he would not appear in a +false light to them, and that Twichell should learn the truth of the +gift, sooner or later. So the deed was done, and Twichell and his wife +lavished their thanks upon Clemens, who, with his wife, had more than +once been their benefactors, making the deception easy enough now. +Clemens writhed under these letters of gratitude, and forwarded them to +Clara in Norfolk, and later to Rogers himself. He pretended to take +great pleasure in this part of the conspiracy, but it was not an unmixed +delight. To Rogers he wrote: + + I wanted her [Clara] to see what a generous father she's got. I + didn't tell her it was you, but by and by I want to tell her, when I + have your consent; then I shall want her to remember the letters. I + want a record there, for my Life when I am dead, & must be able to + furnish the facts about the Relief-of-Lucknow-Twichell in case I + fall suddenly, before I get those facts with your consent, before + the Twichells themselves. + + I read those letters with immense pride! I recognized that I had + scored one good deed for sure on my halo account. I haven't had + anything that tasted so good since the stolen watermelon. + + P. S.-I am hurrying them off to you because I dasn't read them + again! I should blush to my heels to fill up with this unearned + gratitude again, pouring out of the thankful hearts of those poor + swindled people who do not suspect you, but honestly believe I gave + that money. + +Mr. Rogers hastily replied: + + MY DEAR CLEMENS,--The letters are lovely. Don't breathe. They are + so happy! It would be a crime to let them think that you have in + any way deceived them. I can keep still. You must. I am sending + you all traces of the crime, so that you may look innocent and tell + the truth, as you usually do when you think you can escape + detection. Don't get rattled. + + Seriously. You have done a kindness. You are proud of it, I know. + You have made your friends happy, and you ought to be so glad as to + cheerfully accept reproof from your conscience. Joe Wadsworth and I + once stole a goose and gave it to a poor widow as a Christmas + present. No crime in that. I always put my counterfeit money on + the plate. "The passer of the sasser" always smiles at me and I get + credit for doing generous things. But seriously again, if you do + feel a little uncomfortable wait until I see you before you tell + anybody. Avoid cultivating misery. I am trying to loaf ten solid + days. We do hope to see you soon. + +The secret was kept, and the matter presently (and characteristically) +passed out of Clemens's mind altogether. He never remembered to tell +Twichell, and it is revealed here, according to his wish. + +The Russian-Japanese war was in progress that summer, and its settlement +occurred in August. The terms of it did not please Mark Twain. When a +newspaper correspondent asked him for an expression of opinion on the +subject he wrote: + + Russia was on the highroad to emancipation from an insane and + intolerable slavery. I was hoping there would be no peace until + Russian liberty was safe. I think that this was a holy war, in the + best and noblest sense of that abused term, and that no war was ever + charged with a higher mission. + + I think there can be no doubt that that mission is now defeated and + Russia's chain riveted; this time to stay. I think the Tsar will + now withdraw the small humanities that have been forced from him, + and resume his medieval barbarisms with a relieved spirit and an + immeasurable joy. I think Russian liberty has had its last chance + and has lost it. + + I think nothing has been gained by the peace that is remotely + comparable to what has been sacrificed by it. One more battle would + have abolished the waiting chains of billions upon billions of + unborn Russians, and I wish it could have been fought. I hope I am + mistaken, yet in all sincerity I believe that this peace is entitled + to rank as the most conspicuous disaster in political history. + +It was the wisest public utterance on the subject--the deep, resonant +note of truth sounding amid a clamor of foolish joy-bells. It was the +message of a seer--the prophecy of a sage who sees with the clairvoyance +of knowledge and human understanding. Clemens, a few days later, was +invited by Colonel Harvey to dine with Baron Rosen and M. Sergius Witte; +but an attack of his old malady--rheumatism--prevented his acceptance. +His telegram of declination apparently pleased the Russian officials, for +Witte asked permission to publish it, and declared that he was going to +take it home to show to the Tsar. It was as follows: + +To COLONEL HARVEY,--I am still a cripple, otherwise I should be more than +glad of this opportunity to meet the illustrious magicians who came here +equipped with nothing but a pen, & with it have divided the honors of the +war with the sword. It is fair to presume that in thirty centuries +history will not get done in admiring these men who attempted what the +world regarded as the impossible & achieved it. + MARK TWAIN. + +But this was a modified form. His original draft would perhaps have been +less gratifying to that Russian embassy. It read: + + To COLONEL HARVEY,--I am still a cripple, otherwise I should be more + than glad of this opportunity to meet those illustrious magicians + who with the pen have annulled, obliterated, & abolished every high + achievement of the Japanese sword and turned the tragedy of a + tremendous war into a gay & blithesome comedy. If I may, let me in + all respect and honor salute them as my fellow-humorists, I taking + third place, as becomes one who was not born to modesty, but by + diligence & hard work is acquiring it. + MARK. + +There was still another form, brief and expressive: + +DEAR COLONEL,--No, this is a love-feast; when you call a lodge of sorrow +send for me. MARK. + +Clemens's war sentiment was given the widest newspaper circulation, and +brought him many letters, most of them applauding his words. Charles +Francis Adams wrote him: + + It attracted my attention because it so exactly expresses the views + I have myself all along entertained. + +And this was the gist of most of the expressed sentiments which came to +him. + +Clemens wrote a number of things that summer, among them a little essay +entitled, "The Privilege of the Grave"--that is to say, free speech. He +was looking forward, he said, to the time when he should inherit that +privilege, when some of the things he had said, written and laid away, +could be published without damage to his friends or family. An article +entitled, "Interpreting the Deity," he counted as among the things to be +uttered when he had entered into that last great privilege. It is an +article on the reading of signs and auguries in all ages to discover the +intentions of the Almighty, with historical examples of God's judgments +and vindications. Here is a fair specimen. It refers to the chronicle +of Henry Huntington: + + All through this book Henry exhibits his familiarity with the + intentions of God and with the reasons for the intentions. + Sometimes very often, in fact--the act follows the intention after + such a wide interval of time that one wonders how Henry could fit + one act out of a hundred to one intention, and get the thing right + every time, when there was such abundant choice among acts and + intentions. Sometimes a man offends the Deity with a crime, and is + punished for it thirty years later; meantime he has committed a + million other crimes: no matter, Henry can pick out the one that + brought the worms. Worms were generally used in those days for the + slaying of particularly wicked people. This has gone out now, but + in the old times it was a favorite. It always indicated a case of + "wrath." For instance: + + "The just God avenging Robert Fitzhildebrand's perfidity, a worm + grew in his vitals which, gradually gnawing its way through his + intestines, fattened on the abandoned man till, tortured with + excruciating sufferings and venting himself in bitter moans, he was + by a fitting punishment brought to his end" (p. 400). + + It was probably an alligator, but we cannot tell; we only know it + was a particular breed, and only used to convey wrath. Some + authorities think it was an ichthyosaurus, but there is much doubt. + +The entire article is in this amusing, satirical strain, and might well +enough be printed to-day. It is not altogether clear why it was +withheld, even then. + +He finished his Eve's Diary that summer, and wrote a story which was +originally planned to oblige Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske, to aid her in a +crusade against bullfighting in Spain. Mrs. Fiske wrote him that she had +read his dog story, written against the cruelties of vivisection, and +urged him to do something to save the horses that, after faithful +service, were sacrificed in the bull-ring. Her letter closed: + + I have lain awake nights very often wondering if I dare ask you to + write a story of an old horse that is finally given over to the + bull-ring. The story you would write would do more good than all + the laws we are trying to have made and enforced for the prevention + of cruelty to animals in Spain. We would translate and circulate + the story in that country. I have wondered if you would ever write + it. + + With most devoted homage, + Sincerely yours, + MINNIE MADDERN FISKE. + +Clemens promptly replied: + +DEAR MRS. FISKE, I shall certainly write the story. But I may not get it +to suit me, in which case it will go in the fire. Later I will try it +again--& yet again--& again. I am used to this. It has taken me twelve +years to write a short story--the shortest one I ever wrote, I think. +--[Probably "The Death Disk:"]--So do not be discouraged; I will stick to +this one in the same way. + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + +It was an inspiring subject, and he began work on it immediately. Within +a month from the time he received Mrs. Fiske's letter he had written that +pathetic, heartbreaking little story, "A Horse's Tale," and sent it to +Harper's Magazine for illustration. In a letter written to Mr. Duneka at +the time, he tells of his interest in the narrative, and adds: + + This strong interest is natural, for the heroine is my small + daughter Susy, whom we lost. It was not intentional--it was a good + while before I found it out, so I am sending you her picture to use + --& to reproduce with photographic exactness the unsurpassable + expression & all. May you find an artist who has lost an idol. + +He explains how he had put in a good deal of work, with his secretary, on +the orchestrelle to get the bugle-calls. + + We are to do these theatricals this evening with a couple of + neighbors for audience, and then pass the hat. + +It is not one of Mark Twain's greatest stories, but its pathos brings the +tears, and no one can read it without indignation toward the custom which +it was intended to oppose. When it was published, a year later, Mrs. +Fiske sent him her grateful acknowledgments, and asked permission to have +it printed for pamphlet circulation m Spain. + +A number of more or less notable things happened in this, Mark Twain's +seventieth year. There was some kind of a reunion going on in +California, and he was variously invited to attend. Robert Fulton, of +Nevada, was appointed a committee of one to invite him to Reno for a +great celebration which was to be held there. Clemens replied that he +remembered, as if it were but yesterday, when he had disembarked from the +Overland stage in front of the Ormsby Hotel, in Carson City, and told how +he would like to accept the invitation. + +If I were a few years younger I would accept it, and promptly, and I +would go. I would let somebody else do the oration, but as for me I +would talk--just talk. I would renew my youth; and talk--and talk--and +talk--and have the time of my life! I would march the unforgotten and +unforgetable antiques by, and name their names, and give them reverent +hail and farewell as they passed--Goodman, McCarthy, Gillis, Curry, +Baldwin, Winters, Howard, Nye, Stewart, Neely Johnson, Hal Clayton, +North, Root--and my brother, upon whom be peace!--and then the +desperadoes, who made life a joy, and the "slaughter-house," a precious +possession: Sam Brown, Farmer Pete, Bill Mayfield, Six-fingered Jake, +Jack Williams, and the rest of the crimson discipleship, and so on, and +so on. Believe me, I would start a resurrection it would do you more +good to look at than the next one will, if you go on the way you are +going now. + +Those were the days!--those old ones. They will come no more; youth will +come no more. They were so full to the brim with the wine of life; there +have been no others like them. It chokes me up to think of them. Would +you like me to come out there and cry? It would not beseem my white +head. + +Good-by. I drink to you all. Have a good time-and take an old man's +blessing. + +In reply to another invitation from H. H. Bancroft, of San Francisco, he +wrote that his wandering days were over, and that it was his purpose to +sit by the fire for the rest of his "remnant of life." + + A man who, like me, is going to strike 70 on the 30th of next + November has no business to be flitting around the way Howells does + --that shameless old fictitious butterfly. (But if he comes don't + tell him I said it, for it would hurt him & I wouldn't brush a flake + of powder from his wing for anything. I only say it in envy of his + indestructible youth anyway. Howells will be 88 in October.) + +And it was either then or on a similar occasion that he replied after +this fashion: + + I have done more for San Francisco than any other of its old + residents. Since I left there it has increased in population fully + 300,000. I could have done more--I could have gone earlier--it was + suggested. + +Which, by the way, is a perfect example of Mark Twain's humorous manner, +the delicately timed pause, and the afterthought. Most humorists would +have been contented to end with the statement, "I could have gone +earlier." Only Mark Twain could have added that final exquisite touch +--"it was suggested." + + + + +CCXXXVI + +AT PIER 70 + +Mark Twain was nearing seventy, the scriptural limitation of life, and +the returns were coming in. Some one of the old group was dying all the +time. The roll-call returned only a scattering answer. Of his oldest +friends, Charles Henry Webb, John Hay, and Sir Henry Irving, all died +that year. When Hay died Clemens gave this message to the press: + + I am deeply grieved, & I mourn with the nation this loss which is + irreparable. My friendship with Mr. Hay & my admiration of him + endured 38 years without impairment. + +It was only a little earlier that he had written Hay an anonymous letter, +a copy of which he preserved. It here follows: + + DEAR & HONORED SIR,--I never hear any one speak of you & of your + long roll of illustrious services in other than terms of pride & + praise--& out of the heart. I think I am right in believing you to + be the only man in the civil service of the country the cleanness of + whose motives is never questioned by any citizen, & whose acts + proceed always upon a broad & high plane, never by accident or + pressure of circumstance upon a narrow or low one. There are + majorities that are proud of more than one of the nation's great + servants, but I believe, & I think I know, that you are the only one + of whom the entire nation is proud. Proud & thankful. + + Name & address are lacking here, & for a purpose: to leave you no + chance to make my words a burden to you and a reproach to me, who + would lighten your burdens if I could, not add to them. + +Irving died in October, and Clemens ordered a wreath for his funeral. To +MacAlister he wrote: + + I profoundly grieve over Irving's death. It is another reminder. + My section of the procession has but a little way to go. I could + not be very sorry if I tried. + +Mark Twain, nearing seventy, felt that there was not much left for him to +celebrate; and when Colonel Harvey proposed a birthday gathering in his +honor, Clemens suggested a bohemian assembly over beer and sandwiches in +some snug place, with Howells, Henry Rogers, Twichell, Dr. Rice, Dr. +Edward Quintard, Augustus Thomas, and such other kindred souls as were +still left to answer the call. But Harvey had something different in +view: something more splendid even than the sixty-seventh birthday feast, +more pretentious, indeed, than any former literary gathering. He felt +that the attainment of seventy years by America's most distinguished man +of letters and private citizen was a circumstance which could not be +moderately or even modestly observed. The date was set five days later +than the actual birthday--that is to say, on December 5th, in order that +it might not conflict with the various Thanksgiving holidays and +occasions. Delmonico's great room was chosen for the celebration of it, +and invitations were sent out to practically every writer of any +distinction in America, and to many abroad. Of these nearly two hundred +accepted, while such as could not come sent pathetic regrets. + +What an occasion it was! The flower of American literature gathered to +do honor to its chief. The whole atmosphere of the place seemed +permeated with his presence, and when Colonel Harvey presented William +Dean Howells, and when Howells had read another double-barreled sonnet, +and introduced the guest of the evening with the words, "I will not say, +'O King, live forever,' but, 'O King, live as long as you like!'" and +Mark Twain rose, his snow-white hair gleaming above that brilliant +assembly, it seemed that a world was speaking out in a voice of applause +and welcome. With a great tumult the throng rose, a billow of life, the +white handkerchiefs flying foam-like on its crest. Those who had +gathered there realized that it was a mighty moment, not only in his life +but in theirs. They were there to see this supreme embodiment of the +American spirit as he scaled the mountain-top. He, too, realized the +drama of that moment--the marvel of it--and he must have flashed a swift +panoramic view backward over the long way he had come, to stand, as he +had himself once expressed it, "for a single, splendid moment on the Alps +of fame outlined against the sun." He must have remembered; for when he +came to speak he went back to the very beginning, to his very first +banquet, as he called it, when, as he said, "I hadn't any hair; I hadn't +any teeth; I hadn't any clothes." He sketched the meagerness of that +little hamlet which had seen his birth, sketched it playfully, +delightfully, so that his hearers laughed and shouted; but there was +always a tenderness under it all, and often the tears were not far +beneath the surface. He told of his habits of life, how he had attained +seventy years by simply sticking to a scheme of living which would kill +anybody else; how he smoked constantly, loathed exercise, and had no +other regularity of habits. Then, at last, he reached that wonderful, +unforgetable close: + + Threescore years and ten! + + It is the scriptural statute of limitations. After that you owe no + active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time- + expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase: You have served your + term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become + an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions + are not for you, nor any bugle-call but "lights out." You pay the + time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline if you prefer--and + without prejudice--for they are not legally collectable. + + The previous-engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you so + many twinges, you can lay aside forever; on this side of the grave + you will never need it again. If you shrink at thought of night, + and winter, and the late homecomings from the banquet and the lights + and laughter through the deserted streets--a desolation which would + not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends + are sleeping and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them, + but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can never + disturb them more--if you shrink at the thought of these things you + need only reply, "Your invitation honors me and pleases me because + you still keep me in your remembrance, but I am seventy; seventy, + and would nestle in the chimney-corner, and smoke my pipe, and read + my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, and + that when you in your turn shall arrive at Pier 70 you may step + aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your + course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart." + +The tears that had been lying in wait were not restrained now. If there +were any present who did not let them flow without shame, who did not +shout their applause from throats choked with sobs, the writer of these +lines failed to see them or to hear of them. There was not one who was +ashamed to pay the great tribute of tears. + +Many of his old friends, one after another, rose to tell their love for +him--Brander Matthews, Cable, Kate Douglas Riggs, Gilder, Carnegie, +Bangs, Bacheller--they kept it up far into the next morning. No other +arrival at Pier 70 ever awoke a grander welcome. + + + + +CCXXXVII + +AFTERMATH + +The announcement of the seventieth birthday dinner had precipitated a +perfect avalanche of letters, which continued to flow in until the news +accounts of it precipitated another avalanche. The carriers' bags were +stuffed with greetings that came from every part of the world, from every +class of humanity. They were all full of love and tender wishes. A card +signed only with initials said: "God bless your old sweet soul for having +lived." + +Aldrich, who could not attend the dinner, declared that all through the +evening he had been listening in his mind to a murmur of voices in the +hall at Delmonico's. A group of English authors in London combined in a +cable of congratulations. Anstey, Alfred Austin, Balfour, Barrie, Bryce, +Chesterton, Dobson, Doyle, Gosse, Hardy, Hope, Jacobs, Kipling, Lang, +Parker, Tenniel, Watson, and Zangwill were among the signatures. + +Helen Keller wrote: + + And you are seventy years old? Or is the report exaggerated, like + that of your death? I remember, when I saw you last, at the house + of dear Mr. Hutton, in Princeton, you said: + + "If a man is a pessimist before he is forty-eight he knows too much. + If he is an optimist after he is forty-eight he knows too little." + + Now we know you are an optimist, and nobody would dare to accuse one + on the "seven-terraced summit" of knowing little. So probably you + are not seventy after all, but only forty-seven! + +Helen Keller was right. Mark Twain was not a pessimist in his heart, but +only by premeditation. It was his observation and his logic that led him +to write those things that, even in their bitterness, somehow conveyed +that spirit of human sympathy which is so closely linked to hope. To +Miss Keller he wrote: + +"Oh, thank you for your lovely words!" + +He was given another birthday celebration that month--this time by the +Society of Illustrators. Dan Beard, president, was also toast-master; +and as he presented Mark Twain there was a trumpet-note, and a lovely +girl, costumed as Joan of Arc, entered and, approaching him, presented +him with a laurel wreath. It was planned and carried out as a surprise +to him, and he hardly knew for the moment whether it was a vision or a +reality. He was deeply affected, so much so that for several moments he +could not find his voice to make any acknowledgments. + +Clemens was more than ever sought now, and he responded when the cause +was a worthy one. He spoke for the benefit of the Russian sufferers at +the Casino on December 18th. Madame Sarah Bernhardt was also there, and +spoke in French. He followed her, declaring that it seemed a sort of +cruelty to inflict upon an audience our rude English after hearing that +divine speech flowing in that lucid Gallic tongue. + + It has always been a marvel to me--that French language; it has + always been a puzzle to me. How beautiful that language is! How + expressive it seems to be! How full of grace it is! + + And when it comes from lips like those, how eloquent and how limpid + it is! And, oh, I am always deceived--I always think I am going to + understand it. + + It is such a delight to me, such a delight to me, to meet Madame + Bernhardt, and laugh hand to hand and heart to heart with her. I + have seen her play, as we all have, and, oh, that is divine; but I + have always wanted to know Madame Bernhardt herself--her fiery self. + I have wanted to know that beautiful character. + + Why, she is the youngest person I ever saw, except myself--for I + always feel young when I come in the presence of young people. + +And truly, at seventy, Mark Twain was young, his manner, his movement, +his point of view-these were all, and always, young. + +A number of palmists about that time examined impressions of his hand +without knowledge as to the owner, and they all agreed that it was the +hand of a man with the characteristics of youth, with inspiration, and +enthusiasm, and sympathy--a lover of justice and of the sublime. They +all agreed, too, that he was a deep philosopher, though, alas! they +likewise agreed that he lacked the sense of humor, which is not as +surprising as it sounds, for with Mark Twain humor was never mere +fun-making nor the love of it; rather it was the flower of his philosophy +--its bloom and fragrance. + +When the fanfare and drum-beat of his birthday honors had passed by, and +a moment of calm had followed, Mark Twain set down some reflections on +the new estate he had achieved. The little paper, which forms a perfect +pendant to the "Seventieth Birthday Speech," here follows: + + OLD AGE + + I think it likely that people who have not been here will be + interested to know what it is like. I arrived on the thirtieth of + November, fresh from carefree & frivolous 69, & was disappointed. + + There is nothing novel about it, nothing striking, nothing to thrill + you & make your eye glitter & your tongue cry out, "Oh, it is + wonderful, perfectly wonderful!" Yes, it is disappointing. You + say, "Is this it?--this? after all this talk and fuss of a thousand + generations of travelers who have crossed this frontier & looked + about them & told what they saw & felt? Why, it looks just like + 69." + + And that is true. Also it is natural, for you have not come by the + fast express; you have been lagging & dragging across the world's + continents behind oxen; when that is your pace one country melts + into the next one so gradually that you are not able to notice the + change; 70 looks like 69; 69 looked like 68; 68 looked like 67--& so + on back & back to the beginning. If you climb to a summit & look + back--ah, then you see! + + Down that far-reaching perspective you can make out each country & + climate that you crossed, all the way up from the hot equator to the + ice-summit where you are perched. You can make out where Infancy + verged into Boyhood; Boyhood into down-lipped Youth; Youth into + bearded, indefinite Young-Manhood; indefinite Young-Manhood into + definite Manhood; definite Manhood, with large, aggressive + ambitions, into sobered & heedful Husbandhood & Fatherhood; these + into troubled & foreboding Age, with graying hair; this into Old + Age, white-headed, the temple empty, the idols broken, the + worshipers in their graves, nothing left but You, a remnant, a + tradition, belated fag-end of a foolish dream, a dream that was so + ingeniously dreamed that it seemed real all the time; nothing left + but You, center of a snowy desolation, perched on the ice-summit, + gazing out over the stages of that long trek & asking Yourself, + "Would you do it again if you had the chance?" + + + + +CCXXXVIII + +THE WRITER MEETS MARK TWAIN + +We have reached a point in this history where the narrative becomes +mainly personal, and where, at the risk of inviting the charge of +egotism, the form of the telling must change. + +It was at the end of 1901 that I first met Mark Twain--at The Players +Club on the night when he made the Founder's Address mentioned in an +earlier chapter. + +I was not able to arrive in time for the address, but as I reached the +head of the stairs I saw him sitting on the couch at the dining-room +entrance, talking earnestly to some one, who, as I remember it, did not +enter into my consciousness at all. I saw only that crown of white hair, +that familiar profile, and heard the slow modulations of his measured +speech. I was surprised to see how frail and old he looked. From his +pictures I had conceived him different. I did not realize that it was a +temporary condition due to a period of poor health and a succession of +social demands. I have no idea how long I stood there watching him. He +had been my literary idol from childhood, as he had been of so many +others; more than that, for the personality in his work had made him +nothing less than a hero to his readers. + +He rose presently to go, and came directly toward me. A year before I +had done what new writers were always doing--I had sent him a book I had +written, and he had done what he was always doing--acknowledged it with a +kindly letter. I made my thanks now an excuse for addressing him. It +warmed me to hear him say that he remembered the book, though at the time +I confess I thought it doubtful. Then he was gone; but the mind and ear +had photographed those vivid first impressions that remain always clear. + +It was the following spring that I saw him again--at an afternoon +gathering, and the memory of that occasion is chiefly important because I +met Mrs. Clemens there for the only time, and like all who met her, +however briefly, felt the gentleness and beauty of her spirit. I think I +spoke with her at two or three different moments during the afternoon, +and on each occasion was impressed with that feeling of acquaintanceship +which we immediately experience with those rare beings whose souls are +wells of human sympathy and free from guile. Bret Harte had just died, +and during the afternoon Mr. Clemens asked me to obtain for him some item +concerning the obsequies. + +It was more than three years before I saw him again. Meantime, a sort of +acquaintance had progressed. I had been engaged in writing the life of +Thomas Nast, the cartoonist, and I had found among the material a number +of letters to Nast from Mark Twain. I was naturally anxious to use those +fine characteristic letters, and I wrote him for his consent. He wished +to see the letters, and the permission that followed was kindness itself. +His admiration of Nast was very great. + +It was proper, under the circumstances, to send him a copy of the book +when it appeared; but that was 1904, his year of sorrow and absence, and +the matter was postponed. Then came the great night of his seventieth +birthday dinner, with an opportunity to thank him in person for the use +of the letters. There was only a brief exchange of words, and it was the +next day, I think, that I sent him a copy of the book. It did not occur +to me that I should hear of it again. + +We step back a moment here. Something more than a year earlier, through +a misunderstanding, Mark Twain's long association with The Players had +been severed. It was a sorrow to him, and a still greater sorrow to the +club. There was a movement among what is generally known' as the "Round +Table Group"--because its members have long had a habit of lunching at a +large, round table in a certain window--to bring him back again. David +Munro, associate editor of the North American Review--"David," a man well +loved of men--and Robert Reid, the painter, prepared this simple +document: + + TO + MARK TWAIN + from + THE CLANSMEN + + Will ye no come back again? + Will ye no come back again? + Better lo'ed ye canna be, + Will ye no come back again? + +It was signed by Munro and by Reid and about thirty others, and it +touched Mark Twain deeply. The lines had always moved him. He wrote: + + TO ROBT. REID & THE OTHERS-- + + WELL-BELOVED,--Surely those lovely verses went to Prince Charlie's + heart, if he had one, & certainly they have gone to mine. I shall + be glad & proud to come back again after such a moving & beautiful + compliment as this from comrades whom I have loved so long. I hope + you can poll the necessary vote; I know you will try, at any rate. + It will be many months before I can foregather with you, for this + black border is not perfunctory, not a convention; it symbolizes the + loss of one whose memory is the only thing I worship. + + It is not necessary for me to thank you--& words could not deliver + what I feel, anyway. I will put the contents of your envelope in + the small casket where I keep the things which have become sacred to + me. + S. L. C. + +So the matter was temporarily held in abeyance until he should return to +social life. At the completion of his seventieth year the club had taken +action, and Mark Twain had been brought back, not in the regular order of +things, but as an honorary life member without dues or duties. There was +only one other member of this class, Sir Henry Irving. + +The Players, as a club, does not give dinners. Whatever is done in that +way is done by one or more of the members in the private dining-room, +where there is a single large table that holds twenty-five, even thirty +when expanded to its limit. That room and that table have mingled with +much distinguished entertainment, also with history. Henry James made +his first after-dinner speech there, for one thing--at least he claimed +it was his first, though this is by the way. + +A letter came to me which said that those who had signed the plea for the +Prince's return were going to welcome him in the private dining-room on +the 5th of January. It was not an invitation, but a gracious privilege. +I was in New York a day or two in advance of the date, and I think David +Munro was the first person I met at The Players. As he greeted me his +eyes were eager with something he knew I would wish to hear. He had been +delegated to propose the dinner to Mark Twain, and had found him propped +up in bed, and noticed on the table near him a copy of the Nast book. I +suspect that Munro had led him to speak of it, and that the result had +lost nothing filtered through that radiant benevolence of his. + +The night of January 5, 1906, remains a memory apart from other dinners. +Brander Matthews presided, and Gilder was there, and Frank Millet and +Willard Metcalf and Robert Reid, and a score of others; some of them are +dead now, David Munro among them. It so happened that my seat was nearly +facing the guest of the evening, who, by custom of The Players, is placed +at the side and not at the end of the long table. He was no longer frail +and thin, as when I had first met him. He had a robust, rested look; his +complexion had the tints of a miniature painting. Lit by the glow of the +shaded candles, relieved against the dusk richness of the walls, he made +a picture of striking beauty. One could not take his eyes from it, and +to one guest at least it stirred the farthest memories. I suddenly saw +the interior of a farm-house sitting-room in the Middle West, where I had +first heard uttered the name of Mark Twain, and where night after night a +group gathered around the evening lamp to hear the tale of the first +pilgrimage, which, to a boy of eight, had seemed only a wonderful poem +and fairy tale. To Charles Harvey Genung, who sat next to me, I +whispered something of this, and how, during the thirty-six years since +then, no other human being to me had meant quite what Mark Twain had +meant--in literature, in life, in the ineffable thing which means more +than either, and which we call "inspiration," for lack of a truer word. +Now here he was, just across the table. It was the fairy tale come true. + +Genung said: + +"You should write his life." + +His remark seemed a pleasant courtesy, and was put aside as such. When +he persisted I attributed it to the general bloom of the occasion, and a +little to the wine, maybe, for the dinner was in its sweetest stage just +then--that happy, early stage when the first glass of champagne, or the +second, has proved its quality. He urged, in support of his idea, the +word that Munro had brought concerning the Nast book, but nothing of what +he said kindled any spark of hope. I could not but believe that some one +with a larger equipment of experience, personal friendship, and abilities +had already been selected for the task. By and by the speaking began +--delightful, intimate speaking in that restricted circle--and the matter +went out of my mind. + +When the dinner had ended, and we were drifting about the table in +general talk, I found an opportunity to say a word to the guest of the +evening about his Joan of Arc, which I had recently re-read. To my +happiness, he detained me while he told me the long-ago incident which +had led to his interest, not only in the martyred girl, but in all +literature. I think we broke up soon after, and descended to the lower +rooms. At any rate, I presently found the faithful Charles Genung +privately reasserting to me the proposition that I should undertake the +biography of Mark Twain. Perhaps it was the brief sympathy established +by the name of Joan of Arc, perhaps it was only Genung's insistent +purpose--his faith, if I may be permitted the word. Whatever it was, +there came an impulse, in the instant of bidding good-by to our guest of +honor, which prompted me to say: + +"May I call to see you, Mr. Clemens, some day?" + +And something--dating from the primal atom, I suppose--prompted him to +answer: + +"Yes, come soon." + +This was on Wednesday night, or rather on Thursday morning, for it was +past midnight, and a day later I made an appointment with his secretary +to call on Saturday. + +I can say truly that I set out with no more than the barest hope of +success, and wondering if I should have the courage, when I saw him, even +to suggest the thought in my mind. I know I did not have the courage to +confide in Genung that I had made the appointment--I was so sure it would +fail. I arrived at 21 Fifth Avenue and was shown into that long library +and drawing-room combined, and found a curious and deep interest in the +books and ornaments along the shelves as I waited. Then I was summoned, +and I remember ascending the stairs, wondering why I had come on so +futile an errand, and trying to think of an excuse to offer for having +come at all. + +He was propped up in bed--in that stately bed-sitting, as was his habit, +with his pillows placed at the foot, so that he might have always before +him the rich, carved beauty of its headboard. He was delving through a +copy of Huckleberry Finn, in search of a paragraph concerning which some +random correspondent had asked explanation. He was commenting +unfavorably on this correspondent and on miscellaneous letter-writing in +general. He pushed the cigars toward me, and the talk of these matters +ran along and blended into others more or less personal. By and by I +told him what so many thousands had told him before: what he had meant to +me, recalling the childhood impressions of that large, +black-and-gilt-covered book with its wonderful pictures and +adventures--the Mediterranean pilgrimage. Very likely it bored him--he +had heard it so often--and he was willing enough, I dare say, to let me +change the subject and thank him for the kindly word which David Munro +had brought. I do not remember what he said then, but I suddenly found +myself suggesting that out of his encouragement had grown a hope--though +certainly it was something less--that I might some day undertake a book +about himself. I expected the chapter to end at this point, and his +silence which followed seemed long and ominous. + +He said, at last, that at various times through his life he had been +preparing some autobiographical matter, but that he had tired of the +undertaking, and had put it aside. He added that he had hoped his +daughters would one day collect his letters; but that a biography--a +detailed story of personality and performance, of success and failure +--was of course another matter, and that for such a work no arrangement +had been made. He may have added one or two other general remarks; then, +turning those piercing agate-blue eyes directly upon me, he said: + +"When would you like to begin?" + +There was a dresser with a large mirror behind him. I happened to catch +my reflection in it, and I vividly recollect saying to it mentally: "This +is not true; it is only one of many similar dreams." But even in a dream +one must answer, and I said: + +"Whenever you like. I can begin now." + +He was always eager in any new undertaking. + +"Very good," he said. "The sooner, then, the better. Let's begin while +we are in the humor. The longer you postpone a thing of this kind the +less likely you are ever to get at it." + +This was on Saturday, as I have stated. I mentioned that my family was +still in the country, and that it would require a day or two to get +established in the city. I asked if Tuesday, January 9th, would be too +soon to begin. He agreed that Tuesday would do, and inquired something +about my plan of work. Of course I had formed nothing definite, but I +said that in similar undertakings a part of the work had been done with a +stenographer, who had made the notes while I prompted the subject to +recall a procession of incidents and episodes, to be supplemented with +every variety of material obtainable--letters and other documentary +accumulations. Then he said: + +"I think I should enjoy dictating to a stenographer, with some one to +prompt me and to act as audience. The room adjoining this was fitted up +for my study. My manuscripts and notes and private books and many of my +letters are there, and there are a trunkful or two of such things in the +attic. I seldom use the room myself. I do my writing and reading in +bed. I will turn that room over to you for this work. Whatever you need +will be brought to you. We can have the dictation here in the morning, +and you can put in the rest of the day to suit yourself. You can have a +key and come and go as you please." + +That was always his way. He did nothing by halves; nothing without +unquestioning confidence and prodigality. He got up and showed me the +lovely luxury of the study, with its treasures of material. I did not +believe it true yet. It had all the atmosphere of a dream, and I have no +distinct recollection of how I came away. When I returned to The Players +and found Charles Harvey Genung there, and told him about it, it is quite +certain that he perjured himself when he professed to believe it true and +pretended that he was not surprised. + + + + +CCXXXIX + +WORKING WITH MARK TWAIN + +On Tuesday, January 9, 1906, I was on hand with a capable stenographer +--Miss Josephine Hobby, who had successively, and successfully, held +secretarial positions with Charles Dudley Warner and Mrs. Mary Mapes +Dodge, and was therefore peculiarly qualified for the work in hand. + +Clemens, meantime, had been revolving our plans and adding some features +of his own. He proposed to double the value and interest of our +employment by letting his dictations continue the form of those earlier +autobiographical chapters, begun with Redpath in 1885, and continued +later in Vienna and at the Villa Quarto. He said he did not think he +could follow a definite chronological program; that he would like to +wander about, picking up this point and that, as memory or fancy +prompted, without any particular biographical order. It was his purpose, +he declared, that his dictations should not be published until he had +been dead a hundred years or more--a prospect which seemed to give him an +especial gratification.--[As early as October, 1900, he had proposed to +Harper & Brothers a contract for publishing his personal memoirs at the +expiration of one hundred years from date; and letters covering the +details were exchanged with Mr. Rogers. The document, however, was not +completed.] + +He wished to pay the stenographer, and to own these memoranda, he said, +allowing me free access to them for any material I might find valuable. I +could also suggest subjects for dictation, and ask particulars of any +special episode or period. I believe this covered the whole arrangement, +which did not require more than five minutes, and we set to work without +further prologue. + +I ought to state that he was in bed when we arrived, and that he remained +there during almost all of these earlier dictations, clad in a handsome +silk dressing-gown of rich Persian pattern, propped against great snowy +pillows. He loved this loose luxury and ease, and found it conducive to +thought. On the little table beside him, where lay his cigars, papers, +pipes, and various knickknacks, shone a reading-lamp, making more +brilliant the rich coloring of his complexion and the gleam of his +shining hair. There was daylight, too, but it was north light, and the +winter days were dull. Also the walls of the room were a deep, +unreflecting red, and his eyes were getting old. The outlines of that +vast bed blending into the luxuriant background, the whole focusing to +the striking central figure, remain in my mind to-day--a picture of +classic value. + +He dictated that morning some matters connected with the history of the +Comstock mine; then he drifted back to his childhood, returning again to +the more modern period, and closed, I think, with some comments on +current affairs. It was absorbingly interesting; his quaint, unhurried +fashion of speech, the unconscious movement of his hands, the play of his +features as his fancies and phrases passed in mental review and were +accepted or waved aside. We were watching one of the great literary +creators of his time in the very process of his architecture. We +constituted about the most select audience in the world enjoying what +was, likely enough, its most remarkable entertainment. When he turned at +last and inquired the time we were all amazed that two hours and more had +slipped away. + +"And how much I have enjoyed it!" he said. "It is the ideal plan for +this kind of work. Narrative writing is always disappointing. The +moment you pick up a pen you begin to lose the spontaneity of the +personal relation, which contains the very essence of interest. With +shorthand dictation one can talk as if he were at his own dinner-table +--always a most inspiring place. I expect to dictate all the rest of my +life, if you good people are willing to come and listen to it." + +The dictations thus begun continued steadily from week to week, and +always with increasing charm. We never knew what he was going to talk +about, and it was seldom that he knew until the moment of beginning; then +he went drifting among episodes, incidents, and periods in his +irresponsible fashion; the fashion of table-conversation, as he said, the +methodless method of the human mind. It was always delightful, and +always amusing, tragic, or instructive, and it was likely to be one of +these at one instant, and another the next. I felt myself the most +fortunate biographer in the world, as undoubtedly I was, though not just +in the way that I first imagined. + +It was not for several weeks that I began to realize that these marvelous +reminiscences bore only an atmospheric relation to history; that they +were aspects of biography rather than its veritable narrative, and built +largely--sometimes wholly--from an imagination that, with age, had +dominated memory, creating details, even reversing them, yet with a +perfect sincerity of purpose on the part of the narrator to set down the +literal and unvarnished truth. It was his constant effort to be frank +and faithful to fact, to record, to confess, and to condemn without +stint. If you wanted to know the worst of Mark Twain you had only to ask +him for it. He would give it, to the last syllable--worse than the +worst, for his imagination would magnify it and adorn it with new +iniquities, and if he gave it again, or a dozen times, he would improve +upon it each time, until the thread of history was almost impossible to +trace through the marvel of that fabric; and he would do the same for +another person just as willingly. Those vividly real personalities that +he marched and countermarched before us were the most convincing +creatures in the world; the most entertaining, the most excruciatingly +humorous, or wicked, or tragic; but, alas, they were not always safe to +include in a record that must bear a certain semblance to history. They +often disagreed in their performance, and even in their characters, with +the documents in the next room, as I learned by and by when those +records, disentangled, began to rebuild the structure of the years. + +His gift of dramatization had been exercised too long to be discarded +now. The things he told of Mrs. Clemens and of Susy were true +--marvelously and beautifully true, in spirit and in aspect--and the +actual detail of these mattered little in such a record. The rest was +history only as 'Roughing It' is history, or the 'Tramp Abroad'; that is +to say, it was fictional history, with fact as a starting-point. In a +prefatory note to these volumes we have quoted Mark Twain's own lovely +and whimsical admission, made once when he realized his deviations: + +"When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or +not; but I am getting old, and soon I shall remember only the latter." + +At another time he paraphrased one of Josh Billings's sayings in the +remark: "It isn't so astonishing, the number of things that I can +remember, as the number of things I can remember that aren't so." + +I do not wish to say, by any means, that his so-called autobiography is a +mere fairy tale. It is far from that. It is amazingly truthful in the +character-picture it represents of the man himself. It is only not +reliable--and it is sometimes even unjust--as detailed history. Yet, +curiously enough, there were occasional chapters that were +photographically exact, and fitted precisely with the more positive, if +less picturesque, materials. It is also true that such chapters were +likely to be episodes intrinsically so perfect as to not require the +touch of art. + +In the talks which we usually had, when the dictations were ended and +Miss Hobby had gone, I gathered much that was of still greater value. +Imagination was temporarily dispossessed, as it were, and, whether +expounding some theory or summarizing some event, he cared little for +literary effect, and only for the idea and the moment immediately +present. + +It was at such times that he allowed me to make those inquiries we had +planned in the beginning, and which apparently had little place in the +dictations themselves. Sometimes I led him to speak of the genesis of +his various books, how he had come to write them, and I think there was +not a single case where later I did not find his memory of these matters +almost exactly in accord with the letters of the moment, written to +Howells or Twichell, or to some member of his family. Such reminiscence +was usually followed by some vigorous burst of human philosophy, often +too vigorous for print, too human, but as dazzling as a search-light in +its revelation. + +It was during this earlier association that he propounded, one day, his +theory of circumstance, already set down, that inevitable sequence of +cause and effect, beginning with the first act of the primal atom. He +had been dictating that morning his story of the clairvoyant dream which +preceded his brother's death, and the talk of foreknowledge had +continued. I said one might logically conclude from such a circumstance +that the future was a fixed quantity. + +"As absolutely fixed as the past," he said; and added the remark already +quoted.--[Chap. lxxv] A little later he continued: + +"Even the Almighty Himself cannot check or change that sequence of events +once it is started. It is a fixed quantity, and a part of the scheme is +a mental condition during certain moments usually of sleep--when the mind +may reach out and grasp some of the acts which are still to come." + +It was a new angle to me--a line of logic so simple and so utterly +convincing that I have remained unshaken in it to this day. I have never +been able to find any answer to it, nor any one who could even attempt to +show that the first act of the first created atom did not strike the +key-note of eternity. + +At another time, speaking of the idea that God works through man, he +burst out: + +"Yes, of course, just about as much as a man works through his microbes!" + +He had a startling way of putting things like that, and it left not much +to say. + +I was at this period interested a good deal in mental healing, and had +been treated for neurasthenia with gratifying results. Like most of the +world, I had assumed, from his published articles, that he condemned +Christian Science and its related practices out of hand. When I +confessed, rather reluctantly, one day, the benefit I had received, he +surprised me by answering: + +"Of course you have been benefited. Christian Science is humanity's +boon. Mother Eddy deserves a place in the Trinity as much as any member +of it. She has organized and made available a healing principle that for +two thousand years has never been employed, except as the merest kind of +guesswork. She is the benefactor of the age." + +It seemed strange, at the time, to hear him speak in this way concerning +a practice of which he was generally regarded as the chief public +antagonist. It was another angle of his many-sided character. + + + + +CCXL + +THE DEFINITION OF A GENTLEMAN + +That was a busy winter for him socially. He was constantly demanded for +this thing and that--for public gatherings, dinners--everywhere he was a +central figure. Once he presided at a Valentine dinner given by some +Players to David Munro. He had never presided at a dinner before, he +said, and he did it in his own way, which certainly was a taking one, +suitable to that carefree company and occasion--a real Scotch occasion, +with the Munro tartan everywhere, the table banked with heather, and a +wild piper marching up and down in the anteroom, blowing savage airs in +honor of Scotland's gentlest son. + +An important meeting of that winter was at Carnegie Hall--a great +gathering which had assembled for the purpose of aiding Booker T. +Washington in his work for the welfare of his race. The stage and the +auditorium were thronged with notables. Joseph H. Choate and Mark Twain +presided, and both spoke; also Robert C. Ogden and Booker T. Washington +himself. It was all fine and interesting. Choate's address was ably +given, and Mark Twain was at his best. He talked of politics and of +morals--public and private--how the average American citizen was true to +his Christian principles three hundred and sixty-three days in the year, +and how on the other two days of the year he left those principles at +home and went to the tax-office and the voting-booths, and did his best +to damage and undo his whole year's faithful and righteous work. + + I used to be an honest man, but I am crumbling--no, I have crumbled. + When they assessed me at $75,000 a fortnight ago I went out and + tried to borrow the money and couldn't. Then when I found they were + letting a whole crowd of millionaires live in New York at a third of + the price they were charging me I was hurt, I was indignant, and + said, this is the last feather. I am not going to run this town all + by myself. In that moment--in that memorable moment, I began to + crumble. In fifteen minutes the disintegration was complete. In + fifteen minutes I was become just a mere moral sand-pile, and I + lifted up my hand, along with those seasoned and experienced + deacons, and swore off every rag of personal property I've got in + the world. + +I had never heard him address a miscellaneous audience. It was marvelous +to see how he convulsed it, and silenced it, and controlled it at will. +He did not undertake any special pleading for the negro cause; he only +prepared the way with cheerfulness. + +Clemens and Choate joined forces again, a few weeks later, at a great +public meeting assembled in aid of the adult blind. Helen Keller was to +be present, but she had fallen ill through overwork. She sent to Clemens +one of her beautiful letters, in which she said: + + I should be happy if I could have spelled into my hand the words as + they fall from your lips, and receive, even as it is uttered, the + eloquence of our newest ambassador to the blind. + +Clemens, dictating the following morning, told of his first meeting with +Helen Keller at a little gathering in Lawrence Hutton's home, when she +was about the age of fourteen. It was an incident that invited no +elaboration, and probably received none. + + Henry Rogers and I went together. The company had all assembled and + had been waiting a while. The wonderful child arrived now with her + about equally wonderful teacher, Miss Sullivan, and seemed quite + well to recognize the character of her surroundings. She said, "Oh, + the books, the books, so many, many books. How lovely!" + + The guests were brought one after another. As she shook hands with + each she took her hand away and laid her fingers lightly against + Miss Sullivan's lips, who spoke against them the person's name. + + Mr. Howells seated himself by Helen on the sofa, and she put her + fingers against his lips and he told her a story of considerable + length, and you could see each detail of it pass into her mind and + strike fire there and throw the flash of it into her face. + + After a couple of hours spent very pleasantly some one asked if + Helen would remember the feel of the hands of the company after this + considerable interval of time and be able to discriminate the hands + and name the possessors of them. Miss Sullivan said, "Oh, she will + have no difficulty about that." So the company filed past, shook + hands in turn, and with each hand-shake Helen greeted the owner of + the hand pleasantly and spoke the name that belonged to it without + hesitation. + + By and by the assemblage proceeded to the dining-room and sat down + to the luncheon. I had to go away before it was over, and as I + passed by Helen I patted her lightly on the head and passed on. + Miss Sullivan called to me and said, "Stop, Mr. Clemens, Helen is + distressed because she did not recognize your hand. Won't you come + back and do that again?" I went back and patted her lightly on the + head, and she said at once, "Oh, it's Mr. Clemens." + + Perhaps some one can explain this miracle, but I have never been + able to do it. Could she feel the wrinkles in my hand through her + hair? Some one else must answer this. + +It was three years following this dictation that the mystery received a +very simple and rather amusing solution. Helen had come to pay a visit +to Mark Twain's Connecticut home, Stormfield, then but just completed. He +had met her, meantime, but it had not occurred to him before to ask her +how she had recognized him that morning at Hutton's, in what had seemed +such a marvelous way. She remembered, and with a smile said: + +"I smelled you." Which, after all, did not make the incident seem much +less marvelous. + +On one of the mornings after Miss Hobby had gone Clemens said: + +"A very curious thing has happened--a very large-sized-joke." He was +shaving at the time, and this information came in brief and broken +relays, suited to a performance of that sort. The reader may perhaps +imagine the effect without further indication of it. + +"I was going on a yachting trip once, with Henry Rogers, when a reporter +stopped me with the statement that Mrs. Astor had said that there had +never been a gentleman in the White House, and he wanted me to give him +my definition of a gentleman. I didn't give him my definition; but he +printed it, just the same, in the afternoon paper. I was angry at first, +and wanted to bring a damage suit. When I came to read the definition it +was a satisfactory one, and I let it go. Now to-day comes a letter and a +telegram from a man who has made a will in Missouri, leaving ten thousand +dollars to provide tablets for various libraries in the State, on which +shall be inscribed Mark Twain's definition of a gentleman. He hasn't got +the definition--he has only heard of it, and he wants me to tell him in +which one of my books or speeches he can find it. I couldn't think, when +I read that letter, what in the nation the man meant, but shaving somehow +has a tendency to release thought, and just now it all came to me." + +It was a situation full of amusing possibilities; but he reached no +conclusion in the matter. Another telegram was brought in just then, +which gave a sadder aspect to his thought, for it said that his old +coachman, Patrick McAleer, who had begun in the Clemens service with the +bride and groom of thirty-six years before, was very low, and could not +survive more than a few days. This led him to speak of Patrick, his +noble and faithful nature, and how he always claimed to be in their +service, even during their long intervals of absence abroad. Clemens +gave orders that everything possible should be done for Patrick's +comfort. When the end came, a few days later, he traveled to Hartford to +lay flowers on Patrick's bier, and to serve, with Patrick's friends +--neighbor coachmen and John O'Neill, the gardener--as pall-bearer, +taking his allotted place without distinction or favor. + +It was the following Sunday, at the Majestic Theater, in New York, that +Mark Twain spoke to the Young Men's Christian Association. For several +reasons it proved an unusual meeting. A large number of free tickets had +been given out, far more than the place would hold; and, further, it had +been announced that when the ticket-holders had been seated the admission +would be free to the public. The subject chosen for the talk was +"Reminiscences." + +When we arrived the streets were packed from side to side for a +considerable distance and a riot was in progress. A great crowd had +swarmed about the place, and the officials, instead of throwing the doors +wide and letting the theater fill up, regardless of tickets, had locked +them. As a result there was a shouting, surging human mass that +presently dashed itself against the entrance. Windows and doors gave +way, and there followed a wild struggle for entrance. A moment later the +house was packed solid. A detachment of police had now arrived, and in +time cleared the street. It was said that amid the tumult some had lost +their footing and had been trampled and injured, but of this we did not +learn until later. We had been taken somehow to a side entrance and +smuggled into boxes.--[The paper next morning bore the head-lines: +"10,000 Stampeded at the Mark Twain Meeting. Well-dressed Men and Women +Clubbed by Police at Majestic Theater." In this account the paper stated +that the crowd had collected an hour before the time for opening; that +nothing of the kind had been anticipated and no police preparation had +been made.] + +It was peaceful enough in the theater until Mark Twain appeared on the +stage. He was wildly greeted, and when he said, slowly and seriously, "I +thank you for this signal recognition of merit," there was a still +noisier outburst. In the quiet that followed he began his memories, and +went wandering along from one anecdote to another in the manner of his +daily dictations. + +At last it seemed to occur to him, in view of the character of his +audience, that he ought to close with something in the nature of counsel +suited to young men. + + It is from experiences such as mine [he said] that we get our + education of life. We string them into jewels or into tinware, as + we may choose. I have received recently several letters asking for + counsel or advice, the principal request being for some incident + that may prove helpful to the young. It is my mission to teach, and + I am always glad to furnish something. There have been a lot of + incidents in my career to help me along--sometimes they helped me + along faster than I wanted to go. + +He took some papers from his pocket and started to unfold one of them; +then, as if remembering, he asked how long he had been talking. The +answer came, "Thirty-five minutes." He made as if to leave the stage, +but the audience commanded him to go on. + +"All right," he said, "I can stand more of my own talk than any one I +ever knew." Opening one of the papers, a telegram, he read: + +"In which one of your works can we find the definition of a gentleman?" +Then he added: + + I have not answered that telegram. I couldn't. I never wrote any + such definition, though it seems to me that if a man has just, + merciful, and kindly instincts he would be a gentleman, for he would + need nothing else in this world. + +He opened a letter. "From Howells," he said. + + My old friend, William Dean Howells--Howells, the head of American + literature. No one is able to stand with him. He is an old, old + friend of mine, and he writes me, "To-morrow I shall be sixty-nine + years old." Why, I am surprised at Howells writing so. I have + known him myself longer than that. I am sorry to see a man trying + to appear so young. Let's see. Howells says now, "I see you have + been burying Patrick. I suppose he was old, too." + +The house became very still. Most of them had read an account of Mark +Twain's journey to Hartford and his last service to his faithful +servitor. The speaker's next words were not much above a whisper, but +every syllable was distinct. + + No, he was never old-Patrick. He came to us thirty-six years ago. + He was our coachman from the day that I drove my young bride to our + new home. He was a young Irishman, slender, tall, lithe, honest, + truthful, and he never changed in all his life. He really was with + us but twenty-five years, for he did not go with us to Europe; but + he never regarded that a separation. As the children grew up he was + their guide. He was all honor, honesty, and affection. He was with + us in New Hampshire last summer, and his hair was just as black, his + eyes were just as blue, his form just as straight, and his heart + just as good as on the day we first met. In all the long years + Patrick never made a mistake. He never needed an order; he never + received a command. He knew. I have been asked for my idea of an + ideal gentleman, and I give it to you--Patrick McAleer. + +It was the sort of thing that no one but Mark Twain has quite been able +to do, and it was just that recognized quality behind it that had made +crowds jam the street and stampede the entrance to be in his presence-to +see him and to hear his voice. + + + + +CCXLI + +GORKY, HOWELLS, AND MARK TWAIN + +Clemens was now fairly back again in the wash of banquets and +speech-making that had claimed him on his return from England, five years +before. He made no less than a dozen speeches altogether that winter, +and he was continually at some feasting or other, where he was sure to be +called upon for remarks. He fell out of the habit of preparing his +addresses, relying upon the inspiration of the moment, merely following +the procedure of his daily dictations, which had doubtless given him +confidence for this departure from his earlier method. There was seldom +an afternoon or an evening that he was not required, and seldom a morning +that the papers did not have some report of his doings. Once more, and +in a larger fashion than ever, he had become "the belle of New York." But +he was something further. An editorial in the Evening Mail said: + + Mark Twain, in his "last and best of life for which the first was + made," seems to be advancing rapidly to a position which makes him a + kind of joint Aristides, Solon, and Themistocles of the American + metropolis--an Aristides for justness and boldness as well as + incessancy of opinion, a Solon for wisdom and cogency, and a + Themistocles for the democracy of his views and the popularity of + his person. + + Things have reached the point where, if Mark Twain is not at a + public meeting or banquet, he is expected to console it with one of + his inimitable letters of advice and encouragement. If he deigns to + make a public appearance there is a throng at the doors which + overtaxes the energy and ability of the police. We must be glad + that we have a public commentator like Mark Twain always at hand and + his wit and wisdom continually on tap. His sound, breezy + Mississippi Valley Americanism is a corrective to all sorts of + snobbery. He cultivates respect for human rights by always making + sure that he has his own. + +He talked one afternoon to the Barnard girls, and another afternoon to +the Women's University Club, illustrating his talk with what purported to +be moral tales. He spoke at a dinner given to City Tax Commissioner Mr. +Charles Putzel; and when he was introduced there as the man who had said, +"When in doubt tell the truth," he replied that he had invented that +maxim for others, but that when in doubt himself, he used more sagacity. + +The speeches he made kept his hearers always in good humor; but he made +them think, too, for there was always substance and sound reason and +searching satire in the body of what he said. + +It was natural that there should be reporters calling frequently at Mark +Twain's home, and now and then the place became a veritable storm-center +of news. Such a moment arrived when it became known that a public +library in Brooklyn had banished Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer from the +children's room, presided over by a young woman of rather severe morals. +The incident had begun in November of the previous year. One of the +librarians, Asa Don Dickinson, who had vigorously voted against the +decree, wrote privately of the matter. Clemens had replied: + + DEAR SIR,--I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote Tom + Sawyer & Huck Finn for adults exclusively, & it always distresses me + when I find that boys & girls have been allowed access to them. The + mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. + I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an + unappeasable bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young + life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an + unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do + that and ever draw a clean, sweet breath again this side of the + grave. Ask that young lady--she will tell you so. + + Most honestly do I wish that I could say a softening word or two in + defense of Huck's character since you wish it, but really, in my + opinion, it is no better than those of Solomon, David, & the rest of + the sacred brotherhood. + + If there is an unexpurgated in the Children's Department, won't you + please help that young woman remove Tom & Huck from that + questionable companionship? + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + I shall not show your letter to any one-it is safe with me. + +Mr. Dickinson naturally kept this letter from the public, though he read +it aloud to the assembled librarians, and the fact of its existence and +its character eventually leaked out.--[It has been supplied to the writer +by Mr. Dickinson, and is published here with his consent.]--One of the +librarians who had heard it mentioned it at a theater-party in hearing of +an unrealized newspaper man. This was near the end of the following +March. + +The "tip" was sufficient. Telephone-bells began to jingle, and groups of +newspaper men gathered simultaneously on Mr. Dickinson's and on Mark +Twain's door-steps. At a 21 Fifth Avenue you could hardly get in or out, +for stepping on them. The evening papers surmised details, and Huck and +Tom had a perfectly fresh crop of advertising, not only in America, but +in distant lands. Dickinson wrote Clemens that he would not give out the +letter without his authority, and Clemens replied: + + Be wise as a serpent and wary as a dove! The newspaper boys want + that letter--don't you let them get hold of it. They say you refuse + to allow them to see it without my consent. Keep on refusing, and + I'll take care of this end of the line. + +In a recent letter to the writer Mr. Dickinson states that Mark Twain's +solicitude was for the librarian, whom he was unwilling to involve in +difficulties with his official superiors, and he adds: + + There may be some doubt as to whether Mark Twain was or was not a + religious man, for there are many definitions of the word religion. + He was certainly a hater of conventions, had no patience with + sanctimony and bibliolatry, and was perhaps irreverent. But any one + who reads carefully the description of the conflict in Huck's soul, + in regard to the betrayal of Jim, will credit the creator of the + scene with deep and true moral feeling. + +The reporters thinned out in the course of a few days when no result was +forthcoming; but they were all back again presently when the Maxim Gorky +fiasco came along. The distinguished revolutionist, Tchaykoffsky, as a +sort of advance agent for Gorky, had already called upon Clemens to +enlist his sympathy in their mission, which was to secure funds in the +cause of Russian emancipation. Clemens gave his sympathy, and now +promised his aid, though he did not hesitate to discourage the mission. +He said that American enthusiasm in such matters stopped well above their +pockets, and that this revolutionary errand would fail. Howells, too, +was of this opinion. In his account of the episode he says: + + I told a valued friend of his and mine that I did not believe he + could get twenty-five hundred dollars, and I think now I set the + figure too high. + +Clemens's interest, however, grew. He attended a dinner given to Gorky +at the "A Club," No. 3 Fifth Avenue, and introduced Gorky to the diners. +Also he wrote a letter to be read by Tchaykoffsky at a meeting held at +the Grand Central Palace, where three thousand people gathered to hear +this great revolutionist recite the story of Russia's wrongs. The letter +ran: + + DEAR MR. TCHAYKOFFSKY,--My sympathies are with the Russian + revolution, of course. It goes without saying. I hope it will + succeed, and now that I have talked with you I take heart to believe + it will. Government by falsified promises, by lies, by treachery, + and by the butcher-knife, for the aggrandizement of a single family + of drones and its idle and vicious kin has been borne quite long + enough in Russia, I should think. And it is to be hoped that the + roused nation, now rising in its strength, will presently put an end + to it and set up the republic in its place. Some of us, even the + white-headed, may live to see the blessed day when tsars and grand + dukes will be as scarce there as I trust they are in heaven. + Most sincerely yours, + MARK TWAIN. + +Clemens and Howells called on Gorky and agreed to figure prominently in a +literary dinner to be given in his honor. The movement was really +assuming considerable proportions, when suddenly something happened which +caused it to flatten permanently, and rather ridiculously. + +Arriving at 21 Fifth Avenue, one afternoon, I met Howells coming out. I +thought he had an unhappy, hunted look. I went up to the study, and on +opening the door I found the atmosphere semi-opaque with cigar smoke, and +Clemens among the drifting blue wreaths and layers, pacing up and down +rather fiercely. He turned, inquiringly, as I entered. I had clipped a +cartoon from a morning paper, which pictured him as upsetting the Tsar's +throne--the kind of thing he was likely to enjoy. I said: + +"Here is something perhaps you may wish to see, Mr. Clemens." + +He shook his head violently. + +"No, I can't see anything now," and in another moment had disappeared +into his own room. Something extraordinary had happened. I wondered if, +after all their lifelong friendship, he and Howells had quarreled. I was +naturally curious, but it was not a good time to investigate. By and by +I went down on the street, where the newsboys were calling extras. When +I had bought one, and glanced at the first page, I knew. Gorky had been +expelled from his hotel for having brought to America, as his wife, a +woman not so recognized by the American laws. Madame Andreieva, a +Russian actress, was a leader in the cause of freedom, and by Russian +custom her relation with Gorky was recognized and respected; but it was +not sufficiently orthodox for American conventions, and it was certainly +unfortunate that an apostle of high purpose should come handicapped in +that way. Apparently the news had already reached Howells and Clemens, +and they had been feverishly discussing what was best to do about the +dinner. + +Within a day or two Gorky and Madame Andreieva were evicted from a +procession of hotels, and of course the papers rang with the head-lines. +An army of reporters was chasing Clemens and Howells. The Russian +revolution was entirely forgotten in this more lively, more intimate +domestic interest. Howells came again, the reporters following and +standing guard at the door below. In 'My Mark Twain' he says: + + That was the moment of the great Vesuvian eruption, and we figured + ourselves in easy reach of a volcano which was every now and then + "blowing a cone off," as the telegraphic phrase was. The roof of + the great market in Naples had just broken in under its load of + ashes and cinders, and crushed hundreds of people; and we asked each + other if we were not sorry we had not been there, where the pressure + would have been far less terrific than it was with us in Fifth + Avenue. The forbidden butler came up with a message that there were + some gentlemen below who wanted to see Clemens. + + "How many?" he demanded. + + "Five," the butler faltered. + + "Reporters?" + + The butler feigned uncertainty. + + "What would you do?" he asked me. + + "I wouldn't see them," I said, and then Clemens went directly down + to them. How or by what means he appeased their voracity I cannot + say, but I fancy it was by the confession of the exact truth, which + was harmless enough. They went away joyfully, and he came back in + radiant satisfaction with having seen them. + +It is not quite clear at this time just what word was sent to Gorky but +the matter must have been settled that night, for Clemens was in a fine +humor next morning. It was before dictation time, and he came drifting +into the study and began at once to speak of the dinner and the +impossibility of its being given now. Then he said: + +"American public opinion is a delicate fabric. It shrivels like the webs +of morning at the lightest touch." + +Later in the day he made this memorandum: + + Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly + transgressed custom brings sure punishment. The penalty may be + unfair, unrighteous, illogical, and a cruelty; no matter, it will be + inflicted just the same. Certainly, then, there can be but one wise + thing for a visiting stranger to do--find out what the country's + customs are and refrain from offending against them. + + The efforts which have been made in Gorky's justification are + entitled to all respect because of the magnanimity of the motive + back of them, but I think that the ink was wasted. Custom is + custom: it is built of brass, boiler-iron, granite; facts, + seasonings, arguments have no more effect upon it than the idle + winds have upon Gibraltar.--[To Dan Beard he said, "Gorky made an + awful mistake, Dan. He might as well have come over here in his + shirt-tail."] + +The Gorky disturbance had hardly begun to subside when there came another +upheaval that snuffed it out completely. On the afternoon of the 18th of +April I heard, at The Players, a wandering telephonic rumor that a great +earthquake was going on in San Francisco. Half an hour later, perhaps, I +met Clemens coming out of No. 21. He asked: + +"Have you heard the news about San Francisco?" + +I said I had heard a rumor of an earthquake; and had seen an extra with +big scare-heads; but I supposed the matter was exaggerated. + +"No," he said, "I am afraid it isn't. We have just had a telephone +message that it is even worse than at first reported. A great fire is +consuming the city. Come along to the news-stand and we'll see if there +is a later edition." + +We walked to Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street and got some fresh extras. +The news was indeed worse, than at first reported. San Francisco was +going to destruction. Clemens was moved deeply, and began to recall this +old friend and that whose lives and property might be in danger. He +spoke of Joe Goodman and the Gillis families, and pictured conditions in +the perishing city. + + + + +CCXLII + +MARK TWAIN'S GOOD-BY TO THE PLATFORM + +It was on April 19, 1906, the day following the great earthquake, that +Mark Twain gave a "Farewell Lecture" at Carnegie Hall for the benefit of +the Robert Fulton Memorial Association. Some weeks earlier Gen. +Frederick D. Grant, its president, had proposed to pay one thousand +dollars for a Mark Twain lecture; but Clemens' had replied that he was +permanently out of the field, and would never again address any audience +that had to pay to hear him. + +"I always expect to talk as long as I can get people to listen to me," he +sand, "but I never again expect to charge for it." Later came one of his +inspirations, and he wrote: "I will lecture for one thousand dollars, on +one condition: that it will be understood to be my farewell lecture, and +that I may contribute the thousand dollars to the Fulton Association." + +It was a suggestion not to be discouraged, and the bills and notices, +"Mark Twain's Farewell Lecture," were published without delay. + +I first heard of the matter one afternoon when General Grant had called. +Clemens came into the study where I was working; he often wandered in and +out-sometimes without a word, sometimes to relieve himself concerning +things in general. But this time he suddenly chilled me by saying: + +"I'm going to deliver my farewell lecture, and I want you to appear on +the stage and help me." + +I feebly expressed my pleasure at the prospect. Then he said: + +"I am going to lecture on Fulton--on the story of his achievements. It +will be a burlesque, of course, and I am going to pretend to forget my +facts, and I want you to sit there in a chair. Now and then, when I seem +to get stuck, I'll lean over and pretend to ask you some thing, and I +want you to pretend to prompt me. You don't need to laugh, or to pretend +to be assisting in the performance any more than just that." +HANDBILL OF MARK TWAIN'S "FAREWELL LECTURE": + + MARK TWAIN + + Will Deliver His Farewell Lecture + --------------------------------- + + CARNEGIE HALL + + APRIL 19TH, 1906 + + FOR THE BENEFIT OF + + Robert Fulton Memorial Association + + MILITARY ORGANIZATION OLD GUARD IN + FULL DRESS UNIFORM WILL BE PRESENT + + MUSIC BY OLD GUARD BAND + + TICKETS AND BOXES ON SALE AT CARNEGIE HALL + AND WALDORF-ASTORIA + + SEATS $1.50, $1.00, 50 CENTS + +It was not likely that I should laugh. I had a sinking feeling in the +cardiac region which does not go with mirth. It did not for the moment +occur to me that the stage would be filled with eminent citizens and +vice-presidents, and I had a vision of myself sitting there alone in the +chair in that wide emptiness, with the chief performer directing +attention to me every other moment or so, for perhaps an hour. Let me +hurry on to say that it did not happen. I dare say he realized my +unfitness for the work, and the far greater appropriateness of conferring +the honor on General Grant, for in the end he gave him the assignment, to +my immeasurable relief. + +It was a magnificent occasion. That spacious hall was hung with bunting, +the stage was banked and festooned with decoration of every sort. General +Grant, surrounded by his splendidly uniformed staff, sat in the +foreground, and behind was ranged a levee of foremost citizens of the +republic. The band played "America" as Mark Twain entered, and the great +audience rose and roared out its welcome. Some of those who knew him +best had hoped that on this occasion of his last lecture he would tell of +that first appearance in San Francisco, forty years before, when his +fortunes had hung in the balance. Perhaps he did not think of it, and no +one had had the courage to suggest it. At all events, he did a different +thing. He began by making a strong plea for the smitten city where the +flames were still raging, urging prompt help for those who had lost not +only their homes, but the last shred of their belongings and their means +of livelihood. Then followed his farcical history of Fulton, with +General Grant to make the responses, and presently he drifted into the +kind of lecture he had given so often in his long trip around the +world-retelling the tales which had won him fortune and friends in many +lands. + +I do not know whether the entertainment was long or short. I think few +took account of time. To a letter of inquiry as to how long the +entertainment would last, he had replied: + + I cannot say for sure. It is my custom to keep on talking till I + get the audience cowed. Sometimes it takes an hour and fifteen + minutes, sometimes I can do it in an hour. + +There was no indication at any time that the audience was cowed. The +house was packed, and the applause was so recurrent and continuous that +often his voice was lost to those in its remoter corners. It did not +matter. The tales were familiar to his hearers; merely to see Mark +Twain, in his old age and in that splendid setting, relating them was +enough. The audience realized that it was witnessing the close of a +heroic chapter in a unique career. + + + + +CCXLIII + +AN INVESTMENT IN REDDING + +Many of the less important happenings seem worth remembering now. Among +them was the sale, at the Nast auction, of the Mark Twain letters, +already mentioned. The fact that these letters brought higher prices +than any others offered in this sale was gratifying. Roosevelt, Grant, +and even Lincoln items were sold; but the Mark Twain letters led the +list. One of them sold for forty-three dollars, which was said to be the +highest price ever paid for the letter of a living man. It was the +letter written in 1877, quoted earlier in this work, in which Clemens +proposed the lecture tour to Nast. None of the Clemens-Nast letters +brought less than twenty-seven dollars, and some of them were very brief. +It was a new measurement of public sentiment. Clemens, when he heard of +it, said: + +"I can't rise to General Grant's lofty place in the estimation of this +country; but it is a deep satisfaction to me to know that when it comes +to letter-writing he can't sit in the front seat along with me. That +forty-three-dollar letter ought to be worth as much as eighty-six dollars +after I'm dead." + +A perpetual string of callers came to 21 Fifth Avenue, and it kept the +secretary busy explaining to most of them why Mark Twain could not +entertain their propositions, or listen to their complaints, or allow +them to express in person their views on public questions. He did see a +great many of what might be called the milder type persons who were +evidently sincere and not too heavily freighted with eloquence. Of these +there came one day a very gentle-spoken woman who had promised that she +would stay but a moment, and say no more than a few words, if only she +might sit face to face with the great man. It was in the morning hour +before the dictations, and he received her, quite correctly clad in his +beautiful dressing-robe and propped against his pillows. She kept her +contract to the letter; but when she rose to go she said, in a voice of +deepest reverence: + +"May I kiss your hand?" + +It was a delicate situation, and might easily have been made ludicrous. +Denial would have hurt her. As it was, he lifted his hand, a small, +exquisite hand it was, with the gentle dignity and poise of a king, and +she touched her lips to it with what was certainly adoration. Then, as +she went, she said: + +"How God must love you!" + +"I hope so," he said, softly, and he did not even smile; but after she +had gone he could not help saying, in a quaint, half-pathetic voice "I +guess she hasn't heard of our strained relations." + +Sitting in that royal bed, clad in that rich fashion, he easily conveyed +the impression of royalty, and watching him through those marvelous +mornings he seemed never less than a king, as indeed he was--the king of +a realm without national boundaries. Some of those nearest to him fell +naturally into the habit of referring to him as "the King," and in time +the title crept out of the immediate household and was taken up by others +who loved him. + +He had been more than once photographed in his bed; but it was by those +who had come and gone in a brief time, with little chance to study his +natural attitudes. I had acquired some knowledge of the camera, and I +obtained his permission to let me photograph him--a permission he seldom +denied to any one. We had no dictations on Saturdays, and I took the +pictures on one of these holiday mornings. He was so patient and +tractable, and so natural in every attitude, that it was a delight to +make the negatives. I was afraid he would become impatient, and made +fewer exposures than I might otherwise have done. I think he expected +very little from this amateur performance; but, by that happy element of +accident which plays so large a part in photographic success, the results +were better than I had hoped for. When I brought him the prints, a few +days later, he expressed pleasure and asked, "Why didn't you make more?" + +Among them was one in an attitude which had grown so familiar to us, that +of leaning over to get his pipe from the smoking-table, and this seemed +to give him particular satisfaction. It being a holiday, he had not +donned his dressing-gown, which on the whole was well for the +photographic result. He spoke of other pictures that had been made of +him, especially denouncing one photograph, taken some twenty years before +by Sarony, a picture, as he said, of a gorilla in an overcoat, which the +papers and magazines had insisted on using ever since. + +"Sarony was as enthusiastic about wild animals as he was about +photography, and when Du Chaillu brought over the first gorilla he sent +for me to look at it and see if our genealogy was straight. I said it +was, and Sarony was so excited that I had recognized the resemblance +between us, that he wanted to make it more complete, so he borrowed my +overcoat and put it on the gorilla and photographed it, and spread that +picture out over the world as mine. It turns up every week in some +newspaper or magazine; but it's not my favorite; I have tried to get it +suppressed." + +Mark Twain made his first investment in Redding that spring. I had +located there the autumn before, and bought a vacant old house, with a +few acres of land, at what seemed a modest price. I was naturally +enthusiastic over the bargain, and the beauty and salubrity of the +situation. His interest was aroused, and when he learned that there was +a place adjoining, equally reasonable and perhaps even more attractive, +he suggested immediately that I buy it for him; and he wanted to write a +check then for the purchase price, for fear the opportunity might be +lost. I think there was then no purpose in his mind of building a +country home; but he foresaw that such a site, at no great distance from +New York, would become more valuable, and he had plenty of idle means. +The purchase was made without difficulty--a tract of seventy-five acres, +to which presently was added another tract of one hundred and ten acres, +and subsequently still other parcels of land, to complete the ownership +of the hilltop, for it was not long until he had conceived the idea of a +home. He was getting weary of the heavy pressure of city life. He +craved the retirement of solitude--one not too far from the maelstrom, so +that he might mingle with it now and then when he chose. The country +home would not be begun for another year yet, but the purpose of it was +already in the air. No one of the family had at this time seen the +location. + + + + +CCXLIV + +TRAITS AND PHILOSOPHIES + +I brought to the dictation one morning the Omar Khayyam card which +Twichell had written him so long ago; I had found it among the letters. +It furnished him a subject for that morning. He said: + + How strange there was a time when I had never heard of Omar Khayyam! + When that card arrived I had already read the dozen quatrains or so + in the morning paper, and was still steeped in the ecstasy of + delight which they occasioned. No poem had ever given me so much + pleasure before, and none has given me so much pleasure since. It + is the only poem I have ever carried about with me. It has not been + from under my hand all these years. + +He had no general fondness for poetry; but many poems appealed to him, +and on occasion he liked to read them aloud. Once, during the dictation, +some verses were sent up by a young authoress who was waiting below for +his verdict. The lines pictured a phase of negro life, and she wished to +know if he thought them worthy of being read at some Tuskegee ceremony. +He did not fancy the idea of attending to the matter just then and said: + +"Tell her she can read it. She has my permission. She may commit any +crime she wishes in my name." + +It was urged that the verses were of high merit and the author a very +charming young lady. + +"I'm very glad," he said, "and I am glad the Lord made her; I hope He +will make some more just like her. I don't always approve of His +handiwork, but in this case I do." + +Then suddenly he added: + +"Well, let me see it--no time like the present to get rid of these +things." + +He took the manuscript and gave such a rendition of those really fine +verses as I believe could not be improved upon. We were held breathless +by his dramatic fervor and power. He returned a message to that young +aspirant that must have made her heart sing. When the dictation had +ended that day, I mentioned his dramatic gift. + +"Yes," he said, "it is a gift, I suppose, like spelling and punctuation +and smoking. I seem to have inherited all those." Continuing, he spoke +of inherited traits in general. + +"There was Paige," he said; "an ignorant man who could not make a machine +himself that would stand up, nor draw the working plans for one; but he +invented the eighteen thousand details of the most wonderful machine the +world has ever known. He watched over the expert draftsmen, and +superintended the building of that marvel. Pratt & Whitney built it; but +it was Paige's machine, nevertheless--the child of his marvelous gift. We +don't create any of our traits; we inherit all of them. They have come +down to us from what we impudently call the lower animals. Man is the +last expression, and combines every attribute of the animal tribes that +preceded him. One or two conspicuous traits distinguish each family of +animals from the others, and those one or two traits are found in every +member of each family, and are so prominent as to eternally and +unchangeably establish the character of that branch of the animal world. +In these cases we concede that the several temperaments constitute a law +of God, a command of God, and that whatsoever is done in obedience to +that law is blameless. Man, in his evolution, inherited the whole sum of +these numerous traits, and with each trait its share of the law of God. +He widely differs from them in this: that he possesses not a single +characteristic that is equally prominent in each member of his race. You +can say the housefly is limitlessly brave, and in saying it you describe +the whole house-fly tribe; you can say the rabbit is limitlessly timid, +and by the phrase you describe the whole rabbit tribe; you can say the +spider and the tiger are limitlessly murderous, and by that phrase you +describe the whole spider and tiger tribes; you can say the lamb is +limitlessly innocent and sweet and gentle, and by that phrase you +describe all the lambs. There is hardly a creature that you cannot +definitely and satisfactorily describe by one single trait--except man. +Men are not all cowards like the rabbit, nor all brave like the +house-fly, nor all sweet and innocent and gentle like the lamb, nor all +murderous like the spider and the tiger and the wasp, nor all thieves +like the fox and the bluejay, nor all vain like the peacock, nor all +frisky like the monkey. These things are all in him somewhere, and they +develop according to the proportion of each he received in his allotment: +We describe a man by his vicious traits and condemn him; or by his fine +traits and gifts, and praise him and accord him high merit for their +possession. It is comical. He did not invent these things; he did not +stock himself with them. God conferred them upon him in the first +instant of creation. They constitute the law, and he could not escape +obedience to the decree any more than Paige could have built the +type-setter he invented, or the Pratt & Whitney machinists could have +invented the machine which they built." + +He liked to stride up and down, smoking as he talked, and generally his +words were slowly measured, with varying pauses between them. He halted +in the midst of his march, and without a suggestion of a smile added: + +"What an amusing creature the human being is!" + +It is absolutely impossible, of course, to preserve the atmosphere and +personality of such talks as this--the delicacies of his speech and +manner which carried an ineffable charm. It was difficult, indeed, to +record the substance. I did not know shorthand, and I should not have +taken notes at such times in any case; but I had trained myself in +similar work to preserve, with a fair degree of accuracy, the form of +phrase, and to some extent its wording, if I could get hold of pencil and +paper soon enough afterward. In time I acquired a sort of phonographic +faculty; though it always seemed to me that the bouquet, the subtleness +of speech, was lacking in the result. Sometimes, indeed, he would +dictate next morning the substance of these experimental reflections; or +I would find among his papers memoranda and fragmentary manuscripts where +he had set them down himself, either before or after he had tried them +verbally. In these cases I have not hesitated to amend my notes where it +seemed to lend reality to his utterance, though, even so, there is always +lacking--and must be--the wonder of his personality. + + + + +CCXLV + +IN THE DAY'S ROUND + +A number of dictations of this period were about Susy, her childhood, and +the biography she had written of him, most of which he included in his +chapters. More than once after such dictations he reproached himself +bitterly for the misfortunes of his house. He consoled himself a little +by saying that Susy had died at the right time, in the flower of youth +and happiness; but he blamed himself for the lack of those things which +might have made her childhood still more bright. Once he spoke of the +biography she had begun, and added: + +"Oh, I wish I had paid more attention to that little girl's work! If I +had only encouraged her now and then, what it would have meant to her, +and what a beautiful thing it would have been to have had her story of me +told in her own way, year after year! If I had shown her that I cared, +she might have gone on with it. We are always too busy for our children; +we never give them the time nor the interest they deserve. We lavish +gifts upon them; but the most precious gift-our personal association, +which means so much to them-we give grudgingly and throw it away on those +who care for it so little." Then, after a moment of silence: "But we are +repaid for it at last. There comes a time when we want their company and +their interest. We want it more than anything in the world, and we are +likely to be starved for it, just as they were starved so long ago. There +is no appreciation of my books that is so precious to me as appreciation +from my children. Theirs is the praise we want, and the praise we are +least likely to get." + +His moods of remorse seemed to overwhelm him at times. He spoke of +Henry's death and little Langdon's, and charged himself with both. He +declared that for years he had filled Mrs. Clemens's life with +privations, that the sorrow of Susy's death had hastened her own end. How +darkly he painted it! One saw the jester, who for forty years had been +making the world laugh, performing always before a background of tragedy. + +But such moods were evanescent. He was oftener gay than somber. One +morning before we settled down to work he related with apparent joy how +he had made a failure of story-telling at a party the night before. An +artist had told him a yarn, he said, which he had considered the most +amusing thing in the world. But he had not been satisfied with it, and +had attempted to improve on it at the party. He had told it with what he +considered the nicest elaboration of detail and artistic effect, and when +he had concluded and expected applause, only a sickening silence had +followed. + +"A crowd like that can make a good deal of silence when they combine," he +said, "and it probably lasted as long as ten seconds, because it seemed +an hour and a half. Then a lady said, with evident feeling, 'Lord, how +pathetic!' For a moment I was stupefied. Then the fountains of my great +deeps were broken up, and I rained laughter for forty days and forty +nights during as much as three minutes. By that time I realized it was +my fault. I had overdone the thing. I started in to deceive them with +elaborate burlesque pathos, in order to magnify the humorous explosion at +the end; but I had constructed such a fog of pathos that when I got to +the humor you couldn't find it." + +He was likely to begin the morning with some such incident which perhaps +he did not think worth while to include in his dictations, and sometimes +he interrupted his dictations to relate something aside, or to outline +some plan or scheme which his thought had suggested. + +Once, when he was telling of a magazine he had proposed to start, the +Back Number, which was, to contain reprints of exciting events from +history--newspaper gleanings--eye-witness narrations, which he said never +lost their freshness of interest--he suddenly interrupted himself to +propose that we start such a magazine in the near future--he to be its +publisher and I its editor. I think I assented, and the dictation +proceeded, but the scheme disappeared permanently. + +He usually had a number of clippings or slips among the many books on the +bed beside him from which he proposed to dictate each day, but he seldom +could find the one most needed. Once, after a feverishly impatient +search for a few moments, he invited Miss Hobby to leave the room +temporarily, so, as he said, that he might swear. He got up and we began +to explore the bed, his profanity increasing amazingly with each moment. +It was an enormously large bed, and he began to disparage the size of it. + +"One could lose a dog in this bed," he declared. + +Finally I suggested that he turn over the clipping which he had in his +hand. He did so, and it proved to be the one he wanted. Its discovery +was followed by a period of explosions, only half suppressed as to +volume. Then he said: + +"There ought to be a room in this house to swear in. It's dangerous to +have to repress an emotion like that." + +A moment later, when Miss Hobby returned, he was serene and happy again. +He was usually gentle during the dictations, and patient with those +around him--remarkably so, I thought, as a rule. But there were moments +that involved risk. He had requested me to interrupt his dictation at +any time that I found him repeating or contradicting himself, or +misstating some fact known to me. At first I hesitated to do this, and +cautiously mentioned the matter when he had finished. Then he was likely +to say: + +"Why didn't you stop me? Why did you let me go on making a jackass of +myself when you could have saved me?" + +So then I used to take the risk of getting struck by lightning, and +nearly always stopped him at the time. But if it happened that I upset +his thought the thunderbolt was apt to fly. He would say: + +"Now you've knocked everything out of my head." + +Then, of course, I would apologize and say I was sorry, which would +rectify matters, though half an hour later it might happen again. I +became lightning-proof at last; also I learned better to select the +psychological moment for the correction. + +There was a humorous complexion to the dictations which perhaps I have +not conveyed to the reader at all; humor was his natural breath and life, +and was not wholly absent in his most somber intervals. + +But poetry was there as well. His presence was full of it: the grandeur +of his figure; the grace of his movement; the music of his measured +speech. Sometimes there were long pauses when he was wandering in +distant valleys of thought and did not speak at all. At such times he +had a habit of folding and refolding the sleeve of his dressing-gown +around his wrist, regarding it intently, as it seemed. His hands were so +fair and shapely; the palms and finger-tips as pink as those of a child. +Then when he spoke he was likely to fling back his great, white mane, his +eyes half closed yet showing a gleam of fire between the lids, his +clenched fist lifted, or his index-finger pointing, to give force and +meaning to his words. I cannot recall the picture too often, or remind +myself too frequently how precious it was to be there, and to see him and +to hear him. I do not know why I have not said before that he smoked +continually during these dictations--probably as an aid to thought +--though he smoked at most other times, for that matter. His cigars were +of that delicious fragrance which characterizes domestic tobacco; but I +had learned early to take refuge in another brand when he offered me one. +They were black and strong and inexpensive, and it was only his early +training in the printing-office and on the river that had seasoned him to +tobacco of that temper. Rich, admiring friends used to send him +quantities of expensive imported cigars; but he seldom touched them, and +they crumbled away or were smoked by visitors. Once, to a minister who +proposed to send him something very special, he wrote: + + I should accept your hospitable offer at once but for the fact that + I couldn't do it and remain honest. That is to say, if I allowed + you to send me what you believed to be good cigars it would + distinctly mean that I meant to smoke them, whereas I should do + nothing of the kind. I know a good cigar better than you do, for I + have had 60 years' experience. + + No, that is not what I mean; I mean I know a bad cigar better than + anybody else. I judge by the price only; if it costs above 5 cents + I know it to be either foreign or half foreign & unsmokable--by me. + I have many boxes of Havana cigars, of all prices from 20 cents + apiece up to $1.66 apiece; I bought none of them, they were all + presents; they are an accumulation of several years. I have never + smoked one of them & never shall; I work them off on the visitor. + You shall have a chance when you come. + +He smoked a pipe a good deal, and he preferred it to be old and violent; +and once, when he had bought a new, expensive English brier-root he +regarded it doubtfully for a time, and then handed it over to me, saying: + +"I'd like to have you smoke that a year or two, and when it gets so you +can't stand it, maybe it will suit me." + +I am happy to add that subsequently he presented me with the pipe +altogether, for it apparently never seemed to get qualified for his +taste, perhaps because the tobacco used was too mild. + +One day, after the dictation, word was brought up that a newspaper man +was down-stairs who wished to see him concerning a report that Chauncey +Depew was to resign his Senatorial seat and Mark Twain was to be +nominated in his place. The fancy of this appealed to him, and the +reporter was allowed to come up. He was a young man, and seemed rather +nervous, and did not wish to state where the report had originated. His +chief anxiety was apparently to have Mark Twain's comment on the matter. +Clemens said very little at the time. He did not wish to be a Senator; +he was too busy just now dictating biography, and added that he didn't +think he would care for the job, anyway. When the reporter was gone, +however, certain humorous possibilities developed. The Senatorship would +be a stepping-stone to the Presidency, and with the combination of +humorist, socialist, and peace-patriot in the Presidential chair the +nation could expect an interesting time. Nothing further came of the +matter. There was no such report. The young newspaper man had invented +the whole idea to get a "story" out of Mark Twain. The item as printed +next day invited a good deal of comment, and Collier's Weekly made it a +text for an editorial on his mental vigor and general fitness for the +place. + +If it happened that he had no particular engagement for the afternoon, he +liked to walk out, especially when the pleasant weather came. Sometimes +we walked up Fifth Avenue, and I must admit that for a good while I could +not get rid of a feeling of self-consciousness, for most people turned to +look, though I was fully aware that I did not in the least come into +their scope of vision. They saw only Mark Twain. The feeling was a more +comfortably one at The Players, where we sometimes went for luncheon, for +the acquaintance there and the democracy of that institution had a +tendency to eliminate contrasts and incongruities. We sat at the Round +Table among those good fellows who were always so glad to welcome him. + +Once we went to the "Music Master," that tender play of Charles Klein's, +given by that matchless interpreter, David Warfield. Clemens was +fascinated, and said more than once: + +"It is as permanent as 'Rip Van Winkle.' Warfield, like Jefferson, can go +on playing it all his life." + +We went behind when it was over, and I could see that Warfield glowed +with Mark Twain's unstinted approval. Later, when I saw him at The +Players, he declared that no former compliment had ever made him so +happy. + +There were some billiard games going on between the champions Hoppe and +Sutton, at the Madison Square Garden, and Clemens, with his eager +fondness for the sport, was anxious to attend them. He did not like to +go anywhere alone, and one evening he invited me to accompany him. Just +as he stepped into the auditorium there was a vigorous round of applause. +The players stopped, somewhat puzzled, for no especially brilliant shot +had been made. Then they caught the figure of Mark Twain and realized +that the game, for the moment, was not the chief attraction. The +audience applauded again, and waved their handkerchiefs. Such a tribute +is not often paid to a private citizen. + +Clemens had a great admiration for the young champion Hoppe, which the +billiardist's extreme youth and brilliancy invited, and he watched his +game with intense eagerness. When it was over the referee said a few +words and invited Mark Twain to speak. He rose and told them a +story-probably invented on the instant. He said: + + "Once in Nevada I dropped into a billiard-room casually, and picked + up a cue and began to knock the balls around. The proprietor, who + was a red-haired man, with such hair as I have never seen anywhere + except on a torch, asked me if I would like to play. I said, 'Yes.' + He said, 'Knock the balls around a little and let me see how you can + shoot.' So I knocked them around, and thought I was doing pretty + well, when he said, 'That's all right; I'll play you left-handed.' + It hurt my pride, but I played him. We banked for the shot and he + won it. Then he commenced to play, and I commenced to chalk my cue + to get ready to play, and he went on playing, and I went on chalking + my cue; and he played and I chalked all through that game. When he + had run his string out I said: + + "That's wonderful! perfectly wonderful! If you can play that way + left-handed what could you do right-handed?' + + "'Couldn't do anything,' he said. 'I'm a left-handed man.'" + +How it delighted them! I think it was the last speech of any sort he +made that season. A week or two later he went to Dublin, New Hampshire, +for the summer--this time to the Upton House, which had been engaged a +year before, the Copley Greene place being now occupied by its owner. + + + + +CCXLVI + +THE SECOND SUMMER AT DUBLIN + +The Upton House stands on the edge of a beautiful beech forest some two +or three miles from Dublin, just under Monadnock--a good way up the +slope. It is a handsome, roomy frame-house, and had a long colonnaded +veranda overlooking one of the most beautiful landscape visions on the +planet: lake, forest, hill, and a far range of blue mountains--all the +handiwork of God is there. I had seen these things in paintings, but I +had not dreamed that such a view really existed. The immediate +foreground was a grassy slope, with ancient, blooming apple-trees; and +just at the right hand Monadnock rose, superb and lofty, sloping down to +the panorama below that stretched away, taking on an ever deeper blue, +until it reached that remote range on which the sky rested and the world +seemed to end. It was a masterpiece of the Greater Mind, and of the +highest order, perhaps, for it had in it nothing of the touch of man. A +church spire glinted here and there, but there was never a bit of field, +or stone wall, or cultivated land. It was lonely; it was unfriendly; it +cared nothing whatever for humankind; it was as if God, after creating +all the world, had wrought His masterwork here, and had been so engrossed +with the beauty of it that He had forgotten to give it a soul. In a +sense this was true, for He had not made the place suitable for the +habitation of men. It lacked the human touch; the human interest, and I +could never quite believe in its reality. + +The time of arrival heightened this first impression. It was mid-May and +the lilacs were prodigally in bloom; but the bright sunlight was chill +and unnatural, and there was a west wind that laid the grass flat and +moaned through the house, and continued as steadily as if it must never +stop from year's end to year's end. It seemed a spectral land, a place +of supernatural beauty. Warm, still, languorous days would come, but +that first feeling of unreality would remain permanent. I believe Jean +Clemens was the only one who ever really loved the place. Something +about it appealed to her elemental side and blended with her melancholy +moods. She dressed always in white, and she was tall and pale and +classically beautiful, and she was often silent, like a spirit. She had +a little retreat for herself farther up the mountain-side, and spent most +of her days there wood-carving, which was her chief diversion. + +Clara Clemens did not come to the place at all. She was not yet strong, +and went to Norfolk, Connecticut, where she could still be in quiet +retirement and have her physician's care. Miss Hobby came, and on the +21st of May the dictations were resumed. We began in his bedroom, as +before, but the feeling there was depressing--the absence of the great +carved bed and other furnishings, which had been so much a part of the +picture, was felt by all of us. Nothing of the old luxury and richness +was there. It was a summer-furnished place, handsome but with the +customary bareness. At the end of this first session he dressed in his +snowy flannels, which he had adopted in the place of linen for summer +wear, and we descended to the veranda and looked out over that wide, +wonderful expanse of scenery. + +"I think I shall like it," he said, "when I get acquainted with it, and +get it classified and labeled, and I think we'll do our dictating out +here hereafter. It ought to be an inspiring place." + +So the dictations were transferred to the long veranda, and he was +generally ready for them, a white figure pacing up and down before that +panoramic background. During the earlier, cooler weeks he usually +continued walking with measured step during the dictations, pausing now +and then to look across the far-lying horizon. When it stormed we moved +into the great living-room, where at one end there was a fireplace with +blazing logs, and at the other the orchestrelle, which had once more been +freighted up those mountain heights for the comfort of its harmonies. +Sometimes, when the wind and rain were beating outside, and he was +striding up and down the long room within, with only the blurred shapes +of mountains and trees outlined through the trailing rain, the feeling of +the unreality became so strong that it was hard to believe that somewhere +down below, beyond the rain and the woods, there was a literal world--a +commonplace world, where the ordinary things of life were going on in the +usual way. When the dictation finished early, there would be music--the +music that he loved most--Beethoven's symphonies, or the Schubert +impromptu, or the sonata by Chopin.--[Schubert, Op. 142, No. 2; Chopin, +Op. 37, No. 2.]--It is easy to understand that this carried one a remove +farther from the customary things of life. It was a setting far out of +the usual, though it became that unique white figure and his occupation. +In my notes, made from day to day, I find that I have set down more than +once an impression of the curious unreality of the place and its +surroundings, which would show that it was not a mere passing fancy. + +I had lodgings in the village, and drove out mornings for the dictations, +but often came out again afoot on pleasant afternoons; for he was not +much occupied with social matters, and there was opportunity for quiet, +informing interviews. There was a woods path to the Upton place, and it +was a walk through a fairyland. A part of the way was through such a +growth of beech timber as I have never seen elsewhere: tall, straight, +mottled trees with an undergrowth of laurel, the sunlight sifting +through; one found it easy to expect there storybook ladies, wearing +crowns and green mantles, riding on white palfreys. Then came a more +open way, an abandoned grass-grown road full of sunlight and perfume; and +this led to a dim, religious place, a natural cathedral, where the +columns were stately pine-trees branching and meeting at the top: a +veritable temple in which it always seemed that music was about to play. +You crossed a brook and climbed a little hill, and pushed through a hedge +into a place more open, and the house stood there among the trees. + +The days drifted along, one a good deal like another, except, as the +summer deepened, the weather became warmer, the foliage changed, a drowsy +haze gathered along the valleys and on the mountain-side. He sat more +often now in a large rocking-chair, and generally seemed to be looking +through half-dosed lids toward the Monadnock heights, that were always +changing in aspect-in color and in form--as cloud shapes drifted by or +gathered in those lofty hollows. White and yellow butterflies hovered +over the grass, and there were some curious, large black ants--the +largest I have ever seen and quite harmless--that would slip in and out +of the cracks on the veranda floor, wholly undisturbed by us. Now and +then a light flutter of wind would come murmuring up from the trees +below, and when the apple-bloom was falling there would be a whirl of +white and pink petals that seemed a cloud of smaller butterflies. + +On June 1st I find in my note-book this entry: + + Warm and pleasant. The dictation about Grant continues; a great + privilege to hear this foremost man, of letters review his + associations with that foremost man of arms. He remained seated + today, dressed in white as usual, a large yellow pansy in his + buttonhole, his white hair ruffled by the breeze. He wears his worn + morocco slippers with black hose; sits in the rocker, smoking and + looking out over the hazy hills, delivering his sentences with a + measured accuracy that seldom calls for change. He is speaking just + now of a Grant dinner which he attended where Depew spoke. One is + impressed with the thought that we are looking at and listening to + the war-worn veteran of a thousand dinners--the honored guest of + many; an honored figure of all. Earlier, when he had been + chastising some old offender, he added, "However, he's dead, and I + forgive him." Then, after a moment's reflection, "No; strike that + last sentence out." When we laughed, he added, "We can't forgive + him yet." + +A few days later--it was June 4th, the day before the second anniversary +of the death of Mrs. Clemens--we found him at first in excellent humor +from the long dictation of the day before. Then his mind reverted to the +tragedy of the season, and he began trying to tell of it. It was hard +work. He walked back and forth in the soft sunlight, saying almost +nothing. He gave it up at last, remarking, "We will not work to-morrow." +So we went away. + +He did not dictate on the 5th or the 6th, but on the 7th he resumed the +story of Mrs. Clemens's last days at Florence. The weather had changed: +the sunlight and warmth had all gone; a chill, penetrating mist was on +the mountains; Monadnock was blotted out. We expected him to go to the +fire, but evidently he could not bear being shut in with that subject in +his mind. A black cape was brought out and thrown about his shoulders, +which seemed to fit exactly into the somberness of the picture. For two +hours or more we sat there in the gloom and chill, while he paced up and +down, detailing as graphically as might be that final chapter in the life +of the woman he had loved. + +It is hardly necessary to say that beyond the dictation Clemens did very +little literary work during these months. He had brought his "manuscript +trunk" as usual, thinking, perhaps, to finish the "microbe" story and +other of the uncompleted things; but the dictation gave him sufficient +mental exercise, and he did no more than look over his "stock in trade," +as he called it, and incorporate a few of the finished manuscripts into +"autobiography." Among these were the notes of his trip down the Rhone, +made in 1891, and the old Stormfield story, which he had been treasuring +and suppressing so long. He wrote Howells in June: + + The dictating goes lazily and pleasantly on. With intervals. I + find that I've been at it, off & on, nearly two hours for 155 days + since January 9. To be exact, I've dictated 75 hours in 80 days & + loafed 75 days. I've added 60,000 words in the month that I've been + here; which indicates that I've dictated during 20 days of that + time--40 hours, at an average of 1,500 words an hour. It's a + plenty, & I'm satisfied. + + There's a good deal of "fat." I've dictated (from January 9) + 210,000 words, & the "fat" adds about 50,000 more. + + The "fat" is old pigeonholed things of the years gone by which I or + editors didn't das't to print. For instance, I am dumping in the + little old book which I read to you in Hartford about 30 years ago & + which you said "publish & ask Dean Stanley to furnish an + introduction; he'll do it" (Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven). + It reads quite to suit me without altering a word now that it isn't + to see print until I am dead. + + To-morrow I mean to dictate a chapter which will get my heirs & + assigns burned alive if they venture to print it this side of A.D. + 2006--which I judge they won't. There'll be lots of such chapters + if I live 3 or 4 years longer. The edition of A.D. 2006 will make a + stir when it comes out. I shall be hovering around taking notice, + along with other dead pals. You are invited. + +The chapter which was to invite death at the stake for his successors was +naturally one of religious heresies a violent attack on the orthodox, +scriptural God, but really an expression of the highest reverence for the +God which, as he said, had created the earth and sky and the music of the +constellations. Mark Twain once expressed himself concerning reverence +and the lack of it: + +"I was never consciously and purposely irreverent in my life, yet one +person or another is always charging me with a lack of reverence. +Reverence for what--for whom? Who is to decide what ought to command my +reverence--my neighbor or I? I think I ought to do the electing myself. +The Mohammedan reveres Mohammed--it is his privilege; the Christian +doesn't--apparently that is his privilege; the account is square enough. +They haven't any right to complain of the other, yet they do complain of +each other, and that is where the unfairness comes in. Each says that +the other is irreverent, and both are mistaken, for manifestly you can't +have reverence for a thing that doesn't command it. If you could do that +you could digest what you haven't eaten, and do other miracles and get a +reputation." + +He was not reading many books at this time--he was inclined rather to be +lazy, as he said, and to loaf during the afternoons; but I remember that +he read aloud 'After the Wedding' and 'The Mother'--those two beautiful +word-pictures by Howells--which he declared sounded the depths of +humanity with a deep-sea lead. Also he read a book by William Allen +White, 'In Our Town', a collection of tales that he found most admirable. +I think he took the trouble to send White a personal, hand-written letter +concerning them, although, with the habit of dictation, he had begun, as +he said, to "loathe the use of the pen." + +There were usually some sort of mild social affairs going on in the +neighborhood, luncheons and afternoon gatherings like those of the +previous year, though he seems to have attended fewer of them, for he did +not often leave the house. Once, at least, he assisted in an afternoon +entertainment at the Dublin Club, where he introduced his invention of +the art of making an impromptu speech, and was assisted in its +demonstration by George de Forest Brush and Joseph Lindon Smith, to the +very great amusement of a crowd of summer visitors. The "art" consisted +mainly of having on hand a few reliable anecdotes and a set formula which +would lead directly to them from any given subject. + +Twice or more he collected the children of the neighborhood for charades +and rehearsed them, and took part in the performance, as in the Hartford +days. Sometimes he drove out or took an extended walk. But these things +were seldom. + +Now and then during the summer he made a trip to New York of a +semi-business nature, usually going by the way of Fairhaven, where he +would visit for a few days, journeying the rest of the way in Mr. +Rogers's yacht. Once they made a cruise of considerable length to Bar +Harbor and elsewhere. Here is an amusing letter which he wrote to Mrs. +Rogers after such a visit: + + DEAR MRS. ROGERS,--In packing my things in your house yesterday + morning I inadvertently put in some articles that was laying around, + I thinking about theology & not noticing, the way this family does + in similar circumstances like these. Two books, Mr. Rogers' brown + slippers, & a ham. I thought it was ourn, it looks like one we used + to have. I am very sorry it happened, but it sha'n't occur again & + don't you worry. He will temper the wind to the shorn lamb & I will + send some of the things back anyway if there is some that won't + keep. + + + + +CCXLVI + +DUBLIN, CONTINUED + +In time Mark Twain became very lonely in Dublin. After the brilliant +winter the contrast was too great. He was not yet ready for exile. In +one of his dictations he said: + + The skies are enchantingly blue. The world is a dazzle of sunshine. + Monadnock is closer to us than usual by several hundred yards. The + vast extent of spreading valley is intensely green--the lakes as + intensely blue. And there is a new horizon, a remoter one than we + have known before, for beyond the mighty half-circle of hazy + mountains that form the usual frame of the picture rise certain + shadowy great domes that are unfamiliar to our eyes . . . . + + But there is a defect--only one, but it is a defect which almost + entitles it to be spelled with a capital D. This is the defect of + loneliness. We have not a single neighbor who is a neighbor. + Nobody lives within two miles of us except Franklin MacVeagh, and he + is the farthest off of any, because he is in Europe . . . . + + I feel for Adam and Eve now, for I know how it was with them. I am + existing, broken-hearted, in a Garden of Eden.... The Garden of + Eden I now know was an unendurable solitude. I know that the advent + of the serpent was a welcome change--anything for society . . . . + + I never rose to the full appreciation of the utter solitude of this + place until a symbol of it--a compact and visible allegory of it + --furnished me the lacking lift three days ago. I was standing alone + on this veranda, in the late afternoon, mourning over the stillness, + the far-spreading, beautiful desolation, and the absence of visible + life, when a couple of shapely and graceful deer came sauntering + across the grounds and stopped, and at their leisure impudently + looked me over, as if they had an idea of buying me as bric-a-brac. + Then they seemed to conclude that they could do better for less + money elsewhere, and they sauntered indolently away and disappeared + among the trees. It sized up this solitude. It is so complete, so + perfect, that even the wild animals are satisfied with it. Those + dainty creatures were not in the least degree afraid of me. + +This was no more than a mood--though real enough while it lasted--somber, +and in its way regal. It was the loneliness of a king--King Lear. Yet +he returned gladly enough to solitude after each absence. + +It was just before one of his departures that I made another set of +pictures of him, this time on the colonnaded veranda, where his figure +had become so familiar. He had determined to have his hair cut when he +reached New York, and I was anxious to get the pictures before this +happened. When the proofs came seven of them--he arranged them as a +series to illustrate what he called "The Progress of a Moral Purpose." He +ordered a number of sets of this series, and he wrote a legend on each +photograph, numbering them from 1 to 7, laying each set in a sheet of +letter-paper which formed a sort of wrapper, on which was written: + + This series of q photographs registers with scientific precision, + stage by stage, the progress of a moral purpose through the + mind of the human race's Oldest Friend. S. L. C. + +He added a personal inscription, and sent one to each of his more +intimate friends. One of the pictures amused him more than the others, +because during the exposure a little kitten, unnoticed, had walked into +it, and paused near his foot. He had never outgrown his love for cats, +and he had rented this kitten and two others for the summer from a +neighbor. He didn't wish to own them, he said, for then he would have to +leave them behind uncared for, so he preferred to rent them and pay +sufficiently to insure their subsequent care. These kittens he called +Sackcloth and Ashes--Ashes being the joint name of the two that looked +exactly alike, and so did not need distinctive titles. Their gambols +always amused him. He would stop any time in the midst of dictation to +enjoy them. Once, as he was about to enter the screen-door that led into +the hall, two of the kittens ran up in front of him and stood waiting. +With grave politeness he opened the door, made a low bow, and stepped +back and said: "Walk in, gentlemen. I always give precedence to +royalty." And the kittens marched in, tails in air. All summer long +they played up and down the wide veranda, or chased grasshoppers and +butterflies down the clover slope. It was a never-ending amusement to +him to see them jump into the air after some insect, miss it and tumble +back, and afterward jump up, with a surprised expression and a look of +disappointment and disgust. I remember once, when he was walking up and +down discussing some very serious subject--and one of the kittens was +lying on the veranda asleep--a butterfly came drifting along three feet +or so above the floor. The kitten must have got a glimpse of the insect +out of the corner of its eye, and perhaps did not altogether realize its +action. At all events, it suddenly shot straight up into the air, +exactly like a bounding rubber ball, missed the butterfly, fell back on +the porch floor with considerable force and with much surprise. Then it +sprang to its feet, and, after spitting furiously once or twice, bounded +away. Clemens had seen the performance, and it completely took his +subject out of his mind. He laughed extravagantly, and evidently cared +more for that moment's entertainment than for many philosophies. + +In that remote solitude there was one important advantage--there was no +procession of human beings with axes to grind, and few curious callers. +Occasionally an automobile would find its way out there and make a +circuit of the drive, but this happened too seldom to annoy him. Even +newspaper men rarely made the long trip from Boston or New York to secure +his opinions, and when they came it was by permission and appointment. +Newspaper telegrams arrived now and then, asking for a sentiment on some +public condition or event, and these he generally answered willingly +enough. When the British Premier, Campbell-Bannerman, celebrated his +seventieth birthday, the London Tribune and the New York Herald requested +a tribute. He furnished it, for Bannerman was a very old friend. He had +known him first at Marienbad in '91, and in Vienna in '98, in daily +intercourse, when they had lived at the same hotel. His tribute ran: + +To HIS EXCELLENCY THE BRITISH PREMIER,--Congratulations, not condolences. +Before seventy we are merely respected, at best, and we have to behave +all the time, or we lose that asset; but after seventy we are respected, +esteemed, admired, revered, and don't have to behave unless we want to. +When I first knew you, Honored Sir, one of us was hardly even respected. + MARK TWAIN. + +He had some misgivings concerning the telegram after it had gone, but he +did not recall it. + +Clemens became the victim of a very clever hoax that summer. One day a +friend gave him two examples of the most deliciously illiterate letters, +supposed to have been written by a woman who had contributed certain +articles of clothing to the San Francisco sufferers, and later wished to +recall them because of the protests of her household. He was so sure +that the letters were genuine that he included them in his dictations, +after reading them aloud with great effect. To tell the truth, they did +seem the least bit too well done, too literary in their illiteracy; but +his natural optimism refused to admit of any suspicion, and a little +later he incorporated one of the Jennie Allen letters in a speech which +he made at a Press Club dinner in New York on the subject of simplified +spelling--offering it as an example of language with phonetic brevity +exercising its supreme function, the direct conveyance of ideas. The +letters, in the end, proved to be the clever work of Miss Grace Donworth, +who has since published them serially and in book form. Clemens was not +at all offended or disturbed by the exposure. He even agreed to aid the +young author in securing a publisher, and wrote to Miss Stockbridge, +through whom he had originally received the documents: + + DEAR MISS STOCKBRIDGE (if she really exists), + + 257 Benefit Street (if there is any such place): + + Yes, I should like a copy of that other letter. This whole fake is + delightful; & I tremble with fear that you are a fake yourself & + that I am your guileless prey. (But never mind, it isn't any + matter.) + + Now as to publication---- + +He set forth his views and promised his assistance when enough of the +letters should be completed. + +Clemens allowed his name to be included with the list of spelling +reformers, but he never employed any of the reforms in his letters or +writing. His interest was mainly theoretical, and when he wrote or spoke +on the subject his remarks were not likely to be testimonials in its +favor. His own theory was that the alphabet needed reform, first of all, +so that each letter or character should have one sound, and one sound +only; and he offered as a solution of this an adaptation of shorthand. He +wrote and dictated in favor of this idea to the end of his life. Once he +said: + +"Our alphabet is pure insanity. It can hardly spell any large word in +the English language with any degree of certainty. Its sillinesses are +quite beyond enumeration. English orthography may need reforming and +simplifying, but the English alphabet needs it a good many times as +much." + +He would naturally favor simplicity in anything. I remember him reading, +as an example of beautiful English, The Death of King Arthur, by Sir +Thomas Malory, and his verdict: + +"That is one of the most beautiful things ever written in English, and +written when we had no vocabulary." + +"A vocabulary, then, is sometimes a handicap?" + +"It is indeed." + +Still I think it was never a handicap with him, but rather the plumage of +flight. Sometimes, when just the right word did not come, he would turn +his head a little at different angles, as if looking about him for the +precise term. He would find it directly, and it was invariably the word +needed. Most writers employ, now and again, phrases that do not sharply +present the idea--that blur the picture like a poor opera-glass. Mark +Twain's English always focused exactly. + + + + +CCXLVIII + +"WHAT IS MAN?" AND THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY + +Clemens decided to publish anonymously, or, rather, to print privately, +the Gospel, which he had written in Vienna some eight years before and +added to from time to time. He arranged with Frank Doubleday to take +charge of the matter, and the De Vinne Press was engaged to do the work. +The book was copyrighted in the name of J. W. Bothwell, the +superintendent of the De Vinne company, and two hundred and fifty +numbered copies were printed on hand-made paper, to be gradually +distributed to intimate friends.--[In an introductory word (dated +February, 1905) the author states that the studies for these papers had +been made twenty-five or twenty-seven years before. He probably referred +to the Monday Evening Club essay, "What Is Happiness?" (February, 1883). +See chap. cxli.]--A number of the books were sent to newspaper +reviewers, and so effectually had he concealed the personality of his +work that no critic seems to have suspected the book's authorship. It +was not over-favorably received. It was generally characterized as a +clever, and even brilliant, expose of philosophies which were no longer +startlingly new. The supremacy of self-interest and "man the +irresponsible machine" are the main features of 'What Is Man' and both of +these and all the rest are comprehended in his wider and more absolute +doctrine of that inevitable life-sequence which began with the first +created spark. There can be no training of the ideals, "upward and still +upward," no selfishness and unselfishness, no atom of voluntary effort +within the boundaries of that conclusion. Once admitting the postulate, +that existence is merely a sequence of cause and effect beginning with +the primal atom, and we have a theory that must stand or fall as a whole. +We cannot say that man is a creature of circumstance and then leave him +free to select his circumstance, even in the minutest fractional degree. +It was selected for him with his disposition; in that first instant of +created life. Clemens himself repeatedly emphasized this doctrine, and +once, when it was suggested to him that it seemed to "surround every +thing, like the sky," he answered: + +"Yes, like the sky; you can't break through anywhere." + +Colonel Harvey came to Dublin that summer and persuaded Clemens to let +him print some selections from the dictations in the new volume of the +North American Review, which he proposed to issue fortnightly. The +matter was discussed a good deal, and it was believed that one hundred +thousand words could be selected which would be usable forthwith, as well +as in that long-deferred period for which it was planned. Colonel Harvey +agreed to take a copy of the dictated matter and make the selections +himself, and this plan was carried out. It may be said that most of the +chapters were delightful enough; though, had it been possible to edit +them with the more positive documents as a guide, certain complications +might have been avoided. It does not matter now, and it was not a matter +of very wide import then. + +The payment of these chapters netted Clemens thirty thousand dollars--a +comfortable sum, which he promptly proposed to spend in building on the +property at Redding. He engaged John Mead Howells to prepare some +preliminary plans. + +Clara Clemens, at Norfolk, was written to of the matter. + +A little later I joined her in Redding, and she was the first of the +family to see that beautiful hilltop. She was well pleased with the +situation, and that day selected the spot where the house should stand. +Clemens wrote Howells that he proposed to call it "Autobiography House," +as it was to be built out of the Review money, and he said: + +"If you will build on my farm and live there it will set Mrs. Howells's +health up for sure. Come and I'll sell you the site for twenty-five +dollars. John will tell you it is a choice place." + +The unusual summer was near its close. In my notebook, under date of +September 16th, appears this entry: + + Windy in valleys but not cold. This veranda is protected. It is + peaceful here and perfect, but we are at the summer's end. + +This is my last entry, and the dictations must have ceased a few days +later. I do not remember the date of the return to New York, and +apparently I made no record of it; but I do not think it could have been +later than the 20th. It had been four months since the day of arrival, a +long, marvelous summer such as I would hardly know again. When I think +of that time I shall always hear the ceaseless slippered, shuffling walk, +and see the white figure with its rocking, rolling movement passing up +and down the long gallery, with that preternaturally beautiful landscape +behind, and I shall hear his deliberate speech--always deliberate, save +at rare intervals; always impressive, whatever the subject might be; +whether recalling some old absurdity of youth, or denouncing orthodox +creeds, or detailing the shortcomings of human-kind. + + + + +CCXLIX + +BILLIARDS + +The return to New York marked the beginning of a new era in my relations +with Mark Twain. I have not meant to convey up to this time that there +was between us anything resembling a personal friendship. Our relations +were friendly, certainly, but they were relations of convenience and +mainly of a business, or at least of a literary nature. He was +twenty-six years my senior, and the discrepancy of experience and +attainments was not measurable. With such conditions friendship must be +a deliberate growth; something there must be to bridge the dividing gulf. +Truth requires the confession that, in this case, the bridge took a very +solid, material form, it being, in fact, nothing less than a +billiard-table.--[Clemens had been without a billiard-table since 1891, +the old one having been disposed of on the departure from Hartford.] + +It was a present from Mrs. Henry H. Rogers, and had been intended for +his Christmas; but when he heard of it he could not wait, and suggested +delicately that if he had it "right now" he could begin using it sooner. +So he went one day with Mr. Rogers to the Balke-Collender Company, and +they selected a handsome combination table suitable to all games--the +best that money could buy. He was greatly excited over the prospect, and +his former bedroom was carefully measured, to be certain that it was +large enough for billiard purposes. Then his bed was moved into the +study, and the bookcases and certain appropriate pictures were placed and +hung in the billiard-room to give it the proper feeling. + +The billiard-table arrived and was put in place, the brilliant green +cloth in contrast with the rich red wallpaper and the bookbindings and +pictures making the room wonderfully handsome and inviting. + +Meantime, Clemens, with one of his sudden impulses, had conceived the +notion of spending the winter in Egypt, on the Nile. He had gone so far, +within a few hours after the idea developed, as to plan the time of his +departure, and to partially engage a traveling secretary, so that he +might continue his dictations. He was quite full of the idea just at the +moment when the billiard table was being installed. He had sent for a +book on the subject--the letters of Lady Duff-Gordon, whose daughter, +Janet Ross, had become a dear friend in Florence during the Viviani days. +He spoke of this new purpose on the morning when we renewed the New York +dictations, a month or more following the return from Dublin. When the +dictation ended he said: + +"Have you any special place to lunch to-day?" + +I replied that I had not. + +"Lunch here," he said, "and we'll try the new billiard-table." + +I said what was eminently true--that I could not play--that I had never +played more "than a few games of pool, and those very long ago. + +"No matter," he answered; "the poorer you play, the better I shall like +it." + +So I remained for luncheon and we began, November 2d, the first game ever +played on the Christmas table. We played the English game, in which +caroms and pockets both count. I had a beginner's luck, on the whole, +and I remember it as a riotous, rollicking game, the beginning of a +closer understanding between us--of a distinct epoch in our association. +When it was ended he said: + +"I'm not going to Egypt. There was a man here yesterday afternoon who +said it was bad for bronchitis, and, besides, it's too far away from this +billiard-table." + +He suggested that I come back in the evening and play some more. I did +so, and the game lasted until after midnight. He gave me odds, of +course, and my "nigger luck," as he called it, continued. It kept him +sweating and swearing feverishly to win. Finally, once I made a great +fluke--a carom, followed by most of the balls falling into the pockets. + +"Well," he said, "when you pick up that cue this damn table drips at +every pore." + +After that the morning dictations became a secondary interest. Like a +boy, he was looking forward to the afternoon of play, and it never seemed +to come quick enough to suit him. I remained regularly for luncheon, and +he was inclined to cut the courses short, that he might the sooner get +up-stairs to the billiard-room. His earlier habit of not eating in the +middle of the day continued; but he would get up and dress, and walk +about the dining-room in his old fashion, talking that marvelous, +marvelous talk which I was always trying to remember, and with only +fractional success at best. To him it was only a method of killing time. +I remember once, when he had been discussing with great earnestness the +Japanese question, he suddenly noticed that the luncheon was about +ending, and he said: + +"Now we'll proceed to more serious matters--it's your--shot." And he was +quite serious, for the green cloth and the rolling balls afforded him a +much larger interest. + +To the donor of his new possession Clemens wrote: + + DEAR MRS. ROGERS,--The billiard-table is better than the doctors. + I have a billiardist on the premises, & walk not less than ten miles + every day with the cue in my hand. And the walking is not the whole + of the exercise, nor the most health giving part of it, I think. + Through the multitude of the positions and attitudes it brings into + play every muscle in the body & exercises them all. + + The games begin right after luncheons, daily, & continue until + midnight, with 2 hours' intermission for dinner & music. And so it + is 9 hours' exercise per day & 10 or 12 on Sunday. Yesterday & last + night it was 12--& I slept until 8 this morning without waking. The + billiard-table as a Sabbath-breaker can beat any coal-breaker in + Pennsylvania & give it 30 in the game. If Mr. Rogers will take to + daily billiards he can do without the doctors & the massageur, I + think. + + We are really going to build a house on my farm, an hour & a half + from New York. It is decided. + + With love & many thanks. + S. L. C. + +Naturally enough, with continued practice I improved my game, and he +reduced my odds accordingly. He was willing to be beaten, but not too +often. Like any other boy, he preferred to have the balance in his +favor. We set down a record of the games, and he went to bed happier if +the tally-sheet showed him winner. + +It was natural, too, that an intimacy of association and of personal +interest should grow under such conditions--to me a precious boon--and I +wish here to record my own boundless gratitude to Mrs. Rogers for her +gift, which, whatever it meant to him, meant so much more to me. The +disparity of ages no longer existed; other discrepancies no longer +mattered. The pleasant land of play is a democracy where such things do +not count. + +To recall all the humors and interesting happenings of those early +billiard-days would be to fill a large volume. I can preserve no more +than a few characteristic phases. + +He was not an even-tempered player. When the balls were perverse in +their movements and his aim unsteady, he was likely to become short with +his opponent--critical and even fault-finding. Then presently a reaction +would set in, and he would be seized with remorse. He would become +unnecessarily gentle and kindly--even attentive--placing the balls as I +knocked them into the pockets, hurrying from one end of the table to +render this service, endeavoring to show in every way except by actual +confession in words that he was sorry for what seemed to him, no doubt, +an unworthy display of temper, unjustified irritation. + +Naturally, this was a mood that I enjoyed less than that which had +induced it. I did not wish him to humble himself; I was willing that he +should be severe, even harsh, if he felt so inclined; his age, his +position, his genius entitled him to special privileges; yet I am glad, +as I remember it now, that the other side revealed itself, for it +completes the sum of his great humanity. + +Indeed, he was always not only human, but superhuman; not only a man, but +superman. Nor does this term apply only to his psychology. In no other +human being have I ever seen such physical endurance. I was +comparatively a young man, and by no means an invalid; but many a time, +far in the night, when I was ready to drop with exhaustion, he was still +as fresh and buoyant and eager for the game as at the moment of +beginning. He smoked and smoked continually, and followed the endless +track around the billiard-table with the light step of youth. At three +or four o'clock in the morning he would urge just one more game, and +would taunt me for my weariness. I can truthfully testify that never +until the last year of his life did he willingly lay down the +billiard-cue, or show the least suggestion of fatigue. + +He played always at high pressure. Now and then, in periods of +adversity, he would fly into a perfect passion with things in general. +But, in the end, it was a sham battle, and he saw the uselessness and +humor of it, even in the moment of his climax. Once, when he found it +impossible to make any of his favorite shots, he became more and more +restive, the lightning became vividly picturesque as the clouds +blackened. Finally, with a regular thunder-blast, he seized the cue with +both hands and literally mowed the balls across the table, landing one or +two of them on the floor. I do not recall his exact remarks during the +performance; I was chiefly concerned in getting out of the way, and those +sublime utterances were lost. I gathered up the balls and we went on +playing as if nothing had happened, only he was very gentle and sweet, +like the sun on the meadows after the storm has passed by. After a +little he said: + +"This is a most amusing game. When you play badly it amuses me, and when +I play badly and lose my temper it certainly must amuse you." + +His enjoyment of his opponent's perplexities was very keen. When he had +left the balls in some unfortunate position which made it almost +impossible for me to score he would laugh boisterously. I used to affect +to be injured and disturbed by this ridicule. Once, when he had made the +conditions unusually hard for me, and was enjoying the situation +accordingly, I was tempted to remark: + +"Whenever I see you laugh at a thing like that I always doubt your sense +of humor." Which seemed to add to his amusement. + +Sometimes, when the balls were badly placed for me, he would offer +ostensible advice, suggesting that I should shoot here and there--shots +that were possible, perhaps, but not promising. Often I would follow his +advice, and then when I failed to score his amusement broke out afresh. + +Other billiardists came from time to time: Colonel Harvey, Mr. Duneka, +and Major Leigh, of the Harper Company, and Peter Finley Dunne (Mr. +Dooley); but they were handicapped by their business affairs, and were +not dependable for daily and protracted sessions. Any number of his +friends were willing, even eager, to come for his entertainment; but the +percentage of them who could and would devote a number of hours each day +to being beaten at billiards and enjoy the operation dwindled down to a +single individual. Even I could not have done it--could not have +afforded it, however much I might have enjoyed the diversion--had it not +been contributory to my work. To me the association was invaluable; it +drew from him a thousand long-forgotten incidents; it invited a stream of +picturesque comments and philosophies; it furnished the most intimate +insight into his character. + +He was not always glad to see promiscuous callers, even some one that he +might have met pleasantly elsewhere. One afternoon a young man whom he +had casually invited to "drop in some day in town" happened to call in +the midst of a very close series of afternoon games. It would all have +been well enough if the visitor had been content to sit quietly on the +couch and "bet on the game," as Clemens suggested, after the greetings +were over; but he was a very young man, and he felt the necessity of +being entertaining. He insisted on walking about the room and getting in +the way, and on talking about the Mark Twain books he had read, and the +people he had met from time to time who had known Mark Twain on the +river, or on the Pacific coast, or elsewhere. I knew how fatal it was +for him to talk to Clemens during his play, especially concerning matters +most of which had been laid away. I trembled for our visitor. If I +could have got his ear privately I should have said: "For heaven's sake +sit down and keep still or go away! There's going to be a combination of +earthquake and cyclone and avalanche if you keep this thing up." + +I did what I could. I looked at my watch every other minute. At last, +in desperation, I suggested that I retire from the game and let the +visitor have my cue. I suppose I thought this would eliminate an element +of danger. He declined on the ground that he seldom played, and +continued his deadly visit. I have never been in an atmosphere so +fraught with danger. I did not know how the game stood, and I played +mechanically and forgot to count the score. Clemens's face was grim and +set and savage. He no longer ventured even a word. By and by I noticed +that he was getting white, and I said, privately, "Now, this young man's +hour has come." + +It was certainly by the mercy of God just then that the visitor said: + +"I'm sorry, but I've got to go. I'd like to stay longer, but I've got an +engagement for dinner." + +I don't remember how he got out, but I know that tons lifted as the door +closed behind him. Clemens made his shot, then very softly said: + +"If he had stayed another five minutes I should have offered him +twenty-five cents to go." + +But a moment later he glared at me. + +"Why in nation did you offer him your cue?" + +"Wasn't that the courteous thing to do?" I asked. + +"No!" he ripped out. "The courteous and proper thing would have been to +strike him dead. Did you want to saddle that disaster upon us for life?" + +He was blowing off steam, and I knew it and encouraged it. My impulse +was to lie down on the couch and shout with hysterical laughter, but I +suspected that would be indiscreet. He made some further comment on the +propriety of offering a visitor a cue, and suddenly began to sing a +travesty of an old hymn: + + "How tedious are they + Who their sovereign obey," + +and so loudly that I said: + +"Aren't you afraid he'll hear you and come back?" Whereupon he pretended +alarm and sang under his breath, and for the rest of the evening was in +boundless good-humor. + +I have recalled this incident merely as a sample of things that were +likely to happen at any time in his company, and to show the difficulty +one might find in fitting himself to his varying moods. He was not to be +learned in a day, or a week, or a month; some of those who knew him +longest did not learn him at all. + +We celebrated his seventy-first birthday by playing billiards all day. He +invented a new game for the occasion; inventing rules for it with almost +every shot. + +It happened that no member of the family was at home on this birthday. +Ill health had banished every one, even the secretary. Flowers, +telegrams, and congratulations came, and there was a string of callers; +but he saw no one beyond some intimate friends--the Gilders--late in the +afternoon. When they had gone we went down to dinner. We were entirely +alone, and I felt the great honor of being his only guest on such an +occasion. Once between the courses, when he rose, as usual, to walk +about, he wandered into the drawing-room, and seating himself at the +orchestrelle began to play the beautiful flower-song from "Faust." It +was a thing I had not seen him do before, and I never saw him do it +again. When he came back to the table he said: + +"Speaking of companions of the long ago, after fifty years they become +only shadows and might as well be in the grave. Only those whom one has +really loved mean anything at all. Of my playmates I recall John Briggs, +John Garth, and Laura Hawkins--just those three; the rest I buried long +ago, and memory cannot even find their graves." + +He was in his loveliest humor all that day and evening; and that night, +when he stopped playing, he said: + +"I have never had a pleasanter day at this game." + +I answered, "I hope ten years from to-night we shall still be playing +it." + +"Yes," he said, "still playing the best game on earth." + + + + +CCL + +PHILOSOPHY AND PESSIMISM + +In a letter to MacAlister, written at this time, he said: + + The doctors banished Jean to the country 5 weeks ago; they banished + my secretary to the country for a fortnight last Saturday; they + banished Clara to the country for a fortnight last Monday . . . . + They banished me to Bermuda to sail next Wednesday, but I struck and + sha'n't go. My complaint is permanent bronchitis & is one of the + very best assets I've got, for it excuses me from every public + function this winter--& all other winters that may come. + +If he had bronchitis when this letter was written, it must have been of a +very mild form, for it did not interfere with billiard games, which were +more protracted and strenuous than at almost any other period. I +conclude, therefore, that it was a convenient bronchitis, useful on +occasion. + +For a full ten days we were alone in the big house with the servants. It +was a holiday most of the time. We hurried through the mail in the +morning and the telephone calls; then, while I answered such letters as +required attention, he dictated for an hour or so to Miss Hobby, after +which, billiards for the rest of the day and evening. When callers were +reported by the butler, I went down and got rid of them. Clara Clemens, +before her departure, had pinned up a sign, "NO BILLIARDS AFTER 10 P.M.," +which still hung on the wall, but it was outlawed. Clemens occasionally +planned excursions to Bermuda and other places; but, remembering the +billiard-table, which he could not handily take along, he abandoned these +projects. He was a boy whose parents had been called away, left to his +own devices, and bent on a good time. + +There were likely to be irritations in his morning's mail, and more often +he did not wish to see it until it had been pretty carefully sifted. So +many people wrote who wanted things, so many others who made the claim of +more or less distant acquaintanceship the excuse for long and trivial +letters. + +"I have stirred up three generations," he said; "first the grandparents, +then the children, and now the grandchildren; the great-grandchildren +will begin to arrive soon." + +His mail was always large; but often it did not look interesting. One +could tell from the envelope and the superscription something of the +contents. Going over one assortment he burst out: + +"Look at them! Look how trivial they are! Every envelope looks as if it +contained a trivial human soul." + +Many letters were filled with fulsome praise and compliment, usually of +one pattern. He was sated with such things, and seldom found it possible +to bear more than a line or two of them. Yet a fresh, well-expressed +note of appreciation always pleased him. + +"I can live for two months on a good compliment," he once said. Certain +persistent correspondents, too self-centered to realize their lack of +consideration, or the futility of their purpose, followed him +relentlessly. Of one such he remarked: + +"That woman intends to pursue me to the grave. I wish something could be +done to appease her." + +And again: + +"Everybody in the world who wants something--something of no interest to +me--writes to me to get it." + +These morning sessions were likely to be of great interest. Once a +letter spoke of the desirability of being an optimist. "That word +perfectly disgusts me," he said, and his features materialized the +disgust, "just as that other word, pessimist, does; and the idea that one +can, by any effort of will, be one or the other, any more than he can +change the color of his hair. The reason why a man is a pessimist or an +optimist is not because he wants to be, but because he was born so; and +this man [a minister of the Gospel who was going to explain life to him] +is going to tell me why he isn't a pessimist. Oh, he'll do it, but he +won't tell the truth; he won't make it short enough." + +Yet he was always patient with any one who came with spiritual messages, +theological arguments, and consolations. He might have said to them: +"Oh, dear friends, those things of which you speak are the toys that long +ago I played with and set aside." He could have said it and spoken the +truth; but I believe he did not even think it. He listened to any one +for whom he had respect, and was grateful for any effort in his behalf. +One morning he read aloud a lecture given in London by George Bernard +Shaw on religion, commenting as he read. He said: + +"This letter is a frank breath of expression [and his comments were +equally frank]. There is no such thing as morality; it is not immoral +for the tiger to eat the wolf, or the wolf the cat, or the cat the bird, +and so on down; that is their business. There is always enough for each +one to live on. It is not immoral for one nation to seize another nation +by force of arms, or for one man to seize another man's property or life +if he is strong enough and wants to take it. It is not immoral to create +the human species--with or without ceremony; nature intended exactly +these things." + +At one place in the lecture Shaw had said: "No one of good sense can +accept any creed to-day without reservation." + +"Certainly not," commented Clemens; "the reservation is that he is a d--d +fool to accept it at all." + +He was in one of his somber moods that morning. I had received a print +of a large picture of Thomas Nast--the last one taken. The face had a +pathetic expression which told the tragedy of his last years. Clemens +looked at the picture several moments without speaking. Then he broke +out: + +"Why can't a man die when he's had his tragedy? I ought to have died +long ago." And somewhat later: "Once Twichell heard me cussing the human +race, and he said, 'Why, Mark, you are the last person in the world to do +that--one selected and set apart as you are.' I said 'Joe, you don't +know what you are talking about. I am not cussing altogether about my +own little troubles. Any one can stand his own misfortunes; but when I +read in the papers all about the rascalities and outrages going on I +realize what a creature the human animal is. Don't you care more about +the wretchedness of others than anything that happens to you?' Joe said +he did, and shut up." + +It occurred to me to suggest that he should not read the daily papers. +"No difference," he said. "I read books printed two hundred years ago, +and they hurt just the same." + +"Those people are all dead and gone," I objected. + +"They hurt just the same," he maintained. + +I sometimes thought of his inner consciousness as a pool darkened by his +tragedies, its glassy surface, when calm, reflecting all the joy and +sunlight and merriment of the world, but easily--so easily--troubled and +stirred even to violence. Once following the dictation, when I came to +the billiard-room he was shooting the balls about the table, apparently +much depressed. He said: + +"I have been thinking it out--if I live two years more I will put an end +to it all. I will kill myself." + +"You have much to live for----" + +"But I am so tired of the eternal round," he interrupted; "so tired." And +I knew he meant that he was ill of the great loneliness that had come to +him that day in Florence, and would never pass away. + +I referred to the pressure of social demands in the city, and the relief +he would find in his country home. He shook his head. + +"The country home I need," he said, fiercely, "is a cemetery." + +Yet the mood changed quickly enough when the play began. He was gay and +hilarious presently, full of the humors and complexities of the game. H. +H. Rogers came in with a good deal of frequency, seldom making very long +calls, but never seeming to have that air of being hurried which one +might expect to find in a man whose day was only twenty-four hours long, +and whose interests were so vast and innumerable. He would come in where +we were playing, and sit down and watch the game, or perhaps would pick +up a book and read, exchanging a remark now and then. More often, +however, he sat in the bedroom, for his visits were likely to be in the +morning. They were seldom business calls, or if they were, the business +was quickly settled, and then followed gossip, humorous incident, or +perhaps Clemens would read aloud something he had written. But once, +after greetings, he began: + +"Well, Rogers, I don't know what you think of it, but I think I have had +about enough of this world, and I wish I were out of it." + +Mr. Rogers replied, "I don't say much about it, but that expresses my +view." + +This from the foremost man of letters and one of the foremost financiers +of the time was impressive. Each at the mountain-top of his career, they +agreed that the journey was not worth while--that what the world had +still to give was not attractive enough to tempt them to prevent a desire +to experiment with the next stage. One could remember a thousand poor +and obscure men who were perfectly willing to go on struggling and +starving, postponing the day of settlement as long as possible; but +perhaps, when one has had all the world has to give, when there are no +new worlds in sight to conquer, one has a different feeling. + +Well, the realization lay not so far ahead for either of them, though at +that moment they both seemed full of life and vigor--full of youth. One +could not imagine the day when for them it would all be over. + + + + +CCLI + +A LOBBYING EXPEDITION + +Clara Clemens came home now and then to see how matters were progressing, +and very properly, for Clemens was likely to become involved in social +intricacies which required a directing hand. The daughter inherited no +little of the father's characteristics of thought and phrase, and it was +always a delight to see them together when one could be just out of range +of the crossfire. I remember soon after her return, when she was making +some searching inquiries concerning the billiard-room sign, and other +suggested or instituted reforms, he said: + +"Oh well, never mind, it doesn't matter. I'm boss in this house." + +She replied, quickly: "Oh no, you're not. You're merely owner. I'm the +captain--the commander-in-chief." + +One night at dinner she mentioned the possibility of going abroad that +year. During several previous summers she had planned to visit Vienna to +see her old music-master, Leschetizky, once more before his death. She +said: + +"Leschetizky is getting so old. If I don't go soon I'm afraid I sha'n't +be in time for his funeral." + +"Yes," said her father, thoughtfully, "you keep rushing over to +Leschetizky's funeral, and you'll miss mine." + +He had made one or two social engagements without careful reflection, and +the situation would require some delicacy of adjustment. During a moment +between the courses, when he left the table and was taking his exercise +in the farther room, she made some remark which suggested a doubt of her +father's gift for social management. I said: + +"Oh, well, he is a king, you know, and a king can do no wrong." + +"Yes, I know," she answered. "The king can do no wrong; but he frightens +me almost to death, sometimes, he comes so near it." + +He came back and began to comment rather critically on some recent +performance of Roosevelt's, which had stirred up a good deal of newspaper +amusement--it was the Storer matter and those indiscreet letters which +Roosevelt had written relative to the ambassadorship which Storer so much +desired. Miss Clemens was inclined to defend the President, and spoke +with considerable enthusiasm concerning his elements of popularity, which +had won him such extraordinary admiration. + +"Certainly he is popular," Clemens admitted, "and with the best of +reasons. If the twelve apostles should call at the White House, he would +say, 'Come in, come in! I am delighted to see you. I've been watching +your progress, and I admired it very much.' Then if Satan should come, +he would slap him on the shoulder and say, 'Why, Satan, how do you do? I +am so glad to meet you. I've read all your works and enjoyed every one +of them.' Anybody could be popular with a gift like that." + +It was that evening or the next, perhaps, that he said to her: + +"Ben [one of his pet names for her], now that you are here to run the +ranch, Paine and I are going to Washington on a vacation. You don't seem +to admire our society much, anyhow." + +There were still other reasons for the Washington expedition. There was +an important bill up for the extension of the book royalty period, and +the forces of copyright were going down in a body to use every possible +means to get the measure through. + +Clemens, during Cleveland's first administration, some nineteen years +before, had accompanied such an expedition, and through S. S. ("Sunset") +Cox had obtained the "privileges of the floor" of the House, which had +enabled him to canvass the members individually. Cox assured the +doorkeeper that Clemens had received the thanks of Congress for national +literary service, and was therefore entitled to that privilege. This was +not strictly true; but regulations were not very severe in those days, +and the ruse had been regarded as a good joke, which had yielded +excellent results. Clemens had a similar scheme in mind now, and +believed that his friendship with Speaker Cannon--"Uncle Joe"--would +obtain for him a similar privilege. The Copyright Association working in +its regular way was very well, he said, but he felt he could do more as +an individual than by acting merely as a unit of that body. + +"I canvassed the entire House personally that other time," he said. "Cox +introduced me to the Democrats, and John D. Long, afterward Secretary of +the Navy, introduced me to the Republicans. I had a darling time +converting those members, and I'd like to try the experiment again." + +I should have mentioned earlier, perhaps, that at this time he had begun +to wear white clothing regularly, regardless of the weather and season. +On the return from Dublin he had said: + +"I can't bear to put on black clothes again. I wish I could wear white +all winter. I should prefer, of course, to wear colors, beautiful +rainbow hues, such as the women have monopolized. Their clothing makes a +great opera audience an enchanting spectacle, a delight to the eye and to +the spirit--a garden of Eden for charm and color. + +"The men, clothed in odious black, are scattered here and there over the +garden like so many charred stumps. If we are going to be gay in spirit, +why be clad in funeral garments? I should like to dress in a loose and +flowing costume made all of silks and velvets resplendent with stunning +dyes, and so would every man I have ever known; but none of us dares to +venture it. If I should appear on Fifth Avenue on a Sunday morning +clothed as I would like to be clothed the churches would all be vacant +and the congregation would come tagging after me. They would scoff, of +course, but they would envy me, too. When I put on black it reminds me +of my funerals. I could be satisfied with white all the year round." + +It was not long after this that he said: + +"I have made up my mind not to wear black any more, but white, and let +the critics say what they will." + +So his tailor was sent for, and six creamy flannel and serge suits were +ordered, made with the short coats, which he preferred, with a gray suit +or two for travel, and he did not wear black again, except for evening +dress and on special occasions. It was a gratifying change, and though +the newspapers made much of it, there was no one who was not gladdened by +the beauty of his garments and their general harmony with his person. He +had never worn anything so appropriate or so impressive. + +This departure of costume came along a week or two before the Washington +trip, and when his bags were being packed for the excursion he was +somewhat in doubt as to the propriety of bursting upon Washington in +December in that snowy plumage. I ventured: + +"This is a lobbying expedition of a peculiar kind, and does not seem to +invite any half-way measures. I should vote in favor of the white suit." + +I think Miss Clemens was for it, too. She must have been or the vote +wouldn't have carried, though it was clear he strongly favored the idea. +At all events, the white suits came along. + +We were off the following afternoon: Howells, Robert Underwood Johnson, +one of the Appletons, one of the Putnams, George Bowker, and others were +on the train. On the trip down in the dining-car there was a discussion +concerning the copyrighting of ideas, which finally resolved itself into +the possibility of originating a new one. Clemens said: + +"There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take +a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We +give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on +turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same +old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages." + +We put up at the Willard, and in the morning drove over to the +Congressional Library, where the copyright hearing was in progress. There +was a joint committee of the two Houses seated round a long table at +work, and a number of spectators more or less interested in the bill, +mainly, it would seem, men concerned with the protection of mechanical +music-rolls. The fact that this feature was mixed up with literature was +not viewed with favor by most of the writers. Clemens referred to the +musical contingent as "those hand-organ men who ought to have a bill of +their own." + +I should mention that early that morning Clemens had written this letter +to Speaker Cannon: + +December 7, 1906. + +DEAR UNCLE JOSEPH,--Please get me the thanks of the Congress--not next +week, but right away. It is very necessary. Do accomplish this for your +affectionate old friend right away; by persuasion, if you can; by +violence, if you must, for it is imperatively necessary that I get on the +floor for two or three hours and talk to the members, man by man, in +behalf of the support, encouragement, and protection of one of the +nation's most valuable assets and industries--its literature. I have +arguments with me, also a barrel with liquid in it. + +Give me a chance. Get me the thanks of Congress. Don't wait for others +--there isn't time. I have stayed away and let Congress alone for +seventy-one years and I am entitled to thanks. Congress knows it +perfectly well, and I have long felt hurt that this quite proper and +earned expression of gratitude has been merely felt by the House and +never publicly uttered. Send me an order on the Sergeant-at-Arms quick. +When shall I come? + With love and a benediction; + MARK TWAIN. + +We went over to the Capitol now to deliver to "Uncle Joe" this +characteristic letter. We had picked up Clemens's nephew, Samuel E. +Moffett, at the Library, and he came along and led the way to the +Speaker's room. Arriving there, Clemens laid off his dark overcoat and +stood there, all in white, certainly a startling figure among those +clerks, newspaper men, and incidental politicians. He had been noticed +as he entered the Capitol, and a number of reporters had followed close +behind. Within less than a minute word was being passed through the +corridors that Mark Twain was at the Capitol in his white suit. The +privileged ones began to gather, and a crowd assembled in the hall +outside. + +Speaker Cannon was not present at the moment; but a little later he +"billowed" in--which seems to be the word to express it--he came with +such a rush and tide of life. After greetings, Clemens produced the +letter and read it to him solemnly, as if he were presenting a petition. +Uncle Joe listened quite seriously, his head bowed a little, as if it +were really a petition, as in fact it was. He smiled, but he said, quite +seriously: + +"That is a request that ought to be granted; but the time has gone by +when I am permitted any such liberties. Tom Reed, when he was Speaker, +inaugurated a strict precedent excluding all outsiders from the use of +the floor of the House." + +"I got in the other time," Clemens insisted. + +"Yes," said Uncle Joe; "but that ain't now. Sunset Cox could let you in, +but I can't. They'd hang me." He reflected a moment, and added: "I'll +tell you what I'll do: I've got a private room down-stairs that I never +use. It's all fitted up with table and desk, stationery, chinaware, and +cutlery; you could keep house there, if you wanted to. I'll let you have +it as long as you want to stay here, and I'll give you my private +servant, Neal, who's been here all his life and knows every official, +every Senator and Representative, and they all know him. He'll bring you +whatever you want, and you can send in messages by him. You can have the +members brought down singly or in bunches, and convert them as much as +you please. I'd give you a key to the room, only I haven't got one +myself. I never can get in when I want to, but Neal can get in, and +he'll unlock it for you. You can have the room, and you can have Neal. +Now, will that do you?" + +Clemens said it would. It was, in fact, an offer without precedent. +Probably never in the history of the country had a Speaker given up his +private room to lobbyists. We went in to see the House open, and then +went down with Neal and took possession of the room. The reporters had +promptly seized upon the letter, and they now got hold of its author, led +him to their own quarters, and, gathering around him, fired questions at +him, and kept their note-books busy. He made a great figure, all in +white there among them, and they didn't fail to realize the value of it +as "copy." He talked about copyright, and about his white clothes, and +about a silk hat which Howells wore. + +Back in the Speaker's room, at last, he began laying out the campaign, +which would begin next day. By and by he said: + +"Look here! I believe I've got to speak over there in that +committee-room to-day or to-morrow. I ought to know just when it is." + +I had not heard of this before, and offered to go over and see about it, +which I did at once. I hurried back faster than I had gone. + +"Mr. Clemens, you are to speak in half an hour, and the room is crowded +full; people waiting to hear you." + +"The devil!" he said. "Well, all right; I'll just lie down here a few +minutes and then we'll go over. Take paper and pencil and make a few +headings." + +There was a couch in the room. He lay down while I sat at the table with +a pencil, making headings now and then, as he suggested, and presently he +rose and, shoving the notes into his pocket, was ready. It was half past +three when we entered the committee-room, which was packed with people +and rather dimly lighted, for it was gloomy outside. Herbert Putnam, the +librarian, led us to seats among the literary group, and Clemens, +removing his overcoat, stood in that dim room clad as in white armor. +There was a perceptible stir. Howells, startled for a moment, whispered: + +"What in the world did he wear that white suit for?" though in his heart +he admired it as much as the others. + +I don't remember who was speaking when we came in, but he was saying +nothing important. Whoever it was, he was followed by Dr. Edward Everett +Hale, whose age always commanded respect, and whose words always invited +interest. Then it was Mark Twain's turn. He did not stand by his chair, +as the others had done, but walked over to the Speaker's table, and, +turning, faced his audience. I have never seen a more impressive sight +than that snow-white figure in that dim-lit, crowded room. He never +touched his notes; he didn't even remember them. He began in that even, +quiet, deliberate voice of his the most even, the most quiet, the most +deliberate voice in the world--and, without a break or a hesitation for a +word, he delivered a copyright argument, full of humor and serious +reasoning, such a speech as no one in that room, I suppose, had ever +heard. Certainly it was a fine and dramatic bit of impromptu pleading. +The weary committee, which had been tortured all day with dull, +statistical arguments made by the mechanical device fiends, and dreary +platitudes unloaded by men whose chief ambition was to shine as copyright +champions, suddenly realized that they were being rewarded for the long +waiting. They began to brighten and freshen, and uplift and smile, like +flowers that have been wilted by a drought when comes the refreshing +shower that means renewed life and vigor. Every listener was as if +standing on tiptoe. When the last sentence was spoken the applause came +like an explosion.--[Howells in his book My Mark Twain speaks of +Clemens's white clothing as "an inspiration which few men would have had +the courage to act upon." He adds: "The first time I saw him wear it +was at the authors' hearing before the Congressional Committee on +Copyright in Washington. Nothing could have been more dramatic than the +gesture with which he flung off his long, loose overcoat and stood forth +in white from his feet to the crown of his silvery head. It was a +magnificent coup, and he dearly loved a coup; but the magnificent speech +which he made, tearing to shreds the venerable farrago of nonsense about +nonproperty in ideas which had formed the basis of all copyright +legislation, made you forget even his spectacularity."] + +There came a universal rush of men and women to get near enough for a +word and to shake his hand. But he was anxious to get away. We drove to +the Willard and talked and smoked, and got ready for dinner. He was +elated, and said the occasion required full-dress. We started down at +last, fronted and frocked like penguins. + +I did not realize then the fullness of his love for theatrical effect. I +supposed he would want to go down with as little ostentation as possible, +so took him by the elevator which enters the dining-room without passing +through the long corridor known as "Peacock Alley," because of its being +a favorite place for handsomely dressed fashionables of the national +capital. When we reached the entrance of the dining-room he said: + +"Isn't there another entrance to this place?" + +I said there was, but that it was very conspicuous. We should have to go +down the long corridor. + +"Oh, well," he said, "I don't mind that. Let's go back and try it over." + +So we went back up the elevator, walked to the other end of the hotel, +and came down to the F Street entrance. There is a fine, stately flight +of steps--a really royal stair--leading from this entrance down into +"Peacock Alley." To slowly descend that flight is an impressive thing to +do. It is like descending the steps of a throne-room, or to some royal +landing-place where Cleopatra's barge might lie. I confess that I was +somewhat nervous at the awfulness of the occasion, but I reflected that I +was powerfully protected; so side by side, both in full-dress, white +ties, white-silk waistcoats, and all, we came down that regal flight. + +Of course he was seized upon at once by a lot of feminine admirers, and +the passage along the corridor was a perpetual gantlet. I realize now +that this gave the dramatic finish to his day, and furnished him with +proper appetite for his dinner. I did not again make the mistake of +taking him around to the more secluded elevator. I aided and abetted him +every evening in making that spectacular descent of the royal stairway, +and in running that fair and frivolous gantlet the length of "Peacock +Alley." The dinner was a continuous reception. No sooner was he seated +than this Congressman and that Senator came over to shake hands with Mark +Twain. Governor Francis of Missouri also came. Eventually Howells +drifted in, and Clemens reviewed the day, its humors and successes. Back +in the rooms at last he summed up the progress thus far--smoked, laughed +over "Uncle Joe's" surrender to the "copyright bandits," and turned in +for the night. + +We were at the Capitol headquarters in Speaker Cannon's private room +about eleven o'clock next morning. Clemens was not in the best humor +because I had allowed him to oversleep. He was inclined to be +discouraged at the prospect, and did not believe many of the members +would come down to see him. He expressed a wish for some person of +influence and wide acquaintance, and walked up and down, smoking +gloomily. I slipped out and found the Speaker's colored body-guard, +Neal, and suggested that Mr. Clemens was ready now to receive the +members. + +That was enough. They began to arrive immediately. John Sharp Williams +came first, then Boutell, from Illinois, Littlefield, of Maine, and after +them a perfect procession, including all the leading lights--Dalzell, +Champ Clark, McCall--one hundred and eighty or so in all during the next +three or four hours. + +Neal announced each name at the door, and in turn I announced it to +Clemens when the press was not too great. He had provided boxes of +cigars, and the room was presently blue with smoke, Clemens in his white +suit in the midst of it, surrounded by those darker figures--shaking +hands, dealing out copyright gospel and anecdotes--happy and wonderfully +excited. There were chairs, but usually there was only standing room. He +was on his feet for several hours and talked continually; but when at +last it was over, and Champ Clark, who I believe remained longest and was +most enthusiastic in the movement, had bade him good-by, he declared that +he was not a particle tired, and added: + +"I believe if our bill could be presented now it would pass." + +He was highly elated, and pronounced everything a perfect success. Neal, +who was largely responsible for the triumph, received a ten-dollar bill. + +We drove to the hotel and dined that night with the Dodges, who had been +neighbors at Riverdale. Later, the usual crowd of admirers gathered +around him, among them I remember the minister from Costa Rica, the +Italian minister, and others of the diplomatic service, most of whom he +had known during his European residence. Some one told of traveling in +India and China, and how a certain Hindu "god" who had exchanged +autographs with Mark Twain during his sojourn there was familiar with +only two other American names--George Washington and Chicago; while the +King of Siam had read but three English books--the Bible, Bryce's +American Commonwealth, and The Innocents Abroad. + +We were at Thomas Nelson Page's for dinner next evening--a wonderfully +beautiful home, full of art treasures. A number of guests had been +invited. Clemens naturally led the dinner-talk, which eventually drifted +to reading. He told of Mrs. Clemens's embarrassment when Stepniak had +visited them and talked books, and asked her what her husband thought of +Balzac, Thackeray, and the others. She had been obliged to say that he +had not read them. + +"'How interesting!' said Stepniak. But it wasn't interesting to Mrs. +Clemens. It was torture." + +He was light-spirited and gay; but recalling Mrs. Clemens saddened him, +perhaps, for he was silent as we drove to the hotel, and after he was in +bed he said, with a weary despair which even the words do not convey: + +"If I had been there a minute earlier, it is possible--it is possible +that she might have died in my arms. Sometimes I think that perhaps +there was an instant--a single instant--when she realized that she was +dying and that I was not there." + +In New York I had once brought him a print of the superb "Adams +Memorial," by Saint-Gaudens--the bronze woman who sits in the still court +in the Rock Creek Cemetery at Washington. + +On the morning following the Page dinner at breakfast, he said: + +"Engage a carriage and we will drive out and see the Saint-Gaudens +bronze." + +It was a bleak, dull December day, and as we walked down through the +avenues of the dead there was a presence of realized sorrow that seemed +exactly suited to such a visit. We entered the little inclosure of +cedars where sits the dark figure which is art's supreme expression of +the great human mystery of life and death. Instinctively we removed our +hats, and neither spoke until after we had come away. Then: + +"What does he call it?" he asked. + +I did not know, though I had heard applied to it that great line of +Shakespeare's--"the rest is silence." + +"But that figure is not silent," he said. + +And later, as we were driving home: + +"It is in deep meditation on sorrowful things." + +When we returned to New York he had the little print framed, and kept it +always on his mantelpiece. + + + + +CCLII + +THEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION + +From the Washington trip dates a period of still closer association with +Mark Twain. On the way to New York he suggested that I take up residence +in his house--a privilege which I had no wish to refuse. There was room +going to waste, he said, and it would be handier for the early and late +billiard sessions. So, after that, most of the days and nights I was +there. + +Looking back on that time now, I see pretty vividly three quite distinct +pictures. One of them, the rich, red interior of the billiard-room with +the brilliant, green square in the center, on which the gay balls are +rolling, and bending over it that luminous white figure in the instant of +play. Then there is the long, lighted drawing-room with the same figure +stretched on a couch in the corner, drowsily smoking, while the rich +organ tones fill the place summoning for him scenes and faces which +others do not see. This was the hour between dinner and billiards--the +hour which he found most restful of the day. Sometimes he rose, walking +the length of the parlors, his step timed to the music and his thought. +Of medium height, he gave the impression of being tall-his head thrown +up, and like a lion's, rather large for his body. But oftener he lay +among the cushions, the light flooding his white hair and dress and +heightening his brilliant coloring. + +The third picture is that of the dinner-table--always beautifully laid, +and always a shrine of wisdom when he was there. He did not always talk; +but it was his habit to do so, and memory holds the clearer vision of him +when, with eyes and face alive with interest, he presented some new angle +of thought in fresh picturesqueness of speech. These are the pictures +that have remained to me out of the days spent under his roof, and they +will not fade while memory lasts. + +Of Mark Twain's table philosophies it seems proper to make rather +extended record. They were usually unpremeditated, and they presented +the man as he was, and thought. I preserved as much of them as I could, +and have verified phrase and idea, when possible, from his own notes and +other unprinted writings. + +This dinner-table talk naturally varied in character from that of the +billiard-room. The latter was likely to be anecdotal and personal; the +former was more often philosophical and commentative, ranging through a +great variety of subjects scientific, political, sociological, and +religious. His talk was often of infinity--the forces of creation--and +it was likely to be satire of the orthodox conceptions, intermingled with +heresies of his own devising. + +Once, after a period of general silence, he said: + +"No one who thinks can imagine the universe made by chance. It is too +nicely assembled and regulated. There is, of course, a great Master +Mind, but it cares nothing for our happiness or our unhappiness." + +It was objected, by one of those present, that as the Infinite Mind +suggested perfect harmony, sorrow and suffering were defects which that +Mind must feel and eventually regulate. + +"Yes," he said, "not a sparrow falls but He is noticing, if that is what +you mean; but the human conception of it is that God is sitting up nights +worrying over the individuals of this infinitesimal race." + +Then he recalled a fancy which I have since found among his memoranda. In +this note he had written: + + The suns & planets that form the constellations of a billion billion + solar systems & go pouring, a tossing flood of shining globes, + through the viewless arteries of space are the blood-corpuscles in + the veins of God; & the nations are the microbes that swarm and + wiggle & brag in each, & think God can tell them apart at that + distance & has nothing better to do than try. This--the + entertainment of an eternity. Who so poor in his ambitions as to + consent to be God on those terms? Blasphemy? No, it is not + blasphemy. If God is as vast as that, He is above blasphemy; if He + is as little as that, He is beneath it. + +"The Bible," he said, "reveals the character of its God with minute +exactness. It is a portrait of a man, if one can imagine a man with evil +impulses far beyond the human limit. In the Old Testament He is pictured +as unjust, ungenerous, pitiless, and revengeful, punishing innocent +children for the misdeeds of their parents; punishing unoffending people +for the sins of their rulers, even descending to bloody vengeance upon +harmless calves and sheep as punishment for puny trespasses committed by +their proprietors. It is the most damnatory biography that ever found +its way into print. Its beginning is merely childish. Adam is forbidden +to eat the fruit of a certain tree, and gravely informed that if he +disobeys he shall die. How could that impress Adam? He could have no +idea of what death meant. He had never seen a dead thing. He had never +heard of one. If he had been told that if he ate the apples he would be +turned into a meridian of longitude that threat would have meant just as +much as the other one. The watery intellect that invented that notion +could be depended on to go on and decree that all of Adam's descendants +down to the latest day should be punished for that nursery trespass in +the beginning. + +"There is a curious poverty of invention in Bibles. Most of the great +races each have one, and they all show this striking defect. Each +pretends to originality, without possessing any. Each of them borrows +from the other, confiscates old stage properties, puts them forth as +fresh and new inspirations from on high. We borrowed the Golden Rule +from Confucius, after it had seen service for centuries, and copyrighted +it without a blush. We went back to Babylon for the Deluge, and are as +proud of it and as satisfied with it as if it had been worth the trouble; +whereas we know now that Noah's flood never happened, and couldn't have +happened--not in that way. The flood is a favorite with Bible-makers. +Another favorite with the founders of religions is the Immaculate +Conception. It had been worn threadbare; but we adopted it as a new +idea. It was old in Egypt several thousand years before Christ was born. +The Hindus prized it ages ago. The Egyptians adopted it even for some of +their kings. The Romans borrowed the idea from Greece. We got it +straight from heaven by way of Rome. We are still charmed with it." + +He would continue in this strain, rising occasionally and walking about +the room. Once, considering the character of God--the Bible God-he said: + +"We haven't been satisfied with God's character as it is given in the Old +Testament; we have amended it. We have called Him a God of mercy and +love and morals. He didn't have a single one of those qualities in the +beginning. He didn't hesitate to send the plagues on Egypt, the most +fiendish punishments that could be devised--not for the king, but for his +innocent subjects, the women and the little children, and then only to +exhibit His power just to show off--and He kept hardening Pharaoh's heart +so that He could send some further ingenuity of torture, new rivers of +blood, and swarms of vermin and new pestilences, merely to exhibit +samples of His workmanship. Now and then, during the forty years' +wandering, Moses persuaded Him to be a little more lenient with the +Israelites, which would show that Moses was the better character of the +two. That Old Testament God never had an inspiration of His own." + +He referred to the larger conception of God, that Infinite Mind which had +projected the universe. He said: + +"In some details that Old Bible God is probably a more correct picture +than our conception of that Incomparable One that created the universe +and flung upon its horizonless ocean of space those giant suns, whose +signal-lights are so remote that we only catch their flash when it has +been a myriad of years on its way. For that Supreme One is not a God of +pity or mercy--not as we recognize these qualities. Think of a God of +mercy who would create the typhus germ, or the house-fly, or the +centipede, or the rattlesnake, yet these are all His handiwork. They are +a part of the Infinite plan. The minister is careful to explain that all +these tribulations are sent for a good purpose; but he hires a doctor to +destroy the fever germ, and he kills the rattlesnake when he doesn't run +from it, and he sets paper with molasses on it for the house-fly. + +"Two things are quite certain: one is that God, the limitless God, +manufactured those things, for no man could have done it. The man has +never lived who could create even the humblest of God's creatures. The +other conclusion is that God has no special consideration for man's +welfare or comfort, or He wouldn't have created those things to disturb +and destroy him. The human conception of pity and morality must be +entirely unknown to that Infinite God, as much unknown as the conceptions +of a microbe to man, or at least as little regarded. + +"If God ever contemplates those qualities in man He probably admires +them, as we always admire the thing which we do not possess ourselves; +probably a little grain of pity in a man or a little atom of mercy would +look as big to Him as a constellation. He could create a constellation +with a thought; but He has been all the measureless ages, and He has +never acquired those qualities that we have named--pity and mercy and +morality. He goes on destroying a whole island of people with an +earthquake, or a whole cityful with a plague, when we punish a man in the +electric chair for merely killing the poorest of our race. The human +being needs to revise his ideas again about God. Most of the scientists +have done it already; but most of them don't dare to say so." + +He pointed out that the moral idea was undergoing constant change; that +what was considered justifiable in an earlier day was regarded as highly +immoral now. He pointed out that even the Decalogue made no reference to +lying, except in the matter of bearing false witness against a neighbor. +Also, that there was a commandment against covetousness, though +covetousness to-day was the basis of all commerce: The general conclusion +being that the morals of the Lord had been the morals of the beginning; +the morals of the first-created man, the morals of the troglodyte, the +morals of necessity; and that the morals of mankind had kept pace with +necessity, whereas those of the Lord had remained unchanged. It is +hardly necessary to say that no one ever undertook to contradict any +statements of this sort from him. In the first place, there was no +desire to do so; and in the second place, any one attempting it would +have cut a puny figure with his less substantial arguments and his less +vigorous phrase. It was the part of wisdom and immeasurably the part of +happiness to be silent and listen. + +On another evening he began: + +"The mental evolution of the species proceeds apparently by regular +progress side by side with the physical development until it comes to +man, then there is a long, unexplained gulf. Somewhere man acquired an +asset which sets him immeasurably apart from the other animals--his +imagination. Out of it he created for himself a conscience, and clothes, +and immodesty, and a hereafter, and a soul. I wonder where he got that +asset. It almost makes one agree with Alfred Russel Wallace that the +world and the universe were created just for his benefit, that he is the +chief love and delight of God. Wallace says that the whole universe was +made to take care of and to keep steady this little floating mote in the +center of it, which we call the world. It looks like a good deal of +trouble for such a small result; but it's dangerous to dispute with a +learned astronomer like Wallace. Still, I don't think we ought to decide +too soon about it--not until the returns are all in. There is the +geological evidence, for instance. Even after the universe was created, +it took a long time to prepare the world for man. Some of the +scientists, ciphering out the evidence furnished by geology, have arrived +at the conviction that the world is prodigiously old. Lord Kelvin +doesn't agree with them. He says that it isn't more than a hundred +million years old, and he thinks the human race has inhabited it about +thirty thousand years of that time. Even so, it was 99,970,000 years +getting ready, impatient as the Creator doubtless was to see man and +admire him. That was because God first had to make the oyster. You +can't make an oyster out of nothing, nor you can't do it in a day. You've +got to start with a vast variety of invertebrates, belemnites, +trilobites, jebusites, amalekites, and that sort of fry, and put them +into soak in a primary sea and observe and wait what will happen. Some +of them will turn out a disappointment; the belemnites and the amalekites +and such will be failures, and they will die out and become extinct in +the course of the nineteen million years covered by the experiment; but +all is not lost, for the amalekites will develop gradually into +encrinites and stalactites and blatherskites, and one thing and another, +as the mighty ages creep on and the periods pile their lofty crags in the +primordial seas, and at last the first grand stage in the preparation of +the world for man stands completed; the oyster is done. Now an oyster +has hardly any more reasoning power than a man has, so it is probable +this one jumped to the conclusion that the nineteen million years was a +preparation for him. That would be just like an oyster, and, anyway, +this one could not know at that early date that he was only an incident +in a scheme, and that there was some more to the scheme yet. + +"The oyster being finished, the next step in the preparation of the world +for man was fish. So the old Silurian seas were opened up to breed the +fish in. It took twenty million years to make the fish and to fossilize +him so we'd have the evidence later. + +"Then, the Paleozoic limit having been reached, it was necessary to start +a new age to make the reptiles. Man would have to have some reptiles +--not to eat, but to develop himself from. Thirty million years were +required for the reptiles, and out of such material as was left were made +those stupendous saurians that used to prowl about the steamy world in +remote ages, with their snaky heads forty feet in the air and their sixty +feet of body and tail racing and thrashing after them. They are all gone +now, every one of them; just a few fossil remnants of them left on this +far-flung fringe of time. + +"It took all those years to get one of those creatures properly +constructed to proceed to the next step. Then came the pterodactyl, who +thought all that preparation all those millions of years had been +intended to produce him, for there wasn't anything too foolish for a +pterodactyl to imagine. I suppose he did attract a good deal of +attention, for even the least observant could see that there was the +making of a bird in him, also the making of a mammal, in the course of +time. You can't say too much for the picturesqueness of the pterodactyl +--he was the triumph of his period. He wore wings and had teeth, and was +a starchy-looking creature. But the progression went right along. + +"During the next thirty million years the bird arrived, and the kangaroo, +and by and by the mastodon, and the giant sloth, and the Irish elk, and +the old Silurian ass, and some people thought that man was about due. But +that was a mistake, for the next thing they knew there came a great +ice-sheet, and those creatures all escaped across the Bering Strait and +wandered around in Asia and died, all except a few to carry on the +preparation with. There were six of those glacial periods, with two +million years or so between each. They chased those poor orphans up and +down the earth, from weather to weather, from tropic temperature to fifty +degrees below. They never knew what kind of weather was going to turn up +next, and if they settled any place the whole continent suddenly sank +from under them, and they had to make a scramble for dry land. Sometimes +a volcano would turn itself loose just as they got located. They led +that uncertain, strenuous existence for about twenty-five million years, +always wondering what was going to happen next, never suspecting that it +was just a preparation for man, who had to be done just so or there +wouldn't be any proper or harmonious place for him when he arrived, and +then at last the monkey came, and everybody could see at a glance that +man wasn't far off now, and that was true enough. The monkey went on +developing for close upon five million years, and then he turned into a +man--to all appearances. + +"It does look like a lot of fuss and trouble to go through to build +anything, especially a human being, and nowhere along the way is there +any evidence of where he picked up that final asset--his imagination. It +makes him different from the others--not any better, but certainly +different. Those earlier animals didn't have it, and the monkey hasn't +it or he wouldn't be so cheerful." + + [Paine records Twain's thoughts in that magnificent essay: "Was the + World Made for Man" published long after his death in the group of + essays under the title "Letters from the Earth." There are minor + additions in the published version: "coal to fry the fish"; and + the remnants of life being chased from pole to pole "without a dry + rag on them,"; and the "coat of paint" on top of the bulb on top + the Eiffel Tower representing "man's portion of this world's + history." Ed.] + +He often held forth on the shortcomings of the human race--always a +favorite subject--the incompetencies and imperfections of this final +creation, in spite of, or because of, his great attribute--the +imagination. Once (this was in the billiard-room) I started him by +saying that whatever the conditions in other planets, there seemed no +reason why life should not develop in each, adapted as perfectly to +prevailing conditions as man is suited to conditions here. He said: + +"Is it your idea, then, that man is perfectly adapted to the conditions +of this planet?" + +I began to qualify, rather weakly; but what I said did not matter. He +was off on his favorite theme. + +"Man adapted to the earth?" he said. "Why, he can't sleep out-of-doors +without freezing to death or getting the rheumatism or the malaria; he +can't keep his nose under water over a minute without being drowned; he +can't climb a tree without falling out and breaking his neck. Why, he's +the poorest, clumsiest excuse of all the creatures that inhabit this +earth. He has got to be coddled and housed and swathed and bandaged and +up holstered to be able to live at all. He is a rickety sort of a thing, +anyway you take him, a regular British Museum of infirmities and +inferiorities. He is always under going repairs. A machine that is as +unreliable as he is would have no market. The higher animals get their +teeth without pain or inconvenience. The original cave man, the +troglodyte, may have got his that way. But now they come through months +and months of cruel torture, and at a time of life when he is least able +to bear it. As soon as he gets them they must all be pulled out again, +for they were of no value in the first place, not worth the loss of a +night's rest. The second set will answer for a while; but he will never +get a set that can be depended on until the dentist makes one. The +animals are not much troubled that way. In a wild state, a natural +state, they have few diseases; their main one is old age. But man starts +in as a child and lives on diseases to the end as a regular diet. He has +mumps, measles, whooping-cough, croup, tonsilitis, diphtheria, +scarlet-fever, as a matter of course. Afterward, as he goes along, his +life continues to be threatened at every turn by colds, coughs, asthma, +bronchitis, quinsy, consumption, yellow-fever, blindness, influenza, +carbuncles, pneumonia, softening of the brain, diseases of the heart and +bones, and a thousand other maladies of one sort and another. He's just +a basketful of festering, pestilent corruption, provided for the support +and entertainment of microbes. Look at the workmanship of him in some of +its particulars. What are his tonsils for? They perform no useful +function; they have no value. They are but a trap for tonsilitis and +quinsy. And what is the appendix for? It has no value. Its sole +interest is to lie and wait for stray grape-seeds and breed trouble. What +is his beard for? It is just a nuisance. All nations persecute it with +the razor. Nature, however, always keeps him supplied with it, instead +of putting it on his head, where it ought to be. You seldom see a man +bald-headed on his chin, but on his head. A man wants to keep his hair. +It is a graceful ornament, a comfort, the best of all protections against +weather, and he prizes it above emeralds and rubies, and Nature half the +time puts it on so it won't stay. + +"Man's sight and smell and hearing are all inferior. If he were suited +to the conditions he could smell an enemy; he could hear him; he could +see him, just as the animals can detect their enemies. The robin hears +the earthworm burrowing his course under the ground; the bloodhound +follows a scent that is two days old. Man isn't even handsome, as +compared with the birds; and as for style, look at the Bengal tiger--that +ideal of grace, physical perfection, and majesty. Think of the lion and +the tiger and the leopard, and then think of man--that poor thing!--the +animal of the wig, the ear-trumpet, the glass eye, the porcelain teeth, +the wooden leg, the trepanned skull, the silver wind-pipe--a creature +that is mended and patched all over from top to bottom. If he can't get +renewals of his bric-a-brac in the next world what will he look like? He +has just that one stupendous superiority--his imagination, his intellect. +It makes him supreme--the higher animals can't match him there. It's +very curious." + +A letter which he wrote to J. Howard Moore concerning his book The +Universal Kinship was of this period, and seems to belong here. + + DEAR MR. MOORE, The book has furnished me several days of deep + pleasure & satisfaction; it has compelled my gratitude at the same + time, since it saves me the labor of stating my own long-cherished + opinions & reflections & resentments by doing it lucidly & fervently + & irascibly for me. + + There is one thing that always puzzles me: as inheritors of the + mentality of our reptile ancestors we have improved the inheritance + by a thousand grades; but in the matter of the morals which they + left us we have gone backward as many grades. That evolution is + strange & to me unaccountable & unnatural. Necessarily we started + equipped with their perfect and blemishless morals; now we are + wholly destitute; we have no real morals, but only artificial ones + --morals created and preserved by the forced suppression of natural + & healthy instincts. Yes, we are a sufficiently comical invention, + we humans. + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + + +CCLIII + +AN EVENING WITH HELEN KELLER + +I recall two pleasant social events of that winter: one a little party +given at the Clemenses' home on New-Year's Eve, with charades and +story-telling and music. It was the music feature of this party that was +distinctive; it was supplied by wire through an invention known as the +telharmonium which, it was believed, would revolutionize musical +entertainment in such places as hotels, and to some extent in private +houses. The music came over the regular telephone wire, and was +delivered through a series of horns or megaphones--similar to those used +for phonographs--the playing being done, meanwhile, by skilled performers +at the central station. Just why the telharmonium has not made good its +promises of popularity I do not know. Clemens was filled with enthusiasm +over the idea. He made a speech a little before midnight, in which he +told how he had generally been enthusiastic about inventions which had +turned out more or less well in about equal proportions. He did not +dwell on the failures, but he told how he had been the first to use a +typewriter for manuscript work; how he had been one of the earliest users +of the fountain-pen; how he had installed the first telephone ever used +in a private house, and how the audience now would have a demonstration +of the first telharmonium music so employed. It was just about the +stroke of midnight when he finished, and a moment later the horns began +to play chimes and "Auld Lang Syne" and "America." + +The other pleasant evening referred to was a little company given in +honor of Helen Keller. It was fascinating to watch her, and to realize +with what a store of knowledge she had lighted the black silence of her +physical life. To see Mark Twain and Helen Keller together was something +not easily to be forgotten. When Mrs. Macy (who, as Miss Sullivan, had +led her so marvelously out of the shadows) communicated his words to her +with what seemed a lightning touch of the fingers her face radiated every +shade of his meaning-humorous, serious, pathetic. Helen visited the +various objects in the room, and seemed to enjoy them more than the usual +observer of these things, and certainly in greater detail. Her sensitive +fingers spread over articles of bric-a-brac, and the exclamations she +uttered were always fitting, showing that she somehow visualized each +thing in all its particulars. There was a bronze cat of handsome +workmanship and happy expression, and when she had run those all--seeing +fingers of hers over it she said: "It is smiling." + + + + +CCLIV + +BILLIARD-ROOM NOTES + +The billiard games went along pretty steadily that winter. My play +improved, and Clemens found it necessary to eliminate my odds altogether, +and to change the game frequently in order to keep me in subjection. +Frequently there were long and apparently violent arguments over the +legitimacy of some particular shot or play--arguments to us quite as +enjoyable as the rest of the game. Sometimes he would count a shot which +was clearly out of the legal limits, and then it was always a delight to +him to have a mock-serious discussion over the matter of conscience, and +whether or not his conscience was in its usual state of repair. It would +always end by him saying: "I don't wish even to seem to do anything which +can invite suspicion. I refuse to count that shot," or something of like +nature. Sometimes when I had let a questionable play pass without +comment, he would watch anxiously until I had made a similar one and then +insist on my scoring it to square accounts. His conscience was always +repairing itself. + +He had experimented, a great many years before, with what was in the +nature of a trick on some unsuspecting player. It consisted in turning +out twelve pool-balls on the table with one cue ball, and asking his +guest how many caroms he thought he could make with all those twelve +balls to play on. He had learned that the average player would seldom +make more than thirty-one counts, and usually, before this number was +reached, he would miss through some careless play or get himself into a +position where he couldn't play at all. The thing looked absurdly easy. +It looked as if one could go on playing all day long, and the victim was +usually eager to bet that he could make fifty or perhaps a hundred; but +for more than an hour I tried it patiently, and seldom succeeded in +scoring more than fifteen or twenty without missing. Long after the play +itself ceased to be amusing to me, he insisted on my going on and trying +it some more, and he would throw himself back and roar with laughter, the +tears streaming down his cheeks, to see me work and fume and fail. + +It was very soon after that that Peter Dunne ("Mr. Dooley") came down for +luncheon, and after several games of the usual sort, Clemens quietly--as +if the idea had just occurred to him--rolled out the twelve balls and +asked Dunne how, many caroms he thought he could make without a miss. +Dunne said he thought he could make a thousand. Clemens quite +indifferently said that he didn't believe he could make fifty. Dunne +offered to bet five dollars that he could, and the wager was made. Dunne +scored about twenty-five the first time and missed; then he insisted on +betting five dollars again, and his defeats continued until Clemens had +twenty-five dollars of Dunne's money, and Dunne was sweating and +swearing, and Mark Twain rocking with delight. Dunne went away still +unsatisfied, promising that he would come back and try it again. Perhaps +he practised in his absence, for when he returned he had learned +something. He won his twenty-five dollars back, and I think something +more added. Mark Twain was still ahead, for Dunne furnished him with a +good five hundred dollars' worth of amusement. + +Clemens never cared to talk and never wished to be talked to when the +game was actually in progress. If there was anything to be said on +either side, he would stop and rest his cue on the floor, or sit down on +the couch, until the matter was concluded. Such interruptions happened +pretty frequently, and many of the bits of personal comment and incident +scattered along through this work are the result of those brief rests. +Some shot, or situation, or word would strike back through the past and +awaken a note long silent, and I generally kept a pad and pencil on the +window-sill with the score-sheet, and later, during his play, I would +scrawl some reminder that would be precious by and by. + +On one of these I find a memorandum of what he called his three recurrent +dreams. All of us have such things, but his seem worth remembering. + +"There is never a month passes," he said, "that I do not dream of being +in reduced circumstances, and obliged to go back to the river to earn a +living. It is never a pleasant dream, either. I love to think about +those days; but there's always something sickening about the thought that +I have been obliged to go back to them; and usually in my dream I am just +about to start into a black shadow without being able to tell whether it +is Selma bluff, or Hat Island, or only a black wall of night. + +"Another dream that I have of that kind is being compelled to go back to +the lecture platform. I hate that dream worse than the other. In it I +am always getting up before an audience with nothing to say, trying to be +funny; trying to make the audience laugh, realizing that I am only making +silly jokes. Then the audience realizes it, and pretty soon they +commence to get up and leave. That dream always ends by my standing +there in the semidarkness talking to an empty house. + +"My other dream is of being at a brilliant gathering in my +night-garments. People don't seem to notice me there at first, and then +pretty soon somebody points me out, and they all begin to look at me +suspiciously, and I can see that they are wondering who I am and why I am +there in that costume. Then it occurs to me that I can fix it by making +myself known. I take hold of some man and whisper to him, 'I am Mark +Twain'; but that does not improve it, for immediately I can hear him +whispering to the others, 'He says he is Mark Twain,' and they all look +at me a good deal more suspiciously than before, and I can see that they +don't believe it, and that it was a mistake to make that confession. +Sometimes, in that dream, I am dressed like a tramp instead of being in +my night-clothes; but it all ends about the same--they go away and leave +me standing there, ashamed. I generally enjoy my dreams, but not those +three, and they are the ones I have oftenest." + +Quite often some curious episode of the world's history would flash upon +him--something amusing, or coarse, or tragic, and he would bring the game +to a standstill and recount it with wonderful accuracy as to date and +circumstance. He had a natural passion for historic events and a gift +for mentally fixing them, but his memory in other ways was seldom +reliable. He was likely to forget the names even of those he knew best +and saw oftenest, and the small details of life seldom registered at all. + +He had his breakfast served in his room, and once, on a slip of paper, he +wrote, for his own reminder: + +The accuracy of your forgetfulness is absolute--it seems never to fail. I +prepare to pour my coffee so it can cool while I shave--and I always +forget to pour it. + +Yet, very curiously, he would sometimes single out a minute detail, +something every one else had overlooked, and days or even weeks afterward +would recall it vividly, and not always at an opportune moment. Perhaps +this also was a part of his old pilot-training. Once Clara Clemens +remarked: + +"It always amazes me the things that father does and does not remember. +Some little trifle that nobody else would notice, and you are hoping that +he didn't, will suddenly come back to him just when you least expect it +or care for it." + +My note-book contains the entry: + + February 11, 1907. He said to-day: + + "A blindfolded chess-player can remember every play and discuss the + game afterward, while we can't remember from one shot to the next." + + I mentioned his old pilot-memory as an example of what he could do + if he wished. + + "Yes," he answered, "those are special memories; a pilot will tell + you the number of feet in every crossing at any time, but he can't + remember what he had for breakfast." + + "How long did you keep your pilot-memory?" I asked. + + "Not long; it faded out right away, but the training served me, for + when I went to report on a paper a year or two later I never had to + make any notes." + + "I suppose you still remember some of the river?" + + "Not much. Hat Island, Helena and here and there a place; but that + is about all." + + + + +CCLV + +FURTHER PERSONALITIES + +Like every person living, Mark Twain had some peculiar and petty +economies. Such things in great men are noticeable. He lived +extravagantly. His household expenses at the time amounted to more than +fifty dollars a day. In the matter of food, the choicest, and most +expensive the market could furnish was always served in lavish abundance. +He had the best and highest-priced servants, ample as to number. His +clothes he bought generously; he gave without stint to his children; his +gratuities were always liberal. He never questioned pecuniary outgoes +--seldom worried as to the state of his bank-account so long as there was +plenty. He smoked cheap cigars because he preferred their flavor. Yet +he had his economies. I have seen him, before leaving a room, go around +and carefully lower the gas-jets, to provide against that waste. I have +known him to examine into the cost of a cab, and object to an apparent +overcharge of a few cents. + +It seemed that his idea of economy might be expressed in these words: He +abhorred extortion and visible waste. + +Furthermore, he had exact ideas as to ownership. One evening, while we +were playing billiards, I noticed a five-cent piece on the floor. I +picked it up, saying: + +"Here is five cents; I don't know whose it is." + +He regarded the coin rather seriously, I thought, and said: + +"I don't know, either." + +I laid it on the top of the book-shelves which ran around the room. The +play went on, and I forgot the circumstance. When the game ended that +night I went into his room with him, as usual, for a good-night word. As +he took his change and keys from the pocket of his trousers, he looked +the assortment over and said: + +"That five-cent piece you found was mine." + +I brought it to him at once, and he took it solemnly, laid it with the +rest of his change, and neither of us referred to it again. It may have +been one of his jokes, but I think it more likely that he remembered +having had a five-cent piece, probably reserved for car fare, and that it +was missing. + +More than once, in Washington, he had said: + +"Draw plenty of money for incidental expenses. Don't bother to keep +account of them." + +So it was not miserliness; it was just a peculiarity, a curious attention +to a trifling detail. + +He had a fondness for riding on the then newly completed Subway, which he +called the Underground. Sometimes he would say: + +"I'll pay your fare on the Underground if you want to take a ride with +me." And he always insisted on paying the fare, and once when I rode far +up-town with him to a place where he was going to luncheon, and had taken +him to the door, he turned and said, gravely: + +"Here is five cents to pay your way home." And I took it in the same +spirit in which it had been offered. It was probably this trait which +caused some one occasionally to claim that Mark Twain was close in money +matters. Perhaps there may have been times in his life when he was +parsimonious; but, if so, I must believe that it was when he was sorely +pressed and exercising the natural instinct of self-preservation. He +wished to receive the full value (who does not?) of his labors and +properties. He took a childish delight in piling up money; but it became +greed only when he believed some one with whom he had dealings was trying +to get an unfair division of profits. Then it became something besides +greed. It became an indignation that amounted to malevolence. I was +concerned in a number of dealings with Mark Twain, and at a period in his +life when human traits are supposed to become exaggerated, which is to +say old age, and if he had any natural tendency to be unfair, or small, +or greedy in his money dealings I think I should have seen it. +Personally, I found him liberal to excess, and I never observed in him +anything less than generosity to those who were fair with him. + +Once that winter, when a letter came from Steve Gillis saying that he was +an invalid now, and would have plenty of time to read Sam's books if he +owned them, Clemens ordered an expensive set from his publishers, and did +what meant to him even more than the cost in money--he autographed each +of those twenty-five volumes. Then he sent them, charges paid, to that +far Californian retreat. It was hardly the act of a stingy man. + +He had the human fondness for a compliment when it was genuine and from +an authoritative source, and I remember how pleased he was that winter +with Prof. William Lyon Phelps's widely published opinion, which ranked +Mark Twain as the greatest American novelist, and declared that his fame +would outlive any American of his time. Phelps had placed him above +Holmes, Howells, James, and even Hawthorne. He had declared him to be +more American than any of these--more American even than Whitman. +Professor Phelps's position in Yale College gave this opinion a certain +official weight; but I think the fact of Phelps himself being a writer of +great force, with an American freshness of style, gave it a still greater +value. + +Among the pleasant things that winter was a meeting with Eugene F. Ware, +of Kansas, with whose penname--"Ironquill"--Clemens had long been +familiar. + +Ware was a breezy Western genius of the finest type. If he had abandoned +law for poetry, there is no telling how far his fame might have reached. +There was in his work that same spirit of Americanism and humor and +humanity that is found in Mark Twain's writings, and he had the added +faculty of rhyme and rhythm, which would have set him in a place apart. I +had known Ware personally during a period of Western residence, and +later, when he was Commissioner of Pensions under Roosevelt. I usually +saw him when he came to New York, and it was a great pleasure now to +bring together the two men whose work I so admired. They met at a small +private luncheon at The Players, and Peter Dunne was there, and Robert +Collier, and it was such an afternoon as Howells has told of when he and +Aldrich and Bret Harte and those others talked until the day faded into +twilight, and twilight deepened into evening. Clemens had put in most of +the day before reading Ware's book of poems, 'The Rhymes of Ironquill', +and had declared his work to rank with the very greatest of American +poetry--I think he called it the most truly American in flavor. I +remember that at the luncheon he noted Ware's big, splendid physique and +his Western liberties of syntax with a curious intentness. I believe he +regarded him as being nearer his own type in mind and expression than any +one he had met before. + +Among Ware's poems he had been especially impressed with the "Fables," +and with some verses entitled "Whist," which, though rather more +optimistic, conformed to his own philosophy. They have a distinctly +"Western" feeling. + + WHIST + Hour after hour the cards were fairly shuffled, + And fairly dealt, and still I got no hand; + The morning came; but I, with mind unruffled, + Did simply say, "I do not understand." + Life is a game of whist. From unseen sources + The cards are shuffled, and the hands are dealt. + Blind are our efforts to control the forces + That, though unseen, are no less strongly felt. + I do not like the way the cards are shuffled, + But still I like the game and want to play; + And through the long, long night will I, unruffled, + Play what I get, until the break of day. + + + +\ + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mark Twain, A Biography, Vol. 3, Part +1, 1900-1907, by Albert Bigelow Paine + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY, *** + +***** This file should be named 2986.txt or 2986.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/8/2986/ + +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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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.07.00*END* + + + +This etext was prepared by David Widger, <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + +MARK TWAIN, A BIOGRAPHY +By Albert Bigelow Paine + + + +VOLUME III, Part 1: 1900-1907 + + + + + + +CCXII + +THE RETURN OF THE CONQUEROR + +It would be hard to exaggerate the stir which the newspapers and the +public generally made over the homecoming of Mark Twain. He had left +America, staggering under heavy obligation and set out on a pilgrimage of +redemption. At the moment when this Mecca, was in view a great sorrow +had befallen him and, stirred a world-wide and soul-deep tide of human +sympathy. Then there had followed such ovation as has seldom been +conferred upon a private citizen, and now approaching old age, still in +the fullness of his mental vigor, he had returned to his native soil with +the prestige of these honors upon him and the vast added glory of having +made his financial fight single-handed-and won. + +He was heralded literally as a conquering hero. Every paper in the land +had an editorial telling the story of his debts, his sorrow, and his +triumphs. + +"He had behaved like Walter Scott," says Howells, "as millions rejoiced +to know who had not known how Walter Scott had behaved till they knew it +was like Clemens." + +Howells acknowledges that he had some doubts as to the permanency of the +vast acclaim of the American public, remembering, or perhaps assuming, a +national fickleness. Says Howells: + + He had hitherto been more intelligently accepted or more largely + imagined in Europe, and I suppose it was my sense of this that + inspired the stupidity of my saying to him when we came to consider + "the state of polite learning" among us, "You mustn't expect people + to keep it up here as they do in England." But it appeared that his + countrymen were only wanting the chance, and they kept it up in + honor of him past all precedent. + +Clemens went to the Earlington Hotel and began search for a furnished +house in New York. They would not return to Hartford--at least not yet. +The associations there were still too sad, and they immediately became +more so. Five days after Mark Twain's return to America, his old friend +and co-worker, Charles Dudley Warner, died. Clemens went to Hartford to +act as a pall-bearer and while there looked into the old home. To +Sylvester Baxter, of Boston, who had been present, he wrote a few days +later: + + It was a great pleasure to me to renew the other days with you, & + there was a pathetic pleasure in seeing Hartford & the house again; + but I realized that if we ever enter the house again to live our + hearts will break. I am not sure that we shall ever be strong + enough to endure that strain. + +Even if the surroundings had been less sorrowful it is not likely that +Clemens would have returned to Hartford at this time. He had become a +world-character, a dweller in capitals. Everywhere he moved a world +revolved about him. Such a figure in Germany would live naturally in +Berlin; in England London; in France, Paris; in Austria, Vienna; in +America his headquarters could only be New York. + +Clemens empowered certain of his friends to find a home for him, and Mr. +Frank N. Doubleday discovered an attractive and handsomely furnished +residence at 14 West Tenth Street, which was promptly approved. +Doubleday, who was going to Boston, left orders with the agent to draw +the lease and take it up to the new tenant for signature. To Clemens he +said: + +"The house is as good as yours. All you've got to do is to sign the +lease. You can consider it all settled." + +When Doubleday returned from Boston a few days later the agent called on +him and complained that he couldn't find Mark Twain anywhere. It was +reported at his hotel that he had gone and left no address. Doubleday +was mystified; then, reflecting, he had an inspiration. He walked over +to 14 West Tenth Street and found what he had suspected--Mark Twain had +moved in. He had convinced the caretaker that everything was all right +and he was quite at home. Doubleday said: + +"Why, you haven't executed the lease yet." + +"No," said Clemens, "but you said the house was as good as mine," to +which Doubleday agreed, but suggested that they go up to the real-estate +office and give the agent notice that he was in possession of the +premises. + +Doubleday's troubles were not quite over, however. Clemens began to find +defects in his new home and assumed to hold Doubleday responsible for +them. He sent a daily postal card complaining of the windows, furnace, +the range, the water-whatever he thought might lend interest to +Doubleday's life. As a matter of fact, he was pleased with the place. +To MacAlister he wrote: + + We were very lucky to get this big house furnished. There was not + another one in town procurable that would answer us, but this one is + all right-space enough in it for several families, the rooms all + old-fashioned, great size. + +The house at 14 West Tenth Street became suddenly one of the most +conspicuous residences in New York. The papers immediately made its +appearance familiar. Many people passed down that usually quiet street, +stopping to observe or point out where Mark Twain lived. There was a +constant procession of callers of every kind. Many were friends, old and +new, but there was a multitude of strangers. Hundreds came merely to +express their appreciation of his work, hoping for a personal word or a +hand-shake or an autograph; but there were other hundreds who came with +this thing and that thing--axes to grind--and there were newspaper +reporters to ask his opinion on politics, or polygamy, or woman's +suffrage; on heaven and hell and happiness; on the latest novel; on the +war in Africa, the troubles in China; on anything under the sun, +important or unimportant, interesting or inane, concerning which one +might possibly hold an opinion. He was unfailing "copy" if they could +but get a word with him. Anything that he might choose to say upon any +subject whatever was seized upon and magnified and printed with +head-lines. Sometimes opinions were invented for him. If he let fall a +few words they were multiplied into a column interview. + +"That reporter worked a miracle equal to the loaves and fishes," he said +of one such performance. + +Many men would have become annoyed and irritable as these things +continued; but Mark Twain was greater than that. Eventually he employed +a secretary to stand between him and the wash of the tide, as a sort of +breakwater; but he seldom lost his temper no matter what was the request +which was laid before him, for he recognized underneath it the great +tribute of a great nation. + +Of course his literary valuation would be affected by the noise of the +general applause. Magazines and syndicates besought him for manuscripts. +He was offered fifty cents and even a dollar a word for whatever he might +give them. He felt a child-like gratification in these evidences of his +market advancement, but he was not demoralized by them. He confined his +work to a few magazines, and in November concluded an arrangement with +the new management of Harper & Brothers, by which that firm was to have +the exclusive serial privilege of whatever he might write at a fixed rate +of twenty cents per word--a rate increased to thirty cents by a later +contract, which also provided an increased royalty for the publication of +his books. + +The United States, as a nation, does not confer any special honors upon +private citizens. We do not have decorations and titles, even though +there are times when it seems that such things might be not +inappropriately conferred. Certain of the newspapers, more lavish in +their enthusiasm than others, were inclined to propose, as one paper +phrased it, "Some peculiar recognition--something that should appeal to +Samuel L. Clemens, the man, rather than to Mark Twain, the literate. +Just what form this recognition should take is doubtful, for the case has +no exact precedent." + +Perhaps the paper thought that Mark Twain was entitled--as he himself +once humorously suggested-to the "thanks of Congress" for having come +home alive and out of debt, but it is just as well that nothing of the +sort was ever seriously considered. The thanks of the public at large +contained more substance, and was a tribute much more to his mind. The +paper above quoted ended by suggesting a very large dinner and memorial +of welcome as being more in keeping with the republican idea and the +American expression of good-will. + +But this was an unneeded suggestion. If he had eaten all the dinners +proposed he would not have lived to enjoy his public honors a month. As +it was, he accepted many more dinners than he could eat, and presently +fell into the habit of arriving when the banqueting was about over and +the after-dinner speaking about to begin. Even so the strain told on +him. + +"His friends saw that he was wearing himself out," says Howells, and +perhaps this was true, for he grew thin and pale and contracted a hacking +cough. He did not spare himself as often as he should have done. Once +to Richard Watson Gilder he sent this line of regrets: + + In bed with a chest cold and other company--Wednesday. + DEAR GILDER,--I can't. If I were a well man I could explain with + this pencil, but in the cir---ces I will leave it all to your + imagination. + + Was it Grady who killed himself trying to do all the dining and + speeching? + + No, old man, no, no! Ever yours, MARK. + + +He became again the guest of honor at the Lotos Club, which had dined him +so lavishly seven years before, just previous to his financial collapse. +That former dinner had been a distinguished occasion, but never before +had the Lotos Club been so brimming with eager hospitality as on the +second great occasion. In closing his introductory speech President +Frank Lawrence said, "We hail him as one who has borne great burdens with +manliness and courage, who has emerged from great struggles victorious," +and the assembled diners roared out their applause. Clemens in his reply +said: + + Your president has referred to certain burdens which I was weighted + with. I am glad he did, as it gives me an opportunity which I + wanted--to speak of those debts. You all knew what he meant when he + referred to it, & of the poor bankrupt firm of C. L. Webster & Co. + No one has said a word about those creditors. There were ninety-six + creditors in all, & not by a finger's weight did ninety-five out of + the ninety-six add to the burden of that time. They treated me + well; they treated me handsomely. I never knew I owed them + anything; not a sign came from them. + +It was like him to make that public acknowledgment. He could not let an +unfair impression remain that any man or any set of men had laid an +unnecessary burden upon him-his sense of justice would not consent to it. +He also spoke on that occasion of certain national changes. + + How many things have happened in the seven years I have been away + from home! We have fought a righteous war, and a righteous war is a + rare thing in history. We have turned aside from our own comfort + and seen to it that freedom should exist, not only within our own + gates, but in our own neighborhood. We have set Cuba free and + placed her among the galaxy of free nations of the world. We + started out to set those poor Filipinos free, but why that righteous + plan miscarried perhaps I shall never know. We have also been + making a creditable showing in China, and that is more than all the + other powers can say. The "Yellow Terror" is threatening the world, + but no matter what happens the United States says that it has had no + part in it. + + Since I have been away we have been nursing free silver. We have + watched by its cradle, we have done our best to raise that child, + but every time it seemed to be getting along nicely along came some + pestiferous Republican and gave it the measles or something. I fear + we will never raise that child. + + We've done more than that. We elected a President four years ago. + We've found fault and criticized him, and here a day or two ago we + go and elect him for another four years, with votes enough to spare + to do it over again. + +One club followed another in honoring Mark Twain--the Aldine, the St. +Nicholas, the Press clubs, and other associations and societies. His old +friends were at these dinners--Howells, Aldrich, Depew, Rogers, +ex-Speaker Reed--and they praised him and gibed him to his and their +hearts' content. + +It was a political year, and he generally had something to say on matters +municipal, national, or international; and he spoke out more and more +freely, as with each opportunity he warmed more righteously to his +subject. + +At the dinner given to him by the St. Nicholas Club he said, with deep +irony: + + Gentlemen, you have here the best municipal government in the world, + and the most fragrant and the purest. The very angels of heaven + envy you and wish they had a government like it up there. You got + it by your noble fidelity to civic duty; by the stern and ever + watchful exercise of the great powers lodged in you as lovers and + guardians of your city; by your manly refusal to sit inert when base + men would have invaded her high places and possessed them; by your + instant retaliation when any insult was offered you in her person, + or any assault was made upon her fair fame. It is you who have made + this government what it is, it is you who have made it the envy and + despair of the other capitals of the world--and God bless you for + it, gentlemen, God bless you! And when you get to heaven at last + they'll say with joy, "Oh, there they come, the representatives of + the perfectest citizenship in the universe show them the archangel's + box and turn on the limelight!" + +Those hearers who in former years had been indifferent to Mark Twain's +more serious purpose began to realize that, whatever he may have been +formerly, he was by no means now a mere fun-maker, but a man of deep and +grave convictions, able to give them the fullest and most forcible +expression. He still might make them laugh, but he also made them think, +and he stirred them to a truer gospel of patriotism. He did not preach a +patriotism that meant a boisterous cheering of the Stars and Stripes +right or wrong, but a patriotism that proposed to keep the Stars and +Stripes clean and worth shouting for. In an article, perhaps it was a +speech, begun at this time he wrote: + + We teach the boys to atrophy their independence. We teach them to + take their patriotism at second-hand; to shout with the largest + crowd without examining into the right or wrong of the matter-- + exactly as boys under monarchies are taught and have always been + taught. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion + and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, & so here in our + democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most + foreign to it & out of place--the delivery of our political + conscience into somebody else's keeping. This is patriotism on the + Russian plan. + +Howells tells of discussing these vital matters with him in "an upper +room," looking south over a quiet, open space o£ back yards where," he +says, "we fought our battles in behalf of the Filipinos and Boers, and he +carried on his campaign against the missionaries in China." + +Howells at the time expressed an amused fear that Mark Twain's +countrymen, who in former years had expected him to be merely a humorist, +should now, in the light of his wider acceptance abroad, demand that he +be mainly serious. + +But the American people were quite ready to accept him in any of his +phases, fully realizing that whatever his philosophy or doctrine it would +have somewhat of the humorous form, and whatever his humor, there would +somewhere be wisdom in it. He had in reality changed little; for a +generation he had thought the sort of things which he now, with advanced +years and a different audience, felt warranted in uttering openly. The +man who in '64 had written against corruption in San Francisco, who a few +years later had defended the emigrant Chinese against persecution, who at +the meetings of the Monday Evening Club had denounced hypocrisy in +politics, morals, and national issues, did not need to change to be able +to speak out against similar abuses now. And a newer generation as +willing to herald Mark Twain as a sage as well as a humorist, and on +occasion to quite overlook the absence of the cap and bells. + + + + +CCXIII + +MARK TWAIN--GENERAL SPOKESMAN + +Clemens did not confine his speeches altogether to matters of reform. At +a dinner given by the Nineteenth Century Club in November, 1900, he spoke +on the "Disappearance of Literature," and at the close of the discussion +of that subject, referring to Milton and Scott, he said: + + Professor Winchester also said something about there being no modern + epics like "Paradise Lost." I guess he's right. He talked as if he + was pretty familiar with that piece of literary work, and nobody + would suppose that he never had read it. I don't believe any of you + have ever read "Paradise Lost," and you don't want to. That's + something that you just want to take on trust. It's a classic, just + as Professor Winchester says, and it meets his definition of a + classic--something that everybody wants to have read and nobody + wants to read. + + Professor Trent also had a good deal to say about the disappearance + of literature. He said that Scott would outlive all his critics. + I guess that's true. That fact of the business is you've got to be + one of two ages to appreciate Scott. When you're eighteen you can + read Ivanhoe, and you want to wait until you're ninety to read some + of the rest. It takes a pretty well-regulated abstemious critic to + live ninety years. + +But a few days later he was back again in the forefront of reform, +preaching at the Berkeley Lyceum against foreign occupation in China. +It was there that he declared himself a Boxer. + + Why should not China be free from the foreigners, who are only + making trouble on her soil? If they would only all go home what a + pleasant place China would be for the Chinese! We do not allow + Chinamen to come here, and I say, in all seriousness, that it would + be a graceful thing to let China decide who shall go there. + + China never wanted foreigners any more than foreigners wanted + Chinamen, and on this question I am with the Boxers every time. The + Boxer is a patriot. He loves his country better than he does the + countries of other people. I wish him success. We drive the + Chinaman out of our country; the Boxer believes in driving us out of + his country. I am a Boxer, too, on those terms. + +Introducing Winston Churchill, of England, at a dinner some weeks later, +he explained how generous England and America had been in not requiring +fancy rates for "extinguished missionaries" in China as Germany had done. +Germany had required territory and cash, he said, in payment for her +missionaries, while the United States and England had been willing to +settle for produce--firecrackers and tea. + +The Churchill introduction would seem to have been his last speech for +the year 1900, and he expected it, with one exception, to be the last for +a long time. He realized that he was tired and that the strain upon him +made any other sort of work out of the question. Writing to MacAlister +at the end of the year, he said, "I seem to have made many speeches, but +it is not so. It is not more than ten, I think." Still, a respectable +number in the space of two months, considering that each was carefully +written and committed to memory, and all amid crushing social pressure. +Again to MacAlister: + + I declined 7 banquets yesterday (which is double the daily average) + & answered 29 letters. I have slaved at my mail every day since we + arrived in mid-October, but Jean is learning to typewrite & + presently I'll dictate & thereby save some scraps of time. + +He added that after January 4th he did not intend to speak again for a +year--that he would not speak then only that the matter concerned the +reform of city government. + +The occasion of January 4, 1901, was a rather important one. It was a +meeting of the City Club, then engaged in the crusade for municipal +reform. Wheeler H. Peckham presided, and Bishop Potter made the opening +address. It all seems like ancient history now, and perhaps is not very +vital any more; but the movement was making a great stir then, and Mark +Twain's declaration that he believed forty-nine men out of fifty were +honest, and that the forty-nine only needed to organize to disqualify the +fiftieth man (always organized for crime), was quoted as a sort of slogan +for reform. + +Clemens was not permitted to keep his resolution that he wouldn't speak +again that year. He had become a sort of general spokesman on public +matters, and demands were made upon him which could not be denied. He +declined a Yale alumni dinner, but he could not refuse to preside at the +Lincoln Birthday celebration at Carnegie Hall, February 11th, where he +must introduce Watterson as the speaker of the evening. + +"Think of it!" he wrote Twichell. "Two old rebels functioning there: I +as president and Watterson as orator of the day! Things have changed +somewhat in these forty years, thank God!" + +The Watterson introduction is one of the choicest of Mark Twain's +speeches--a pure and perfect example of simple eloquence, worthy of the +occasion which gave it utterance, worthy in spite of its playful +paragraphs (or even because of them, for Lincoln would have loved them), +to become the matrix of that imperishable Gettysburg phrase with which he +makes his climax. He opened by dwelling for a moment on Colonel +Watterson as a soldier, journalist, orator, statesman, and patriot; then +he said: + + It is a curious circumstance that without collusion of any kind, but + merely in obedience to a strange and pleasant and dramatic freak of + destiny, he and I, kinsmen by blood--[Colonel Watterson's forebears + had intermarried with the Lamptons.]--for we are that--and one-time + rebels--for we were that--should be chosen out of a million + surviving quondam rebels to come here and bare our heads in + reverence and love of that noble soul whom 40 years ago we tried + with all our hearts and all our strength to defeat and dispossess-- + Abraham Lincoln! Is the Rebellion ended and forgotten? Are the + Blue and the Gray one to-day? By authority of this sign we may + answer yes; there was a Rebellion--that incident is closed. + + I was born and reared in a slave State, my father was a slaveowner; + and in the Civil War I was a second lieutenant in the Confederate + service. For a while. This second cousin of mine, Colonel + Watterson, the orator of this present occasion, was born and reared + in a slave State, was a colonel in the Confederate service, and + rendered me such assistance as he could in my self-appointed great + task of annihilating the Federal armies and breaking up the Union. + I laid my plans with wisdom and foresight, and if Colonel Watterson + had obeyed my orders I should have succeeded in my giant + undertaking. It was my intention to drive General Grant into the + Pacific--if I could get transportation--and I told Colonel Watterson + to surround the Eastern armies and wait till I came. But he was + insubordinate, and stood upon a punctilio of military etiquette; he + refused to take orders from a second lieutenant--and the Union was + saved. This is the first time that this secret has been revealed. + Until now no one outside the family has known the facts. But there + they stand: Watterson saved the Union. Yet to this day that man + gets no pension. Those were great days, splendid days. What an + uprising it was! For the hearts of the whole nation, North and + South, were in the war. We of the South were not ashamed; for, like + the men of the North, we were fighting for 'flags we loved; and when + men fight for these things, and under these convictions, with + nothing sordid to tarnish their cause, that cause is holy, the blood + spilt for it is sacred, the life that is laid down for it is + consecrated. To-day we no longer regret the result, to-day we are + glad it came out as it did, but we are not ashamed that we did our + endeavor; we did our bravest best, against despairing odds, for the + cause which was precious to us and which our consciences approved; + and we are proud--and you are proud--the kindred blood in your veins + answers when I say it--you are proud of the record we made in those + mighty collisions in the fields. + + What an uprising it was! We did not have to supplicate for soldiers + on either side. "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred + thousand strong!" That was the music North and South. The very + choicest young blood and brawn and brain rose up from Maine to the + Gulf and flocked to the standards--just as men always do when in + their eyes their cause is great and fine and their hearts are in it; + just as men flocked to the Crusades, sacrificing all they possessed + to the cause, and entering cheerfully upon hardships which we cannot + even imagine in this age, and upon toilsome and wasting journeys + which in our time would be the equivalent of circumnavigating the + globe five times over. + + North and South we put our hearts into that colossal struggle, and + out of it came the blessed fulfilment of the prophecy of the + immortal Gettysburg speech which said: "We here highly resolve that + these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, + shall have a new birth of freedom; and that a government of the + people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the + earth." + + We are here to honor the birthday of the greatest citizen, and the + noblest and the best, after Washington, that this land or any other + has yet produced. The old wounds are healed, you and we are + brothers again; you testify it by honoring two of us, once soldiers + of the Lost Cause, and foes of your great and good leader--with the + privilege of assisting here; and we testify it by laying our honest + homage at the feet of Abraham Lincoln, and in forgetting that you of + the North and we of the South were ever enemies, and remembering + only that we are now indistinguishably fused together and nameable + by one common great name--Americans! + + + + +CCXIV + +MARK TWAIN AND THE MISSIONARIES + +Mark Twain had really begun his crusade for reform soon after his arrival +in America in a practical hand-to-hand manner. His housekeeper, Katie +Leary, one night employed a cabman to drive her from the Grand Central +Station to the house at 14 West Tenth Street. No contract had been made +as to price, and when she arrived there the cabman's extortionate charge +was refused. He persisted in it, and she sent into the house for her +employer. Of all men, Mark Twain was the last one to countenance an +extortion. He reasoned with the man kindly enough at first; when the +driver at last became abusive Clemens demanded his number, which was at +first refused. In the end he paid the legal fare, and in the morning +entered a formal complaint, something altogether unexpected, for the +American public is accustomed to suffering almost any sort of imposition +to avoid trouble and publicity. + +In some notes which Clemens had made in London four years earlier he +wrote: + + If you call a policeman to settle the dispute you can depend on one + thing--he will decide it against you every time. And so will the + New York policeman. In London if you carry your case into court the + man that is entitled to win it will win it. In New York--but no one + carries a cab case into court there. It is my impression that it is + now more than thirty years since any one has carried a cab case into + court there. + +Nevertheless, he was promptly on hand when the case was called to sustain +the charge and to read the cabdrivers' union and the public in general a +lesson in good-citizenship. At the end of the hearing, to a +representative of the union he said: + +"This is not a matter of sentiment, my dear sir. It is simply practical +business. You cannot imagine that I am making money wasting an hour or +two of my time prosecuting a case in which I can have no personal +interest whatever. I am doing this just as any citizen should do. He +has no choice. He has a distinct duty. He is a non-classified +policeman. Every citizen is, a policeman, and it is his duty to assist +the police and the magistracy in every way he can, and give his time, if +necessary, to do so. Here is a man who is a perfectly natural product of +an infamous system in this city--a charge upon the lax patriotism in this +city of New York that this thing can exist. You have encouraged him, in +every way you know how to overcharge. He is not the criminal here at +all. The criminal is the citizen of New York and the absence of +patriotism. I am not here to avenge myself on him. I have no quarrel +with him. My quarrel is with the citizens of New York, who have +encouraged him, and who created him by encouraging him to overcharge in +this way." + +The driver's license was suspended. The case made a stir in the +newspapers, and it is not likely that any one incident ever contributed +more to cab-driving morals in New York City. + +But Clemens had larger matters than this in prospect. His many speeches +on municipal and national abuses he felt were more or less ephemeral. He +proposed now to write himself down more substantially and for a wider +hearing. The human race was behaving very badly: unspeakable corruption +was rampant in the city; the Boers were being oppressed in South Africa; +the natives were being murdered in the Philippines; Leopold of Belgium +was massacring and mutilating the blacks in the Congo, and the allied +powers, in the cause of Christ, were slaughtering the Chinese. In his +letters he had more than once boiled over touching these matters, and for +New-Year's Eve, 1900, had written: + + + A GREETING FROM THE NINETEENTH TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY + + I bring you the stately nation named Christendom, returning, + bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored, from pirate raids in Kiao- + Chou, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Philippines, with her soul + full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of + pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking- + glass. --[Prepared for Red Cross Society watch-meeting, which was + postponed until March. Clemens recalled his "Greeting" for that + reason and for one other, which he expressed thus: "The list of + greeters thus far issued by you contains only vague generalities and + one definite name--mine: 'Some kings and queens and Mark Twain.' Now + I am not enjoying this sparkling solitude and distinction. It makes + me feel like a circus-poster in a graveyard."] + +This was a sort of preliminary. Then, restraining himself no longer, he +embodied his sentiments in an article for the North American Review +entitled, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness." There was crying need for +some one to speak the right word. He was about the only one who could do +it and be certain of a universal audience. He took as his text some +Christmas Eve clippings from the New York Tribune and Sun which he had +been saving for this purpose. The Tribune clipping said: + + Christmas will dawn in the United States over a people full of hope + and aspiration and good cheer. Such a condition means contentment + and happiness. The carping grumbler who may here and there go forth + will find few to listen to him. The majority will wonder what is + the matter with him, and pass on. + +A Sun clipping depicted the "terrible offenses against humanity committed +in the name of politics in some of the most notorious East Side districts +"--the unmissionaried, unpoliced darker New York. The Sun declared that +they could not be pictured even verbally. But it suggested enough to +make the reader shudder at the hideous depths of vice in the sections +named. Another clipping from the same paper reported the "Rev. Mr. +Ament, of the American Board of Foreign Missions," as having collected +indemnities for Boxer damages in China at the rate of three hundred taels +for each murder, "full payment for all destroyed property belonging to +Christians, and national fines amounting to thirteen times the +indemnity." It quoted Mr. Ament as saying that the money so obtained was +used for the propagation of the Gospel, and that the amount so collected +was moderate when compared with the amount secured by the Catholics, who +had demanded, in addition to money, life for life, that is to say, "head +for head"--in one district six hundred and eighty heads having been so +collected. + +The despatch made Mr. Ament say a great deal more than this, but the gist +here is enough. Mark Twain, of course, was fiercely stirred. The +missionary idea had seldom appealed to him, and coupled with this +business of bloodshed, it was less attractive than usual. He printed the +clippings in full, one following the other; then he said: + + By happy luck we get all these glad tidings on Christmas Eve--just + the time to enable us to celebrate the day with proper gaiety and + enthusiasm. Our spirits soar and we find we can even make jokes; + taels I win, heads you lose. + +He went on to score Ament, to compare the missionary policy in China to +that of the Pawnee Indians, and to propose for him a monument-- +subscriptions to be sent to the American Board. He denounced the +national policies in Africa, China, and the Philippines, and showed by +the reports and by the private letters of soldiers home, how cruel and +barbarous and fiendish had been the warfare made by those whose avowed +purpose was to carry the blessed light of civilization and Gospel "to the +benighted native"--how in very truth these priceless blessings had been +handed on the point of a bayonet to the "Person Sitting in Darkness." + +Mark Twain never wrote anything more scorching, more penetrating in its +sarcasm, more fearful in its revelation of injustice and hypocrisy, than +his article "To the Person Sitting in Darkness." He put aquafortis on +all the raw places, and when it was finished he himself doubted the +wisdom of printing it. Howells, however, agreed that it should be +published, and "it ought to be illustrated by Dan Beard," he added, "with +such pictures as he made for the Yankee in King Arthur's Court, but you'd +better hang yourself afterward." + +Meeting Beard a few days later, Clemens mentioned the matter and said: + +"So if you make the pictures, you hang with me." + +But pictures were not required. It was published in the North American +Review for February, 1901, as the opening article; after which the +cyclone. Two storms moving in opposite directions produce a cyclone, and +the storms immediately developed; one all for Mark Twain and his +principles, the other all against him. Every paper in England and +America commented on it editorially, with bitter denunciations or with +eager praise, according to their lights and convictions. + +At 14 West Tenth Street letters, newspaper clippings, documents poured in +by the bushel--laudations, vituperations, denunciations, vindications; no +such tumult ever occurred in a peaceful literary home. It was really as +if he had thrown a great missile into the human hive, one-half of which +regarded it as a ball of honey and the remainder as a cobblestone. +Whatever other effect it may have had, it left no thinking person +unawakened. + +Clemens reveled in it. W. A. Rogers, in Harper's Weekly, caricatured him +as Tom Sawyer in a snow fort, assailed by the shower of snowballs, +"having the time of his life." Another artist, Fred Lewis, pictured him +as Huck Finn with a gun. + +The American Board was naturally disturbed. The Ament clipping which +Clemens had used had been public property for more than a month--its +authenticity never denied; but it was immediately denied now, and the +cable kept hot with inquiries. + +The Rev. Judson Smith, one of the board, took up the defense of Dr. +Ament, declaring him to be one who had suffered for the cause, and asked +Mark Twain, whose "brilliant article," he said, "would produce an effect +quite beyond the reach of plain argument," not to do an innocent man an +injustice. Clemens in the same paper replied that such was not his +intent, that Mr. Ament in his report had simply arraigned himself. + +Then it suddenly developed that the cable report had "grossly +exaggerated" the amount of Mr. Ament's collections. Instead of thirteen +times the indemnity it should have read "one and a third times" the +indemnity; whereupon, in another open letter, the board demanded +retraction and apology. Clemens would not fail to make the apology--at +least he would explain. It was precisely the kind of thing that would +appeal to him--the delicate moral difference between a demand thirteen +times as great as it should be and a demand that was only one and a third +times the correct amount. "To My Missionary Critics," in the North +American Review for April (1901), was his formal and somewhat lengthy +reply. + +"I have no prejudice against apologies," he wrote. "I trust I shall +never withhold one when it is due." + +He then proceeded to make out his case categorically. Touching the +exaggerated indemnity, he said: + +To Dr. Smith the "thirteen-fold-extra" clearly stood for "theft and +extortion," and he was right, distinctly right, indisputably right. He +manifestly thinks that when it got scaled away down to a mere "one-third" +a little thing like that was some other than "theft and extortion." Why, +only the board knows! + +I will try to explain this difficult problem so that the board can get an +idea of it. If a pauper owes me a dollar and I catch him unprotected and +make him pay me fourteen dollars thirteen of it is "theft and extortion." +If I make him pay only one dollar thirty-three and a third cents the +thirty-three and a third cents are "theft and extortion," just the same. + +I will put it in another way still simpler. If a man owes me one dog-- +any kind of a dog, the breed is of no consequence--and I--but let it go; +the board would never understand it. It can't understand these involved +and difficult things. + +He offered some further illustrations, including the "Tale of a King and +His Treasure" and another tale entitled "The Watermelons." + + I have it now. Many years ago, when I was studying for the gallows, + I had a dear comrade, a youth who was not in my line, but still a + scrupulously good fellow though devious. He was preparing to + qualify for a place on the board, for there was going to be a + vacancy by superannuation in about five years. This was down South, + in the slavery days. It was the nature of the negro then, as now, + to steal watermelons. They stole three of the melons of an adoptive + brother of mine, the only good ones he had. I suspected three of a + neighbor's negroes, but there was no proof, and, besides, the + watermelons in those negroes' private patches were all green and + small and not up to indemnity standard. But in the private patches + of three other negroes there was a number of competent melons. I + consulted with my comrade, the understudy of the board. He said + that if I would approve his arrangements he would arrange. I said, + "Consider me the board; I approve; arrange." So he took a gun and + went and collected three large melons for my brother-on-the- + halfshell, and one over. I was greatly pleased and asked: + + "Who gets the extra one?" + "Widows and orphans." + + "A good idea, too. Why didn't you take thirteen?" + + "It would have been wrong; a crime,, in fact-theft and extortion." + + "What is the one-third extra--the odd melon--the same?" + + It caused him to reflect. But there was no result. + + The justice of the peace was a stern man. On the trial he found + fault with the scheme and required us to explain upon what we based + our strange conduct--as he called it. The understudy said: + + "On the custom of the niggers. They all do it." --[The point had + been made by the board that it was the Chinese custom to make the + inhabitants of a village responsible for individual crimes; and + custom, likewise, to collect a third in excess of the damage, such + surplus having been applied to the support of widows and orphans of + the slain converts.] + + The justice forgot his dignity and descended to sarcasm. + + "Custom of the niggers! Are our morals so inadequate that we have + to borrow of niggers?" + + Then he said to the jury: "Three melons were owing; they were + collected from persons not proven to owe them: this is theft; they + were collected by compulsion: this is extortion. A melon was added + for the widows and orphans. It was owed by no one. It is another + theft, another extortion. Return it whence it came, with the + others. It is not permissible here to apply to any purpose goods + dishonestly obtained; not even to the feeding of widows and orphans, + for this would be to put a shame upon charity and dishonor it." + + He said it in open court, before everybody, and to me it did not + seem very kind. + +It was in the midst of the tumult that Clemens, perhaps feeling the need +of sacred melody, wrote to Andrew Carnegie: + +DEAR SIR & FRIEND,-- You seem to be in prosperity. Could you lend an +admirer $1.50 to buy a hymn-book with? God will bless you. I feel it; +I know it. + +N. B.--If there should be other applications, this one not to count. + Yours, MARK. + +P. S.-Don't send the hymn-book; send the money; I want to make the +selection myself. + + +Carnegie answered: + + Nothing less than a two-dollar & a half hymn-book gilt will do for + you. Your place in the choir (celestial) demands that & you shall + have it. + + There's a new Gospel of Saint Mark in the North American which I + like better than anything I've read for many a day. + + I am willing to borrow a thousand dollars to distribute that sacred + message in proper form, & if the author don't object may I send that + sum, when I can raise it, to the Anti-Imperialist League, Boston, to + which I am a contributor, the only missionary work I am responsible + for. + + Just tell me you are willing & many thousands of the holy little + missals will go forth. This inimitable satire is to become a + classic. I count among my privileges in life that I know you, the + author. + +Perhaps a few more of the letters invited by Mark Twain's criticism of +missionary work in China may still be of interest to the reader: +Frederick T. Cook, of the Hospital Saturday and Sunday Association, +wrote: "I hail you as the Voltaire of America,. It is a noble +distinction. God bless you and see that you weary not in well-doing in +this noblest, sublimest of crusades." + +Ministers were by no means all against him. The associate pastor of the +Every-day Church, in Boston, sent this line: "I want to thank you for +your matchless article in the current North American. It must make +converts of well-nigh all who read it." + +But a Boston school-teacher was angry. "I have been reading the North +American," she wrote, "and I am filled with shame and remorse that I have +dreamed of asking you to come to Boston to talk to the teachers." + +On the outside of the envelope Clemens made this pencil note: + +"Now, I suppose I offended that young lady by having an opinion of my +own, instead of waiting and copying hers. I never thought. I suppose +she must be as much as twenty-five, and probably the only patriot in the +country." + +A critic with a sense of humor asked: "Please excuse seeming +impertinence, but were you ever adjudged insane? Be honest. How much +money does the devil give you for arraigning Christianity and missionary +causes?" + +But there were more of the better sort. Edward S. Martin, in a grateful +letter, said: "How gratifying it is to feel that we have a man among us +who understands the rarity of the plain truth, and who delights to utter +it, and has the gift of doing so without cant and with not too much +seriousness." + +Sir Hiram Maxim wrote: "I give you my candid opinion that what you have +done is of very great value to the civilization of the world. There is +no man living whose words carry greater weight than your own, as no one's +writings are so eagerly sought after by all classes." + +Clemens himself in his note-book set down this aphorism: + +"Do right and you will be conspicuous." + + + + +CCXV + +SUMMER AT "THE LAIR" + +In June Clemens took the family to Saranac Lake, to Ampersand. They +occupied a log cabin which he called "The Lair," on the south shore, near +the water's edge, a remote and beautiful place where, as had happened +before, they were so comfortable and satisfied that they hoped to return +another summer. There were swimming and boating and long walks in the +woods; the worry and noise of the world were far away. They gave little +enough attention to the mails. They took only a weekly paper, and were +likely to allow it to lie in the postoffice uncalled for. Clemens, +especially, loved the place, and wrote to Twichell: + + I am on the front porch (lower one-main deck) of our little bijou of + a dwelling-house. The lake edge (Lower Saranac) is so nearly under + me that I can't see the shore, but only the water, small-poxed with + rain splashes--for there is a heavy down pour. It is charmingly + like sitting snuggled up on a ship's deck with the stretching sea + all around but very much more satisfactory, for at sea a rainstorm + is depressing, while here of course the effect engendered is just a + deep sense of comfort & contentment. The heavy forest shuts us + solidly in on three sides--there are no neighbors. There are + beautiful little tan-colored impudent squirrels about. They take + tea 5 P.M. (not invited) at the table in the woods where Jean does + my typewriting, & one of them has been brave enough to sit upon + Jean's knee with his tail curved over his back & munch his food. + They come to dinner 7 P.M. on the front porch (not invited), but + Clara drives them away. It is an occupation which requires some + industry & attention to business. They all have the one name- + Blennerhasset, from Burr's friend--& none of them answers to it + except when hungry. + +Clemens could work at "The Lair," often writing in shady seclusions along +the shore, and he finished there the two-part serial,--[ Published in +Harper's Magazine for January and February, 1902.]-- "The Double- +Barrelled Detective Story," intended originally as a burlesque on +Sherlock Holmes. It did not altogether fulfil its purpose, and is hardly +to be ranked as one of Mark Twain's successes. It contains, however, one +paragraph at least by which it is likely to be remembered, a hoax--his +last one--on the reader. It runs as follows: + + It was a crisp and spicy morning in early October. The lilacs and + laburnums, lit with the glory-fires of autumn, hung burning and + flashing in the upper air, a fairy bridge provided by kind nature + for the wingless wild things that have their home in the tree-tops + and would visit together; the larch and the pomegranate flung their + purple and yellow flames in brilliant broad splashes along the + slanting sweep of woodland, the sensuous fragrance of innumerable + deciduous flowers rose upon the swooning atmosphere, far in the + empty sky a solitary oesophagus slept upon motionless wing; + everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and the peace of God. + +The warm light and luxury of this paragraph are factitious. The careful +reader will, note that its various accessories are ridiculously +associated, and only the most careless reader will accept the oesophagus +as a bird. But it disturbed a great many admirers, and numerous letters +of inquiry came wanting to know what it was all about. Some suspected +the joke and taunted him with it; one such correspondent wrote: + + MY DEAR MARK TWAIN,--Reading your "Double-Barrelled Detective Story" + in the January Harper's late one night I came to the paragraph where + you so beautifully describe "a crisp and spicy morning in early + October." I read along down the paragraph, conscious only of its + woozy sound, until I brought up with a start against your oesophagus + in the empty sky. Then I read the paragraph again. Oh, Mark Twain! + Mark Twain! How could you do it? Put a trap like that into the + midst of a tragical story? Do serenity and peace brood over you + after you have done such a thing? + + Who lit the lilacs, and which end up do they hang? When did larches + begin to flame, and who set out the pomegranates in that canyon? + What are deciduous flowers, and do they always "bloom in the fall, + tra la"? + + I have been making myself obnoxious to various people by demanding + their opinion of that paragraph without telling them the name of the + author. They say, "Very well done." "The alliteration is so + pretty." "What's an oesophagus, a bird?" "What's it all mean, + anyway?" I tell them it means Mark Twain, and that an oesophagus is + a kind of swallow. Am I right? Or is it a gull? Or a gullet? + + Hereafter if you must write such things won't you please be so kind + as to label them? + Very sincerely yours, + ALLETTA F. DEAN. + +Mark Twain to Miss Dean: + + Don't you give that oesophagus away again or I'll never trust you + with another privacy! + +So many wrote, that Clemens finally felt called upon to make public +confession, and as one searching letter had been mailed from Springfield, +Massachusetts, he made his reply through the Republican of that city. +After some opening comment he said: + + I published a short story lately & it was in that that I put the + oesophagus. I will say privately that I expected it to bother some + people--in fact, that was the intention--but the harvest has been + larger than I was calculating upon. The oesophagus has gathered in + the guilty and the innocent alike, whereas I was only fishing for + the innocent--the innocent and confiding. + +He quoted a letter from a schoolmaster in the Philippines who thought the +passage beautiful with the exception of the curious creature which "slept +upon motionless wings." Said Clemens: + + Do you notice? Nothing in the paragraph disturbed him but that one + word. It shows that that paragraph was most ably constructed for + the deception it was intended to put upon the reader. It was my + intention that it should read plausibly, and it is now plain that it + does; it was my intention that it should be emotional and touching, + and you see yourself that it fetched this public instructor. Alas! + if I had but left that one treacherous word out I should have + scored, scored everywhere, and the paragraph would have slidden + through every reader's sensibilities like oil and left not a + suspicion behind. + + The other sample inquiry is from a professor in a New England + university. It contains one naughty word (which I cannot bear to + suppress), but he is not in the theological department, so it is no + harm: + + "DEAR MR. CLEMENS,--'Far in the empty sky a solitary oesophagus + slept upon motionless wing.' + + "It is not often I get a chance to read much periodical literature, + but I have just gone through at this belated period, with much + gratification and edification, your 'Double-Barrelled Detective + Story.' + + "But what in hell is an oesophagus? I keep one myself, but it never + sleeps in the air or anywhere else. My profession is to deal with + words, and oesophagus interested me the moment I lighted upon it. + But, as a companion of my youth used to say, 'I'll be eternally, co- + eternally cussed' if I can make it out. Is it a joke or am I an + ignoramus?" + + Between you and me, I was almost ashamed of having fooled that man, + but for pride's sake I was not going to say so. I wrote and told + him it was a joke--and that is what I am now saying to my + Springfield inquirer. And I told him to carefully read the whole + paragraph and he would find not a vestige of sense in any detail of + it. This also I recommend to my Springfield inquirer. + + I have confessed. I am sorry--partially. I will not do so any + more--for the present. Don't ask me any more questions; let the + oesophagus have a rest--on his same old motionless wing. + +He wrote Twichell that the story had been a six-day 'tour de force', +twenty-five thousand words, and he adds: + + How long it takes a literary seed to sprout sometimes! This seed was + planted in your house many years ago when you sent me to bed with a + book not heard of by me until then--Sherlock Holmes . . . . + I've done a grist of writing here this summer, but not for + publication soon, if ever. I did write two satisfactory articles + for early print, but I've burned one of them & have buried the other + in my large box of posthumous stuff. I've got stacks of literary + remains piled up there. + +Early in August Clemens went with H. H. Rogers in his yacht Kanawha on a +cruise to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Rogers had made up a party, +including ex-Speaker Reed, Dr. Rice, and Col. A. G. Paine. Young Harry +Rogers also made one of the party. Clemens kept a log of the cruise, +certain entries of which convey something of its spirit. On the 11th, at +Yarmouth, he wrote: + + Fog-bound. The garrison went ashore. Officers visited the yacht in + the evening & said an anvil had been missed. Mr. Rogers paid for + the anvil. + + August 13th. There is a fine picture-gallery here; the sheriff + photographed the garrison, with the exception of Harry (Rogers) and + Mr. Clemens. + + August 14th. Upon complaint of Mr. Reed another dog was procured. + He said he had been a sailor all his life, and considered it + dangerous to trust a ship to a dog-watch with only one dog in it. + + Poker, for a change. + + August 15th. To Rockland, Maine, in the afternoon, arriving about 6 + P.M. In the night Dr. Rice baited the anchor with his winnings & + caught a whale 90 feet long. He said so himself. It is thought + that if there had been another witness like Dr. Rice the whale would + have been longer. + + August 16th. We could have had a happy time in Bath but for the + interruptions caused by people who wanted Mr. Reed to explain votes + of the olden time or give back the money. Mr. Rogers recouped them. + + Another anvil missed. The descendant of Captain Kidd is the only + person who does not blush for these incidents. Harry and Mr. + Clemens blush continually. It is believed that if the rest of the + garrison were like these two the yacht would be welcome everywhere + instead of being quarantined by the police in all the ports. Mr. + Clemens & Harry have attracted a great deal of attention, & men have + expressed a resolve to turn over a new leaf & copy after them from + this out. + + Evening. Judge Cohen came over from another yacht to pay his + respects to Harry and Mr. Clemens, he having heard of their + reputation from the clergy of these coasts. He was invited by the + gang to play poker apparently as a courtesy & in a spirit of seeming + hospitality, he not knowing them & taking it all at par. Mr. Rogers + lent him clothes to go home in. + + August 17th. The Reformed Statesman growling and complaining again-- + not in a frank, straightforward way, but talking at the Commodore, + while letting on to be talking to himself. This time he was + dissatisfied about the anchor watch; said it was out of date, + untrustworthy, & for real efficiency didn't begin with the + Waterbury, & was going on to reiterate, as usual, that he had been a + pilot all his life & blamed if he ever saw, etc., etc., etc. + + But he was not allowed to finish. We put him ashore at Portland. + +That is to say, Reed landed at Portland, the rest of the party returning +with the yacht. + +"We had a noble good time in the yacht," Clemens wrote Twichell on their +return. "We caught a Chinee missionary and drowned him." + +Twichell had been invited to make one of the party, and this letter was +to make him feel sorry he had not accepted. + + + + +CCXVI + +RIVERDALE--A YALE DEGREE + +The Clemens household did not return to 14 West Tenth Street. They spent +a week in Elmira at the end of September, and after a brief stop in New +York took up their residence on the northern metropolitan boundary, at +Riverdale-on-the-Hudson, in the old Appleton home. They had permanently +concluded not to return to Hartford. They had put the property there +into an agent's hands for sale. Mrs. Clemens never felt that she had the +strength to enter the house again. + +They had selected the Riverdale place with due consideration. They +decided that they must have easy access to the New York center, but they +wished also to have the advantage of space and spreading lawn and trees, +large rooms, and light. The Appleton homestead provided these things. +It was a house built in the first third of the last century by one of the +Morris family, so long prominent in New York history. On passing into +the Appleton ownership it had been enlarged and beautified and named +"Holbrook Hall." It overlooked the Hudson and the Palisades. It had +associations: the Roosevelt family had once lived there, Huxley, Darwin, +Tyndall, and others of their intellectual rank had been entertained there +during its occupation by the first Appleton, the founder of the +publishing firm. The great hall of the added wing was its chief feature. +Clemens once remembered: + +"We drifted from room to room on our tour of inspection, always with a +growing doubt as to whether we wanted that house or not; but at last, +when we arrived in a dining-room that was 60 feet long, 30 feet wide, and +had two great fireplaces in it, that settled it." + +There were pleasant neighbors at Riverdale, and had it not been for the +illnesses that seemed always ready to seize upon that household the home +there might have been ideal. They loved the place presently, so much so +that they contemplated buying it, but decided that it was too costly. +They began to prospect for other places along the Hudson shore. They +were anxious to have a home again--one that they could call their own. + +Among the many pleasant neighbors at Riverdale were the Dodges, the +Quincy Adamses, and the Rev. Mr. Carstensen, a liberal-minded minister +with whom Clemens easily affiliated. Clemens and Carstensen visited back +and forth and exchanged views. Once Mr. Carstensen told him that he was +going to town to dine with a party which included the Reverend Gottheil, +a Catholic bishop, an Indian Buddhist, and a Chinese scholar of the +Confucian faith, after which they were all going to a Yiddish theater. +Clemens said: + +"Well, there's only one more thing you need to make the party complete-- +that is, either Satan or me." + +Howells often came to Riverdale. He was living in a New York apartment, +and it was handy and made an easy and pleasant outing for him. He says: + +"I began to see them again on something like the sweet old terms. They +lived far more unpretentiously than they used, and I think with a notion +of economy, which they had never very successfully practised. I recall +that at the end of a certain year in Hartford, when they had been saving +and paying cash for everything, Clemens wrote, reminding me of their +avowed experiment, and asking me to guess how many bills they had at New- +Year's; he hastened to say that a horse-car would not have held them. At +Riverdale they kept no carriage, and there was a snowy night when I drove +up to their handsome old mansion in the station carryall, which was +crusted with mud, as from the going down of the Deluge after transporting +Noah and his family from the Ark to whatever point they decided to settle +provisionally. But the good talk, the rich talk, the talk that could +never suffer poverty of mind or soul was there, and we jubilantly found +ourselves again in our middle youth." + +Both Howells and Clemens were made doctors of letters by Yale that year +and went over in October to receive their degrees. It was Mark Twain's +second Yale degree, and it was the highest rank that an American +institution of learning could confer. + +Twichell wrote: + +I want you to understand, old fellow, that it will be in its intention +the highest public compliment, and emphatically so in your case, for it +will be tendered you by a corporation of gentlemen, the majority of whom +do not at all agree with the views on important questions which you have +lately promulgated in speech and in writing, and with which you are +identified to the public mind. They grant, of course, your right to hold +and express those views, though for themselves they don't like 'em; but +in awarding you the proposed laurel they will make no count of that +whatever. Their action will appropriately signify simply and solely +their estimate of your merit and rank as a man of letters, and so, as I +say, the compliment of it will be of the pure, unadulterated quality. + +Howells was not especially eager to go, and tried to conspire with +Clemens to arrange some excuse which would keep them at home. + +I remember with satisfaction [he wrote] our joint success in keeping away +from the Concord Centennial in 1875, and I have been thinking we might +help each other in this matter of the Yale Anniversary. What are your +plans for getting left, or shall you trust to inspiration? + +Their plans did not avail. Both Howells and Clemens went to New Haven to +receive their honors. + +When they had returned, Howells wrote formally, as became the new rank: + + DEAR SIR,--I have long been an admirer of your complete works, + several of which I have read, and I am with you shoulder to shoulder + in the cause of foreign missions. I would respectfully request a + personal interview, and if you will appoint some day and hour most + inconvenient to you I will call at your baronial hall. I cannot + doubt, from the account of your courtesy given me by the Twelve + Apostles, who once visited you in your Hartford home and were + mistaken for a syndicate of lightning-rod men, that our meeting will + be mutually agreeable. + + Yours truly, + W. D. HOWELLS. + DR. CLEMENS. + + + + +CCXVII + +MARK TWAIN IN POLITICS + +There was a campaign for the mayoralty of New York City that fall, with +Seth Low on the Fusion ticket against Edward M. Shepard as the Tammany +candidate. Mark Twain entered the arena to try to defeat Tammany Hall. +He wrote and he spoke in favor of clean city government and police +reform. He was savagely in earnest and openly denounced the clan of +Croker, individually and collectively. He joined a society called 'The +Acorns'; and on the 17th of October, at a dinner given by the order at +the Waldorf-Astoria, delivered a fierce arraignment, in which he +characterized Croker as the Warren Hastings of New York. His speech was +really a set of extracts from Edmund Burke's great impeachment of +Hastings, substituting always the name of Croker, and paralleling his +career with that of the ancient boss of the East India Company. + +It was not a humorous speech. It was too denunciatory for that. It +probably contained less comic phrasing than any former effort. There is +hardly even a suggestion of humor from beginning to end. It concluded +with this paraphrase of Burke's impeachment: + + I impeach Richard Croker of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach + him in the name of the people, whose trust he has betrayed. + + I impeach him in the name of all the people of America, whose + national character he has dishonored. + + I impeach him in the name and by virtue of those eternal laws of + justice which he has violated. + + I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has + cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed, in both sexes, in every + age, rank, situation, and condition of life. + +The Acorn speech was greatly relied upon for damage to the Tammany ranks, +and hundreds of thousands of copies of it were printed and circulated.-- +[The "Edmund Burke on Croker and Tammany " speech had originally been +written as an article for the North American Review.] + +Clemens was really heart and soul in the campaign. He even joined a +procession that marched up Broadway, and he made a speech to a great +assemblage at Broadway and Leonard Street, when, as he said, he had been +sick abed two days and, according to the doctor, should be in bed then. + + But I would not stay at home for a nursery disease, and that's what + I've got. Now, don't let this leak out all over town, but I've been + doing some indiscreet eating--that's all. It wasn't drinking. If + it had been I shouldn't have said anything about it. + + I ate a banana. I bought it just to clinch the Italian vote for + fusion, but I got hold of a Tammany banana by mistake. Just one + little nub of it on the end was nice and white. That was the + Shepard end. The other nine-tenths were rotten. Now that little + white end won't make the rest of the banana good. The nine-tenths + will make that little nub rotten, too. + + We must get rid of the whole banana, and our Acorn Society is going + to do its share, for it is pledged to nothing but the support of + good government all over the United States. We will elect the + President next time. + + It won't be I, for I have ruined my chances by joining the Acorns, + and there can be no office-holders among us. + +There was a movement which Clemens early nipped in the bud--to name a +political party after him. + +"I should be far from willing to have a political party named after me," +he wrote, "and I would not be willing to belong to a party which allowed +its members to have political aspirations or push friends forward for +political preferment." + +In other words, he was a knight-errant; his sole purpose for being in +politics at all--something he always detested--was to do what he could +for the betterment of his people. + +He had his reward, for when Election Day came, and the returns were in, +the Fusion ticket had triumphed and Tammany had fallen. Clemens received +his share of the credit. One paper celebrated him in verse: + + Who killed Croker? + I, said Mark Twain, + I killed Croker, + I, the jolly joker! + +Among Samuel Clemens's literary remains there is an outline plan for a +"Casting-Vote party," whose main object was "to compel the two great +parties to nominate their best man always." It was to be an organization +of an infinite number of clubs throughout the nation, no member of which +should seek or accept a nomination for office in any political +appointment, but in each case should cast its vote as a unit for the +candidate of one of the two great political parties, requiring that the +man be of clean record and honest purpose. + + From constable up to President [runs his final clause] there is no + office for which the two great parties cannot furnish able, clean, + and acceptable men. Whenever the balance of power shall be lodged + in a permanent third party, with no candidate of its own and no + function but to cast its whole vote for the best man put forward by + the Republicans and Democrats, these two parties will select the + best man they have in their ranks. Good and clean government will + follow, let its party complexion be what it may, and the country + will be quite content. + +It was a Utopian idea, very likely, as human nature is made; full of that +native optimism which was always overflowing and drowning his gloomier +logic. Clearly he forgot his despair of humanity when he formulated that +document, and there is a world of unselfish hope in these closing lines: + + If in the hands of men who regard their citizenship as a high trust + this scheme shall fail upon trial a better must be sought, a better + must be invented; for it cannot be well or safe to let the present + political conditions continue indefinitely. They can be improved, + and American citizenship should arouse up from its disheartenment + and see that it is done. + +Had this document been put into type and circulated it might have founded +a true Mark Twain party. + +Clemens made not many more speeches that autumn, closing the year at last +with the "Founder's Night" speech at The Players, the short address +which, ending on the stroke of midnight, dedicates each passing year to +the memory of Edwin Booth, and pledges each new year in a loving-cup +passed in his honor. + + + + +CCXVIII + +NEW INTERESTS AND INVESTMENTS + +The spirit which a year earlier had prompted Mark Twain to prepare his +"Salutation from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century" inspired him +now to conceive the "Stupendous International Procession," a gruesome +pageant described in a document (unpublished) of twenty-two typewritten +pages which begin: + + THE STUPENDOUS PROCESSION + + At the appointed hour it moved across the world in following order: + + + The Twentieth Century + + A fair young creature, drunk and disorderly, borne in the arms of + Satan. Banner with motto, "Get What You Can, Keep What You Get." + + Guard of Honor--Monarchs, Presidents, Tammany Bosses, Burglars, Land + Thieves, Convicts, etc., appropriately clothed and bearing the + symbols of their several trades. + + + Christendom + + A majestic matron in flowing robes drenched with blood. On her head + a golden crown of thorns; impaled on its spines the bleeding heads + of patriots who died for their countries Boers, Boxers, Filipinos; + in one hand a slung-shot, in the other a Bible, open at the text "Do + unto others," etc. Protruding from pocket bottle labeled "We bring + you the blessings of civilization." Necklace-handcuffs and a + burglar's jimmy. + Supporters--At one elbow Slaughter, at the other Hypocrisy. + Banner with motto--"Love Your Neighbor's Goods as Yourself." + Ensign--The Black Flag. + Guard of Honor--Missionaries and German, French, Russian, and + British soldiers laden with loot. + +And so on, with a section for each nation of the earth, headed each by +the black flag, each bearing horrid emblems, instruments of torture, +mutilated prisoners, broken hearts, floats piled with bloody corpses. At +the end of all, banners inscribed: + + "All White Men are Born Free and Equal." + + "Christ died to make men holy, + Christ died to make men free." + +with the American flag furled and draped in crepe, and the shade of +Lincoln towering vast and dim toward the sky, brooding with sorrowful +aspect over the far-reaching pageant. With much more of the same sort. +It is a fearful document, too fearful, we may believe, for Mrs. Clemens +ever to consent to its publication. + +Advancing years did little toward destroying Mark Twain's interest in +human affairs. At no time in his life was he more variously concerned +and employed than in his sixty-seventh year--matters social, literary, +political, religious, financial, scientific. He was always alive, young, +actively cultivating or devising interests--valuable and otherwise, +though never less than important to him. + +He had plenty of money again, for one thing, and he liked to find +dazzlingly new ways for investing it. As in the old days, he was always +putting "twenty-five or forty thousand dollars," as he said, into +something that promised multiplied returns. Howells tells how he found +him looking wonderfully well, and when he asked the name of his elixir he +learned that it was plasmon. + + I did not immediately understand that plasmon was one of the + investments which he had made from "the substance of things hoped + for," and in the destiny of a disastrous disappointment. But after + paying off the creditors of his late publishing firm he had to do + something with his money, and it was not his fault if he did not + make a fortune out of plasmon. + +It was just at this period (the beginning of 1902) that he was promoting +with his capital and enthusiasm the plasmon interests in America, +investing in it one of the "usual amounts," promising to make Howells +over again body and soul with the life-giving albuminate. Once he wrote +him explicit instructions: + + Yes--take it as a medicine--there is nothing better, nothing surer + of desired results. If you wish to be elaborate--which isn't + necessary--put a couple of heaping teaspoonfuls of the powder in an + inch of milk & stir until it is a paste; put in some more milk and + stir the paste to a thin gruel; then fill up the glass and drink. + + Or, stir it into your soup. + + Or, into your oatmeal. + + Or, use any method you like, so's you get it down--that is the only + essential. + +He put another "usual sum" about this time in a patent cash register +which was acknowledged to be "a promise rather than a performance," and +remains so until this day. + +He capitalized a patent spiral hat-pin, warranted to hold the hat on in +any weather, and he had a number of the pins handsomely made to present +to visitors of the sex naturally requiring that sort of adornment and +protection. It was a pretty and ingenious device and apparently +effective enough, though it failed to secure his invested thousands. + +He invested a lesser sum in shares of the Booklover's Library, which was +going to revolutionize the reading world, and which at least paid a few +dividends. Even the old Tennessee land will-o'-the-wisp-long since +repudiated and forgotten--when it appeared again in the form of a +possible equity in some overlooked fragment, kindled a gentle interest, +and was added to his list of ventures. + +He made one substantial investment at this period. They became more and +more in love with the Hudson environment, its beauty and its easy access +to New York. Their house was what they liked it to be--a gathering-- +place for friends and the world's notables, who could reach it easily and +quickly from New York. They had a steady procession of company when Mrs. +Clemens's health would permit, and during a single week in the early part +of this year entertained guests at no less than seventeen out of their +twenty-one meals, and for three out of the seven nights--not an unusual +week. Their plan for buying a home on the Hudson ended with the purchase +of what was known as Hillcrest, or the Casey place, at Tarrytown, +overlooking that beautiful stretch of river, the Tappan Zee, close to the +Washington Irving home. The beauty of its outlook and surroundings +appealed to them all. The house was handsome and finely placed, and they +planned to make certain changes that would adapt it to their needs. The +price, which was less than fifty thousand dollars, made it an attractive +purchase; and without doubt it would have made them a suitable and happy +home had it been written in the future that they should so inherit it. + +Clemens was writing pretty steadily these days. The human race was +furnishing him with ever so many inspiring subjects, and he found time to +touch more or less on most of them. He wreaked his indignation upon the +things which exasperated him often--even usually--without the expectation +of print; and he delivered himself even more inclusively at such times as +he walked the floor between the luncheon or dinner courses, amplifying on +the poverty of an invention that had produced mankind as a supreme +handiwork. In a letter to Howells he wrote: + +Your comments on that idiot's "Ideals" letter reminds me that I preached +a good sermon to my family yesterday on his particular layer of the human +race, that grotesquest of all the inventions of the Creator. It was a +good sermon, but coldly received, & it seemed best not to try to take up +a collection. + +He once told Howells, with the wild joy of his boyish heart, how Mrs. +Clemens found some compensation, when kept to her room by illness, in the +reflection that now she would not hear so much about the "damned human +race." + +Yet he was always the first man to champion that race, and the more +unpromising the specimen the surer it was of his protection, and he never +invited, never expected gratitude. + +One wonders how he found time to do all the things that he did. Besides +his legitimate literary labors and his preachments, he was always writing +letters to this one and that, long letters on a variety of subjects, +carefully and picturesquely phrased, and to people of every sort. He +even formed a curious society, whose members were young girls--one in +each country of the earth. They were supposed to write to him at +intervals on some subject likely to be of mutual interest, to which +letters he agreed to reply. He furnished each member with a typewritten +copy of the constitution and by-laws of the juggernaut Club, as he called +it, and he apprised each of her election, usually after this fashion: + + I have a club--a private club, which is all my own. I appoint the + members myself, & they can't help themselves, because I don't allow + them to vote on their own appointment & I don't allow them to + resign! They are all friends whom I have never seen (save one), but + who have written friendly letters to me. By the laws of my club + there can be only one member in each country, & there can be no male + member but myself. Some day I may admit males, but I don't know- + they are capricious & inharmonious, & their ways provoke me a good + deal. It is a matter, which the club shall decide. I have made + four appointments in the past three or four months: You as a member + for Scotland--oh, this good while!; a young citizeness of Joan of + Arc's home region as a member for France; a Mohammedan girl as + member for Bengal; & a dear & bright young niece of mine as member + for the United States--for I do not represent a country myself, but + am merely member-at-large for the human race. You must not try to + resign, for the laws of the club do not allow that. You must + console yourself by remembering that you are in the best company; + that nobody knows of your membership except yourself; that no member + knows another's name, but only her country; that no taxes are levied + and no meetings held (but how dearly I should like to attend one!). + One of my members is a princess of a royal house, another is the + daughter of a village bookseller on the continent of Europe, for the + only qualification for membership is intellect & the spirit of good- + will; other distinctions, hereditary or acquired, do not count. May + I send you the constitution & laws of the club? I shall be so glad + if I may. + +It was just one of his many fancies, and most of the active memberships +would not long be maintained; though some continued faithful in their +reports, as he did in his replies, to the end. + +One of the more fantastic of his conceptions was a plan to advertise for +ante-mortem obituaries of himself--in order, as he said, that he might +look them over and enjoy them and make certain corrections in the matter +of detail. Some of them he thought might be appropriate to read from the +platform. + + I will correct them--not the facts, but the verdicts--striking out + such clauses as could have a deleterious influence on the other + side, and replacing them with clauses of a more judicious character. + +He was much taken with the new idea, and his request for such obituaries, +with an offer of a prize for the best--a portrait of himself drawn by his +own hand--really appeared in Harper's Weekly later in the year. +Naturally he got a shower of responses--serious, playful, burlesque. +Some of them were quite worth while. + +The obvious "Death loves a shining Mark" was of course numerously +duplicated, and some varied it "Death loves an Easy Mark," and there was +"Mark, the perfect man." + +The two that follow gave him especial pleasure. + + OBITUARY FOR "MARK TWAIN" + + Worthy of his portrait, a place on his monument, as well as a place + among his "perennial-consolation heirlooms": + + "Got up; washed; went to bed." + + The subject's own words (see Innocents Abroad). Can't go back on + your own words, Mark Twain. There's nothing "to strike out"; + nothing "to replace." What more could be said of any one? + + "Got up!"--Think of the fullness of meaning! The possibilities of + life, its achievements--physical, intellectual, spiritual. Got up + to the top!--the climax of human aspiration on earth! + + "Washed"--Every whit clean; purified--body, soul, thoughts, + purposes. + + "Went to bed"--Work all done--to rest, to sleep. The culmination of + the day well spent! + + God looks after the awakening. + + Mrs. S. A. OREN-HAYNES. + + + Mark Twain was the only man who ever lived, so far as we know, whose + lies were so innocent, and withal so helpful, as to make them worth + more than a whole lot of fossilized priests' eternal truths. + + D. H. KENNER. + + + + +CCXIX + +YACHTING AND THEOLOGY + +Clemens made fewer speeches during the Riverdale period. He was as +frequently demanded, but he had a better excuse for refusing, especially +the evening functions. He attended a good many luncheons with friendly +spirits like Howells, Matthews, James L. Ford, and Hamlin Garland. At +the end of February he came down to the Mayor's dinner given to Prince +Henry of Prussia, but he did not speak. Clemens used to say afterward +that he had not been asked to speak, and that it was probably because of +his supposed breach of etiquette at the Kaiser's dinner in Berlin; but +the fact that Prince Henry sought him out, and was most cordially and +humanly attentive during a considerable portion of the evening, is +against the supposition. + +Clemens attended a Yale alumni dinner that winter and incidentally +visited Twichell in Hartford. The old question of moral responsibility +came up and Twichell lent his visitor a copy of Jonathan Edwards's +'Freedom of the Will' for train perusal. Clemens found it absorbing. +Later he wrote Twichell his views. + + DEAR JOE,--(After compliments.)--[Meaning "What a good time you gave + me; what a happiness it was to be under your roof again," etc. See + opening sentence of all translations of letters passing between Lord + Roberts and Indian princes and rulers.]-- From Bridgeport to New + York, thence to home, & continuously until near midnight I wallowed + & reeked with Jonathan in his insane debauch; rose immensely + refreshed & fine at ten this morning, but with a strange & haunting + sense of having been on a three days' tear with a drunken lunatic. + It is years since I have known these sensations. All through the + book is the glare of a resplendent intellect gone mad--a marvelous + spectacle. No, not all through the book + --the drunk does not come on till the last third, where what I take + to be Calvinism & its God begins to show up & shine red & hideous in + the glow from the fires of hell, their only right and proper + adornment. + + Jonathan seems to hold (as against the Armenian position) that the + man (or his soul or his will) never creates an impulse itself, but + is moved to action by an impulse back of it. That's sound! + + Also, that of two or more things offered it, it infallibly chooses + the one which for the moment is most pleasing to ITSELF. Perfectly + correct! An immense admission for a man not otherwise sane. + + Up to that point he could have written Chapters III & IV of my + suppressed Gospel. But there we seem to separate. He seems to + concede the indisputable & unshaken dominion of Motive & Necessity + (call them what he may, these are exterior forces & not under the + man's authority, guidance, or even suggestion); then he suddenly + flies the logical track & (to all seeming) makes the man & not those + exterior forces responsible to God for the man's thoughts, words, & + acts. It is frank insanity. + + I think that when he concedes the autocratic dominion of Motive and + Necessity he grants a third position of mine--that a man's mind is a + mere machine--an automatic machine--which is handled entirely from + the outside, the man himself furnishing it absolutely nothing; not + an ounce of its fuel, & not so much as a bare suggestion to that + exterior engineer as to what the machine shall do nor how it shall + do it nor when. + + After that concession it was time for him to get alarmed & shirk-- + for he was pointed straight for the only rational & possible next + station on that piece of road--the irresponsibility of man to God. + + And so he shirked. Shirked, and arrived at this handsome result: + + Man is commanded to do so & so. + + It has been ordained from the beginning of time that some men + sha'n't & others can't. + + These are to blame: let them be damned. + + I enjoy the Colonel very much, & shall enjoy the rest of him with an + obscene delight. + + Joe, the whole tribe shout love to you & yours! + MARK. + +Clemens was moved to set down some theology of his own, and did so in a +manuscript which he entitled, "If I Could Be There." It is in the +dialogue form he often adopted for polemic writing. It is a colloquy +between the Master of the Universe and a Stranger. It begins: + + +I + +If I could be there, hidden under the steps of the throne, I should hear +conversations like this: + +A STRANGER. Lord, there is one who needs to be punished, and has been +overlooked. It is in the record. I have found it. + +LORD. By searching? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. Who is it? What is it? + +S. A man. + +L. Proceed. + +S. He died in sin. Sin committed by his great-grandfather. + +L. When was this? + +S. Eleven million years ago. + +L. Do you know what a microbe is? + +S. Yes, Lord. It is a creature too small to be detected by my eye. + +L. He commits depredations upon your blood? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. I give you leave to subject him to a billion years of misery for this +offense. Go! Work your will upon him. + +S. But, Lord, I have nothing against him; I am indifferent to him. + +L. Why? + +S. He is so infinitely small and contemptible. I am to him as is a +mountain-range to a grain of sand. + +L. What am I to man? + +S. (Silent.) + +L. Am I not, to a man, as is a billion solar systems to a grain of sand? + +S. It is true, Lord. + +L. Some microbes are larger than others. Does man regard the +difference? + +S. No, Lord. To him there is no difference of consequence. To him they +are all microbes, all infinitely little and equally inconsequential. + +L. To me there is no difference of consequence between a man & a +microbe. Man looks down upon the speck at his feet called a microbe from +an altitude of a thousand miles, so to speak, and regards him with +indifference; I look down upon the specks called a man and a microbe from +an altitude of a billion leagues, so to speak, and to me they are of a +size. To me both are inconsequential. Man kills the microbes when he +can? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. Then what? Does he keep him in mind years and years and go on +contriving miseries for him? + +S. No, Lord. + +L. Does he forget him? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. Why? + +S. He cares nothing more about him. + +L. Employs himself with more important matters? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. Apparently man is quite a rational and dignified person, and can +divorce his mind from uninteresting trivialities. Why does he affront me +with the fancy that I interest Myself in trivialities--like men and +microbes? + + +II + +L. Is it true the human race thinks the universe was created for its +convenience? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. The human race is modest. Speaking as a member of it, what do you +think the other animals are for? + +S. To furnish food and labor for man. + +L. What is the sea for? + +S. To furnish food for man. Fishes. + +L. And the air? + +S. To furnish sustenance for man. Birds and breath. + +L. How many men are there? + +S. Fifteen hundred millions. + +L. (Referring to notes.) Take your pencil and set down some statistics. +In a healthy man's lower intestine 28,000,000 microbes are born daily and +die daily. In the rest of a man's body 122,000,000 microbes are born +daily and die daily. The two sums aggregate-what? + +S. About 150,000,000. + +L. In ten days the aggregate reaches what? + +S. Fifteen hundred millions. + +L. It is for one person. What would it be for the whole human +population? + +S. Alas, Lord, it is beyond the power of figures to set down that +multitude. It is billions of billions multiplied by billions of +billions, and these multiplied again and again by billions of billions. +The figures would stretch across the universe and hang over into space on +both sides. + +L. To what intent are these uncountable microbes introduced into the +human race? + +S. That they may eat. + +L. Now then, according to man's own reasoning, what is man for? + +S. Alas-alas! + +L. What is he for? + +S. To-to-furnish food for microbes. + +L. Manifestly. A child could see it. Now then, with this common-sense +light to aid your perceptions, what are the air, the land, and the ocean +for? + +S. To furnish food for man so that he may nourish, support, and multiply +and replenish the microbes. + +L. Manifestly. Does one build a boarding-house for the sake of the +boarding-house itself or for the sake of the boarders? + +S. Certainly for the sake of the boarders. + +L. Man's a boarding-house. + +S. I perceive it, Lord. + +L. He is a boarding-house. He was never intended for anything else. If +he had had less vanity and a clearer insight into the great truths that +lie embedded in statistics he would have found it out early. As concerns +the man who has gone unpunished eleven million years, is it your belief +that in life he did his duty by his microbes? + +S. Undoubtedly, Lord. He could not help it. + +L. Then why punish him? He had no other duty to perform. + + +Whatever else may be said of this kind of doctrine, it is at least +original and has a conclusive sound. Mark Twain had very little use for +orthodoxy and conservatism. When it was announced that Dr. Jacques Loeb, +of the University of California, had demonstrated the creation of life by +chemical agencies he was deeply interested. When a newspaper writer +commented that a "consensus of opinion among biologists" would probably +rate Dr. Loeb as a man of lively imagination rather than an inerrant +investigator of natural phenomena, he felt called to chaff the consensus +idea. + + I wish I could be as young as that again. Although I seem so old + now I was once as young as that. I remember, as if it were but + thirty or forty years ago, how a paralyzing consensus of opinion + accumulated from experts a-setting around about brother experts who + had patiently and laboriously cold-chiseled their way into one or + another of nature's safe-deposit vaults and were reporting that they + had found something valuable was plenty for me. It settled it. + + But it isn't so now-no. Because in the drift of the years I by and + by found out that a Consensus examines a new thing with its feelings + rather oftener than with its mind. + + There was that primitive steam-engine-ages back, in Greek times: a + Consensus made fun of it. There was the Marquis of Worcester's + steam-engine 250 years ago: a Consensus made fun of it. There was + Fulton's steamboat of a century ago: a French Consensus, including + the great Napoleon, made fun of it. There was Priestley, with his + oxygen: a Consensus scoffed at him, mobbed him, burned him out, + banished him. While a Consensus was proving, by statistics and + things, that a steamship could not cross the Atlantic, a steamship + did it. + +And so on through a dozen pages or more of lively satire, ending with an +extract from Adam's Diary. + + Then there was a Consensus about it. It was the very first one. It + sat six days and nights. It was then delivered of the verdict that + a world could not be made out of nothing; that such small things as + sun and moon and stars might, maybe, but it would take years and + years if there was considerable many of them. Then the Consensus + got up and looked out of the window, and there was the whole outfit, + spinning and sparkling in space! You never saw such a disappointed + lot. + ADAM. + +He was writing much at this time, mainly for his own amusement, though +now and then he offered one of his reflections for print. That beautiful +fairy tale, "The Five Boons of Life," of which the most precious is +"Death," was written at this period. Maeterlinck's lovely story of the +bee interested him; he wrote about that. Somebody proposed a Martyrs' +Day; he wrote a paper ridiculing the suggestion. In his note-book, too, +there is a memorandum for a love-story of the Quarternary Epoch which +would begin, "On a soft October afternoon 2,000,000 years ago." John +Fiske's Discovery of America, Volume I, he said, was to furnish the +animals and scenery, civilization and conversation to be the same as to- +day; but apparently this idea was carried no further. He ranged through +every subject from protoplasm to infinity, exalting, condemning, +ridiculing, explaining; his brain was always busy--a dynamo that rested +neither night nor day. + +In April Clemens received notice of another yachting trip on the Kanawha, +which this time would sail for the Bahama and West India islands. The +guests were to be about the same.--[The invited ones of the party were +Hon. T. B. Reed, A. G. Paine, Laurence Hutton, Dr. C. C. Rice, W. T. +Foote, and S. L. Clemens. "Owners of the yacht," Mr. Rogers called them, +signing himself as "Their Guest."] + +He sent this telegram: + +H. H. ROGERS, +Fairhaven, Mass. + +Can't get away this week. I have company here from tonight till middle +of next week. Will Kanawha be sailing after that & can I go as Sunday- +school superintendent at half rate? Answer and prepay. + DR. CLEMENS. + +The sailing date was conveniently arranged and there followed a happy +cruise among those balmy islands. Mark Twain was particularly fond of +"Tom" Reed, who had been known as "Czar" Reed in Congress, but was +delightfully human in his personal life. They argued politics a good +deal, and Reed, with all his training and intimate practical knowledge of +the subject, confessed that he "couldn't argue with a man like that." + +"Do you believe the things you say?" he asked once, in his thin, falsetto +voice. + +"Yes," said Clemens. "Some of them." + +"Well, you want to look out. If you go on this way, by and by you'll get +to believing nearly everything you say." + +Draw poker appears to have been their favorite diversion. Clemens in his +notes reports that off the coast of Florida Reed won twenty-three pots in +succession. It was said afterward that they made no stops at any harbor; +that when the chief officer approached the poker-table and told them they +were about to enter some important port he received peremptory orders to +"sail on and not interrupt the game." This, however, may be regarded as +more or less founded on fiction. + + + + +CCXX + +MARK TWAIN AND THE PHILIPPINES + +Among the completed manuscripts of the early part of 1902 was a North +American Review article (published in April)--"Does the Race of Man Love +a Lord?"--a most interesting treatise on snobbery as a universal +weakness. There were also some papers on the Philippine situation. In +one of these Clemens wrote: + + We have bought some islands from a party who did not own them; with + real smartness and a good counterfeit of disinterested friendliness + we coaxed a confiding weak nation into a trap and closed it upon + them; we went back on an honored guest of the Stars and Stripes when + we had no further use for him and chased him to the mountains; we + are as indisputably in possession of a wide-spreading archipelago as + if it were our property; we have pacified some thousands of the + islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their + villages, and turned their widows and orphans out-of-doors; + furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable + patriots; subjugated the remaining ten millions by Benevolent + Assimilation, which is the pious new name of the musket; we have + acquired property in the three hundred concubines and other slaves + of our business partner, the Sultan of Sulu, and hoisted our + protecting flag over that swag. + + And so, by these Providences of God--the phrase is the government's, + not mine--we are a World Power; and are glad and proud, and have a + back seat in the family. With tacks in it. At least we are letting + on to be glad and proud; it is the best way. Indeed, it is the only + way. We must maintain our dignity, for people are looking. We are + a World Power; we cannot get out of it now, and we must make the + best of it. + +And again he wrote: + + I am not finding fault with this use of our flag, for in order not + to seem eccentric I have swung around now and joined the nation in + the conviction that nothing can sully a flag. I was not properly + reared, and had the illusion that a flag was a thing which must be + sacredly guarded against shameful uses and unclean contacts lest it + suffer pollution; and so when it was sent out to the Philippines to + float over a wanton war and a robbing expedition I supposed it was + polluted, and in an ignorant moment I said so. But I stand + corrected. I concede and acknowledge that it was only the + government that sent it on such an errand that was polluted. Let us + compromise on that. I am glad to have it that way. For our flag + could not well stand pollution, never having been used to it, but it + is different with the administration. + +But a much more conspicuous comment on the Philippine policy was the so- +called "Defense of General Funston" for what Funston himself referred to +as a "dirty Irish trick"; that is to say, deception in the capture of +Aguinaldo. Clemens, who found it hard enough to reconcile himself to- +any form of warfare, was especially bitter concerning this particular +campaign. The article appeared in the North American Review for May, +1902, and stirred up a good deal of a storm. He wrote much more on the +subject--very much more--but it is still unpublished. + + + + +CCXXI + +THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE + +One day in April, 1902, Samuel Clemens received the following letter from +the president of the University of Missouri: + +MY DEAR MR. CLEMENS, Although you received the degree of doctor of +literature last fall from Yale, and have had other honors conferred upon +you by other great universities, we want to adopt you here as a son of +the University of Missouri. In asking your permission to confer upon you +the degree of LL.D. the University of Missouri does not aim to confer an +honor upon you so much as to show her appreciation of you. The rules of +the University forbid us to confer the degree upon any one in absentia. +I hope very much that you can so arrange your plans as to be with us on +the fourth day of next June, when we shall hold our Annual Commencement. + + Very truly yours, + R. H. JESSE. + + +Clemens had not expected to make another trip to the West, but a +proffered honor such as this from one's native State was not a thing to +be declined. + +It was at the end of May when he arrived in St. Louis, and he was met at +the train there by his old river instructor and friend, Horace Bixby--as +fresh, wiry, and capable as he had been forty-five years before. + +"I have become an old man. You are still thirty-five," Clemens said. + +They went to the Planters Hotel, and the news presently got around that +Mark Twain was there. There followed a sort of reception in the hotel +lobby, after which Bixby took him across to the rooms of the Pilots +Association, where the rivermen gathered in force to celebrate his +return. A few of his old comrades were still alive, among them Beck +Jolly. The same afternoon he took the train for Hannibal. + +It was a busy five days that he had in Hannibal. High-school +commencement day came first. He attended, and willingly, or at least +patiently, sat through the various recitals and orations and +orchestrations, dreaming and remembering, no doubt, other high-school +commencements of more than half a century before, seeing in some of those +young people the boys and girls he had known in that vanished time. A +few friends of his youth were still there, but they were among the +audience now, and no longer fresh and looking into the future. Their +heads were white, and, like him, they were looking down the recorded +years. Laura Hawkins was there and Helen Kercheval (Mrs. Frazer and Mrs. +Garth now), and there were others, but they were few and scattering. + +He was added to the program, and he made himself as one of the graduates, +and told them some things of the young people of that earlier time that +brought their laughter and their tears. + +He was asked to distribute the diplomas, and he undertook the work in his +own way. He took an armful of them and said to the graduates: + +"Take one. Pick out a good one. Don't take two, but be sure you get a +good one." + +So each took one "unsight and unseen" aid made the more exact +distributions among themselves later. + +Next morning it was Saturday--he visited the old home on Hill Street, and +stood in the doorway all dressed in white while a battalion of +photographers made pictures of "this return of the native" to the +threshold of his youth. + +"It all seems so small to me," he said, as he looked through the house; +"a boy's home is a big place to him. I suppose if I should come back +again ten years from now it would be the size of a birdhouse." + +He went through the rooms and up-stairs where he had slept and looked out +the window down in the back yard where, nearly sixty years before, Tom +Sawyer, Huck Finn, Joe Harper, and the rest--that is to say, Tom +Blankenship, John Briggs, Will Pitts, and the Bowen boys--set out on +their nightly escapades. Of that lightsome band Will Pitts and John +Briggs still remained, with half a dozen others--schoolmates of the less +adventurous sort. Buck Brown, who had been his rival in the spelling +contests, was still there, and John Robards, who had worn golden curls +and the medal for good conduct, and Ed Pierce. And while these were +assembled in a little group on the pavement outside the home a small old +man came up and put out his hand, and it was Jimmy MacDaniel, to whom so +long before, sitting on the river-bank and eating gingerbread, he had +first told the story of Jim Wolfe and the cats. + +They put him into a carriage, drove him far and wide, and showed the +hills and resorts and rendezvous of Tom Sawyer and his marauding band. + +He was entertained that evening by the Labinnah Club (whose name was +achieved by a backward spelling of Hannibal), where he found most of the +survivors of his youth. The news report of that occasion states that he +was introduced by Father McLoughlin, and that he "responded in a very +humorous and touchingly pathetic way, breaking down in tears at the +conclusion. Commenting on his boyhood days and referring to his mother +was too much for the great humorist. Before him as he spoke were sitting +seven of his boyhood friends." + +On Sunday morning Col. John Robards escorted him to the various churches +and Sunday-schools. They were all new churches to Samuel Clemens, but he +pretended not to recognize this fact. In each one he was asked to speak +a few words, and he began by saying how good it was to be back in the old +home Sunday-school again, which as a boy he had always so loved, and he +would go on and point out the very place he had sat, and his escort +hardly knew whether or not to enjoy the proceedings. At one place he +told a moral story. He said: + +Little boys and girls, I want to tell you a story which illustrates the +value of perseverance--of sticking to your work, as it were. It is a +story very proper for a Sunday-school. When I was a little boy in +Hannibal I used to play a good deal up here on Holliday's Hill, which of +course you all know. John Briggs and I played up there. I don't suppose +there are any little boys as good as we were then, but of course that is +not to be expected. Little boys in those days were 'most always good +little boys, because those were the good old times when everything was +better than it is now, but never mind that. Well, once upon a time, on +Holliday's Hill, they were blasting out rock, and a man was drilling for +a blast. He sat there and drilled and drilled and drilled perseveringly +until he had a hole down deep enough for the blast. Then he put in the +powder and tamped and tamped it down, but maybe he tamped it a little too +hard, for the blast went off and he went up into the air, and we watched +him. He went up higher and higher and got smaller and smaller. First he +looked as big as a child, then as big as a dog, then as big as a kitten, +then as big as a bird, and finally he went out of sight. John Briggs was +with me, and we watched the place where he went out of sight, and by and +by we saw him coming down first as big as a bird, then as big as a +kitten, then as big as a dog, then as big as a child, and then he was a +man again, and landed right in his seat and went to drilling just +persevering, you see, and sticking to his work. Little boys and girls, +that's the secret of success, just like that poor but honest workman on +Holliday's Hill. Of course you won't always be appreciated. He wasn't. +His employer was a hard man, and on Saturday night when he paid him he +docked him fifteen minutes for the time he was up in the air--but never +mind, he had his reward. + +He told all this in his solemn, grave way, though the Sunday-school was +in a storm of enjoyment when he finished. There still remains a doubt in +Hannibal as to its perfect suitability, but there is no doubt as to its +acceptability. + +That Sunday afternoon, with John Briggs, he walked over Holliday's Hill-- +the Cardiff Hill of Tom Sawyer. It was jest such a Sunday as that one +when they had so nearly demolished the negro driver and had damaged a +cooper-shop. They calculated that nearly three thousand Sundays had +passed since then, and now here they were once more, two old men with the +hills still fresh and green, the river still sweeping by and rippling in +the sun. Standing there together and looking across to the low-lying +Illinois shore, and to the green islands where they had played, and to +Lover's Leap on the south, the man who had been Sam Clemens said: + +"John, that is one of the loveliest sights I ever saw. Down there by the +island is the place we used to swim, and yonder is where a man was +drowned, and there's where the steamboat sank. Down there on Lover's +Leap is where the Millerites put on their robes one night to go to +heaven. None of them went that night, but I suppose most of them have +gone now." + +John Briggs said: + +"Sam, do you remember the day we stole the peaches from old man Price and +one of his bow-legged niggers came after us with the dogs, and how we +made up our minds that we'd catch that nigger and drown him?" + +They came to the place where they had pried out the great rock that had +so nearly brought them to grief. Sam Clemens said: + +"John, if we had killed that man we'd have had a dead nigger on our hands +without a cent to pay for him." + +And so they talked on of this thing and that, and by and by they drove +along the river, and Sam Clemens pointed out the place where he swam it +and was taken with a cramp on the return swim, and believed for a while +that his career was about to close. + +"Once, near the shore, I thought I would let down," he said, "but was +afraid to, knowing that if the water was deep I was a goner, but finally +my knees struck the sand and I crawled out. That was the closest call I +ever had." + +They drove by the place where the haunted house had stood. They drank +from a well they had always known, and from the bucket as they had always +drunk, talking and always talking, fondling lovingly and lingeringly that +most beautiful of all our possessions, the past. + +"Sam," said John, when they parted, "this is probably the last time we +shall meet on this earth. God bless you. Perhaps somewhere we shall +renew our friendship." + +"John," was the answer, "this day has been worth thousands of dollars to +me. We were like brothers once, and I feel that we are the same now. +Good-by, John. I'll try to meet you--somewhere." + + + + +CCXXII + +A PROPHET HONORED IN HIS COUNTRY + +Clemens left next day for Columbia. Committees met him at Rensselaer, +Monroe City, Clapper, Stoutsville, Paris, Madison, Moberly--at every +station along the line of his travel. At each place crowds were gathered +when the train pulled in, to cheer and wave and to present him with +flowers. Sometimes he spoke a few words; but oftener his eyes were full +of tears--his voice would not come. + +There is something essentially dramatic in official recognition by one's +native State--the return of the lad who has set out unknown to battle +with life, and who, having conquered, is invited back to be crowned. No +other honor, however great and spectacular, is quite like that, for there +is in it a pathos and a completeness that are elemental and stir emotions +as old as life itself. + +It was on the 4th of June, 1902, that Mark Twain received his doctor of +laws degree from the State University at Columbia, Missouri. James +Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, and Ethan Allen Hitchcock, Secretary of +the Interior, were among those similarly honored. Mark Twain was +naturally the chief attraction. Dressed in his Yale scholastic gown he +led the procession of graduating students, and, as in Hannibal, awarded +them their diplomas. The regular exercises were made purposely brief in +order that some time might be allowed for the conferring of the degrees. +This ceremony was a peculiarly impressive one. Gardner Lathrop read a +brief statement introducing "America's foremost author and best-loved +citizen, Samuel Langhorne Clemens--Mark Twain." + +Clemens rose, stepped out to the center of the stage, and paused. He +seemed to be in doubt as to whether he should make a speech or simply +express his thanks and retire. Suddenly, and without a signal, the great +audience rose as one man and stood in silence at his feet. He bowed, but +he could not speak. Then that vast assembly began a peculiar chant, +spelling out slowly the word Missouri, with a pause between each letter. +It was dramatic; it was tremendous in its impressiveness. He had +recovered himself when they finished. He said he didn't know whether he +was expected to make a speech or not. They did not leave'him in doubt. +They cheered and demanded a speech, a speech, and he made them one--one +of the speeches he could make best, full of quaint phrasing, happy humor, +gentle and dramatic pathos. He closed by telling the watermelon story +for its "moral effect." + +He was the guest of E. W. Stevens in Columbia, and a dinner was given in +his honor. They would have liked to keep him longer, but he was due in +St. Louis again to join in the dedication of the grounds, where was to be +held a World's Fair, to celebrate the Louisiana Purchase. Another +ceremony he attended was the christening of the St. Louis harbor-boat, or +rather the rechristening, for it had been decided to change its name from +the St. Louis--[Originally the Elon G. Smith, built in 1873.]--to the +Mark Twain. A short trip was made on it for the ceremony. Governor +Francis and Mayor Wells were of the party, and Count and Countess +Rochambeau and Marquis de Lafayette, with the rest of the French group +that had come over for the dedication of the World's Fair grounds. + +Mark Twain himself was invited to pilot the harbor boat, and so returned +for the last time to his old place at the wheel. They all collected in +the pilot-house behind him, feeling that it was a memorable occasion. +They were going along well enough when he saw a little ripple running out +from the shore across the bow. In the old days he could have told +whether it indicated a bar there or was only caused by the wind, but he +could not be sure any more. Turning to the pilot languidly, he said: +"I feel a little tired. I guess you had better take the wheel." + +Luncheon was served aboard, and Mayor Wells made the christening speech; +then the Countess Rochambeau took a bottle of champagne from the hand of +Governor Francis and smashed it on the deck, saying, " I christen thee, +good boat, Mark Twain." So it was, the Mississippi joined in according +him honors. In his speech of reply he paid tribute to those illustrious +visitors from France and recounted something of the story of French +exploration along that great river. + +"The name of La Salle will last as long as the river itself," he said; +"will last until commerce is dead. We have allowed the commerce of the +river to die, but it was to accommodate the railroads, and we must be +grateful." + +Carriages were waiting for them when the boat landed in the afternoon, +and the party got in and were driven to a house which had been identified +as Eugene Field's birthplace. A bronze tablet recording this fact had +been installed, and this was to be the unveiling. The place was not in +an inviting quarter of the town. It stood in what is known as Walsh's +Row--was fashionable enough once, perhaps, but long since fallen into +disrepute. Ragged children played in the doorways, and thirsty lodgers +were making trips with tin pails to convenient bar-rooms. A curious +nondescript audience assembled around the little group of dedicators, +wondering what it was all about. The tablet was concealed by the +American flag, which could be easily pulled away by an attached cord. +Governor Francis spoke a few words, to the effect that they had gathered +here to unveil a tablet to an American poet, and that it was fitting that +Mark Twain should do this. They removed their hats, and Clemens, his +white hair blowing in the wind, said: + +"My friends; we are here with reverence and respect to commemorate and +enshrine in memory the house where was born a man who, by his life, made +bright the lives of all who knew him, and by his literary efforts cheered +the thoughts of thousands who never knew him. I take pleasure in +unveiling the tablet of Eugene Field." + +The flag fell and the bronze inscription was revealed. By this time the +crowd, generally, had recognized who it was that was speaking. A +working-man proposed three cheers for Mark Twain, and they were heartily +given. Then the little party drove away, while the neighborhood +collected to regard the old house with a new interest. + +It was reported to Clemens later that there was some dispute as to the +identity of the Field birthplace. He said: + +"Never mind. It is of no real consequence whether it is his birthplace +or not. A rose in any other garden will bloom as sweet." + + + + +CCXXIII + +AT YORK HARBOR + +They decided to spend the summer at York Harbor, Maine. They engaged a +cottage, there, and about the end of June Mr. Rogers brought his yacht +Kanawha to their water-front at Riverdale, and in perfect weather took +them to Maine by sea. They landed at York Harbor and took possession of +their cottage, The Pines, one of their many attractive summer lodges. +Howells, at Kittery Point, was not far away, and everything promised a +happy summer. + +Mrs. Clemens wrote to Mrs. Crane: + + We are in the midst of pines. They come up right about us, and the + house is so high and the roots of the trees are so far below the + veranda that we are right in the branches. We drove over to call on + Mr. and Mrs. Howells. The drive was most beautiful, and never in my + life have I seen such a variety of wild flowers in so short a space. + +Howells tells us of the wide, low cottage in a pine grove overlooking +York River, and how he used to sit with Clemens that summer at a corner +of the veranda farthest away from Mrs. Clemens's window, where they could +read their manuscripts to each other, and tell their stories and laugh +their hearts out without disturbing her. + +Clemens, as was his habit, had taken a work-room in a separate cottage +"in the house of a friend and neighbor, a fisherman and a boatman": + + There was a table where he could write, and a bed where he could lie + down and read; and there, unless my memory has played me one of + those constructive tricks that people's memories indulge in, he read + me the first chapters of an admirable story. The scene was laid in + a Missouri town, and the characters such as he had known in boyhood; + but often as I tried to make him own it, he denied having written + any such story; it is possible that I dreamed it, but I hope the MS. + will yet be found. + +Howells did not dream it; but in one way his memory misled him. The +story was one which Clemens had heard in Hannibal, and he doubtless +related it in his vivid way. Howells, writing at a later time, quite +naturally included it among the several manuscripts which Clemens read +aloud to him. Clemens may have intended to write the tale, may even have +begun it, though this is unlikely. The incidents were too well known and +too notorious in his old home for fiction. + +Among the stories that Clemens did show, or read, to Howells that summer +was "The Belated Passport," a strong, intensely interesting story with +what Howells in a letter calls a "goat's tail ending," perhaps meaning +that it stopped with a brief and sudden shake--with a joke, in fact, +altogether unimportant, and on the whole disappointing to the reader. A +far more notable literary work of that summer grew out of a true incident +which Howells related to Clemens as they sat chatting together on the +veranda overlooking the river one summer afternoon. It was a pathetic +episode in the life of some former occupants of The Pines--the tale of a +double illness in the household, where a righteous deception was carried +on during several weeks for the benefit of a life that was about to slip +away. Out of this grew the story, "Was it Heaven? or Hell?" a +heartbreaking history which probes the very depths of the human soul. +Next to "Hadleyburg," it is Mark Twain's greatest fictional sermon. + +Clemens that summer wrote, or rather finished, his most pretentious poem. +One day at Riverdale, when Mrs. Clemens had been with him on the lawn, +they had remembered together the time when their family of little folks +had filled their lives so full, conjuring up dream-like glimpses of them +in the years of play and short frocks and hair-plaits down their backs. +It was pathetic, heart-wringing fancying; and later in the day Clemens +conceived and began the poem which now he brought to conclusion. It was +built on the idea of a mother who imagines her dead child still living, +and describes to any listener the pictures of her fancy. It is an +impressive piece of work; but the author, for some reason, did not offer +it for publication. --[This poem was completed on the anniversary of +Susy's death and is of considerable length. Some selections from it will +be found under Appendix U, at the end of this work.] + +Mrs. Clemens, whose health earlier in the year had been delicate, became +very seriously ill at York Harbor. Howells writes: + +At first she had been about the house, and there was one gentle afternoon +when she made tea for us in the parlor, but that was the last time I +spoke with her. After that it was really a question of how soonest and +easiest she could be got back to Riverdale. + +She had seemed to be in fairly good health and spirits for several weeks +after the arrival at York. Then, early in August, there came a great +celebration of some municipal anniversary, and for two or three days +there were processions, mass-meetings, and so on by day, with fireworks +at night. Mrs. Clemens, always young in spirit, was greatly interested. +She went about more than her strength warranted, seeing and hearing and +enjoying all that was going on. She was finally persuaded to forego the +remaining ceremonies and rest quietly on the pleasant veranda at home; +but she had overtaxed herself and a collapse was inevitable. Howells and +two friends called one afternoon, and a friend of the Queen of Rumania, a +Madame Hartwig, who had brought from that gracious sovereign a letter +which closed in this simple and modest fashion: + + I beg your pardon for being a bore to one I so deeply love and + admire, to whom I owe days and days of forgetfulness of self and + troubles, and the intensest of all joys-hero-worship! People don't + always realize what a happiness that is! God bless you for every + beautiful thought you poured into my tired heart, and for every + smile on a weary way. CARMEN SYLVA. + +This was the occasion mentioned by Howells when Mrs. Clemens made tea for +them in the parlor for the last time. Her social life may be said to +have ended that afternoon. Next morning the break came. Clemens, in his +notebook for that day, writes: + +Tuesday, August 12, 1902. At 7 A.M. Livy taken violently ill. +Telephoned and Dr. Lambert was here in 1/2 hour. She could not breathe- +was likely to stifle. Also she had severe palpitation. She believed she +was dying. I also believed it. + +Nurses were summoned, and Mrs. Crane and others came from Elmira. Clara +Clemens took charge of the household and matters generally, and the +patient was secluded and guarded from every disturbing influence. +Clemens slipped about with warnings of silence. A visitor found notices +in Mark Twain's writing pinned to the trees near Mrs. Clemens's window +warning the birds not to sing too loudly. + +The patient rallied, but she remained very much debilitated. On +September 3d the note-book says: + + Always Mr. Rogers keeps his yacht Kanawha in commission & ready to + fly here and take us to Riverdale on telegraphic notice. + +But Mrs. Clemens was unable to return by sea. When it was decided at +last, in October, that she could be removed to Riverdale, Clemens and +Howells went to Boston and engaged an invalid car to make the journey +from York Harbor to Riverdale without change. Howells tells us that +Clemens gave his strictest personal attention to the arrangement of these +details, and that they absorbed him. + + There was no particular of the business which he did not scrutinize + and master . . . . With the inertness that grows upon an aging + man he had been used to delegate more and more things, but of that + thing I perceived that he would not delegate the least detail. + +They made the journey on the 16th, in nine and a half hours. With the +exception of the natural weariness due to such a trip, the invalid was +apparently no worse on their arrival. The stout English butler carried +her to her room. It would be many months before she would leave it +again. In one of his memoranda Clemens wrote: + + Our dear prisoner is where she is through overwork-day & night + devotion to the children & me. We did not know how to value it. We + know now. + +And in a notation, on a letter praising him for what he had done for the +world's enjoyment, and for his splendid triumph over debt, he said: + + Livy never gets her share of these applauses, but it is because the + people do not know. Yet she is entitled to the lion's share. + +He wrote Twichell at the end of October: + + Livy drags along drearily. It must be hard times for that turbulent + spirit. It will be a long time before she is on her feet again. It + is a most pathetic case. I wish I could transfer it to myself. + Between ripping & raging & smoking & reading I could get a good deal + of holiday out of it. Clara runs the house smoothly & capitally. + +Heavy as was the cloud of illness, he could not help pestering Twichell a +little about a recent mishap--a sprained shoulder: + + I should like to know how & where it happened. In the pulpit, as + like as not, otherwise you would not be taking so much pains to + conceal it. This is not a malicious suggestion, & not a personally + invented one: you told me yourself once that you threw artificial + power & impressiveness in your sermons where needed by "banging the + Bible"--(your own words). You have reached a time of life when it + is not wise to take these risks. You would better jump around. We + all have to change our methods as the infirmities of age creep upon + us. Jumping around will be impressive now, whereas before you were + gray it would have excited remark. + +Mrs. Clemens seemed to improve as the weeks passed, and they had great +hopes of her complete recovery. Clemens took up some work--a new Huck +Finn story, inspired by his trip to Hannibal. It was to have two parts-- +Huck and Tom in youth, and then their return in old age. He did some +chapters quite in the old vein, and wrote to Howells of his plan. +Howells answered: + + It is a great lay-out: what I shall enjoy most will be the return of + the old fellows to the scene and their tall lying. There is a + matchless chance there. I suppose you will put in plenty of pegs in + this prefatory part. + +But the new story did not reach completion. Huck and Tom would not come +back, even to go over the old scenes. + + + + +CCXXIV + +THE SIXTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY DINNER + +It was on the evening of the 27th of November, 1902, I at the +Metropolitan Club, New York City, that Col. George Harvey, president of +the Harper Company, gave Mark Twain a dinner in celebration of his sixty- +seventh birthday. The actual date fell three days later; but that would +bring it on Sunday, and to give it on Saturday night would be more than +likely to carry it into Sabbath morning, and so the 27th was chosen. +Colonel Harvey himself presided, and Howells led the speakers with a +poem, "A Double-Barreled Sonnet to Mark Twain," which closed: + + Still, to have everything beyond cavil right, + We will dine with you here till Sunday night. + +Thomas Brackett Reed followed with what proved to be the last speech he +would ever make, as it was also one of his best. All the speakers did +well that night, and they included some of the country's foremost in +oratory: Chauncey Depew, St. Clair McKelway, Hamilton Mabie, and Wayne +MacVeagh. Dr. Henry van Dyke and John Kendrick Bangs read poems. The +chairman constantly kept the occasion from becoming too serious by +maintaining an attitude of "thinking ambassador" for the guest of the +evening, gently pushing Clemens back in his seat when he attempted to +rise and expressing for him an opinion of each of the various tributes. + +"The limit has been reached," he announced at the close of Dr. van Dyke's +poem. "More that is better could not be said. Gentlemen, Mr. Clemens." + +It is seldom that Mark Twain has made a better after-dinner speech than +he delivered then. He was surrounded by some of the best minds of the +nation, men assembled to do him honor. They expected much of him--to +Mark Twain always an inspiring circumstance. He was greeted with cheers +and hand-clapping that came volley after volley, and seemed never ready +to end. When it had died away at last he stood waiting a little in the +stillness for his voice; then he said, "I think I ought to be allowed to +talk as long as I want to," and again the storm broke. + +It is a speech not easy to abridge--a finished and perfect piece of +after-dinner eloquence,--[The "Sixty-seventh Birthday Speech" entire is +included in the volume Mark Twain's Speeches.]--full of humorous stories +and moving references to old friends--to Hay; and Reed, and Twichell, and +Howells, and Rogers, the friends he had known so long and loved so well. +He told of his recent trip to his boyhood home, and how he had stood with +John Briggs on Holliday's Hill and they had pointed out the haunts of +their youth. Then at the end he paid a tribute to the companion of his +home, who could not be there to share his evening's triumph. This +peroration--a beautiful heart-offering to her and to those that had +shared in long friendship--demands admission: + + Now, there is one invisible guest here. A part of me is not + present; the larger part, the better part, is yonder at her home; + that is my wife, and she has a good many personal friends here, and + I think it won't distress any one of them to know that, although she + is going to be confined to her bed for many months to come from that + nervous prostration, there is not any danger and she is coming along + very well--and I think it quite appropriate that I should speak of + her. I knew her for the first time just in the same year that I + first knew John Hay and Tom Reed and Mr. Twichell--thirty-six years + ago--and she has been the best friend I have ever had, and that is + saying a good deal--she has reared me--she and Twichell together-- + and what I am I owe to them. Twichell--why, it is such a pleasure + to look upon Twichell's face! For five and twenty years I was under + the Rev. Mr. Twichell's tuition, I was in his pastorate occupying a + pew in his church and held him in due reverence. That man is full + of all the graces that go to make a person companionable and + beloved; and wherever Twichell goes to start a church the people + flock there to buy the land; they find real estate goes up all + around the spot, and the envious and the thoughtful always try to + get Twichell to move to their neighborhood and start a church; and + wherever you see him go you can go and buy land there with + confidence, feeling sure that there will be a double price for you + before very long. + + I have tried to do good in this world, and it is marvelous in how + many different ways I have done good, and it is comfortable to + reflect--now, there's Mr. Rogers--just out of the affection I bear + that man many a time I have given him points in finance that he had + never thought of--and if he could lay aside envy, prejudice, and + superstition, and utilize those ideas in his business, it would make + a difference in his bank-account. + + Well, I liked the poetry. I liked all the speeches and the poetry, + too. I liked Dr. van Dyke's poem. I wish I could return thanks in + proper measure to you, gentlemen, who have spoken and violated your + feelings to pay me compliments; some were merited and some you + overlooked, it is true; and Colonel Harvey did slander every one of + you, and put things into my mouth that I never said, never thought + of at all. + + And now my wife and I, out of our single heart, return you our + deepest and most grateful thanks, and--yesterday was her birthday. + +The sixty-seventh birthday dinner was widely celebrated by the press, and +newspaper men generally took occasion to pay brilliant compliments to +Mark Twain. Arthur Brisbane wrote editorially: + + For more than a generation he has been the Messiah of a genuine + gladness and joy to the millions of three continents. + +It was little more than a week later that one of the old friends he had +mentioned, Thomas Brackett Reed, apparently well and strong that birthday +evening, passed from the things of this world. Clemens felt his death +keenly, and in a "good-by" which he wrote for Harper's Weekly he said: + + His was a nature which invited affection--compelled it, in fact--and + met it half-way. Hence, he was "Tom" to the most of his friends and + to half of the nation . . . . + + I cannot remember back to a time when he was not "Tom" Reed to me, + nor to a time when he could have been offended at being so addressed + by me. I cannot remember back to a time when I could let him alone + in an after-dinner speech if he was present, nor to a time when he + did not take my extravagance concerning him and misstatements about + him in good part, nor yet to a time when he did not pay them back + with usury when his turn came. The last speech he made was at my + birthday dinner at the end of November, when naturally I was his + text; my last word to him was in a letter the next day; a day later + I was illustrating a fantastic article on art with his portrait + among others--a portrait now to be laid reverently away among the + jests that begin in humor and end in pathos. These things happened + only eight days ago, and now he is gone from us, and the nation is + speaking of him as one who was. It seems incredible, impossible. + Such a man, such a friend, seems to us a permanent possession; his + vanishing from our midst is unthinkable, as was the vanishing of the + Campanile, that had stood for a thousand years and was turned to + dust in a moment. + +The appreciation closes: + + I have only wished to say how fine and beautiful was his life and + character, and to take him by the hand and say good-by, as to a + fortunate friend who has done well his work and gees a pleasant + journey. + + + + +CCXXV + +CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CONTROVERSIES + +The North American Review for December (1902) contained an instalment of +the Christian Science series which Mark Twain had written in Vienna +several years before. He had renewed his interest in the doctrine, and +his admiration for Mrs. Eddy's peculiar abilities and his antagonism +toward her had augmented in the mean time. Howells refers to the "mighty +moment when Clemens was building his engines of war for the destruction +of Christian Science, which superstition nobody, and he least of all, +expected to destroy": + + He believed that as a religious machine the Christian Science Church + was as perfect as the Roman Church, and destined to be more + formidable in its control of the minds of men . . . . + + An interesting phase of his psychology in this business was not. + only his admiration for the masterly policy of the Christian Science + hierarchy, but his willingness to allow the miracles of its healers + to be tried on his friends and family if they wished it. He had a + tender heart for the whole generation of empirics, as well as the + newer sorts of scienticians, but he seemed to base his faith in them + largely upon the failure of the regulars, rather than upon their own + successes, which also he believed in. He was recurrently, but not + insistently, desirous that you should try their strange magics when + you were going to try the familiar medicines. + +Clemens never had any quarrel with the theory of Christian Science or +mental healing, or with any of the empiric practices. He acknowledged +good in all of them, and he welcomed most of them in preference to +materia medica. It is true that his animosity for the founder of the +Christian Science cult sometimes seems to lap over and fringe the +religion itself; but this is apparent rather than real. Furthermore, he +frequently expressed a deep obligation which humanity owed to the founder +of the faith, in that she had organized a healing element ignorantly and +indifferently employed hitherto. His quarrel with Mrs. Eddy lay in the +belief that she herself, as he expressed it, was "a very unsound +Christian Scientist." + + I believe she has a serious malady--self-edification--and that it + will be well to have one of the experts demonstrate over her. [But + he added]: Closely examined, painstakingly studied, she is easily + the most interesting person on the planet, and in several ways as + easily the most extraordinary woman that was ever born upon it. + +Necessarily, the forces of Christian Science were aroused by these +articles, and there were various replies, among them, one by the founder +herself, a moderate rejoinder in her usual literary form. + + "Mrs. Eddy in Error," in the North American Review for April, 1903, + completed what Clemens had to say on the matter for this time. + +He was putting together a book on the subject, comprised of his various +published papers and some added chapters. It would not be a large +volume, and he offered to let his Christian Science opponents share it +with him, stating their side of the case. Mr. William D. McCrackan, one +of the church's chief advocates, was among those invited to participate. +McCrackan and Clemens, from having begun as enemies, had become quite +friendly, and had discussed their differences face to face at +considerable length. Early in the controversy Clemens one night wrote +McCrackan a pretty savage letter. He threw it on the hall table for +mailing, but later got out of bed and slipped down-stairs to get it. It +was too late--the letters had been gathered up and mailed. Next evening +a truly Christian note came from McCrackan, returning the hasty letter, +which he said he was sure the writer would wish to recall. Their +friendship began there. For some reason, however, the collaborated +volume did not materialize. In the end, publication was delayed a number +of years, by which time Clemens's active interest was a good deal +modified, though the practice itself never failed to invite his +attention. + +Howells refers to his anti-Christian Science rages, which began with the +postponement of the book, and these Clemens vented at the time in another +manuscript entitled, "Eddypus," an imaginary history of a thousand years +hence, when Eddyism should rule the world. By that day its founder would +have become a deity, and the calendar would be changed to accord with her +birth. It was not publishable matter, and really never intended as such. +It was just one of the things which Mark Twain wrote to relieve mental +pressure. + + + + +CCXXVI + +"WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?" + +The Christmas number of Harper's Magazine for 1902 contained the story, +"Was it Heaven? or Hell?" and it immediately brought a flood of letters +to its author from grateful readers on both sides of the ocean. An +Englishman wrote: "I want to thank you for writing so pathetic and so +profoundly true a story"; and an American declared it to be the best +short story ever written. Another letter said: + + I have learned to love those maiden liars--love and weep over them-- + then put them beside Dante's Beatrice in Paradise. + +There were plenty of such letters; but there was one of a different sort. +It was a letter from a man who had but recently gone through almost +precisely the experience narrated in the tale. His dead daughter had +even borne the same name--Helen. She had died of typhus while her mother +was prostrated with the same malady, and the deception had been +maintained in precisely the same way, even to the fictitiously written +letters. Clemens replied to this letter, acknowledging the striking +nature of the coincidence it related, and added that, had he invented the +story, he would have believed it a case of mental telegraphy. + + I was merely telling a true story just as it had been told to me by + one who well knew the mother and the daughter & all the beautiful & + pathetic details. I was living in the house where it had happened, + three years before, & I put it on paper at once while it was fresh + in my mind, & its pathos still straining at my heartstrings. + +Clemens did not guess that the coincidences were not yet complete, that +within a month the drama of the tale would be enacted in his own home. +In his note-book, under the date of December 24(1902), he wrote: + + Jean was hit with a chill: Clara was completing her watch in her + mother's room and there was no one able to force Jean to go to bed. + As a result she is pretty ill to-day-fever & high temperature. + +Three days later he added: + + It was pneumonia. For 5 days jean's temperature ranged between 103 + & 104 2/5, till this morning, when it got down to 101. She looks + like an escaped survivor of a forest fire. For 6 days now my story + in the Christmas Harper's "Was it Heaven? or Hell?"--has been + enacted in this household. Every day Clara & the nurses have lied + about Jean to her mother, describing the fine times she is having + outdoors in the winter sports. + +That proved a hard, trying winter in the Clemens home, and the burden of +it fell chiefly, indeed almost entirely, upon Clara Clemens. Mrs. +Clemens became still more frail, and no other member of the family, not +even her husband, was allowed to see her for longer than the briefest +interval. Yet the patient was all the more anxious to know the news, and +daily it had to be prepared--chiefly invented--for her comfort. In an +account which Clemens once set down of the "Siege and Season of +Unveracity," as he called it, he said: + + Clara stood a daily watch of three or four hours, and hers was a + hard office indeed. Daily she sealed up in her heart a dozen + dangerous truths, and thus saved her mother's life and hope and + happiness with holy lies. She had never told her mother a lie in + her life before, and I may almost say that she never told her a + truth afterward. It was fortunate for us all that Clara's + reputation for truthfulness was so well established in her mother's + mind. It was our daily protection from disaster. The mother never + doubted Clara's word. Clara could tell her large improbabilities + without exciting any suspicion, whereas if I tried to market even a + small and simple one the case would have been different. I was + never able to get a reputation like Clara's. Mrs. Clemens + questioned Clara every day concerning Jean's health, spirits, + clothes, employments, and amusements, and how she was enjoying + herself; and Clara furnished the information right along in minute + detail--every word of it false, of course. Every day she had to + tell how Jean dressed, and in time she got so tired of using Jean's + existing clothes over and over again, and trying to get new effects + out of them, that finally, as a relief to her hard-worked invention, + she got to adding imaginary clothes to Jean's wardrobe, and probably + would have doubled it and trebled it if a warning note in her + mother's comments had not admonished her that she was spending more + money on these spectral gowns and things than the family income + justified. + +Some portions of detailed accounts of Clara's busy days of this period, +as written at the time by Clemens to Twichell and to Mrs. Crane, are +eminently worth preserving. To Mrs. Crane: + + Clara does not go to her Monday lesson in New York today [her mother + having seemed not so well through the night], but forgets that fact + and enters her mother's room (where she has no business to be) + toward train-time dressed in a wrapper. + + LIVY. Why, Clara, aren't you going to your lesson? + CLARA (almost caught). Yes. + L. In that costume? + CL. Oh no. + L. Well, you can't make your train; it's impossible. + CL. I know, but I'm going to take the other one. + L. Indeed that won't do--you'll be ever so much too late for + your lesson. + CL. No, the lesson-time has been put an hour later. + L. (satisfied, then suddenly). But, Clara, that train and the late + lesson together will make you late to Mrs. Hapgood's luncheon. + CL. No, the train leaves fifteen minutes earlier than it used to. + L. (satisfied). Tell Mrs. Hapgood, etc., etc., etc. (which Clara + promises to do). Clara, dear, after the luncheon--I hate to put + this on you--but could you do two or three little shopping-errands + for me? + CL. Oh, it won't trouble me a bit-I can do it. (Takes a list of + the things she is to buy-a list which she will presently hand to + another.) + + At 3 or 4 P.M. Clara takes the things brought from New York, + studies over her part a little, then goes to her mother's room. + + LIVY. It's very good of you, dear. Of course, if I had known it + was going to be so snowy and drizzly and sloppy I wouldn't have + asked you to buy them. Did you get wet? + CL. Oh, nothing to hurt. + L. You took a cab both ways? + CL. Not from the station to the lesson-the weather was good enough + till that was over. + L. Well, now, tell me everything Mrs. Hapgood said. + + Clara tells her a long yarn-avoiding novelties and surprises and + anything likely to inspire questions difficult to answer; and of + course detailing the menu, for if it had been the feeding of the + 5,000 Livy would have insisted on knowing what kind of bread it was + and how the fishes were served. By and by, while talking of + something else: + + LIVY. Clams!--in the end of December. Are you sure it was clams? + CL. I didn't say cl--- I meant Blue Points. + L. (tranquilized). It seemed odd. What is Jean doing? + CL. She said she was going to do a little typewriting. + L. Has she been out to-day? + CL. Only a moment, right after luncheon. She was determined to go + out again, but---- + + L. How did you know she was out? + CL. (saving herself in time). Katie told me. She was determined + to go out again in the rain and snow, but I persuaded her to stay + in. + L. (with moving and grateful admiration). Clara, you are + wonderful! the wise watch you keep over Jean, and the influence you + have over her; it's so lovely of you, and I tied here and can't take + care of her myself. (And she goes on with these undeserved praises + till Clara is expiring with shame.) + +To Twichell: + + I am to see Livy a moment every afternoon until she has another bad + night; and I stand in dread, for with all my practice I realize that + in a sudden emergency I am but a poor, clumsy liar, whereas a fine + alert and capable emergency liar is the only sort that is worth + anything in a sick-chamber. + + Now, Joe, just see what reputation can do. All Clara's life she has + told Livy the truth and now the reward comes; Clara lies to her + three and a half hours every day, and Livy takes it all at par, + whereas even when I tell her a truth it isn't worth much without + corroboration . . . . + + Soon my brief visit is due. I've just been up listening at Livy's + door. + + 5 P.M. A great disappointment. I was sitting outside Livy's door + waiting. Clara came out a minute ago and said L ivy is not so well, + and the nurse can't let me see her to-day. + +That pathetic drama was to continue in some degree for many a long month. +All that winter and spring Mrs. Clemens kept but a frail hold on life. +Clemens wrote little, and refused invitations everywhere he could. He +spent his time largely in waiting for the two-minute period each day when +he could stand at the bed-foot and say a few words to the invalid, and he +confined his writing mainly to the comforting, affectionate messages +which he was allowed to push under her door. He was always waiting there +long before the moment he was permitted to enter. Her illness and her +helplessness made manifest what Howells has fittingly characterized as +his "beautiful and tender loyalty to her, which was the most moving +quality of his most faithful soul." + + + + +CCXXVII + +THE SECOND RIVERDALE WINTER + +Most of Mark Twain's stories have been dramatized at one time or another, +and with more or less success. He had two plays going that winter, one +of them the little "Death Disk," which--in story form had appeared a year +before in Harper's Magazine. It was put on at the Carnegie Lyceum with +considerable effect, but it was not of sufficient importance to warrant a +long continuance. + +Another play of that year was a dramatization of Huckleberry Finn, by Lee +Arthur. This was played with a good deal of success in Baltimore, +Philadelphia, and elsewhere, the receipts ranging from three hundred to +twenty-one hundred dollars per night, according to the weather and +locality. Why the play was discontinued is not altogether apparent; +certainly many a dramatic enterprise has gone further, faring worse. + +Huck in book form also had been having adventures a little earlier, in +being tabooed on account of his morals by certain librarians of Denver +and Omaha. It was years since Huck had been in trouble of that sort, and +he acquired a good deal of newspaper notoriety in consequence. + +Certain entries in Mark Twain's note-book reveal somewhat of his life and +thought at this period. We find such entries as this: + + Saturday, January 3, 1903. The offspring of riches: Pride, vanity, + ostentation, arrogance, tyranny. + + Sunday, January 4, 1903. The offspring of poverty: Greed, + sordidness, envy, hate, malice, cruelty, meanness, lying, shirking, + cheating, stealing, murder. + + + Monday, February 2, 1903. 33d wedding anniversary. I was allowed + to see Livy 5 minutes this morning in honor of the day. She makes + but little progress toward recovery, still there is certainly some, + we are sure. + + Sunday, March 1, 1903. We may not doubt that society in heaven + consists mainly of undesirable persons. + + Thursday, March 19, 1903. Susy's birthday. She would be 31 now. + +The family illnesses, which presently included an allotment for himself, +his old bronchitis, made him rage more than ever at the imperfections of +the species which could be subject to such a variety of ills. Once he +wrote: + + Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired. + +And again: + + Adam, man's benefactor--he gave him all that he has ever received + that was worth having--death. + +The Riverdale home was in reality little more than a hospital that +spring. Jean had scarcely recovered her physical strength when she was +attacked by measles, and Clara also fell a victim to the infection. +Fortunately Mrs. Clemens's health had somewhat improved. + +It was during this period that Clemens formulated his eclectic +therapeutic doctrine. Writing to Twichell April 4, 1903, he said: + + Livy does make a little progress these past 3 or 4 days, progress + which is visible to even the untrained eye. The physicians are + doing good work for her, but my notion is, that no art of healing is + the best for all ills. I should distribute the ailments around: + surgery cases to the surgeon; lupus to the actinic-ray specialist; + nervous prostration to the Christian Scientist; most ills to the + allopath & the homeopath; & (in my own particular case) rheumatism, + gout, & bronchial attack to the osteopathist. + + +He had plenty of time to think and to read during those weeks of +confinement, and to rage, and to write when he felt the need of that +expression, though he appears to have completed not much for print beyond +his reply to Mrs. Eddy, already mentioned, and his burlesque, +"Instructions in Art," with pictures by himself, published in the +Metropolitan for April and May. + +Howells called his attention to some military outrages in the +Philippines, citing a case where a certain lieutenant had tortured one of +his men, a mild offender, to death out of pure deviltry, and had been +tried but not punished for his fiendish crime.--[The torture to death of +Private Edward C. Richter, an American soldier, by orders of a +commissioned officer of the United States army on the night of February +7, 1902. Private Richter was bound and gagged and the gag held in his +mouth by means of a club while ice-water was slowly poured into his face, +a dipper full at a time, for two hours and a half, until life became +extinct.] + +Clemens undertook to give expression to his feelings on this subject, but +he boiled so when he touched pen to paper to write of it that it was +simply impossible for him to say anything within the bounds of print. +Then his only relief was to rise and walk the floor, and curse out his +fury at the race that had produced such a specimen. + +Mrs. Clemens, who perhaps got some drift or the echo of these tempests, +now and then sent him a little admonitory, affectionate note. + +Among the books that Clemens read, or tried to read, during his +confinement were certain of the novels of Sir Walter Scott. He had never +been able to admire Scott, and determined now to try to understand this +author's popularity and his standing with the critics; but after wading +through the first volume of one novel, and beginning another one, he +concluded to apply to one who could speak as having authority. He wrote +to Brander Matthews: + + DEAR BRANDER,--I haven't been out of my bed for 4 weeks, but-well, I + have been reading a good deal, & it occurs to me to ask you to sit + down, some time or other when you have 8 or 9 months to spare, & jot + me down a certain few literary particulars for my help & elevation. + Your time need not be thrown away, for at your further leisure you + can make Columbian lectures out of the results & do your students a + good turn. + + 1. Are there in Sir Walter's novels passages done in good English-- + English which is neither slovenly nor involved? + + 2. Are there passages whose English is not poor & thin & + commonplace, but is of a quality above that? + + 3. Are there passages which burn with real fire--not punk, fox- + fire, make-believe? + 4. Has he heroes & heroines who are not cads and cadesses? + + 5. Has he personages whose acts & talk correspond with their + characters as described by him? + + 6. Has he heroes & heroines whom the reader admires--admires and + knows why? + + 7. Has he funny characters that are funny, and humorous passages + that are humorous? + + 8. Does he ever chain the reader's interest & make him reluctant to + lay the book down? + + 9. Are there pages where he ceases from posing, ceases from + admiring the placid flood & flow of his own dilution, ceases from + being artificial, & is for a time, long or short, recognizably + sincere & in earnest? + + 10. Did he know how to write English, & didn't do it because he + didn't want to? + + 11. Did he use the right word only when he couldn't think of + another one, or did he run so much to wrong words because he didn't + know the right one when he saw it? + + 12. Can you read him and keep your respect for him? Of course a + person could in his day--an era of sentimentality & sloppy + romantics--but land! can a body do it to-day? + + Brander, I lie here dying; slowly dying, under the blight of Sir + Walter. I have read the first volume of Rob Roy, & as far as + Chapter XIX of Guy Mannering, & I can no longer hold my head up or + take my nourishment. Lord, it's all so juvenile! so artificial, so + shoddy; & such wax figures & skeletons & specters. Interest? Why, + it is impossible to feel an interest in these bloodless shams, these + milk-&-water humbugs. And oh, the poverty of invention! Not + poverty in inventing situations, but poverty in furnishing reasons + for them. Sir Walter usually gives himself away when he arranges + for a situation--elaborates & elaborates & elaborates till, if you + live to get to it, you don't believe in it when it happens. + + I can't find the rest of Rob Roy, I, can't stand any more Mannering- + I do not know just what to do, but I will reflect, & not quit this + great study rashly .... + + My, I wish I could see you & Leigh Hunt! + + Sincerely yours, + + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +But a few days later he experienced a revelation. It came when he +perseveringly attacked still a third work of Scott--Quentin Durward. +Hastily he wrote to Matthews again: + +I'm still in bed, but the days have lost their dullness since I broke +into Sir Walter & lost my temper. I finished Guy Mannering that curious, +curious book, with its mob of squalid shadows gibbering around a single +flesh-&-blood being--Dinmont; a book crazily put together out of the very +refuse of the romance artist's stage properties--finished it & took up +Quentin Durward & finished that. + +It was like leaving the dead to mingle with the living; it was like +withdrawing from the infant class in the college of journalism to sit +under the lectures in English literature in Columbia University. + +I wonder who wrote Quentin Durward? --[This letter, enveloped, addressed, +and stamped, was evidently mislaid. It was found and mailed seven years +later, June, 1910 message from the dead.] + +Among other books which he read that winter and spring was Helen Keller's +'The Story of My Life', then recently published. That he finished it in +a mood of sweet gentleness we gather from a long, lovely letter which he +wrote her--a letter in which he said: + +I am charmed with your book--enchanted. You are a wonderful creature, +the most wonderful in the world--you and your other half together--Miss +Sullivan, I mean--for it took the pair of you to make a complete & +perfect whole. How she stands out in her letters! her brilliancy, +penetration, originality, wisdom, character, & the fine literary +competencies of her pen--they are all there. + +When reading and writing failed as diversion, Mark Twain often turned to +mathematics. With no special talent for accuracy in the matter of +figures, he had a curious fondness for calculations, scientific and +financial, and he used to cover pages, ciphering at one thing and +another, arriving pretty inevitably at the wrong results. When the +problem was financial, and had to do with his own fortunes, his figures +were as likely as not to leave him in a state of panic. The expenditures +were naturally heavy that spring; and one night, when he had nothing +better to do, he figured the relative proportion to his income. The +result showed that they were headed straight for financial ruin. He put +in the rest of the night fearfully rolling and tossing, and +reconstructing his figures that grew always worse, and next morning +summoned Jean and Clara and petrified them with the announcement that the +cost of living was one hundred and twenty-five per cent. more than the +money-supply. + +Writing to MacAlister three days later he said: + + It was a mistake. When I came down in the morning, a gray and aged + wreck, I found that in some unaccountable way (unaccountable to a + business man, but not to me) I had multiplied the totals by two. By + God, I dropped seventy-five years on the floor where I stood! + + Do you know it affected me as one is affected when one wakes out of + a hideous dream & finds it was only a dream. It was a great comfort + & satisfaction to me to call the daughters to a private meeting of + the board again. Certainly there is a blistering & awful reality + about a well-arranged unreality. It is quite within the + possibilities that two or three nights like that of mine would drive + a man to suicide. He would refuse to examine the figures, they + would revolt him so, & he would go to his death unaware that there + was nothing serious about them. I cannot get that night out of my + head, it was so vivid, so real, so ghastly: In any other year of + these thirty-three the relief would have been simple: go where you + can, cut your cloth to fit your income. You can't do that when your + wife can't be moved, even from one room to the next. + + The doctor & a specialist met in conspiracy five days ago, & in + their belief she will by and by come out of this as good as new, + substantially. They ordered her to Italy for next winter--which + seems to indicate that by autumn she will be able to undertake the + voyage. So Clara is writing to a Florence friend to take a look + around among the villas for us in the regions near that city. + + + + +CCXXVIII + +PROFFERED HONORS + +Mark Twain had been at home well on toward three years; but his +popularity showed no signs of diminishing. So far from having waned, it +had surged to a higher point than ever before. His crusade against +public and private abuses had stirred readers, and had set them to +thinking; the news of illness in his household; a report that he was +contemplating another residence abroad--these things moved deeply the +public heart, and a tide of letters flowed in, letters of every sort--of +sympathy, of love, or hearty endorsement, whatever his attitude of +reform. + +When a writer in a New York newspaper said, "Let us go outside the realm +of practical politics next time in choosing our candidates for the +Presidency," and asked, "Who is our ablest and most conspicuous private +citizen?" another editorial writer, Joseph Hollister, replied that Mark +Twain was "the greatest man of his day in private life, and entitled to +the fullest measure of recognition." + +But Clemens was without political ambitions. He knew the way of such +things too well. When Hollister sent him the editorial he replied only +with a word of thanks, and did not, even in jest, encourage that tiny +seed of a Presidential boom. One would like to publish many of the +beautiful letters received during this period, for they are beautiful, +most of them, however illiterate in form, however discouraging in length +--beautiful in that they overflow with the writers' sincerity and +gratitude. + +So many of them came from children, usually without the hope of a reply, +some signed only with initials, that the writers might not be open to the +suspicion of being seekers for his autograph. Almost more than any other +reward, Mark Twain valued this love of the children. + +A department in the St. Nicholas Magazine offered a prize for a +caricature drawing of some well-known man. There were one or two of +certain prominent politicians and capitalists, and there was literally a +wheelbarrow load of Mark Twain. When he was informed of this he wrote: +"No tribute could have pleased me more than that--the friendship of the +children." + +Tributes came to him in many forms. In his native State it was proposed +to form a Mark Twain Association, with headquarters at Hannibal, with the +immediate purpose of having a week set apart at the St. Louis World's +Fair, to be called the Mark Twain week, with a special Mark Twain day, on +which a national literary convention would be held. But when his consent +was asked, and his co-operation invited, he wrote characteristically: + +It is indeed a high compliment which you offer me, in naming an +association after me and in proposing the setting apart of a Mark Twain +day at the great St. Louis Fair, but such compliments are not proper for +the living; they are proper and safe for the dead only. I value the +impulse which moves you to tender me these honors. I value it as highly +as any one can, and am grateful for it, but I should stand in a sort of +terror of the honors themselves. So long as we remain alive we are not +safe from doing things which, however righteously and honorably intended, +can wreck our repute and extinguish our friendships. + +I hope that no society will be named for me while I am still alive, for I +might at some time or other do something which would cause its members to +regret having done me that honor. After I shall have joined the dead I +shall follow the custom of those people, and be guilty of no conduct that +can wound any friend; but until that time shall come I shall be a +doubtful quantity, like the rest of our race. + +The committee, still hoping for his consent, again appealed to him. But +again he wrote: + +While I am deeply touched by the desire of my friends of Hannibal to +confer these great honors upon me I must still forbear to accept them. +Spontaneous and unpremeditated honors, like those which came to me at +Hannibal, Columbia, St. Louis, and at the village stations all down the +line, are beyond all price and are a treasure for life in the memory, for +they are a free gift out of the heart and they come without solicitation; +but I am a Missourian, and so I shrink from distinctions which have to be +arranged beforehand and with my privity, for I then become a party to my +own exalting. I am humanly fond of honors that happen, but chary of +those that come by canvass and intention. + +Somewhat later he suggested a different feature for the fair; one that +was not practical, perhaps, but which certainly would have aroused +interest--that is to say, an old-fashioned six-day steamboat-race from +New Orleans to St. Louis, with the old-fashioned accessories, such as +torch-baskets, forecastle crowds of negro singers, with a negro on the +safety-valve. In his letter to President Francis he said: + +As to particulars, I think that the race should be a genuine reproduction +of the old-time race, not just an imitation of it, and that it should +cover the whole course. I think the boats should begin the trip at New +Orleans, and side by side (not an interval between), and end it at North +St. Louis, a mile or two above the Big Mound. + +In a subsequent letter to Governor Francis he wrote: + +It has been a dear wish of mine to exhibit myself at the great Fair & get +a prize, but circumstances beyond my control have interfered . . . . + +I suppose you will get a prize, because you have created the most +prodigious Fair the planet has ever seen. Very well, you have indeed +earned it, and with it the gratitude of the State and the nation. + +Newspaper men used every inducement to get interviews from him. They +invited him to name a price for any time he could give them, long or +short. One reporter offered him five hundred dollars for a two-hour +talk. Another proposed to pay him one hundred dollars a week for a +quarter of a day each week, allowing him to discuss any subject he +pleased. One wrote asking him two questions: the first, "Your favorite +method of escaping from Indians"; the second, "Your favorite method of +escaping capture by the Indians when they were in pursuit of you." They +inquired as to his favorite copy-book maxim; as to what he considered +most important to a young man's success; his definition of a gentleman. +They wished to know his plan for the settlement of labor troubles. But +they did not awaken his interest, or his cupidity. To one applicant he +wrote: + +No, there are temptations against which we are fire-proof. Your +proposition is one which comes to me with considerable frequency, but it +never tempts me. The price isn't the objection; you offer plenty. It is +the nature of the work that is the objection--a kind of work which I +could not do well enough to satisfy me. To multiply the price by twenty +would not enable me to do the work to my satisfaction, & by consequence +would make no impression upon me. + +Once he allowed himself to be interviewed for the Herald, when from Mr. +Rogers's yacht he had watched Sir Thomas Lipton's Shamrock go down to +defeat; but this was a subject which appealed to him--a kind of +hotweather subject--and he could be as light-minded about it as he chose. + + + + + +CCXXXIX + +THE LAST SUMMER AT ELMIRA + +The Clemenses were preparing to take up residence in Florence, Italy. +The Hartford house had been sold in May, ending forever the association +with the city that had so long been a part of their lives. The Tarrytown +place, which they had never occupied, they also agreed to sell, for it +was the belief now that Mrs. Clemens's health would never greatly prosper +there. Howells says, or at least implies, that they expected their +removal to Florence to be final. He tells us, too, of one sunny +afternoon when he and Clemens sat on the grass before the mansion at +Riverdale, after Mrs. Clemens had somewhat improved, and how they "looked +up toward a balcony where by and by that lovely presence made itself +visible, as if it had stooped there from a cloud. A hand frailly waved a +handkerchief; Clemens ran over the lawn toward it, calling tenderly." It +was a greeting to Howells the last he would ever receive from her. + +Mrs. Clemens was able to make a trip to Elmira by the end of June, and on +the 1st of July Mr. Rogers brought Clemens and his wife down the river on +his yacht to the Lackawanna pier, and they reached Quarry Farm that +evening. She improved in the quietude and restfulness of that beloved +place. Three weeks later Clemens wrote to Twichell: + +Livy is coming along: eats well, sleeps some, is mostly very gay, not +very often depressed; spends all day on the porch, sleeps there a part of +the night; makes excursions in carriage & in wheel-chair; &, in the +matter of superintending everything & everybody, has resumed business at +the old stand. + +During three peaceful months she spent most of her days reclining on the +wide veranda, surrounded by those dearest to her, and looking out on the +dreamlike landscape--the long, grassy slope, the drowsy city, and the +distant hills--getting strength for the far journey by sea. Clemens did +some writing, occupying the old octagonal study--shut in now and +overgrown with vines--where during the thirty years since it was built so +many of his stories had been written. 'A Dog's Tale'--that pathetic +anti-vivisection story--appears to have been the last manuscript ever +completed in the spot consecrated by Huck and Tom, and by Tom Canty the +Pauper and the little wandering Prince. + +It was October 5th when they left Elmira. Two days earlier Clemens had +written in his note-book: + + Today I placed flowers on Susy's grave--for the last time probably-- + & read words: + + "Good-night, dear heart, good-night." + +They did not return to Riverdale, but went to the Hotel Grosvenor for the +intervening weeks. They had engaged passage for Italy on the Princess +Irene, which would sail on the 24th. It was during the period of their +waiting that Clemens concluded his final Harper contract. On that day, +in his note-book, he wrote: + + THE PROPHECY + +In 1895 Cheiro the palmist examined my hand & said that in my 68th year +(1903) I would become suddenly rich. I was a bankrupt & $94,000 in debt +at the time through the failure of Charles L. Webster & Co. Two years +later--in London--Cheiro repeated this long-distance prediction, & added +that the riches would come from a quite unexpected source. I am +superstitious. I kept the prediction in mind & often thought of it. +When at last it came true, October 22, 1903, there was but a month & 9 +days to spare. + +The contract signed that day concentrates all my books in Harper's hands +& now at last they are valuable; in fact they are a fortune. They +guarantee me $25,000 a year for 5 years, and they will yield twice as +much as that. --[In earlier note-books and letters Clemens more than once +refers to this prophecy and wonders if it is to be realized. The Harper +contract, which brought all of his books into the hands of one publisher +(negotiated for him by Mr. Rogers), proved, in fact, a fortune. The +books yielded always more than the guarantee; sometimes twice that +amount, as he had foreseen.] + +During the conclusion of this contract Clemens made frequent visits to +Fairhaven on the Kanawha. Joe Goodman came from the Pacific to pay him a +good-by visit during this period. Goodman had translated the Mayan +inscriptions, and his work had received official recognition and +publication by the British Museum. It was a fine achievement for a man +in later life and Clemens admired it immensely. Goodman and Clemens +enjoyed each other in the old way at quiet resorts where they could talk +over the old tales. Another visitor of that summer was the son of an old +friend, a Hannibal printer named Daulton. Young Daulton came with +manuscripts seeking a hearing of the magazine editors, so Clemens wrote a +letter which would insure that favor: + +INTRODUCING MR. GEO. DAULTON: + +TO GILDER, ALDEN, HARVEY, McCLURE, WALKER, PAGE, BOK, COLLIER, and such +other members of the sacred guild as privilege me to call them friends- +these: + +Although I have no personal knowledge of the bearer of this, I have what +is better: He comes recommended to me by his own father--a thing not +likely to happen in any of your families, I reckon. I ask you, as a +favor to me, to waive prejudice & superstition for this once & examine +his work with an eye to its literary merit, instead of to the chastity of +its spelling. I wish to God you cared less for that particular. + +I set (or sat) type alongside of his father, in Hannibal, more than 50 +years ago, when none but the pure in heart were in that business. A true +man he was; and if I can be of any service to his son--and to you at the +same time, let me hope--I am here heartily to try. + +Yours by the sanctions of time & deserving, + + Sincerely, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +Among the kindly words which came to Mark Twain before leaving America +was this one which Rudyard Kipling had written to his publisher, Frank +Doubleday: + + I love to think of the great and godlike Clemens. He is the biggest + man you have on your side of the water by a damn sight, and don't + you forget it. Cervantes was a relation of his. + +It curiously happened that Clemens at the same moment was writing to +Doubleday about Kipling: + + I have been reading "The Bell Buoy" and "The Old Man" over and over + again-my custom with Kipling's work--and saving up the rest for + other leisurely and luxurious meals. A bell-buoy is a deeply + impressive fellow-being. In these many recent trips up and down the + Sound in the Kanawha he has talked to me nightly sometimes in his + pathetic and melancholy way, sometimes with his strenuous and urgent + note, and I got his meaning--now I have his words! No one but + Kipling could do this strong and vivid thing. Some day I hope to + hear the poem chanted or sung-with the bell-buoy breaking in out of + the distance. + + P. S.--Your letter has arrived. It makes me proud and glad--what + Kipling says. I hope Fate will fetch him to Florence while we are + there. I would rather see him than any other man. + + + + +CCXXX + +THE RETURN TO FLORENCE + +>From the note-book: + + Saturday, October 24, 1903. Sailed in the Princess Irene for Genoa + at 11. Flowers & fruit from Mrs. Rogers & Mrs. Coe. We have with + us Katie Leary (in our domestic service 23 years) & Miss Margaret + Sherry (trained nurse). + +Two days later he wrote: + + Heavy storm all night. Only 3 stewardesses. Ours served 60 meals + in rooms this morning. + +On the 27th: + + Livy is enduring the voyage marvelously well. As well as Clara & + Jean, I think, & far better than the trained nurse. + + She has been out on deck an hour. + + November 2. Due at Gibraltar 10 days from New York. 3 days to + Naples, then 2 day to Genoa. + At supper the band played "Cavalleria Rusticana," which is forever + associated in my mind with Susy. I love it better than any other, + but it breaks my heart. + +It was the "Intermezzo" he referred to, which had been Susy's favorite +music, and whenever he heard it he remembered always one particular +opera-night long ago, and Susy's face rose before him. + +They were in Naples on the 5th; thence to Genoa, and to Florence, where +presently they were installed in the Villa Reale di Quarto, a fine old +Italian palace built by Cosimo more than four centuries ago. In later +times it has been occupied and altered by royal families of Wurtemberg +and Russia. Now it was the property of the Countess Massiglia, from whom +Clemens had leased it. + +They had hoped to secure the Villa Papiniano, under Fiesole, near +Professor Fiske, but negotiations for it had fallen through. The Villa +Quarto, as it is usually called, was a more pretentious place and as +beautifully located, standing as it does in an ancient garden looking out +over Florence toward Vallombrosa and the Chianti hills. Yet now in the +retrospect, it seems hardly to have been the retreat for an invalid. Its +garden was supernaturally beautiful, all that one expects that a garden +of Italy should be--such a garden as Maxfield Parrish might dream; but +its beauty was that which comes of antiquity--the accumulation of dead +years. Its funereal cypresses, its crumbling walls and arches, its +clinging ivy and moldering marbles, and a clock that long ago forgot the +hours, gave it a mortuary look. In a way it suggested Arnold Bocklin's +"Todteninsel," and it might well have served as the allegorical setting +for a gateway to the bourne of silence. + +The house itself, one of the most picturesque of the old Florentine +suburban palaces, was historically interesting, rather than cheerful. +The rooms, in number more than sixty, though richly furnished, were vast +and barnlike, and there were numbers of them wholly unused and never +entered. There was a dearth of the modern improvements which Americans +have learned to regard as a necessity, and the plumbing, such as it was, +was not always in order. The place was approached by narrow streets, +along which the more uninviting aspects of Italy were not infrequent. +Youth and health and romance might easily have reveled in the place; but +it seems now not to have been the best choice for that frail invalid, to +whom cheer and brightness and freshness and the lovelier things of hope +meant always so much. --[Villa Quarto has recently been purchased by +Signor P. de Ritter Lahony, and thoroughly restored and refreshed and +beautified without the sacrifice of any of its romantic features. +]-- Neither was the climate of Florence all that they had hoped for. +Their former sunny winter had misled them. Tradition to the contrary, +Italy--or at least Tuscany--is not one perpetual dream of sunlight. It +is apt to be damp and cloudy; it is likely to be cold. Writing to +MacAlister, Clemens said: + +Florentine sunshine? Bless you, there isn't any. We have heavy fogs +every morning & rain all day. This house is not merely large, it is +vast--therefore I think it must always lack the home feeling. + +His dissatisfaction in it began thus early, and it grew as one thing +after another went wrong. With it all, however, Mrs. Clemens seemed to +gain a little, and was glad to see company--a reasonable amount of +company--to brighten her surroundings. + +Clemens began to work and wrote a story or two, and those lively articles +about the Italian language. + +To Twichell he reported progress: + + I have a handsome success in one way here. I left New York under a + sort of half-promise to furnish to the Harper magazines 30,000 words + this year. Magazining is difficult work because every third page + represents two pages that you have put in the fire (you are nearly + sure to start wrong twice), & so when you have finished an article & + are willing to let it go to print it represents only 10 cents a word + instead of 30. + + But this time I had the curious (& unprecedented) luck to start + right in each case. I turned out 37,000 words in 25 working days; & + the reason I think I started right every time is, that not only have + I approved and accepted the several articles, but the court of last + resort (Livy) has done the same. + + On many of the between-days I did some work, but only of an idle & + not necessarily necessary sort, since it will not see print until I + am dead. I shall continue this (an hour per day), but the rest of + the year I expect to put in on a couple of long books (half- + completed ones). No more magazine work hanging over my head. + + This secluded & silent solitude, this clean, soft air, & this + enchanting view of Florence, the great valley & snow-mountains that + frame it, are the right conditions for work. They are a persistent + inspiration. To-day is very lovely; when the afternoon arrives + there will be a new picture every hour till dark, & each of them + divine--or progressing from divine to diviner & divinest. On this + (second) floor Clara's room commands the finest; she keeps a window + ten feet high wide open all the time & frames it in that. I go in + from time to time every day & trade sass for a look. The central + detail is a distant & stately snow-hump that rises above & behind + black-forested hills, & its sloping vast buttresses, velvety & sun- + polished, with purple shadows between, make the sort of picture we + knew that time we walked in Switzerland in the days of our youth. + +>From this letter, which is of January 7, 1904, we gather that the weather +had greatly improved, and with it Mrs. Clemens's health, notwithstanding +she had an alarming attack in December. One of the stories he had +finished was "The $30,000 Bequest." The work mentioned, which would not +see print until after his death, was a continuation of those +autobiographical chapters which for years he had been setting down as the +mood seized him. + +He experimented with dictation, which he had tried long before with +Redpath, and for a time now found it quite to his liking. He dictated +some of his copyright memories, and some anecdotes and episodes; but his +amanuensis wrote only longhand, which perhaps hampered him, for he tired +of it by and by and the dictations were discontinued. + +Among these notes there is one elaborate description of the Villa di +Quarto, dictated at the end of the winter, by which time we are not +surprised to find he had become much attached to the place. The Italian +spring was in the air, and it was his habit to grow fond of his +surroundings. Some atmospheric paragraphs of these impressions invite us +here: + + We are in the extreme south end of the house, if there is any such + thing as a south end to a house, whose orientation cannot be + determined by me, because I am incompetent in all cases where an + object does not point directly north & south. This one slants + across between, & is therefore a confusion. This little private + parlor is in one of the two corners of what I call the south end of + the house. The sun rises in such a way that all the morning it is + pouring its light through the 33 glass doors or windows which pierce + the side of the house which looks upon the terrace & garden; the + rest of the day the light floods this south end of the house, as I + call it; at noon the sun is directly above Florence yonder in the + distance in the plain, directly across those architectural features + which have been so familiar to the world in pictures for some + centuries, the Duomo, the Campanile, the Tomb of the Medici, & the + beautiful tower of the Palazzo Vecchio; in this position it begins + to reveal the secrets of the delicious blue mountains that circle + around into the west, for its light discovers, uncovers, & exposes a + white snowstorm of villas & cities that you cannot train yourself to + have confidence in, they appear & disappear so mysteriously, as if + they might not be villas & cities at all, but the ghosts of perished + ones of the remote & dim Etruscan times; & late in the afternoon the + sun sets down behind those mountains somewhere, at no particular + time & at no particular place, so far as I can see. + +Again at the end of March he wrote: + + Now that we have lived in this house four and a half months my + prejudices have fallen away one by one & the place has become very + homelike to me. Under certain conditions I should like to go on + living in it indefinitely. I should wish the Countess to move out + of Italy, out of Europe, out of the planet. I should want her + bonded to retire to her place in the next world & inform me which of + the two it was, so that I could arrange for my own hereafter. + +Complications with their landlady had begun early, and in time, next to +Mrs. Clemens's health, to which it bore such an intimate and vital +relation, the indifference of the Countess Massiglia to their needs +became the supreme and absorbing concern of life at the villa, and led to +continued and almost continuous house-hunting. + +Days when the weather permitted, Clemens drove over the hills looking for +a villa which he could lease or buy--one with conveniences and just the +right elevation and surroundings. There were plenty of villas; but some +of them were badly situated as to altitude or view; some were falling to +decay, and the search was rather a discouraging one. Still it was not +abandoned, and the reports of these excursions furnished new interest and +new hope always to the invalid at home. + +"Even if we find it," he wrote Howells, "I am afraid it will be months +before we can move Mrs. Clemens. Of course it will. But it comforts us +to let on that we think otherwise, and these pretensions help to keep +hope alive in her." + +She had her bad days and her good days, days when it was believed she had +passed the turning-point and was traveling the way to recovery; but the +good days were always a little less hopeful, the bad days a little more +discouraging. On February 22d Clemens wrote in his note-book: + +At midnight Livy's pulse went to 192 & there was a collapse. Great +alarm. Subcutaneous injection of brandy saved her. + +And to MacAlister toward the end of March: + +We are having quite perfect weather now & are hoping that it will bring +effects for Mrs. Clemens. + +But a few days later he added that he was watching the driving rain +through the windows, and that it was bad weather for the invalid. "But +it will not last," he said. + +The invalid improved then, and there was a concert in Florence at which +Clara Clemens sang. Clemens in his note-book says: + + April 8. Clara's concert was a triumph. Livy woke up & sent for + her to tell her all about it, near midnight. + +But a day or two later she was worse again--then better. The hearts in +that household were as pendulums, swinging always between hope and +despair. + +One familiar with the Clemens history might well have been filled with +forebodings. Already in January a member of the family, Mollie Clemens, +Orion's wife, died, news which was kept from Mrs. Clemens, as was the +death of Aldrich's son, and that of Sir Henry M. Stanley, both of which +occurred that spring. + +Indeed, death harvested freely that year among the Clemens friendships. +Clemens wrote Twichell: + + Yours has just this moment arrived-just as I was finishing a note to + poor Lady Stanley. I believe the last country-house visit we paid + in England was to Stanley's. Lord! how my friends & acquaintances + fall about me now in my gray-headed days! Vereshchagin, Mommsen, + Dvorak, Lenbach, & Jokai, all so recently, & now Stanley. I have + known Stanley 37 years. Goodness, who is there I haven't known? + + + + +CCXXXI + +THE CLOSE OF A BEAUTIFUL LIFE + +In one of his notes near the end of April Clemens writes that once more, +as at Riverdale, he has been excluded from Mrs. Clemens's room except for +the briefest moment at a time. But on May 12th, to R. W. Gilder, he +reported: + + For two days now we have not been anxious about Mrs. Clemens + (unberufen). After 20 months of bedridden solitude & bodily misery + she all of a sudden ceases to be a pallid, shrunken shadow, & looks + bright & young & pretty. She remains what she always was, the most + wonderful creature of fortitude, patience, endurance, and + recuperative power that ever was. But ah, dear! it won't last; + this fiendish malady will play new treacheries upon her, and I shall + go back to my prayers again--unutterable from any pulpit! + + May 13, A.M. I have just paid one of my pair of permitted 2-minute + visits per day to the sick-room. And found what I have learned to + expect--retrogression. + +There was a day when she was brought out on the terrace in a wheel-chair +to see the wonder of the early Italian summer. She had been a prisoner +so long that she was almost overcome with the delight of it all--the more +so, perhaps, in the feeling that she might so soon be leaving it. + +It was on Sunday, the 5th of June, that the end came. Clemens and Jean +had driven out to make some calls, and had stopped at a villa, which +promised to fulfil most of the requirements. They came home full of +enthusiasm concerning it, and Clemens, in his mind, had decided on the +purchase. In the corridor Clara said: + +"She is better to-day than she has been for three months." + +Then quickly, under her breath, "Unberufen," which the others, too, added +hastily--superstitiously. + +Mrs. Clemens was, in fact, bright and cheerful, and anxious to hear all +about the new property which was to become their home. She urged him to +sit by her during the dinner-hour and tell her the details; but once, +when the sense of her frailties came upon her, she said they must not +mind if she could not go very soon, but be content where they were. He +remained from half past seven until eight--a forbidden privilege, but +permitted because she was so animated, feeling so well. Their talk was +as it had been in the old days, and once during it he reproached himself, +as he had so often done, and asked forgiveness for the tears he had +brought into her life. When he was summoned to go at last he chided +himself for remaining so long; but she said there was no harm, and kissed +him, saying: "You will come back," and he answered, "Yes, to say good +night," meaning at half past nine, as was the permitted custom. He stood +a moment at the door throwing kisses to her, and she returning them, her +face bright with smiles. + +He was so hopeful and happy that it amounted to exaltation. He went to +his room at first, then he was moved to do a thing which he had seldom +done since Susy died. He went to the piano up-stairs and sang the old +jubilee songs that Susy had liked to hear him sing. Jean came in +presently, listening. She had not done this before, that he could +remember. He sang "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and "My Lord He Calls Me." +He noticed Jean then and stopped, but she asked him to go on. + +Mrs. Clemens, in her room, heard the distant music, and said to her +attendant: + +"He is singing a good-night carol to me." + +The music ceased presently, and then a moment later she asked to be +lifted up. Almost in that instant life slipped away without a sound. + +Clemens, coming to say good night, saw a little group about her bed, +Clara and Jean standing as if dazed. He went and bent over and looked +into her face, surprised that she did not greet him. He did not suspect +what had happened until he heard one of the daughters ask: + +"Katie, is it true? Oh, Katie, is it true?" + +He realized then that she was gone. + +In his note-book that night he wrote: + + At a quarter past 9 this evening she that was the life of my life + passed to the relief & the peace of death after as months of unjust + & unearned suffering. I first saw her near 37 years ago, & now I + have looked upon her face for the last time. Oh, so unexpected!... + I was full of remorse for things done & said in these 34 years of + married life that hurt Livy's heart. + +He envied her lying there, so free from it all, with the great peace upon +her face. He wrote to Howells and to Twichell, and to Mrs. Crane, those +nearest and dearest ones. To Twichell he said: + + How sweet she was in death, how young, how beautiful, how like her + dear girlish self of thirty years ago, not a gray hair showing! + This rejuvenescence was noticeable within two hours after her death; + & when I went down again (2.3o) it was complete. In all that night + & all that day she never noticed my caressing hand--it seemed + strange. + +To Howells he recalled the closing scene: + + I bent over her & looked in her face & I think I spoke--I was + surprised & troubled that she did not notice me. Then we understood + & our hearts broke. How poor we are to-day! + + But how thankful I am that her persecutions are ended! I would not + call her back if I could. + + To-day, treasured in her worn, old Testament, I found a dear & + gentle letter from you dated Far Rockaway, September 13, 1896, about + our poor Susy's death. I am tired & old; I wish I were with Livy. + +And in a few days: + +It would break Livy's heart to see Clara. We excuse ourself from all the +friends that call--though, of course, only intimates come. Intimates-- +but they are not the old, old friends, the friends of the old, old times +when we laughed. Shall we ever laugh again? If I could only see a dog +that I knew in the old times & could put my arms around his neck and tell +him all, everything, & ease my heart! + + + + +CCXXXII + +THE SAD JOURNEY HOME + +A tidal wave of sympathy poured in. Noble and commoner, friend and +stranger--humanity of every station--sent their messages of condolence to +the friend of mankind. The cablegrams came first--bundles of them from +every corner of the world--then the letters, a steady inflow. Howells, +Twichell, Aldrich--those oldest friends who had themselves learned the +meaning of grief --spoke such few and futile words as the language can +supply to allay a heart's mourning, each recalling the rarity and beauty +of the life that had slipped away. Twichell and his wife wrote: + +DEAR, DEAR MARK,--There is nothing we can say. What is there to say? +But here we are--with you all every hour and every minute--filled with +unutterable thoughts; unutterable affection for the dead and for the +living. + HARMONY AND JOE. + + +Howells in his letter said: + +She hallowed what she touched far beyond priests . . . . What are you +going to do, you poor soul? + + +A hundred letters crowd in for expression here, but must be denied--not, +however, the beam of hope out of Helen Keller's illumined night: + + Do try to reach through grief and feel the pressure of her hand, as + I reach through darkness and feel the smile on my friends' lips and + the light in their eyes though mine are closed. + +They were adrift again without plans for the future. They would return +to America to lay Mrs. Clemens to rest by Susy and little Langdon, but +beyond that they could not see. Then they remembered a quiet spot in +Massachusetts, Tyringham, near Lee, where the Gilders lived, and so, on +June 7th, he wrote: + + DEAR GILDER FAMILY,--I have been worrying and worrying to know what + to do; at last I went to the girls with an idea--to ask the Gilders + to get us shelter near their summer home. It was the first time + they have not shaken their heads. So to-morrow I will cable to you + and shall hope to be in time. + + An hour ago the best heart that ever beat for me and mine was + carried silent out of this house, and I am as one who wanders and + has lost his way. She who is gone was our head, she was our hands. + We are now trying to make plans--we: we who have never made a plan + before, nor ever needed to. If she could speak to us she would make + it all simple and easy with a word, & our perplexities would vanish + away. If she had known she was near to death she would have told us + where to go and what to do, but she was not suspecting, neither were + we. She was all our riches and she is gone; she was our breath, she + was our life, and now we are nothing. + + We send you our love-and with it the love of you that was in her + heart when she died. + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +They arranged to sail on the Prince Oscar on the 29th of June. There was +an earlier steamer, but it was the Princess Irene, which had brought +them, and they felt they would not make the return voyage on that vessel. +During the period of waiting a curious thing happened. Clemens one day +got up in a chair in his room on the second floor to pull down the high +window-sash. It did not move easily and his hand slipped. It was only +by the merest chance that he saved himself from falling to the ground far +below. He mentions this in his note-book, and once, speaking of it to +Frederick Duneka, he said: + +"Had I fallen it would probably have killed me, and in my bereaved +circumstances the world would have been convinced that it was suicide. +It was one of those curious coincidences which are always happening and +being misunderstood." + +The homeward voyage and its sorrowful conclusion are pathetically +conveyed in his notes: + + June 29, 1904. Sailed last night at 10. The bugle-call to + breakfast. I recognized the notes and was distressed. When I heard + them last Livy heard them with me; now they fall upon her ear + unheeded. + + In my life there have been 68 Junes--but how vague & colorless 67 of + them are contrasted with the deep blackness of this one! + + July 1, 1904. I cannot reproduce Livy's face in my mind's eye--I + was never in my life able to reproduce a face. It is a curious + infirmity--& now at last I realize it is a calamity. + + July 2, 1904. In these 34 years we have made many voyages together, + Livy dear--& now we are making our last; you down below & lonely; I + above with the crowd & lonely. + + July 3, 1904. Ship-time, 8 A.M. In 13 hours & a quarter it will be + 4 weeks since Livy died. + + Thirty-one years ago we made our first voyage together--& this is + our last one in company. Susy was a year old then. She died at 24 + & had been in her grave 8 years. + + July 10, 1904. To-night it will be 5 weeks. But to me it remains + yesterday--as it has from the first. But this funeral march--how + sad & long it is! + + Two days more will end the second stage of it. + + July 14, 1904 (ELMIRA). Funeral private in the house of Livy's + young maidenhood. Where she stood as a bride 34 years ago there her + coffin rested; & over it the same voice that had made her a wife + then committed her departed spirit to God now. + +It was Joseph Twichell who rendered that last service. Mr. Beecher was +long since dead. It was a simple, touching utterance, closing with this +tender word of farewell: + + Robert Browning, when he was nearing the end of his earthly days, + said that death was the thing that we did not believe in. Nor do we + believe in it. We who journeyed through the bygone years in + companionship with the bright spirit now withdrawn are growing old. + The way behind is long; the way before is short. The end cannot be + far off. But what of that? Can we not say, each one: + + "So long that power hath blessed me, sure it still + Will lead me on; + O'er moor and fen; o'er crag and torrent, till + The night is gone; + And with the morn, their angel faces smile, + Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!" + + And so good-by. Good-by, dear heart! Strong, tender, and true. + Good-by until for us the morning break and these shadows fly away. + +Dr. Eastman, who had succeeded Mr. Beecher, closed the service with a +prayer, and so the last office we can render in this life for those we +love was finished. + +Clemens ordered that a simple marker should be placed at the grave, +bearing, besides the name, the record of birth and death, followed by the +German line: + + 'Gott sei dir gnadig, O meine Wonne'! + + + + + +CCXXXIII + +BEGINNING ANOTHER HOME + +There was an extra cottage on the Gilder place at Tyringham, and this +they occupied for the rest of that sad summer. Clemens, in his note- +book, has preserved some of its aspects and incidents. + +July 24, 1904. Rain--rain--rain. Cold. We built a fire in my room. +Then clawed the logs out & threw water, remembering there was a brood of +swallows in the chimney. The tragedy was averted. + +July 31. LEE, MASSACHUSETTS (BERKSHIRE HILLS). Last night the young +people out on a moonlight ride. Trolley frightened Jean's horse-- +collision--horse killed. Rodman Gilder picked Jean up, unconscious; she +was taken to the doctor, per the car. Face, nose, side, back contused; +tendon of left ankle broken. + +August 10. NEW YORK. Clam here sick--never well since June 5. Jean is +at the summer home in the Berkshire Hills crippled. + +The next entry records the third death in the Clemens family within a +period of eight months--that of Mrs. Moffett, who had been Pamela +Clemens. Clemens writes: + + September 1. Died at Greenwich, Connecticut, my sister, Pamela + Moffett, aged about 73. + + Death dates this year January 14, June 5, September 1. + +That fall they took a house in New York City, on the corner of Ninth +Street and Fifth Avenue, No. 21, remaining for a time at the Grosvenor +while the new home was being set in order. The home furniture was +brought from Hartford, unwrapped, and established in the light of strange +environment. Clemens wrote: + +We have not seen it for thirteen years. Katie Leary, our old +housekeeper, who has been in our service more than twenty-four years, +cried when she told me about it to-day. She said, "I had forgotten it +was so beautiful, and it brought Mrs. Clemens right back to me--in that +old time when she was so young and lovely." + +Clara Clemens had not recovered from the strain of her mother's long +illness and the shock of her death, and she was ordered into retirement +with the care of a trained nurse. The life at 21 Fifth Avenue, +therefore, began with only two remaining members of the broken family-- +Clemens and Jean. + +Clemens had undertaken to divert himself with work at Tyringham, though +without much success. He was not well; he was restless and disturbed; +his heart bleak with a great loneliness. He prepared an article on +Copyright for the 'North American Review',--[Published Jan., 7905. A +dialogue presentation of copyright conditions, addressed to Thorwald +Stolberg, Register of Copyrights, Washington, D. C. One of the best of +Mark Twain's papers on the subject.]-- and he began, or at least +contemplated, that beautiful fancy, 'Eve's Diary', which in the widest +and most reverential sense, from the first word to the last, conveys his +love, his worship, and his tenderness for the one he had laid away. +Adam's single comment at the end, "Wheresoever she was, there was Eden," +was his own comment, and is perhaps the most tenderly beautiful line he +ever wrote. These two books, Adam's Diary and Eve's--amusing and +sometimes absurd as they are, and so far removed from the literal--are as +autobiographic as anything he has done, and one of them as lovely in its +truth. Like the first Maker of men, Mark Twain created Adam in his own +image; and his rare Eve is no less the companion with whom, half a +lifetime before, he had begun the marriage journey. Only here the +likeness ceases. No Serpent ever entered their Eden. And they never +left it; it traveled with them so long as they remained together. + +In the Christmas Harper for 1904 was published "Saint Joan of Arc"--the +same being the Joan introduction prepared in London five years before. +Joan's proposed beatification had stirred a new interest in the martyred +girl, and this most beautiful article became a sort of key-note of the +public heart. Those who read it were likely to go back and read the +Recollections, and a new appreciation grew for that masterpiece. In his +later and wider acceptance by his own land, and by the world at large, +the book came to be regarded with a fresh understanding. Letters came +from scores of readers, as if it were a newly issued volume. A +distinguished educator wrote: + + I would rather have written your history of Joan of Arc than any + other piece of literature in any language. + +And this sentiment grew. The demand for the book increased, and has +continued to increase, steadily and rapidly. In the long and last +analysis the good must prevail. A day will come when there will be as +many readers of Joan as of any other of Mark Twain's works. + +[The growing appreciation of Joan is shown by the report of sales for the +three years following 1904. The sales for that year in America were +1,726; for 1905, 2,445 for 1906, 5,381; for 1907, 6,574. At this point +it passed Pudd'nhead Wilson, the Yankee, The Gilded Age, Life on the +Mississippi, overtook the Tramp Abroad, and more than doubled The +American Claimant. Only The Innocents Abroad, Huckleberry Finn, Tom +Sawyer, and Roughing It still ranged ahead of it, in the order named. + + + + +CCXXXIV + +LIFE AT 21 FIFTH AVENUE + +The house at 21 Fifth Avenue, built by the architect who had designed +Grace Church, had a distinctly ecclesiastical suggestion about its +windows, and was of fine and stately proportions within. It was a proper +residence for a venerable author and a sage, and with the handsome +Hartford furnishings distributed through it, made a distinctly suitable +setting for Mark Twain. But it was lonely for him. It lacked soul. He +added, presently, a great AEolian Orchestrelle, with a variety of music +for his different moods. He believed that he would play it himself when +he needed the comfort of harmony, and that Jean, who had not received +musical training, or his secretary could also play to him. He had a +passion for music, or at least for melody and stately rhythmic measures, +though his ear was not attuned to what are termed the more classical +compositions. For Wagner, for instance, he cared little, though in a +letter to Mrs. Crane he said: + +Certainly nothing in the world is so solemn and impressive and so +divinely beautiful as "Tannhauser." It ought to be used as a religious +service. + +Beethoven's sonatas and symphonies also moved him deeply. Once, writing +to Jean, he asked: + +What is your favorite piece of music, dear? Mine is Beethoven's Fifth +Symphony. I have found that out within a day or two. + +It was the majestic movement and melodies of the second part that he +found most satisfying; but he oftener inclined to the still tenderer +themes of Chopin's nocturnes and one of Schubert's impromptus, while the +"Lorelei" and the "Erlking" and the Scottish airs never wearied him. +Music thus became a chief consolation during these lonely days--rich +organ harmonies that filled the emptiness of his heart and beguiled from +dull, material surroundings back into worlds and dreams that he had known +and laid away. + +He went out very little that winter--usually to the homes of old and +intimate friends. Once he attended a small dinner given him by George +Smalley at the Metropolitan Club; but it was a private affair, with only +good friends present. Still, it formed the beginning of his return to +social life, and it was not in his nature to retire from the brightness +of human society, or to submerge himself in mourning. As the months wore +on he appeared here and there, and took on something of his old-time +habit. Then his annual bronchitis appeared, and he was confined a good +deal to his home, where he wrote or planned new reforms and enterprises. + +The improvement of railway service, through which fewer persons should be +maimed and destroyed each year, interested him. He estimated that the +railroads and electric lines killed and wounded more than all of the wars +combined, and he accumulated statistics and prepared articles on the +subject, though he appears to have offered little of such matter for +publication. Once, however, when his sympathy was awakened by the victim +of a frightful trolley and train collision in Newark, New Jersey, he +wrote a letter which promptly found its way into print. + + DEAR MISS MADELINE, Your good & admiring & affectionate brother has + told me of your sorrowful share in the trolley disaster which + brought unaccustomed tears to millions of eyes & fierce resentment + against those whose criminal indifference to their responsibilities + caused it, & the reminder has brought back to me a pang out of that + bygone time. I wish I could take you sound & whole out of your bed + & break the legs of those officials & put them in it--to stay there. + For in my spirit I am merciful, and would not break their necks & + backs also, as some would who have no feeling. + + It is your brother who permits me to write this line--& so it is not + an intrusion, you see. + + May you get well-& soon! + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +A very little later he was writing another letter on a similar subject to +St. Clair McKelway, who had narrowly escaped injury in a railway +accident. + + DEAR McKELWAY, Your innumerable friends are grateful, most grateful. + + As I understand the telegrams, the engineers of your train had never + seen a locomotive before . . . . The government's official + report, showing that our railways killed twelve hundred persons last + year & injured sixty thousand, convinces me that under present + conditions one Providence is not enough properly & efficiently to + take care of our railroad business. But it is characteristically + American--always trying to get along short-handed & save wages. + +A massacre of Jews in Moscow renewed his animosity for semi-barbaric +Russia. Asked for a Christmas sentiment, he wrote: + + It is my warm & world-embracing Christmas hope that all of us that + deserve it may finally be gathered together in a heaven of rest & + peace, & the others permitted to retire into the clutches of Satan, + or the Emperor of Russia, according to preference--if they have a + preference. + +An article, "The Tsar's Soliloquy," written at this time, was published +in the North American Review for March (1905). He wrote much more, but +most of the other matter he put aside. On a subject like that he always +discarded three times as much as he published, and it was usually about +three times as terrific as that which found its way into type. "The +Soliloquy," however, is severe enough. It represents the Tsar as +contemplating himself without his clothes, and reflecting on what a poor +human specimen he presents: + + Is it this that 140,000,000 Russians kiss the dust before and + worship?--manifestly not! No one could worship this spectacle which + is Me. Then who is it, what is it, that they worship? Privately, + none knows better than I: it is my clothes! Without my clothes I + should be as destitute of authority as any other naked person. No + one could tell me from a parson and barber tutor. Then who is the + real Emperor of Russia! My clothes! There is no other. + +The emperor continues this fancy, and reflects on the fierce cruelties +that are done in his name. It was a withering satire on Russian +imperialism, and it stirred a wide response. This encouraged Clemens to +something even more pretentious and effective in the same line. He wrote +"King Leopold's Soliloquy," the reflections of the fiendish sovereign who +had maimed and slaughtered fifteen millions of African subjects in his +greed--gentle, harmless blacks-men, women, and little children whom he +had butchered and mutilated in his Congo rubber-fields. Seldom in the +history of the world have there been such atrocious practices as those of +King Leopold in the Congo, and Clemens spared nothing in his picture of +them. The article was regarded as not quite suitable for magazine +publication, and it was given to the Congo Reform Association and issued +as a booklet for distribution, with no return to the author, who would +gladly have written a hundred times as much if he could have saved that +unhappy race and have sent Leopold to the electric chair. --[The book was +price-marked twenty-five cents, but the returns from such as were sold +went to the cause. Thousands of them were distributed free. The Congo, +a domain four times as large as the German empire, had been made the ward +of Belgium at a convention in Berlin by the agreement of fourteen +nations, America and thirteen European states. Leopold promptly seized +the country for his personal advantage and the nations apparently found +themselves powerless to depose him. No more terrible blunder was ever +committed by an assemblage of civilized people.] + +Various plans and movements were undertaken for Congo reform, and Clemens +worked and wrote letters and gave his voice and his influence and +exhausted his rage, at last, as one after another of the half-organized +and altogether futile undertakings showed no results. His interest did +not die, but it became inactive. Eventually he declared: "I have said +all I can say on that terrible subject. I am heart and soul in any +movement that will rescue the Congo and hang Leopold, but I cannot write +any more." + +His fires were likely to burn themselves out, they raged so fiercely. +His final paragraph on the subject was a proposed epitaph for Leopold +when time should have claimed him. It ran: + + Here under this gilded tomb lies rotting the body of one the smell + of whose name will still offend the nostrils of men ages upon ages + after all the Caesars and Washingtons & Napoleons shall have ceased + to be praised or blamed & been forgotten--Leopold of Belgium. + +Clemens had not yet lost interest in the American policy in the +Philippines, and in his letters to Twichell he did not hesitate to +criticize tile President's attitude in this and related matters. Once, +in a moment of irritation, he wrote: + + DEAR JOE,--I knew I had in me somewhere a definite feeling about the + President. If I could only find the words to define it with! Here + they are, to a hair--from Leonard Jerome: + + "For twenty years I have loved Roosevelt the man, and hated + Roosevelt the statesman and politician." + + It's mighty good. Every time in twenty-five years that I have met + Roosevelt the man a wave of welcome has streaked through me with the + hand-grip; but whenever (as a rule) I meet Roosevelt the statesman & + politician I find him destitute of morals & not respect-worthy. It + is plain that where his political self & party self are concerned he + has nothing resembling a conscience; that under those inspirations + he is naively indifferent to the restraints of duty & even unaware + of them; ready to kick the Constitution into the back yard whenever + it gets in his way.... + + But Roosevelt is excusable--I recognize it & (ought to) concede it. + We are all insane, each in his own way, & with insanity goes + irresponsibility. Theodore the man is sane; in fairness we ought to + keep in mind that Theodore, as statesman & politician, is insane & + irresponsible. + +He wrote a great deal more from time to time on this subject; but that is +the gist of his conclusions, and whether justified by time, or otherwise, +it expresses today the deduction of a very large number of people. It is +set down here, because it is a part of Mark Twain's history, and also +because a little while after his death there happened to creep into print +an incomplete and misleading note (since often reprinted), which he once +made in a moment of anger, when he was in a less judicial frame of mind. +It seems proper that a man's honest sentiments should be recorded +concerning the nation's servants. + +Clemens wrote an article at this period which he called the "War Prayer." +It pictured the young recruits about to march away for war--the +excitement and the celebration--the drum-beat and the heart-beat of +patriotism--the final assembly in the church where the minister utters +that tremendous invocation: + + God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, + Thunder, Thy clarion, and lightning, Thy sword! + +and the "long prayer" for victory to the nation's armies. As the prayer +closes a white-robed stranger enters, moves up the aisle, and takes the +preacher's place; then, after some moments of impressive silence, he +begins: + + "I come from the Throne-bearing a message from Almighty God!..... + He has heard the prayer of His servant, your shepherd, & will grant + it if such shall be your desire after I His messenger shall have + explained to you its import--that is to say its full import. For it + is like unto many of the prayers of men in that it asks for more + than he who utters it is aware of--except he pause & think. + + "God's servant & yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused & taken + thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two--one uttered, the other + not. Both have reached the ear of Him who heareth all + supplications, the spoken & the unspoken . . . . + + "You have heard your servant's prayer--the uttered part of it. I am + commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it--that + part which the pastor--and also you in your hearts--fervently + prayed, silently. And ignorantly & unthinkingly? God grant that it + was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our + God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is + completed into those pregnant words. + + "Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken + part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen! + + "O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go + forth to battle--be Thou near them! With them--in spirit--we + also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to + smite the foe. + + "O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody + shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields + with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the + thunder of the guns with the wounded, writhing in pain; help us + to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help + us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with + unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their + little children to wander unfriended through wastes of their + desolated land in rags & hunger & thirst, sport of the sun- + flames of summer & the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, + worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave & + denied it--for our sakes, who adore Thee, Lord, blast their + hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, + make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain + the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask of + one who is the Spirit of love & who is the ever-faithful refuge + & friend of all that are sore beset, & seek His aid with humble + & contrite hearts. Grant our prayer, O Lord; & Thine shall be + the praise & honor & glory now & ever, Amen." + + (After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, + speak!--the messenger of the Most High waits." + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + + It was believed, afterward, that the man was a lunatic, because + there was no sense in what he said. + +To Dan Beard, who dropped in to see him, Clemens read the "War Prayer," +stating that he had read it to his daughter Jean, and others, who had +told him he must not print it, for it would be regarded as sacrilege. + +"Still you--are going to publish it, are you not?" + +Clemens, pacing up and down the room in his dressing-gown and slippers, +shook his head. + +"No," he said, "I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead men +can tell the truth in this world. It can be published after I am dead." + +He did not care to invite the public verdict that he was a lunatic, or +even a fanatic with a mission to destroy the illusions and traditions and +conclusions of mankind. To Twichell he wrote, playfully but sincerely: + +Am I honest? I give you my word of honor (privately) I am not. For +seven years I have suppressed a book which my conscience tells me I ought +to publish. I hold it a duty to publish it. There are other difficult +duties which I am equal to, but I am not equal to that one. Yes, even I +am dishonest. Not in many ways, but in some. Forty-one, I think it is. +We are certainly all honest in one or several ways--every man in the +world--though I have a reason to think I am the only one whose blacklist +runs so light. Sometimes I feel lonely enough in this lofty solitude. + +It was his Gospel he referred to as his unpublished book, his doctrine of +Selfishness, and of Man the irresponsible Machine. To Twichell he +pretended to favor war, which he declared, to his mind, was one of the +very best methods known of diminishing the human race. + +What a life it is!--this one! Everything we try to do, somebody intrudes +& obstructs it. After years of thought & labor I have arrived within one +little bit of a step of perfecting my invention for exhausting the oxygen +in the globe's air during a stretch of two minutes, & of course along +comes an obstructor who is inventing something to protect human life. +Damn such a world anyway. + +He generally wrote Twichell when he had things to say that were outside +of the pale of print. He was sure of an attentive audience of one, and +the audience, whether it agreed with him or not, would at least +understand him and be honored by his confidence. In one letter of that +year he said: + +I have written you to-day, not to do you a service, but to do myself one. +There was bile in me. I had to empty it or lose my day to-morrow. If I +tried to empty it into the North American Review--oh, well, I couldn't +afford the risk. No, the certainty! The certainty that I wouldn't be +satisfied with the result; so I would burn it, & try again to-morrow; +burn that and try again the next day. It happens so nearly every time. +I have a family to support, & I can't afford this kind of dissipation. +Last winter when I was sick I wrote a magazine article three times before +I got it to suit me. I Put $500 worth of work on it every day for ten +days, & at last when I got it to suit me it contained but 3,000 words- +$900. I burned it & said I would reform. + +And I have reformed. I have to work my bile off whenever it gets to +where I can't stand it, but I can work it off on you economically, +because I don't have to make it suit me. It may not suit you, but that +isn't any matter; I'm not writing it for that. I have used you as an +equilibrium--restorer more than once in my time, & shall continue, I +guess. I would like to use Mr. Rogers, & he is plenty good-natured +enough, but it wouldn't be fair to keep him rescuing me from my leather- +headed business snarls & make him read interminable bile-irruptions +besides; I can't use Howells, he is busy & old & lazy, & won't stand it; +I dasn't use Clara, there's things I have to say which she wouldn't put +up with--a very dear little ashcat, but has claws. And so--you're It. + + [See the preface to the "Autobiography of Mark Twain": 'I am writing + from the grave. On these terms only can a man be approximately + frank. He cannot be straitly and unqualifiedly frank either in the + grave or out of it.' D.W.] + + + + +CCXXXV + +A SUMMER IN NEW HAMPSHIRE + +He took for the summer a house at Dublin, New Hampshire, the home of +Henry Copley Greene, Lone Tree Hill, on the Monadnock slope. It was in a +lovely locality, and for neighbors there were artists, literary people, +and those of kindred pursuits, among them a number of old friends. +Colonel Higginson had a place near by, and Abbott H. Thayer, the painter, +and George de Forest Brush, and the Raphael Pumpelly family, and many +more. + +Colonel Higginson wrote Clemens a letter of welcome as soon as the news +got out that he was going to Dublin; and Clemens, answering, said: + + I early learned that you would be my neighbor in the summer & I + rejoiced, recognizing in you & your family a large asset. I hope + for frequent intercourse between the two households. I shall have + my youngest daughter with me. The other one will go from the rest- + cure in this city to the rest-cure in Norfolk, Connecticut; & we + shall not see her before autumn. We have not seen her since the + middle of October. + + Jean, the younger daughter, went to Dublin & saw the house & came + back charmed with it. I know the Thayers of old--manifestly there + is no lack of attractions up there. Mrs. Thayer and I were + shipmates in a wild excursion perilously near 40 years ago. + + Aldrich was here half an hour ago, like a breeze from over the + fields, with the fragrance still upon his spirit. I am tired + wanting for that man to get old. + +They went to Dublin in May, and became at once a part of the summer +colony which congregated there. There was much going to and fro among +the different houses, pleasant afternoons in the woods, mountain-climbing +for Jean, and everywhere a spirit of fine, unpretentious comradeship. + +The Copley Greene house was romantically situated, with a charming +outlook. Clemens wrote to Twichell: + + We like it here in the mountains, in the shadows of Monadnock. It + is a woody solitude. We have no near neighbors. We have neighbors + and I can see their houses scattered in the forest distances, for we + live on a hill. I am astonished to find that I have known 8 of + these 14 neighbors a long time; 10 years is the shortest; then seven + beginning with 25 years & running up to 37 years' friendship. It is + the most remarkable thing I ever heard of. + +This letter was written in July, and he states in it that he has turned +out one hundred thousand words of a large manuscript. . It was a +fantastic tale entitled "3,000 Years among the Microbes," a sort of +scientific revel--or revelry--the autobiography of a microbe that had +been once a man, and through a failure in a biological experiment +transformed into a cholera germ when the experimenter was trying to turn +him into a bird. His habitat was the person of a disreputable tramp +named Blitzowski, a human continent of vast areas, with seething microbic +nations and fantastic life problems. It was a satire, of course-- +Gulliver's Lilliput outdone--a sort of scientific, socialistic, +mathematical jamboree. + +He tired of it before it reached completion, though not before it had +attained the proportions of a book of size. As a whole it would hardly +have added to his reputation, though it is not without fine and humorous +passages, and certainly not without interest. Its chief mission was to +divert him mentally that summer during, those days and nights when he +would otherwise have been alone and brooding upon his loneliness. --[For +extracts from "3,000 Years among the Microbes" see Appendix V, at the end +of this work.] + +MARK TWAIN'S SUGGESTED TITLE-PAGE FOR HIS MICROBE BOOK: + + + 3000 YEARS + AMONG THE MICROBES + + By a Microbe + + WITH NOTES + added by the same Hand + 7000 years later + + Translated from the Original + Microbic + by + + Mark Twain + + +His inability to reproduce faces in his mind's eye he mourned as an +increasing calamity. Photographs were lifeless things, and when he tried +to conjure up the faces of his dead they seemed to drift farther out of +reach; but now and then kindly sleep brought to him something out of that +treasure-house where all our realities are kept for us fresh and fair, +perhaps for a day when we may claim them again. Once he wrote to Mrs. +Crane: + + SUSY DEAR,--I have had a lovely dream. Livy, dressed in black, was + sitting up in my bed (here) at my right & looking as young & sweet + as she used to when she was in health. She said, "What is the name + of your sweet sister?" I said," Pamela." "Oh yes, that is it, I + thought it was--(naming a name which has escaped me) won't you write + it down for me?" I reached eagerly for a pen & pad, laid my hands + upon both, then said to myself, "It is only a dream," and turned + back sorrowfully & there she was still. The conviction flamed + through me that our lamented disaster was a dream, & this a reality. + I said, "How blessed it is, how blessed it is, it was all a dream, + only a dream!" She only smiled and did not ask what dream I meant, + which surprised me. She leaned her head against mine & kept saying, + "I was perfectly sure it was a dream; I never would have believed it + wasn't." I think she said several things, but if so they are gone + from my memory. I woke & did not know I had been dreaming. She was + gone. I wondered how she could go without my knowing it, but I did + not spend any thought upon that. I was too busy thinking of how + vivid & real was the dream that we had lost her, & how unspeakably + blessed it was to find that it was not true & that she was still + ours & with us. + +He had the orchestrelle moved to Dublin, although it was no small +undertaking, for he needed the solace of its harmonies; and so the days +passed along, and he grew stronger in body and courage as his grief +drifted farther behind him. Sometimes, in the afternoon or in the +evening; when the neighbors had come in for a little while, he would walk +up and down and talk in his old, marvelous way of all the things on land +and sea, of the past and of the future, "Of Providence, foreknowledge, +will, and fate," of the friends he had known and of the things he had +done, of the sorrow and absurdities of the world. + +It was the same old scintillating, incomparable talk of which Howells +once said: + +"We shall never know its like again. When he dies it will die with him." + +It was during the summer at Dublin that Clemens and Rogers together made +up a philanthropic ruse on Twichell. Twichell, through his own prodigal +charities, had fallen into debt, a fact which Rogers knew. Rogers was a +man who concealed his philanthropies when he could, and he performed many +of them of which the world will never know: In this case he said: + +"Clemens, I want to help Twichell out of his financial difficulty. I +will supply the money and you will do the giving. Twichell must think it +comes from you." + +Clemens agreed to this on the condition that he be permitted to leave a +record of the matter for his children, so that he would not appear in a +false light to them, and that Twichell should learn the truth of the +gift, sooner or later. So the deed was done, and Twichell and his wife +lavished their thanks upon Clemens, who, with his wife, had more than +once been their benefactors, making the deception easy enough now. +Clemens writhed under these letters of gratitude, and forwarded them to +Clara in Norfolk, and later to Rogers himself. He pretended to take +great pleasure in this part of the conspiracy, but it was not an unmixed +delight. To Rogers he wrote: + + I wanted her [Clara] to see what a generous father she's got. I + didn't tell her it was you, but by and by I want to tell her, when I + have your consent; then I shall want her to remember the letters. I + want a record there, for my Life when I am dead, & must be able to + furnish the facts about the Relief-of-Lucknow-Twichell in case I + fall suddenly, before I get those facts with your consent, before + the Twichells themselves. + + I read those letters with immense pride! I recognized that I had + scored one good deed for sure on my halo account. I haven't had + anything that tasted so good since the stolen watermelon. + + P. S.-I am hurrying them off to you because I dasn't read them + again! I should blush to my heels to fill up with this unearned + gratitude again, pouring out of the thankful hearts of those poor + swindled people who do not suspect you, but honestly believe I gave + that money. + +Mr. Rogers hastily replied: + + MY DEAR CLEMENS,-- The letters are lovely. Don't breathe. They are + so happy! It would be a crime to let them think that you have in + any way deceived them. I can keep still. You must. I am sending + you all traces of the crime, so that you may look innocent and tell + the truth, as you usually do when you think you can escape + detection. Don't get rattled. + + Seriously. You have done a kindness. You are proud of it, I know. + You have made your friends happy, and you ought to be so glad as to + cheerfully accept reproof from your conscience. Joe Wadsworth and I + once stole a goose and gave it to a poor widow as a Christmas + present. No crime in that. I always put my counterfeit money on + the plate. "The passer of the sasser" always smiles at me and I get + credit for doing generous things. But seriously again, if you do + feel a little uncomfortable wait until I see you before you tell + anybody. Avoid cultivating misery. I am trying to loaf ten solid + days. We do hope to see you soon. + +The secret was kept, and the matter presently (and characteristically) +passed out of Clemens's mind altogether. He never remembered to tell +Twichell, and it is revealed here, according to his wish. + +The Russian-Japanese war was in progress that summer, and its settlement +occurred in August. The terms of it did not please Mark Twain. When a +newspaper correspondent asked him for an expression of opinion on the +subject he wrote: + + Russia was on the highroad to emancipation from an insane and + intolerable slavery. I was hoping there would be no peace until + Russian liberty was safe. I think that this was a holy war, in the + best and noblest sense of that abused term, and that no war was ever + charged with a higher mission. + + I think there can be no doubt that that mission is now defeated and + Russia's chain riveted; this time to stay. I think the Tsar will + now withdraw the small humanities that have been forced from him, + and resume his medieval barbarisms with a relieved spirit and an + immeasurable joy. I think Russian liberty has had its last chance + and has lost it. + + I think nothing has been gained by the peace that is remotely + comparable to what has been sacrificed by it. One more battle would + have abolished the waiting chains of billions upon billions of + unborn Russians, and I wish it could have been fought. I hope I am + mistaken, yet in all sincerity I believe that this peace is entitled + to rank as the most conspicuous disaster in political history. + +It was the wisest public utterance on the subject--the deep, resonant +note of truth sounding amid a clamor of foolish joy-bells. It was the +message of a seer--the prophecy of a sage who sees with the clairvoyance +of knowledge and human understanding. Clemens, a few days later, was +invited by Colonel Harvey to dine with Baron Rosen and M. Sergius Witte; +but an attack of his old malady--rheumatism--prevented his acceptance. +His telegram of declination apparently pleased the Russian officials, for +Witte asked permission to publish it, and declared that he was going to +take it home to show to the Tsar. It was as follows: + +To COLONEL HARVEY,--I am still a cripple, otherwise I should be more than +glad of this opportunity to meet the illustrious magicians who came here +equipped with nothing but a pen, & with it have divided the honors of the +war with the sword. It is fair to presume that in thirty centuries +history will not get done in admiring these men who attempted what the +world regarded as the impossible & achieved it. + MARK TWAIN. + + +But this was a modified form. His original draft would perhaps have been +less gratifying to that Russian embassy. It read: + + To COLONEL HARVEY,--I am still a cripple, otherwise I should be more + than glad of this opportunity to meet those illustrious magicians + who with the pen have annulled, obliterated, & abolished every high + achievement of the Japanese sword and turned the tragedy of a + tremendous war into a gay & blithesome comedy. If I may, let me in + all respect and honor salute them as my fellow-humorists, I taking + third place, as becomes one who was not born to modesty, but by + diligence & hard work is acquiring it. + MARK. + + + +There was still another form, brief and expressive: + +DEAR COLONEL,-- No, this is a love-feast; when you call a lodge of sorrow +send for me. MARK. + + +Clemens's war sentiment was given the widest newspaper circulation, and +brought him many letters, most of them applauding his words. Charles +Francis Adams wrote him: + + It attracted my attention because it so exactly expresses the views + I have myself all along entertained. + +And this was the gist of most of the expressed sentiments which came to +him. + +Clemens wrote a number of things that summer, among them a little essay +entitled, "The Privilege of the Grave"--that is to say, free speech. +He was looking forward, he said, to the time when he should inherit that +privilege, when some of the things he had said, written and laid away, +could be published without damage to his friends or family. An article +entitled, "Interpreting the Deity," he counted as among the things to be +uttered when he had entered into that last great privilege. It is an +article on the reading of signs and auguries in all ages to discover the +intentions of the Almighty, with historical examples of God's judgments +and vindications. Here is a fair specimen. It refers to the chronicle +of Henry Huntington: + + All through this book Henry exhibits his familiarity with the + intentions of God and with the reasons for the intentions. + Sometimes very often, in fact--the act follows the intention after + such a wide interval of time that one wonders how Henry could fit + one act out of a hundred to one intention, and get the thing right + every time, when there was such abundant choice among acts and + intentions. Sometimes a man offends the Deity with a crime, and is + punished for it thirty years later; meantime he has committed a + million other crimes: no matter, Henry can pick out the one that + brought the worms. Worms were generally used in those days for the + slaying of particularly wicked people. This has gone out now, but + in the old times it was a favorite. It always indicated a case of + "wrath." For instance: + + "The just God avenging Robert Fitzhildebrand's perfidity, a worm + grew in his vitals which, gradually gnawing its way through his + intestines, fattened on the abandoned man till, tortured with + excruciating sufferings and venting himself in bitter moans, he was + by a fitting punishment brought to his end" (p. 400). + + It was probably an alligator, but we cannot tell; we only know it + was a particular breed, and only used to convey wrath. Some + authorities think it was an ichthyosaurus, but there is much doubt. + +The entire article is in this amusing, satirical strain, and might well +enough be printed to-day. It is not altogether clear why it was +withheld, even then. + +He finished his Eve's Diary that summer, and wrote a story which was +originally planned to oblige Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske, to aid her in a +crusade against bullfighting in Spain. Mrs. Fiske wrote him that she had +read his dog story, written against the cruelties of vivisection, and +urged him to do something to save the horses that, after faithful +service, were sacrificed in the bull-ring. Her letter closed: + + I have lain awake nights very often wondering if I dare ask you to + write a story of an old horse that is finally given over to the + bull-ring. The story you would write would do more good than all + the laws we are trying to have made and enforced for the prevention + of cruelty to animals in Spain. We would translate and circulate + the story in that country. I have wondered if you would ever write + it. + + With most devoted homage, + Sincerely yours, + MINNIE MADDERN FISKE. + +Clemens promptly replied: + +DEAR MRS. FISKE, I shall certainly write the story. But I may not get it +to suit me, in which case it will go in the fire. Later I will try it +again--& yet again--& again. I am used to this. It has taken me twelve +years to write a short story--the shortest one I ever wrote, I think.-- +[Probably "The Death Disk:"]-- So do not be discouraged; I will stick to +this one in the same way. + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +It was an inspiring subject, and he began work on it immediately. Within +a month from the time he received Mrs. Fiske's letter he had written that +pathetic, heartbreaking little story, "A Horse's Tale," and sent it to +Harper's Magazine for illustration. In a letter written to Mr. Duneka at +the time, he tells of his interest in the narrative, and adds: + + This strong interest is natural, for the heroine is my small + daughter Susy, whom we lost. It was not intentional--it was a good + while before I found it out, so I am sending you her picture to use + --& to reproduce with photographic exactness the unsurpassable + expression & all. May you find an artist who has lost an idol. + +He explains how he had put in a good deal of work, with his secretary, on +the orchestrelle to get the bugle-calls. + + We are to do these theatricals this evening with a couple of + neighbors for audience, and then pass the hat. + +It is not one of Mark Twain's greatest stories, but its pathos brings the +tears, and no one can read it without indignation toward the custom which +it was intended to oppose. When it was published, a year later, Mrs. +Fiske sent him her grateful acknowledgments, and asked permission to have +it printed for pamphlet circulation m Spain. + +A number of more or less notable things happened in this, Mark Twain's +seventieth year. There was some kind of a reunion going on in +California, and he was variously invited to attend. Robert Fulton, of +Nevada, was appointed a committee of one to invite him to Reno for a +great celebration which was to be held there. Clemens replied that he +remembered, as if it were but yesterday, when he had disembarked from the +Overland stage in front of the Ormsby Hotel, in Carson City, and told how +he would like to accept the invitation. + +If I were a few years younger I would accept it, and promptly, and I +would go. I would let somebody else do the oration, but as for me I +would talk--just talk. I would renew my youth; and talk--and talk--and +talk--and have the time of my life! I would march the unforgotten and +unforgetable antiques by, and name their names, and give them reverent +hail and farewell as they passed--Goodman, McCarthy, Gillis, Curry, +Baldwin, Winters, Howard, Nye, Stewart, Neely Johnson, Hal Clayton, +North, Root--and my brother, upon whom be peace!--and then the +desperadoes, who made life a joy, and the "slaughter-house," a precious +possession: Sam Brown, Farmer Pete, Bill Mayfield, Six-fingered Jake, +Jack Williams, and the rest of the crimson discipleship, and so on, and +so on. Believe me, I would start a resurrection it would do you more +good to look at than the next one will, if you go on the way you are +going now. + +Those were the days!--those old ones. They will come no more; youth will +come no more. They were so full to the brim with the wine of life; there +have been no others like them. It chokes me up to think of them. Would +you like me to come out there and cry? It would not beseem my white +head. + +Good-by. I drink to you all. Have a good time-and take an old man's +blessing. + +In reply to another invitation from H. H. Bancroft, of San Francisco, he +wrote that his wandering days were over, and that it was his purpose to +sit by the fire for the rest of his "remnant of life." + + A man who, like me, is going to strike 70 on the 30th of next + November has no business to be flitting around the way Howells does + --that shameless old fictitious butterfly. (But if he comes don't + tell him I said it, for it would hurt him & I wouldn't brush a flake + of powder from his wing for anything. I only say it in envy of his + indestructible youth anyway. Howells will be 88 in October.) + +And it was either then or on a similar occasion that he replied after +this fashion: + + I have done more for San Francisco than any other of its old + residents. Since I left there it has increased in population fully + 300,000. I could have done more--I could have gone earlier--it was + suggested. + +Which, by the way, is a perfect example of Mark Twain's humorous manner, +the delicately timed pause, and the afterthought. Most humorists would +have been contented to end with the statement, " I could have gone +earlier." Only Mark Twain could have added that final exquisite touch-- +"it was suggested." + + + + +CCXXXVI + +AT PIER 7O + +Mark Twain was nearing seventy, the scriptural limitation of life, and +the returns were coming in. Some one of the old group was dying all the +time. The roll-call returned only a scattering answer. Of his oldest +friends, Charles Henry Webb, John Hay, and Sir Henry Irving, all died +that year. When Hay died Clemens gave this message to the press: + + I am deeply grieved, & I mourn with the nation this loss which is + irreparable. My friendship with Mr. Hay & my admiration of him + endured 38 years without impairment. + +It was only a little earlier that he had written Hay an anonymous letter, +a copy of which he preserved. It here follows: + + DEAR & HONORED SIR,--I never hear any one speak of you & of your + long roll of illustrious services in other than terms of pride & + praise--& out of the heart. I think I am right in believing you to + be the only man in the civil service of the country the cleanness of + whose motives is never questioned by any citizen, & whose acts + proceed always upon a broad & high plane, never by accident or + pressure of circumstance upon a narrow or low one. There are + majorities that are proud of more than one of the nation's great + servants, but I believe, & I think I know, that you are the only one + of whom the entire nation is proud. Proud & thankful. + + Name & address are lacking here, & for a purpose: to leave you no + chance to make my words a burden to you and a reproach to me, who + would lighten your burdens if I could, not add to them. + +Irving died in October, and Clemens ordered a wreath for his funeral. To +MacAlister he wrote: + + I profoundly grieve over Irving's death. It is another reminder. + My section of the procession has but a little way to go. I could + not be very sorry if I tried. + +Mark Twain, nearing seventy, felt that there was not much left for him to +celebrate; and when Colonel Harvey proposed a birthday gathering in his +honor, Clemens suggested a bohemian assembly over beer and sandwiches in +some snug place, with Howells, Henry Rogers, Twichell, Dr. Rice, Dr. +Edward Quintard, Augustus Thomas, and such other kindred souls as were +still left to answer the call. But Harvey had something different in +view: something more splendid even than the sixty-seventh birthday feast, +more pretentious, indeed, than any former literary gathering. He felt +that the attainment of seventy years by America's most distinguished man +of letters and private citizen was a circumstance which could not be +moderately or even modestly observed. The date was set five days later +than the actual birthday--that is to say, on December 5th, in order that +it might not conflict with the various Thanksgiving holidays and +occasions. Delmonico's great room was chosen for the celebration of it, +and invitations were sent out to practically every writer of any +distinction in America, and to many abroad. Of these nearly two hundred +accepted, while such as could not come sent pathetic regrets. + +What an occasion it was! The flower of American literature gathered to +do honor to its chief. The whole atmosphere of the place seemed +permeated with his presence, and when Colonel Harvey presented William +Dean Howells, and when Howells had read another double-barreled sonnet, +and introduced the guest of the evening with the words, "I will not say, +'O King, live forever,' but, 'O King, live as long as you like!'" and +Mark Twain rose, his snow-white hair gleaming above that brilliant +assembly, it seemed that a world was speaking out in a voice of applause +and welcome. With a great tumult the throng rose, a billow of life, the +white handkerchiefs flying foam-like on its crest. Those who had +gathered there realized that it was a mighty moment, not only in his life +but in theirs. They were there to see this supreme embodiment of the +American spirit as he scaled the mountain-top. He, too, realized the +drama of that moment--the marvel of it--and he must have flashed a swift +panoramic view backward over the long way he had come, to stand, as he +had himself once expressed it, "for a single, splendid moment on the Alps +of fame outlined against the sun." He must have remembered; for when he +came to speak he went back to the very beginning, to his very first +banquet, as he called it, when, as he said, "I hadn't any hair; I hadn't +any teeth; I hadn't any clothes." He sketched the meagerness of that +little hamlet which had seen his birth, sketched it playfully, +delightfully, so that his hearers laughed and shouted; but there was +always a tenderness under it all, and often the tears were not far +beneath the surface. He told of his habits of life, how he had attained +seventy years by simply sticking to a scheme of living which would kill +anybody else; how he smoked constantly, loathed exercise, and had no +other regularity of habits. Then, at last, he reached that wonderful, +unforgetable close: + + Threescore years and ten! + + It is the scriptural statute of limitations. After that you owe no + active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time- + expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase: You have served your + term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become + an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions + are not for you, nor any bugle-call but "lights out." You pay the + time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline if you prefer--and + without prejudice--for they are not legally collectable. + + The previous-engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you so + many twinges, you can lay aside forever; on this side of the grave + you will never need it again. If you shrink at thought of night, + and winter, and the late homecomings from the banquet and the lights + and laughter through the deserted streets--a desolation which would + not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends + are sleeping and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them, + but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can never + disturb them more--if you shrink at the thought of these things you + need only reply, "Your invitation honors me and pleases me because + you still keep me in your remembrance, but I am seventy; seventy, + and would nestle in the chinmey-corner, and smoke my pipe, and read + my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, and + that when you in your turn shall arrive at Pier 70 you may step + aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your + course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart." + +The tears that had been lying in wait were not restrained now. If there +were any present who did not let them flow without shame, who did not +shout their applause from throats choked with sobs, the writer of these +lines failed to see them or to hear of them. There was not one who was +ashamed to pay the great tribute of tears. + +Many of his old friends, one after another, rose to tell their love for +him--Brander Matthews, Cable, Kate Douglas Riggs, Gilder, Carnegie, +Bangs, Bacheller--they kept it up far into the next morning. No other +arrival at Pier 70 ever awoke a grander welcome. + + + + +CCXXXVII + +AFTERMATH + +The announcement of the seventieth birthday dinner had precipitated a +perfect avalanche of letters, which continued to flow in until the news +accounts of it precipitated another avalanche. The carriers' bags were +stuffed with greetings that came from every part of the world, from every +class of humanity. They were all full of love and tender wishes. A card +signed only with initials said: "God bless your old sweet soul for having +lived." + +Aldrich, who could not attend the dinner, declared that all through the +evening he had been listening in his mind to a murmur of voices in the +hall at Delmonico's. A group of English authors in London combined in a +cable of congratulations. Anstey, Alfred Austin, Balfour, Barrie, Bryce, +Chesterton, Dobson, Doyle, Gosse, Hardy, Hope, Jacobs, Kipling, Lang, +Parker, Tenniel, Watson, and Zangwill were among the signatures. + +Helen Keller wrote: + + And you are seventy years old? Or is the report exaggerated, like + that of your death? I remember, when I saw you last, at the house + of dear Mr. Hutton, in Princeton, you said: + + "If a man is a pessimist before he is forty-eight he knows too much. + If he is an optimist after he is forty-eight he knows too little." + + Now we know you are an optimist, and nobody would dare to accuse one + on the "seven-terraced summit" of knowing little. So probably you + are not seventy after all, but only forty-seven! + +Helen Keller was right. Mark Twain was not a pessimist in his heart, but +only by premeditation. It was his observation and his logic that led him +to write those things that, even in their bitterness, somehow conveyed +that spirit of human sympathy which is so closely linked to hope. To +Miss Keller he wrote: + +"Oh, thank you for your lovely words!" + +He was given another birthday celebration that month--this time by the +Society of Illustrators. Dan Beard, president, was also toast-master; +and as he presented Mark Twain there was a trumpet-note, and a lovely +girl, costumed as Joan of Arc, entered and, approaching him, presented +him with a laurel wreath. It was planned and carried out as a surprise +to him, and he hardly knew for the moment whether it was a vision or a +reality. He was deeply affected, so much so that for several moments he +could not find his voice to make any acknowledgments. + +Clemens was more than ever sought now, and he responded when the cause +was a worthy one. He spoke for the benefit of the Russian sufferers at +the Casino on December 18th. Madame Sarah Bernhardt was also there, and +spoke in French. He followed her, declaring that it seemed a sort of +cruelty to inflict upon an audience our rude English after hearing that +divine speech flowing in that lucid Gallic tongue. + + It has always been a marvel to me--that French language; it has + always been a puzzle to me. How beautiful that language is! How + expressive it seems to be! How full of grace it is! + + And when it comes from lips like those, how eloquent and how limpid + it is! And, oh, I am always deceived--I always think I am going to + understand it. + + It is such a delight to me, such a delight to me, to meet Madame + Bernhardt, and laugh hand to hand and heart to heart with her. I + have seen her play, as we all have, and, oh, that is divine; but I + have always wanted to know Madame Bernhardt herself--her fiery self. + I have wanted to know that beautiful character. + + Why, she is the youngest person I ever saw, except myself--for I + always feel young when I come in the presence of young people. + +And truly, at seventy, Mark Twain was young, his manner, his movement, +his point of view-these were all, and always, young. + +A number of palmists about that time examined impressions of his hand +without knowledge as to the owner, and they all agreed that it was the +hand of a man with the characteristics of youth, with inspiration, and +enthusiasm, and sympathy--a lover of justice and of the sublime. They +all agreed, too, that he was a deep philosopher, though, alas! they +likewise agreed that he lacked the sense of humor, which is not as +surprising as it sounds, for with Mark Twain humor was never mere fun- +making nor the love of it; rather it was the flower of his philosophy-- +its bloom arid fragrance. + +When the fanfare and drum-beat of his birthday honors had passed by, and +a moment of calm had followed, Mark Twain set down some reflections on +the new estate he had achieved. The little paper, which forms a perfect +pendant to the "Seventieth Birthday Speech, " here follows: + + OLD AGE + + I think it likely that people who have not been here will be + interested to know what it is like. I arrived on the thirtieth of + November, fresh from carefree & frivolous 69, & was disappointed. + + There is nothing novel about it, nothing striking, nothing to thrill + you & make your eye glitter & your tongue cry out, "Oh, it is + wonderful, perfectly wonderful!" Yes, it is disappointing. You + say, "Is this it?--this? after all this talk and fuss of a thousand + generations of travelers who have crossed this frontier & looked + about them & told what they saw & felt? Why, it looks just like + 69." + + And that is true. Also it is natural, for you have not come by the + fast express; you have been lagging & dragging across the world's + continents behind oxen; when that is your pace one country melts + into the next one so gradually that you are not able to notice the + change; 70 looks like 69; 69 looked like 68; 68 looked like 67--& so + on back & back to the beginning. If you climb to a summit & look + back--ah, then you see! + + Down that far-reaching perspective you can make out each country & + climate that you crossed, all the way up from the hot equator to the + ice-summit where you are perched. You can make out where Infancy + verged into Boyhood; Boyhood into down-lipped Youth; Youth into + bearded, indefinite Young-Manhood; indefinite Young-Manhood into + definite Manhood; definite Manhood, with large, aggressive + ambitions, into sobered & heedful Husbandhood & Fatherhood; these + into troubled & foreboding Age, with graying hair; this into Old + Age, white-headed, the temple empty, the idols broken, the + worshipers in their graves, nothing left but You, a remnant, a + tradition, belated fag-end of a foolish dream, a dream that was so + ingeniously dreamed that it seemed real all the time; nothing left + but You, center of a snowy desolation, perched on the ice-summit, + gazing out over the stages of that long trek & asking Yourself, + "Would you do it again if you had the chance?" + + + + +CCXXXVIII + +THE WRITER MEETS MARK TWAIN + +We have reached a point in this history where the narrative becomes +mainly personal, and where, at the risk of inviting the charge of +egotism, the form of the telling must change. + +It was at the end of 1901 that I first met Mark Twain--at The Players +Club on the night when he made the Founder's Address mentioned in an +earlier chapter. + +I was not able to arrive in time for the address, but as I reached the +head of the stairs I saw him sitting on the couch at the dining-room +entrance, talking earnestly to some one, who, as I remember it, did not +enter into my consciousness at all. I saw only that crown of white hair, +that familiar profile, and heard the slow modulations of his measured +speech. I was surprised to see how frail and old he looked. From his +pictures I had conceived him different. I did not realize that it was a +temporary condition due to a period of poor health and a succession of +social demands. I have no idea how long I stood there watching him. He +had been my literary idol from childhood, as he had been of so many +others; more than that, for the personality in his work had made him +nothing less than a hero to his readers. + +He rose presently to go, and came directly toward me. A year before I +had done what new writers were always doing--I had sent him a book I had +written, and he had done what he was always doing--acknowledged it with a +kindly letter. I made my thanks now an excuse for addressing him. It +warmed me to hear him say that he remembered the book, though at the time +I confess I thought it doubtful. Then he was gone; but the mind and ear +had photographed those vivid first impressions that remain always clear. + +It was the following spring that I saw him again--at an afternoon +gathering, and the memory of that occasion is chiefly important because I +met Mrs. Clemens there for the only time, and like all who met her, +however briefly, felt the gentleness and beauty of her spirit. I think I +spoke with her at two or three different moments during the afternoon, +and on each occasion was impressed with that feeling of acquaintanceship +which we immediately experience with those rare beings whose souls are +wells of human sympathy and free from guile. Bret Harte had just died, +and during the afternoon Mr. Clemens asked me to obtain for him some item +concerning the obsequies. + +It was more than three years before I saw him again. Meantime, a sort of +acquaintance had progressed. I had been engaged in writing the life of +Thomas Nast, the cartoonist, and I had found among the material a number +of letters to Nast from Mark Twain. I was naturally anxious to use those +fine characteristic letters, and I wrote him for his consent. He wished +to see the letters, and the permission that followed was kindness itself. +His admiration of Nast was very great. + +It was proper, under the circumstances, to send him a copy of the book +when it appeared; but that was 1904, his year of sorrow and absence, and +the matter was postponed. Then came the great night of his seventieth +birthday dinner, with an opportunity to thank him in person for the use +of the letters. There was only a brief exchange of words, and it was the +next day, I think, that I sent him a copy of the book. It did not occur +to me that I should hear of it again. + +We step back a moment here. Something more than a year earlier, through +a misunderstanding, Mark Twain's long association with The Players had +been severed. It was a sorrow to him, and a still greater sorrow to the +club. There was a movement among what is generally known' as the "Round +Table Group"--because its members have long had a habit of lunching at a +large, round table in a certain window--to bring him back again. David +Munro, associate editor of the North American Review-" David," a man well +loved of men--and Robert Reid, the painter, prepared this simple +document: + + TO + MARK TWAIN + from + THE CLANSMEN + + Will ye no come back again? + Will ye no come back again? + Better lo'ed ye canna be, + Will ye no come back again? + +It was signed by Munro and by Reid and about thirty others, and it +touched Mark Twain deeply. The lines had always moved him. He wrote: + + TO ROBT. REID & THE OTHERS-- + + WELL-BELOVED,--Surely those lovely verses went to Prince Charlie's + heart, if he had one, & certainly they have gone to mine. I shall + be glad & proud to come back again after such a moving & beautiful + compliment as this from comrades whom I have loved so long. I hope + you can poll the necessary vote; I know you will try, at any rate. + It will be many months before I can foregather with you, for this + black border is not perfunctory, not a convention; it symbolizes the + loss of one whose memory is the only thing I worship. + + It is not necessary for me to thank you--& words could not deliver + what I feel, anyway. I will put the contents of your envelope in + the small casket where I keep the things which have become sacred to + me. + S. L. C. + + +So the matter was temporarily held in abeyance until he should return. +to social life. At the completion of his seventieth year the club had +taken action, and Mark Twain had been brought back, not in the regular +order of things, but as an honorary life member without dues or duties. +There was only one other member of this class, Sir Henry Irving. + +The Players, as a club, does not give dinners. Whatever is done in that +way is done by one or more of the members in the private dining-room, +where there is a single large table that holds twenty-five, even thirty +when expanded to its limit. That room and that table have mingled with +much distinguished entertainment, also with history. Henry James made +his first after-dinner speech there, for one thing--at least he claimed +it was his first, though this is by the way. + +A letter came to me which said that those who had signed the plea for the +Prince's return were going to welcome him in the private dining-room on +the 5th of January. It was not an invitation, but a gracious privilege. +I was in New York a day or two in advance of the date, and I think David +Munro was the first person I met at The Players. As he greeted me his +eyes were eager with something he knew I would wish to hear. He had been +delegated to propose the dinner to Mark Twain, and had found him propped +up in bed, and noticed on the table near him a copy of the Nast book. I +suspect that Munro had led him to speak of it, and that the result had +lost nothing filtered through that radiant benevolence of his. + +The night of January 5, 1906, remains a memory apart from other dinners. +Brander Matthews presided, and Gilder was there, and Frank Millet and +Willard Metcalf and Robert Reid, and a score of others; some of them are +dead now, David Munro among them. It so happened that my seat was nearly +facing the guest of the evening, who, by custom of The Players, is placed +at the side and not at the end of the long table. He was no longer frail +and thin, as when I had first met him. He had a robust, rested look; his +complexion had the tints of a miniature painting. Lit by the glow of the +shaded candles, relieved against the dusk richness of the walls, he made +a picture of striking beauty. One could not take his eyes from it, and +to one guest at least it stirred the farthest memories. I suddenly saw +the interior of a farm-house sitting-room in the Middle West, where I had +first heard uttered the name of Mark Twain, and where night after night a +group gathered around the evening lamp to hear the tale of the first +pilgrimage, which, to a boy of eight, had seemed only a wonderful poem +and fairy tale. To Charles Harvey Genung, who sat next to me, I +whispered something of this, and how, during the thirty-six years since +then, no other human being to me had meant quite what Mark Twain had +meant--in literature, in life, in the ineffable thing which means more +than either, and which we call "inspiration," for lack of a truer word. +Now here he was, just across the table. It was the fairy tale come true. + +Genung said: + +"You should write his life." + +His remark seemed a pleasant courtesy, and was put aside as such. When +he persisted I attributed it to the general bloom of the occasion, and a +little to the wine, maybe, for the dinner was in its sweetest stage just +then--that happy, early stage when the first glass of champagne, or the +second, has proved its quality. He urged, in support of his idea, the +word that Munro had brought concerning the Nast book, but nothing of what +he said kindled any spark of hope. I could not but believe that some one +with a larger equipment of experience, personal friendship, and abilities +had already been selected for the task. By and by the speaking began-- +delightful, intimate speaking in that restricted circle--and the matter +went out of my mind. + +When the dinner had ended, and we were drifting about the table in +general talk, I found an opportunity to say a word to the guest of the +evening about his Joan of Arc, which I had recently re-read. To my +happiness, he detained me while he told me the long-ago incident which +had led to his interest, not only in the martyred girl, but in all +literature. I think we broke up soon after, and descended to the lower +rooms. At any rate, I presently found the faithful Charles Genung +privately reasserting to me the proposition that I should undertake the +biography of Mark Twain. Perhaps it was the brief sympathy established +by the name of Joan of Arc, perhaps it was only Genung's insistent +purpose--his faith, if I may be permitted the word. Whatever it was, +there came an impulse, in the instant of bidding good-by to our guest of +honor, which prompted me to say: + +"May I call to see you, Mr. Clemens, some day?" + +And something--dating from the primal atom, I suppose--prompted him to +answer: + +"Yes, come soon." + +This was on Wednesday night, or rather on Thursday morning, for it was +past midnight, and a day later I made an appointment with his secretary +to call on Saturday. + +I can say truly that I set out with no more than the barest hope of +success, and wondering if I should have the courage, when I saw him, even +to suggest the thought in my mind. I know I did not have the courage to +confide in Genung that I had made the appointment--I was so sure it would +fail. I arrived at 21 Fifth Avenue and was shown into that long library +and drawing-room combined, and found a curious and deep interest in the +books and ornaments along the shelves as I waited. Then I was summoned, +and I remember ascending the stairs, wondering why I had come on so +futile an errand, and trying to think of an excuse to offer for having +come at all. + +He was propped up in bed--in that stately bed-sitting, as was his habit, +with his pillows placed at the foot, so that he might have always before +him the rich, carved beauty of its headboard. He was delving through a +copy of Huckleberry Finn, in search of a paragraph concerning which some +random correspondent had asked explanation. He was commenting +unfavorably on this correspondent and on miscellaneous letter-writing in +general. He pushed the cigars toward me, and the talk of these matters +ran along and blended into others more or less personal. By and by I +told him what so many thousands had told him before: what he had meant to +me, recalling the childhood impressions of that large, black-and-gilt- +covered book with its wonderful pictures and adventures--the +Mediterranean pilgrimage. Very likely it bored him--he had heard it so +often--and he was willing enough, I dare say, to let me change the +subject and thank him for the kindly word which David Munro had brought. +I do not remember what he said then, but I suddenly found myself +suggesting that out of his encouragement had grown a hope--though +certainly it was something less--that I might some day undertake a book +about himself. I expected the chapter to end at this point, and his +silence which followed seemed long and ominous. + +He said, at last, that at various times through his life he had been +preparing some autobiographical matter, but that he had tired of the +undertaking, and had put it aside. He added that he had hoped his +daughters would one day collect his letters; but that a biography-- +a detailed story of personality and performance, of success and failure-- +was of course another matter, and that for such a work no arrangement had +been made. He may have added one or two other general remarks; then, +turning those piercing agate-blue eyes directly upon me, he said: + +"When would you like to begin?" + +There was a dresser with a large mirror behind him. I happened to catch +my reflection in it, and I vividly recollect saying to it mentally: "This +is not true; it is only one of many similar dreams." But even in a dream +one must answer, and I said: + +"Whenever you like. I can begin now." + +He was always eager in any new undertaking. + +"Very good," he said. "The sooner, then, the better. Let's begin while +we are in the humor. The longer you postpone a thing of this kind the +less likely you are ever to get at it." + +This was on Saturday, as I have stated. I mentioned that my family was +still in the country, and that it would require a day or two to get +established in the city. I asked if Tuesday, January 9th, would be too +soon to begin. He agreed that Tuesday would do, and inquired something +about my plan of work. Of course I had formed nothing definite, but I +said that in similar undertakings a part of the work had been done with a +stenographer, who had made the notes while I prompted the subject to +recall a procession of incidents and episodes, to be supplemented with +every variety of material obtainable--letters and other documentary +accumulations. Then he said: + +"I think I should enjoy dictating to a stenographer, with some one to +prompt me and to act as audience. The room adjoining this was fitted up +for my study. My manuscripts and notes and private books and many of my +letters are there, and there are a trunkful or two of such things in the +attic. I seldom use the room myself. I do my writing and reading in +bed. I will turn that room over to you for this work. Whatever you need +will be brought to you. We can have the dictation here in the morning, +and you can put in the rest of the day to suit yourself. You can have a +key and come and go as you please." + +That was always his way. He did nothing by halves; nothing without +unquestioning confidence and prodigality. He got up and showed me the +lovely luxury of the study, with its treasures of material. I did not +believe it true yet. It had all the atmosphere of a dream, and I have no +distinct recollection of how I came away. When I returned to The Players +and found Charles Harvey Genung there, and told him about it, it is quite +certain that he perjured himself when he professed to believe it true and +pretended that he was not surprised. + + + + +CCXXXIX + +WORKING WITH MARK TWAIN + +On Tuesday, January 9, 1906, I was on hand with a capable stenographer-- +Miss Josephine Hobby, who had successively, and successfully, held +secretarial positions with Charles Dudley Warner and Mrs. Mary Mapes +Dodge, and was therefore peculiarly qualified for the work in hand. + +Clemens, meantime, had been revolving our plans and adding some features +of his own. He proposed to double the value and interest of our +employment by letting his dictations continue the form of those earlier +autobiographical chapters, begun with Redpath in 1885, and continued +later in Vienna and at the Villa Quarto. He said he did not think he +could follow a definite chronological program; that he would like to +wander about, picking up this point and that, as memory or fancy +prompted, without any particular biographical order. It was his purpose, +he declared, that his dictations should not be published until he had +been dead a hundred years or more--a prospect which seemed to give him an +especial gratification. --[As early as October, 1900, he had proposed to +Harper & Brothers a contract for publishing his personal memoirs at the +expiration of one hundred years from date; and letters covering the +details were exchanged with Mr. Rogers. The document, however, was not +completed.] + +He wished to pay the stenographer, and to own these memoranda, he said, +allowing me free access to them for any material I might find valuable. +I could also suggest subjects for dictation, and ask particulars of any +special episode or period. I believe this covered the whole arrangement, +which did not require more than five minutes, and we set to work without +further prologue. + +I ought to state that he was in bed when we arrived, and that he remained +there during almost all of these earlier dictations, clad in a handsome +silk dressing-gown of rich Persian pattern, propped against great snowy +pillows. He loved this loose luxury and ease, and found it conducive to +thought. On the little table beside him, where lay his cigars, papers, +pipes, and various knickknacks, shone a reading-lamp, making more +brilliant the rich coloring of his complexion and the gleam of his +shining hair. There was daylight, too, but it was north light, and the +winter days were dull. Also the walls of the room were a deep, +unreflecting red, and his eyes were getting old. The outlines of that +vast bed blending into the luxuriant background, the whole focusing to +the striking central figure, remain in my mind to-day--a picture of +classic value. + +He dictated that morning some matters connected with the history of the +Comstock mine; then he drifted back to his childhood, returning again to +the more modern period, and closed, I think, with some comments on +current affairs. It was absorbingly interesting; his quaint, unhurried +fashion of speech, the unconscious movement of his hands, the play of his +features as his fancies and phrases passed in mental review and were +accepted or waved aside. We were watching one of the great literary +creators of his time in the very process of his architecture. We +constituted about the most select audience in the world enjoying what +was, likely enough, its most remarkable entertainment. When he turned at +last and inquired the time we were all amazed that two hours and more had +slipped away. + +"And how much I have enjoyed it!" he said. "It is the ideal plan for +this kind of work. Narrative writing is always disappointing. The +moment you pick up a pen you begin to lose the spontaneity of the +personal relation, which contains the very essence of interest. With +shorthand dictation one can talk as if he were at his own dinner-table-- +always a most inspiring place. I expect to dictate all the rest of my +life, if you good people are willing to come and listen to it." + +The dictations thus begun continued steadily from week to week, and +always with increasing charm. We never knew what he was going to talk +about, and it was seldom that he knew until the moment of beginning; then +he went drifting among episodes, incidents, and periods in his +irresponsible fashion; the fashion of table-conversation, as he said, the +methodless method of the human mind. It was always delightful, and +always amusing, tragic, or instructive, and it was likely to be one of +these at one instant, and another the next. I felt myself the most +fortunate biographer in the world, as undoubtedly I was, though not just +in the way that I first imagined. + +It was not for several weeks that I began to realize that these marvelous +reminiscences bore only an atmospheric relation to history; that they +were aspects of biography rather than its veritable narrative, and built +largely--sometimes wholly--from an imagination that, with age, had +dominated memory, creating details, even reversing them, yet with a +perfect sincerity of purpose on the part of the narrator to set down the +literal and unvarnished truth. It was his constant effort to be frank +and faithful to fact, to record, to confess, and to condemn without +stint. If you wanted to know the worst of Mark Twain you had only to ask +him for it. He would give it, to the last syllable--worse than the +worst, for his imagination would magnify it and adorn it with new +iniquities, and if he gave it again, or a dozen times, he would improve +upon it each time, until the thread of history was almost impossible to +trace through the marvel of that fabric; and he would do the same for +another person just as willingly. Those vividly real personalities that +he marched and countermarched before us were the most convincing +creatures in the world; the most entertaining, the most excruciatingly +humorous, or wicked, or tragic; but, alas, they were not always safe to +include in a record that must bear a certain semblance to history. They +often disagreed in their performance, and even in their characters, with +the documents in the next room, as I learned by and by when those +records, disentangled, began to rebuild the structure of the years. + +His gift of dramatization had been exercised too long to be discarded +now. The things he told of Mrs. Clemens and of Susy were true-- +marvelously and beautifully true, in spirit and in aspect--and the actual +detail of these mattered little in such a record. The rest was history +only as 'Roughing It' is history, or the 'Tramp Abroad'; that is to say, +it was fictional history, with fact as a starting-point. In a prefatory +note to these volumes we have quoted Mark Twain's own lovely and +whimsical admission, made once when he realized his deviations: + +"When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or +not; but I am getting old, and soon I shall remember only the latter." + +At another time he paraphrased one of Josh Billings's sayings in the +remark: "It isn't so astonishing, the number of things that I can +remember, as the number of things I can remember that aren't so." + +I do not wish to say, by any means, that his so-called autobiography is a +mere fairy tale. It is far from that. It is amazingly truthful in the +character-picture it represents of the man himself. It is only not +reliable--and it is sometimes even unjust--as detailed history. Yet, +curiously enough, there were occasional chapters that were +photographically exact, and fitted precisely with the more positive, if +less picturesque, materials. It is also true that such chapters were +likely to be episodes intrinsically so perfect as to not require the +touch of art. + +In the talks which we usually had, when the dictations were ended and +Miss Hobby had gone, I gathered much that was of still greater value. +Imagination was temporarily dispossessed, as it were, and, whether +expounding some theory or summarizing some event, he cared little for +literary effect, and only for the idea and the moment immediately +present. + +It was at such times that he allowed me to make those inquiries we had +planned in the beginning, and which apparently had little place in the +dictations themselves. Sometimes I led him to speak of the genesis of +his various books, how he had come to write them, and I think there was +not a single case where later I did not find his memory of these matters +almost exactly in accord with the letters of the moment, written to +Howells or Twichell, or to some member of his family. Such reminiscence +was usually followed by some vigorous burst of human philosophy, often +too vigorous for print, too human, but as dazzling as a search-light in +its revelation. + +It was during this earlier association that he propounded, one day, his +theory of circumstance, already set down, that inevitable sequence of +cause and effect, beginning with the first act of the primal atom. He +had been dictating that morning his story of the clairvoyant dream which +preceded his brother's death, and the talk of foreknowledge had +continued. I said one might logically conclude from such a circumstance +that the future was a fixed quantity. + +"As absolutely fixed as the past," he said; and added the remark already +quoted. --[Chap. lxxv] A little later he continued: + +"Even the Almighty Himself cannot check or change that sequence of events +once it is started. It is a fixed quantity, and a part of the scheme is +a mental condition during certain moments usually of sleep--when the mind +may reach out and grasp some of the acts which are still to come." + +It was a new angle to me--a line of logic so simple and so utterly +convincing that I have remained unshaken in it to this day. I have never +been able to find any answer to it, nor any one who could even attempt to +show that the first act of the first created atom did not strike the key- +note of eternity. + +At another time, speaking of the idea that God works through man, he +burst out: + +"Yes, of course, just about as much as a man works through his microbes!" + +He had a startling way of putting things like that, and it left not much +to say. + +I was at this period interested a good deal in mental healing, and had +been treated for neurasthenia with gratifying results. Like most of the +world, I had assumed, from his published articles, that he condemned +Christian Science and its related practices out of hand. When I +confessed, rather reluctantly, one day, the benefit I had received, he +surprised me by answering: + +"Of course you have been benefited. Christian Science is humanity's +boon. Mother Eddy deserves a place in the Trinity as much as any member +of it. She has organized and made available a healing principle that for +two thousand years has never been employed, except as the merest kind of +guesswork. She is the benefactor of the age." + +It seemed strange, at the time, to hear him speak in this way concerning +a practice of which he was generally regarded as the chief public +antagonist. It was another angle of his many-sided character. + + + + +CCXL + +THE DEFINITION OF A GENTLEMAN + +That was a busy winter for him socially. He was constantly demanded for +this thing and that--for public gatherings, dinners--everywhere he was a +central figure. Once he presided at a Valentine dinner given by some +Players to David Munro. He had never presided at a dinner before, he +said, and he did it in his own way, which certainly was a taking one, +suitable to that carefree company and occasion--a real Scotch occasion, +with the Munro tartan everywhere, the table banked with heather, and a +wild piper marching up and down in the anteroom, blowing savage airs in +honor of Scotland's gentlest son. + +An important meeting of that winter was at Carnegie Hall--a great +gathering which had assembled for the purpose of aiding Booker T. +Washington in his work for the welfare of his race. The stage and the +auditorium were thronged with notables. Joseph H. Choate and Mark Twain +presided, and both spoke; also Robert C. Ogden and Booker T. Washington +himself. It was all fine and interesting. Choate's address was ably +given, and Mark Twain was at his best. He talked of politics and of +morals--public and private--how the average American citizen was true to +his Christian principles three hundred and sixty-three days in the year, +and how on the other two days of the year he left those principles at +home and went to the tax-office and the voting-booths, and did his best +to damage and undo his whole year's faithful and righteous work. + + I used to be an honest man, but I am crumbling--no, I have crumbled. + When they assessed me at $75,000 a fortnight ago I went out and + tried to borrow the money and couldn't. Then when I found they were + letting a whole crowd of millionaires live in New York at a third of + the price they were charging me I was hurt, I was indignant, and + said, this is the last feather. I am not going to run this town all + by myself. In that moment--in that memorable moment, I began to + crumble. In fifteen minutes the disintegration was complete. In + fifteen minutes I was become just a mere moral sand-pile, and I + lifted up my hand, along with those seasoned and experienced + deacons, and swore off every rag of personal property I've got in + the world. + +I had never heard him address a miscellaneous audience. It was marvelous +to see how he convulsed it, and silenced it, and controlled it at will. +He did not undertake any special pleading for the negro cause; he only +prepared the way with cheerfulness. + +Clemens and Choate joined forces again, a few weeks later, at a great +public meeting assembled in aid of the adult blind. Helen Keller was to +be present, but she had fallen ill through overwork. She sent to Clemens +one of her beautiful letters, in which she said: + + I should be happy if I could have spelled into my hand the words as + they fall from your lips, and receive, even as it is uttered, the + eloquence of our newest ambassador to the blind. + +Clemens, dictating the following morning, told of his first meeting with +Helen Keller at a little gathering in Lawrence Hutton's home, when she +was about the age of fourteen. It was an incident that invited no +elaboration, and probably received none. + + Henry Rogers and I went together. The company had all assembled and + had been waiting a while. The wonderful child arrived now with her + about equally wonderful teacher, Miss Sullivan, and seemed quite + well to recognize the character of her surroundings. She said, "Oh, + the books, the books, so many, many books. How lovely!" + + The guests were brought one after another. As she shook hands with + each she took her hand away and laid her fingers lightly against + Miss Sullivan's lips, who spoke against them the person's name. + + Mr. Howells seated himself by Helen on the sofa, and she put her + fingers against his lips and he told her a story of considerable + length, and you could see each detail of it pass into her mind and + strike fire there and throw the flash of it into her face. + + After a couple of hours spent very pleasantly some one asked if + Helen would remember the feel of the hands of the company after this + considerable interval of time and be able to discriminate the hands + and name the possessors of them. Miss Sullivan said, "Oh, she will + have no difficulty about that." So the company filed past, shook + hands in turn, and with each hand-shake Helen greeted the owner of + the hand pleasantly and spoke the name that belonged to it without + hesitation. + + By and by the assemblage proceeded to the dining-room and sat down + to the luncheon. I had to go away before it was over, and as I + passed by Helen I patted her lightly on the head and passed on. + Miss Sullivan called to me and said, "Stop, Mr. Clemens, Helen is + distressed because she did not recognize your hand. Won't you come + back and do that again?" I went back and patted her lightly on the + head, and she said at once, "Oh, it's Mr. Clemens." + + Perhaps some one can explain this miracle, but I have never been + able to do it. Could she feel the wrinkles in my hand through her + hair? Some one else must answer this. + +It was three years following this dictation that the mystery received a +very simple and rather amusing solution. Helen had come to pay a visit +to Mark Twain's Connecticut home, Stormfield, then but just completed. +He had met her, meantime, but it had not occurred to him before to ask +her how she had recognized him that morning at Hutton's, in what had +seemed such a marvelous way. She remembered, and with a smile said: + +"I smelled you." Which, after all, did not make the incident seem much +less marvelous. + +On one of the mornings after Miss Hobby had gone Clemens said: + +"A very curious thing has happened--a very large-sized-joke." He was +shaving at the time, and this information came in brief and broken +relays, suited to a performance of that sort. The reader may perhaps +imagine the effect without further indication of it. + +"I was going on a yachting trip once, with Henry Rogers, when a reporter +stopped me with the statement that Mrs. Astor had said that there had +never been a gentleman in the White House, and he wanted me to give him +my definition of a gentleman. I didn't give him my definition; but he +printed it, just the same, in the afternoon paper. I was angry at first, +and wanted to bring a damage suit. When I came to read the definition it +was a satisfactory one, and I let it go. Now to-day comes a letter and a +telegram from a man who has made a will in Missouri, leaving ten thousand +dollars to provide tablets for various libraries in the State, on which +shall be inscribed Mark Twain's definition of a gentleman. He hasn't got +the definition--he has only heard of it, and he wants me to tell him in +which one of my books or speeches he can find it. I couldn't think, when +I read that letter, what in the nation the man meant, but shaving somehow +has a tendency to release thought, and just now it all came to me." + +It was a situation full of amusing possibilities; but he reached no +conclusion in the matter. Another telegram was brought in just then, +which gave a sadder aspect to his thought, for it said that his old +coachman, Patrick McAleer, who had begun in the Clemens service with the +bride and groom of thirty-six years before, was very low, and could not +survive more than a few days. This led him to speak of Patrick, his +noble and faithful nature, and how he always claimed to be in their +service, even during their long intervals of absence abroad. Clemens +gave orders that everything possible should be done for Patrick's +comfort. When the end came, a few days later, he traveled to Hartford to +lay flowers on Patrick's bier, and to serve, with Patrick's friends-- +neighbor coachmen and John O'Neill, the gardener--as pall-bearer, taking +his allotted place without distinction or favor. + +It was the following Sunday, at the Majestic Theater, in New York, that +Mark Twain spoke to the Young Men's Christian Association. For several +reasons it proved an unusual meeting. A large number of free tickets had +been given out, far more than the place would hold; and, further, it had +been announced that when the ticket-holders had been seated the admission +would be free to the public. The subject chosen for the talk was +"Reminiscences." + +When we arrived the streets were packed from side to side for a +considerable distance and a riot was in progress. A great crowd had +swarmed about the place, and the officials, instead of throwing the doors +wide and letting the theater fill up, regardless of tickets, had locked +them. As a result there was a shouting, surging human mass that +presently dashed itself against the entrance. Windows and doors gave +way, and there followed a wild struggle for entrance. A moment later the +house was packed solid. A detachment of police had now arrived, and in +time cleared the street. It was said that amid the tumult some had lost +their footing and had been trampled and injured, but of this we did not +learn until later. We had been taken somehow to a side entrance and +smuggled into boxes. --[The paper next morning bore the head-lines: +"10,000 Stampeded at the Mark Twain Meeting. Well-dressed Men and Women +Clubbed by Police at Majestic Theater." In this account the paper stated +that the crowd had collected an hour before the time for opening; that +nothing of the kind had been anticipated and no police preparation had +been made.] + +It was peaceful enough in the theater until Mark Twain appeared on the +stage. He was wildly greeted, and when he said, slowly and seriously, +"I thank you for this signal recognition of merit," there was a still +noisier outburst. In the quiet that followed he began his memories, and +went wandering along from one anecdote to another in the manner of his +daily dictations. + +At last it seemed to occur to him, in view of the character of his +audience, that he ought to close with something in the nature of counsel +suited to young men. + + It is from experiences such as mine [he said] that we get our + education of life. We string them into jewels or into tinware, as + we may choose. I have received recently several letters asking for + counsel or advice, the principal request being for some incident + that may prove helpful to the young. It is my mission to teach, and + I am always glad to furnish something. There have been a lot of + incidents in my career to help me along--sometimes they helped me + along faster than I wanted to go. + +He took some papers from his pocket and started to unfold one of them; +then, as if remembering, he asked how long he had been talking. The +answer came, "Thirty-five minutes." He made as if to leave the stage, +but the audience commanded him to go on. + +"All right," he said, "I can stand more of my own talk than any one I +ever knew." Opening one of the papers, a telegram, he read: + +"In which one of your works can we find the definition of a gentleman?" +Then he added: + + I have not answered that telegram. I couldn't. I never wrote any + such definition, though it seems to me that if a man has just, + merciful, and kindly instincts he would be a gentleman, for he would + need nothing else in this world. + +He opened a letter. "From Howells," he said. + + My old friend, William Dean Howells--Howells, the head of American + literature. No one is able to stand with him. He is an old, old + friend of mine, and he writes me, "To-morrow I shall be sixty-nine + years old." Why, I am surprised at Howells writing so. I have + known him myself longer than that. I am sorry to see a man trying + to appear so young. Let's see. Howells says now, "I see you have + been burying Patrick. I suppose he was old, too." + +The house became very still. Most of them had read an account of Mark +Twain's journey to Hartford and his last service to his faithful +servitor. The speaker's next words were not much above a whisper, but +every syllable was distinct. + + No, he was never old-Patrick. He came to us thirty-six years ago. + He was our coachman from the day that I drove my young bride to our + new home. He was a young Irishman, slender, tall, lithe, honest, + truthful, and he never changed in all his life. He really was with + us but twenty-five years, for he did not go with us to Europe; but + he never regarded that a separation. As the children grew up he was + their guide. He was all honor, honesty, and affection. He was with + us in New Hampshire last summer, and his hair was just as black, his + eyes were just as blue, his form just as straight, and his heart + just as good as on the day we first met. In all the long years + Patrick never made a mistake. He never needed an order; he never + received a command. He knew. I have been asked for my idea of an + ideal gentleman, and I give it to you--Patrick McAleer. + +It was the sort of thing that no one but Mark Twain has quite been able +to do, and it was just that recognized quality behind it that had made +crowds jam the street and stampede the entrance to be in his presence-to +see him and to hear his voice. + + + + +CCXLI + +GORKY, HOWELLS, AND MARK TWAIN + +Clemens was now fairly back again in the wash of banquets and speech- +making that had claimed him on his return from England, five years +before. He made no less than a dozen speeches altogether that winter, +and he was continually at some feasting or other, where he was sure to be +called upon for remarks. He fell out of the habit of preparing his +addresses, relying upon the inspiration of the moment, merely following +the procedure of his daily dictations, which had doubtless given him +confidence for this departure from his earlier method. There was seldom +an afternoon or an evening that he was not required, and seldom a morning +that the papers did not have some report of his doings. Once more, and +in a larger fashion than ever, he had become "the belle of New York." +But he was something further. An editorial in the Evening Mail said: + + Mark Twain, in his "last and best of life for which the first was + made," seems to be advancing rapidly to a position which makes him a + kind of joint Aristides, Solon, and Themistocles of the American + metropolis--an Aristides for justness and boldness as well as + incessancy of opinion, a Solon for wisdom and cogency, and a + Themistocles for the democracy of his views and the popularity of + his person. + + Things have reached the point where, if Mark Twain is not at a + public meeting or banquet, he is expected to console it with one of + his inimitable letters of advice and encouragement. If he deigns to + make a public appearance there is a throng at the doors which + overtaxes the energy and ability of the police. We must be glad + that we have a public commentator like Mark Twain always at hand and + his wit and wisdom continually on tap. His sound, breezy + Mississippi Valley Americanism is a corrective to all sorts of + snobbery. He cultivates respect for human rights by always making + sure that he has his own. + +He talked one afternoon to the Barnard girls, and another afternoon to +the Women's University Club, illustrating his talk with what purported to +be moral tales. He spoke at a dinner given to City Tax Commissioner Mr. +Charles Putzel; and when he was introduced there as the man who had said, +"When in doubt tell the truth," he replied that he had invented that +maxim for others, but that when in doubt himself, he used more sagacity. + +The speeches he made kept his hearers always in good humor; but he made +them think, too, for there was always substance and sound reason and +searching satire in the body of what he said. + +It was natural that there should be reporters calling frequently at Mark +Twain's home, and now and then the place became a veritable storm-center +of news. Such a moment arrived when it became known that a public +library in Brooklyn had banished Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer from the +children's room, presided over by a young woman of rather severe morals. +The incident had begun in November of the previous year. One of the +librarians, Asa Don Dickinson, who had vigorously voted against the +decree, wrote privately of the matter. Clemens had replied: + + DEAR SIR,--I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote Tom + Sawyer & Huck Finn for adults exclusively, & it always distresses me + when I find that boys & girls have been allowed access to them. The + mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. + I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an + unappeasable bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young + life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an + unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do + that and ever draw a clean, sweet breath again this side of the + grave. Ask that young lady--she will tell you so. + + Most honestly do I wish that I could say a softening word or two in + defense of Huck's character since you wish it, but really, in my + opinion, it is no better than those of Solomon, David, & the rest of + the sacred brotherhood. + + If there is an unexpurgated in the Children's Department, won't you + please help that young woman remove Tom & Huck from that + questionable companionship? + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + I shall not show your letter to any one-it is safe with me. + + +Mr. Dickinson naturally kept this letter from the public, though he read +it aloud to the assembled librarians, and the fact of its existence and +its character eventually leaked out. --[It has been supplied to the +writer by Mr. Dickinson, and is published here with his consent.]-- One +of the librarians who had heard it mentioned it at a theater-party in +hearing of an unrealized newspaper man. This was near the end of the +following March. + +The "tip" was sufficient. Telephone-bells began to jingle, and groups of +newspaper men gathered simultaneously on Mr. Dickinson's and on Mark +Twain's door-steps. At a 21 Fifth Avenue you could hardly get in or out, +for stepping on them. The evening papers surmised details, and Huck and +Tom had a perfectly fresh crop of advertising, not only in America, but +in distant lands. Dickinson wrote Clemens that he would not give out the +letter without his authority, and Clemens replied: + + Be wise as a serpent and wary as a dove! The newspaper boys want + that letter--don't you let them get hold of it. They say you refuse + to allow them to see it without my consent. Keep on refusing, and + I'll take care of this end of the line. + +In a recent letter to the writer Mr. Dickinson states that Mark Twain's +solicitude was for the librarian, whom he was unwilling to involve in +difficulties with his official superiors, and he adds: + + There may be some doubt as to whether Mark Twain was or was not a + religious man, for there are many definitions of the word religion. + He was certainly a hater of conventions, had no patience with + sanctimony and bibliolatry, and was perhaps irreverent. But any one + who reads carefully the description of the conflict in Huck's soul, + in regard to the betrayal of Jim, will credit the creator of the + scene with deep and true moral feeling. + +The reporters thinned out in the course of a few days when no result was +forthcoming; but they were all back again presently when the Maxim Gorky +fiasco came along. The distinguished revolutionist, Tchaykoffsky, as a +sort of advance agent for Gorky, had already called upon Clemens to +enlist his sympathy in their mission, which was to secure funds in the +cause of Russian emancipation. Clemens gave his sympathy, and now +promised his aid, though he did not hesitate to discourage the mission. +He said that American enthusiasm in such matters stopped well above their +pockets, and that this revolutionary errand would fail. Howells, too, +was of this opinion. In his account of the episode he says: + + I told a valued friend of his and mine that I did not believe he + could get twenty-five hundred dollars, and I think now I set the + figure too high. + +Clemens's interest, however, grew. He attended a dinner given to Gorky +at the "A Club," No. 3 Fifth Avenue, and introduced Gorky to the diners. +Also he wrote a letter to be read by Tchaykoffsky at a meeting held at +the Grand Central Palace, where three thousand people gathered to hear +this great revolutionist recite the story of Russia's wrongs. The letter +ran: + + DEAR MR. TCHAYKOFFSKY,-- My sympathies are with the Russian + revolution, of course. It goes without saying. I hope it will + succeed, and now that I have talked with you I take heart to believe + it will. Government by falsified promises, by lies, by treachery, + and by the butcher-knife, for the aggrandizement of a single family + of drones and its idle and vicious kin has been borne quite long + enough in Russia, I should think. And it is to be hoped that the + roused nation, now rising in its strength, will presently put an end + to it and set up the republic in its place. Some of us, even the + white-headed, may live to see the blessed day when tsars and grand + dukes will be as scarce there as I trust they are in heaven. + Most sincerely yours, + MARK TWAIN. + +Clemens and Howells called on Gorky and agreed to figure prominently in a +literary dinner to be given in his honor. The movement was really +assuming considerable proportions, when suddenly something happened which +caused it to flatten permanently, and rather ridiculously. + +Arriving at 21 Fifth Avenue, one afternoon, I met Howells coming out. +I thought he had an unhappy, hunted look. I went up to the study, and on +opening the door I found the atmosphere semi-opaque with cigar smoke, and +Clemens among the drifting blue wreaths and layers, pacing up and down +rather fiercely. He turned, inquiringly, as I entered. I had clipped a +cartoon from a morning paper, which pictured him as upsetting the Tsar's +throne--the kind of thing he was likely to enjoy. I said: + +"Here is something perhaps you may wish to see, Mr. Clemens." + +He shook his head violently. + +"No, I can't see anything now," and in another moment had disappeared +into his own room. Something extraordinary had happened. I wondered if, +after all their lifelong friendship, he and Howells had quarreled. I was +naturally curious, but it was not a good time to investigate. By and by +I went down on the street, where the newsboys were calling extras. When +I had bought one, and glanced at the first page, I knew. Gorky had been +expelled from his hotel for having brought to America, as his wife, a +woman not so recognized by the American laws. Madame Andreieva, a +Russian actress, was a leader in the cause of freedom, and by Russian +custom her relation with Gorky was recognized and respected; but it was +not sufficiently orthodox for American conventions, and it was certainly +unfortunate that an apostle of high purpose should come handicapped in +that way. Apparently the news had already reached Howells and Clemens, +and they had been feverishly discussing what was best to do about the +dinner. + +Within a day or two Gorky and Madame Andreieva were evicted from a +procession of hotels, and of course the papers rang with the head-lines. +An army of reporters was chasing Clemens and Howells. The Russian +revolution was entirely forgotten in this more lively, more intimate +domestic interest. Howells came again, the reporters following and +standing guard at the door below. In 'My Mark Twain' he says: + + That was the moment of the great Vesuvian eruption, and we figured + ourselves in easy reach of a volcano which was every now and then + "blowing a cone off," as the telegraphic phrase was. The roof of + the great market in Naples had just broken in under its load of + ashes and cinders, and crushed hundreds of people; and we asked each + other if we were not sorry we had not been there, where the pressure + would have been far less terrific than it was with us in Fifth + Avenue. The forbidden butler came up with a message that there were + some gentlemen below who wanted to see Clemens. + + "How many?" he demanded. + + "Five," the butler faltered. + + "Reporters?" + + The butler feigned uncertainty. + + "What would you do?" he asked me. + + "I wouldn't see them," I said, and then Clemens went directly down + to them. How or by what means he appeased their voracity I cannot + say, but I fancy it was by the confession of the exact truth, which + was harmless enough. They went away joyfully, and he came back in + radiant satisfaction with having seen them. + +It is not quite clear at this time just what word was sent to Gorky but +the matter must have been settled that night, for Clemens was in a fine +humor next morning. It was before dictation time, and he came drifting +into the study and began at once to speak of the dinner and the +impossibility of its being given now. Then he said: + +"American public opinion is a delicate fabric. It shrivels like the webs +of morning at the lightest touch." + +Later in the day he made this memorandum: + + Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly + transgressed custom brings sure punishment. The penalty may be + unfair, unrighteous, illogical, and a cruelty; no matter, it will be + inflicted just the same. Certainly, then, there can be but one wise + thing for a visiting stranger to do--find out what the country's + customs are and refrain from offending against them. + + The efforts which have been made in Gorky's justification are + entitled to all respect because of the magnanimity of the motive + back of them, but I think that the ink was wasted. Custom is + custom: it is built of brass, boiler-iron, granite; facts, + seasonings, arguments have no more effect upon it than the idle + winds have upon Gibraltar. --[To Dan Beard he said, "Gorky made an + awful mistake, Dan. He might as well have come over here in his + shirt-tail."] + +The Gorky disturbance had hardly begun to subside when there came another +upheaval that snuffed it out completely. On the afternoon of the 18th of +April I heard, at The Players, a wandering telephonic rumor that a great +earthquake was going on in San Francisco. Half an hour later, perhaps, I +met Clemens coming out of No. 21. He asked: + +"Have you heard the news about San Francisco?" + +I said I had heard a rumor of an earthquake; and had seen an extra with +big scare-heads; but I supposed the matter was exaggerated. + +"No," he said, "I am afraid it isn't. We have just had a telephone +message that it is even worse than at first reported. A great fire is +consuming the city. Come along to the news-stand and we'll see if there +is a later edition." + +We walked to Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street and got some fresh extras. +The news was indeed worse, than at first reported. San Francisco was +going to destruction. Clemens was moved deeply, and began to recall this +old friend and that whose lives and property might be in danger. He +spoke of Joe Goodman and the Gillis families, and pictured conditions in +the perishing city. + + + + +CCXLII + +MARK TWAIN'S GOOD-BY TO THE PLATFORM + +It was on April 19, 1906, the day following the great earthquake, that +Mark Twain gave a "Farewell Lecture" at Carnegie Hall for the benefit of +the Robert Fulton Memorial Association. Some weeks earlier Gen. +Frederick D. Grant, its president, had proposed to pay one thousand +dollars for a Mark Twain lecture; but Clemens' had replied that he was +permanently out of the field, and would never again address any audience +that had to pay to hear him. + +"I always expect to talk as long as I can get people to listen to me," he +sand, "but I never again expect to charge for it." Later came one of his +inspirations, and he wrote: "I will lecture for one thousand dollars, on +one condition: that it will be understood to be my farewell lecture, and +that I may contribute the thousand dollars to the Fulton Association." + +It was a suggestion not to be discouraged, and the bills and notices, +"Mark Twain's Farewell Lecture," were published without delay. + +I first heard of the matter one afternoon when General Grant had called. +Clemens came into the study where I was working; he often wandered in and +out-sometimes without a word, sometimes to relieve himself concerning +things in general. But this time he suddenly chilled me by saying: + +"I'm going to deliver my farewell lecture, and I want you to appear on +the stage and help me." + +I feebly expressed my pleasure at the prospect. Then he said: + +"I am going to lecture on Fulton--on the story of his achievements. It +will be a burlesque, of course, and I am going to pretend to forget my +facts, and I want you to sit there in a chair. Now and then, when I seem +to get stuck, I'll lean over and pretend to ask you some thing, and I +want you to pretend to prompt me. You don't need to laugh, or to pretend +to be assisting in the performance any more than just that." + + +HANDBILL OF MARK TWAIN'S "FAREWELL LECTURE": + + MARK TWAIN + + Will Deliver His Farewell Lecture + --------------------------------- + + CARNEGIE HALL + + APRIL 19TH, 1906 + + FOR THE BENEFIT OF + + Robert Fulton Memorial Association + + MILITARY ORGANIZATION OLD GUARD IN + FULL DRESS UNIFORM WILL BE PRESENT + + MUSIC BY OLD GUARD BAND + + TICKETS AND BOXES ON SALE AT CARNEGIE HALL + AND WALDORF-ASTORIA + + SEATS $1.50, $1.00, 50 CENTS + + +It was not likely that I should laugh. I had a sinking feeling in the +cardiac region which does not go with mirth. It did not for the moment +occur to me that the stage would be filled with eminent citizens and +vice-presidents, and I had a vision of myself sitting there alone in the +chair in that wide emptiness, with the chief performer directing +attention to me every other moment or so, for perhaps an hour. Let me +hurry on to say that it did not happen. I dare say he realized my +unfitness for the work, and the far greater appropriateness of conferring +the honor on General Grant, for in the end he gave him the assignment, to +my immeasurable relief. + +It was a magnificent occasion. That spacious hall was hung with bunting, +the stage was banked and festooned with decoration of every sort. +General Grant, surrounded by his splendidly uniformed staff, sat in the +foreground, and behind was ranged a levee of foremost citizens of the +republic. The band played "America" as Mark Twain entered, and the great +audience rose and roared out its welcome. Some of those who knew him +best had hoped that on this occasion of his last lecture he would tell of +that first appearance in San Francisco, forty years before, when his +fortunes had hung in the balance. Perhaps he did not think of it, and no +one had had the courage to suggest it. At all events, he did a different +thing. He began by making a strong plea for the smitten city where the +flames were still raging, urging prompt help for those who had lost not +only their homes, but the last shred of their belongings and their means +of livelihood. Then followed his farcical history of Fulton, with +General Grant to make the responses, and presently he drifted into the +kind of lecture he had given so often in his long trip around the world- +retelling the tales which had won him fortune and friends in many lands. + +I do not know whether the entertainment was long or short. I think few +took account of time. To a letter of inquiry as to how long the +entertainment would last, he had replied: + + I cannot say for sure. It is my custom to keep on talking till I + get the audience cowed. Sometimes it takes an hour and fifteen + minutes, sometimes I can do it in an hour. + +There was no indication at any time that the audience was cowed. The +house was packed, and the applause was so recurrent and continuous that +often his voice was lost to those in its remoter corners. It did not +matter. The tales were familiar to his hearers; merely to see Mark +Twain, in his old age and in that splendid setting, relating them was +enough. The audience realized that it was witnessing the close of a +heroic chapter in a unique career. + + + + +CCXLIII + +AN INVESTMENT IN REDDING + +Many of the less important happenings seem worth remembering now. Among +them was the sale, at the Nast auction, of the Mark Twain letters, +already mentioned. The fact that these letters brought higher prices +than any others offered in this sale was gratifying. Roosevelt, Grant, +and even Lincoln items were sold; but the Mark Twain letters led the +list. One of them sold for forty-three dollars, which was said to be the +highest price ever paid for the letter of a living man. It was the +letter written in 1877, quoted earlier in this work, in which Clemens +proposed the lecture tour to Nast. None of the Clemens-Nast letters +brought less than twenty-seven dollars, and some of them were very brief. +It was a new measurement of public sentiment. Clemens, when he heard of +it, said: + +"I can't rise to General Grant's lofty place in the estimation of this +country; but it is a deep satisfaction to me to know that when it comes +to letter-writing he can't sit in the front seat along with me. That +forty-three-dollar letter ought to be worth as much as eighty-six dollars +after I'm dead." + +A perpetual string of callers came to 21 Fifth Avenue, and it kept the +secretary busy explaining to most of them why Mark Twain could not +entertain their propositions, or listen to their complaints, or allow +them to express in person their views on public questions. He did see a +great many of what might be called the milder type persons who were +evidently sincere and not too heavily freighted with eloquence. Of these +there came one day a very gentle-spoken woman who had promised that she +would stay but a moment, and say no more than a few words, if only she +might sit face to face with the great man. It was in the morning hour +before the dictations, and he received her, quite correctly clad in his +beautiful dressing-robe and propped against his pillows. She kept her +contract to the letter; but when she rose to go she said, in a voice of +deepest reverence: + +"May I kiss your hand?" + +It was a delicate situation, and might easily have been made ludicrous. +Denial would have hurt her. As it was, he lifted his hand, a small, +exquisite hand it was, with the gentle dignity and poise of a king, and +she touched her lips to it with what was certainly adoration. Then, as +she went, she said: + +"How God must love you!" + +"I hope so," he said, softly, and he did not even smile; but after she +had gone he could not help saying, in a quaint, half-pathetic voice +"I guess she hasn't heard of our strained relations." + +Sitting in that royal bed, clad in that rich fashion, he easily conveyed +the impression of royalty, and watching him through those marvelous +mornings he seemed never less than a king, as indeed he was--the king of +a realm without national boundaries. Some of those nearest to him fell +naturally into the habit of referring to him as "the King," and in time +the title crept out of the immediate household and was taken up by others +who loved him. + +He had been more than once photographed in his bed; but it was by those +who had come and gone in a brief time, with little chance to study his +natural attitudes. I had acquired some knowledge of the camera, and I +obtained his permission to let me photograph him--a permission he seldom +denied to any one. We had no dictations on Saturdays, and I took the +pictures on one of these holiday mornings. He was so patient and +tractable, and so natural in every attitude, that it was a delight to +make the negatives. I was afraid he would become impatient, and made +fewer exposures than I might otherwise have done. I think he expected +very little from this amateur performance; but, by that happy element of +accident which plays so large a part in photographic success, the results +were better than I had hoped for. When I brought him the prints, a few +days later, he expressed pleasure and asked, "Why didn't you make more?" + +Among them was one in an attitude which had grown so familiar to us, that +of leaning over to get his pipe from the smoking-table, and this seemed +to give him particular satisfaction. It being a holiday, he had not +donned his dressing-gown, which on the whole was well for the +photographic result. He spoke of other pictures that had been made of +him, especially denouncing one photograph, taken some twenty years before +by Sarony, a picture, as he said, of a gorilla in an overcoat, which the +papers and magazines had insisted on using ever since. + +"Sarony was as enthusiastic about wild animals as he was about +photography, and when Du Chaillu brought over the first gorilla he sent +for me to look at it and see if our genealogy was straight. I said it +was, and Sarony was so excited that I had recognized the resemblance +between us, that he wanted to make it more complete, so he borrowed my +overcoat and put it on the gorilla and photographed it, and spread that +picture out over the world as mine. It turns up every week in some +newspaper or magazine; but it's not my favorite; I have tried to get it +suppressed." + +Mark Twain made his first investment in Redding that spring. I had +located there the autumn before, and bought a vacant old house, with a +few acres of land, at what seemed a modest price. I was naturally +enthusiastic over the bargain, and the beauty and salubrity of the +situation. His interest was aroused, and when he learned that there was +a place adjoining, equally reasonable and perhaps even more attractive, +he suggested immediately that I buy it for him; and he wanted to write a +check then for the purchase price, for fear the opportunity might be +lost. I think there was then no purpose in his mind of building a +country home; but he foresaw that such a site, at no great distance from +New York, would become more valuable, and he had plenty of idle means. +The purchase was made without difficulty--a tract of seventy-five acres, +to which presently was added another tract of one hundred and ten acres, +and subsequently still other parcels of land, to complete the ownership +of the hilltop, for it was not long until he had conceived the idea of a +home. He was getting weary of the heavy pressure of city life. He +craved the retirement of solitude--one not too far from the maelstrom, so +that he might mingle with it now and then when he chose. The country +home would not be begun for another year yet, but the purpose of it was +already in the air. No one of the family had at this time seen the +location. + + + + +CCXLIV + +TRAITS AND PHILOSOPHIES + +I brought to the dictation one morning the Omar Khayyam card which +Twichell had written him so long ago; I had found it among the letters. +It furnished him a subject for that morning. He said: + + How strange there was a time when I had never heard of Omar Khayyam! + When that card arrived I had already read the dozen quatrains or so + in the morning paper, and was still steeped in the ecstasy of + delight which they occasioned. No poem had ever given me so much + pleasure before, and none has given me so much pleasure since. It + is the only poem I have ever carried about with me. It has not been + from under my hand all these years. + +He had no general fondness for poetry; but many poems appealed to him, +and on occasion he liked to read them aloud. Once, during the dictation, +some verses were sent up by a young authoress who was waiting below for +his verdict. The lines pictured a phase of negro life, and she wished to +know if he thought them worthy of being read at some Tuskegee ceremony. +He did not fancy the idea of attending to the matter just then and said: + +"Tell her she can read it. She has my permission. She may commit any +crime she wishes in my name." + +It was urged that the verses were of high merit and the author a very +charming young lady. + +"I'm very glad," he said, "and I am glad the Lord made her; I hope He +will make some more just like her. I don't always approve of His +handiwork, but in this case I do." + +Then suddenly he added: + +"Well, let me see it--no time like the present to get rid of these +things." + +He took the manuscript and gave such a rendition of those really fine +verses as I believe could not be improved upon. We were held breathless +by his dramatic fervor and power. He returned a message to that young +aspirant that must have made her heart sing. When the dictation had +ended that day, I mentioned his dramatic gift. + +"Yes," he said, "it is a gift, I suppose, like spelling and punctuation +and smoking. I seem to have inherited all those." Continuing, he spoke +of inherited traits in general. + +"There was Paige," he said; "an ignorant man who could not make a machine +himself that would stand up, nor draw the working plans for one; but he +invented the eighteen thousand details of the most wonderful machine the +world has ever known. He watched over the expert draftsmen, and +superintended the building of that marvel. Pratt & Whitney built it; but +it was Paige's machine, nevertheless--the child of his marvelous gift. +We don't create any of our traits; we inherit all of them. They have +come down to us from what we impudently call the lower animals. Man is +the last expression, and combines every attribute of the animal tribes +that preceded him. One or two conspicuous traits distinguish each family +of animals from the others, and those one or two traits are found in +every member of each family, and are so prominent as to eternally and +unchangeably establish the character of that branch of the animal world. +In these cases we concede that the several temperaments constitute a law +of God, a command of God, and that whatsoever is done in obedience to +that law is blameless. Man, in his evolution, inherited the whole sum of +these numerous traits, and with each trait its share of the law of God. +He widely differs from them in this: that he possesses not a single +characteristic that is equally prominent in each member of his race. You +can say the housefly is limitlessly brave, and in saying it you describe +the whole house-fly tribe; you can say the rabbit is limitlessly timid, +and by the phrase you describe the whole rabbit tribe; you can say the +spider and the tiger are limitlessly murderous, and by that phrase you +describe the whole spider and tiger tribes; you can say the lamb is +limitlessly innocent and sweet and gentle, and by that phrase you +describe all the lambs. There is hardly a creature that you cannot +definitely and satisfactorily describe by one single trait--except man. +Men are not all cowards like the rabbit, nor all brave like the house- +fly, nor all sweet and innocent and gentle like the lamb, nor all +murderous like the spider and the tiger and the wasp, nor all thieves +like the fox and the bluejay, nor all vain like the peacock, nor all +frisky like the monkey. These things are all in him somewhere, and they +develop according to the proportion of each he received in his allotment: +We describe a man by his vicious traits and condemn him; or by his fine +traits and gifts, and praise him and accord him high merit for their +possession. It is comical. He did not invent these things; he did not +stock himself with them. God conferred them upon him in the first +instant of creation. They constitute the law, and he could not escape +obedience to the decree any more than Paige could have built the type- +setter he invented, or the Pratt & Whitney machinists could have invented +the machine which they built." + +He liked to stride up and down, smoking as he talked, and generally his +words were slowly measured, with varying pauses between them. He halted +in the midst of his march, and without a suggestion of a smile added: + +"What an amusing creature the human being is!" + +It is absolutely impossible, of course, to preserve the atmosphere and +personality of such talks as this--the delicacies of his speech and +manner which carried an ineffable charm. It was difficult, indeed, to +record the substance. I did not know shorthand, and I should not have +taken notes at such times in any case; but I had trained myself in +similar work to preserve, with a fair degree of accuracy, the form of +phrase, and to some extent its wording, if I could get hold of pencil and +paper soon enough afterward. In time I acquired a sort of phonographic +faculty; though it always seemed to me that the bouquet, the subtleness +of speech, was lacking in the result. Sometimes, indeed, he would +dictate next morning the substance of these experimental reflections; or +I would find among his papers memoranda and fragmentary manuscripts where +he had set them down himself, either before or after he had tried them +verbally. In these cases I have not hesitated to amend my notes where it +seemed to lend reality to his utterance, though, even so, there is always +lacking--and must be--the wonder of his personality. + + + + +CCXLV + +IN THE DAY'S ROUND + +A number of dictations of this period were about Susy, her childhood, and +the biography she had written of him, most of which he included in his +chapters. More than once after such dictations he reproached himself +bitterly for the misfortunes of his house. He consoled himself a little +by saying that Susy had died at the right time, in the flower of youth +and happiness; but he blamed himself for the lack of those things which +might have made her childhood still more bright. Once he spoke of the +biography she had begun, and added: + +"Oh, I wish I had paid more attention to that little girl's work! If I +had only encouraged her now and then, what it would have meant to her, +and what a beautiful thing it would have been to have had her story of me +told in her own way, year after year! If I had shown her that I cared, +she might have gone on with it. We are always too busy for our children; +we never give them the time nor the interest they deserve. We lavish +gifts upon them; but the most precious gift-our personal association, +which means so much to them-we give grudgingly and throw it away on those +who care for it so little." Then, after a moment of silence: "But we are +repaid for it at last. There comes a time when we want their company and +their interest. We want it more than anything in the world, and we are +likely to be starved for it, just as they were starved so long ago. +There is no appreciation of my books that is so precious to me as +appreciation from my children. Theirs is the praise we want, and the +praise we are least likely to get." + +His moods of remorse seemed to overwhelm him at times. He spoke of +Henry's death and little Langdon's, and charged himself with both. +He declared that for years he had filled Mrs. Clemens's life with +privations, that the sorrow of Susy's death had hastened her own end. +How darkly he painted it! One saw the jester, who for forty years had +been making the world laugh, performing always before a background of +tragedy. + +But such moods were evanescent. He was oftener gay than somber. One +morning before we settled down to work he related with apparent joy how +he had made a failure of story-telling at a party the night before. An +artist had told him a yarn, he said, which he had considered the most +amusing thing in the world. But he had not been satisfied with it, and +had attempted to improve on it at the party. He had told it with what he +considered the nicest elaboration of detail and artistic effect, and when +he had concluded and expected applause, only a sickening silence had +followed. + +"A crowd like that can make a good deal of silence when they combine," he +said, "and it probably lasted as long as ten seconds, because it seemed +an hour and a half. Then a lady said, with evident feeling, 'Lord, how +pathetic!' For a moment I was stupefied. Then the fountains of my great +deeps were broken up, and I rained laughter for forty days and forty +nights during as much as three minutes. By that time I realized it was +my fault. I had overdone the thing. I started in to deceive them with +elaborate burlesque pathos, in order to magnify the humorous explosion at +the end; but I had constructed such a fog of pathos that when I got to +the humor you couldn't find it." + +He was likely to begin the morning with some such incident which perhaps +he did not think worth while to include in his dictations, and sometimes +he interrupted his dictations to relate something aside, or to outline +some plan or scheme which his thought had suggested. + +Once, when he was telling of a magazine he had proposed to start, the +Back Number, which was, to contain reprints of exciting events from +history--newspaper gleanings--eye-witness narrations, which he said never +lost their freshness of interest--he suddenly interrupted himself to +propose that we start such a magazine in the near future--he to be its +publisher and I its editor. I think I assented, and the dictation +proceeded, but the scheme disappeared permanently. + +He usually had a number of clippings or slips among the many books on the +bed beside him from which he proposed to dictate each day, but he seldom +could find the one most needed. Once, after a feverishly impatient +search for a few moments, he invited Miss Hobby to leave the room +temporarily, so, as he said, that he might swear. He got up and we began +to explore the bed, his profanity increasing amazingly with each moment. +It was an enormously large bed, and he began to disparage the size of it. + +"One could lose a dog in this bed," he declared. + +Finally I suggested that he turn over the clipping which he had in his +hand. He did so, and it proved to be the one he wanted. Its discovery +was followed by a period of explosions, only half suppressed as to +volume. Then he said: + +"There ought to be a room in this house to swear in. It's dangerous to +have to repress an emotion like that." + +A moment later, when Miss Hobby returned, he was serene and happy again. +He was usually gentle during the dictations, and patient with those +around him--remarkably so, I thought, as a rule. But there were moments +that involved risk. He had requested me to interrupt his dictation at +any time that I found him repeating or contradicting himself, or +misstating some fact known to me. At first I hesitated to do this, and +cautiously mentioned the matter when he had finished. Then he was likely +to say: + +"Why didn't you stop me? Why did you let me go on making a jackass of +myself when you could have saved me?" + +So then I used to take the risk of getting struck by lightning, and +nearly always stopped him at the time. But if it happened that I upset +his thought the thunderbolt was apt to fly. He would say: + +"Now you've knocked everything out of my head." + +Then, of course, I would apologize and say I was sorry, which would +rectify matters, though half an hour later it might happen again. I +became lightning-proof at last; also I learned better to select the +psychological moment for the correction. + +There was a humorous complexion to the dictations which perhaps I have +not conveyed to the reader at all; humor was his natural breath and life, +and was not wholly absent in his most somber intervals. + +But poetry was there as well. His presence was full of it: the grandeur +of his figure; the grace of his movement; the music of his measured +speech. Sometimes there were long pauses when he was wandering in +distant valleys of thought and did not speak at all. At such times he +had a habit of folding and refolding the sleeve of his dressing-gown +around his wrist, regarding it intently, as it seemed. His hands were so +fair and shapely; the palms and finger-tips as pink as those of a child. +Then when he spoke he was likely to fling back his great, white mane, his +eyes half closed yet showing a gleam of fire between the lids, his +clenched fist lifted, or his index-finger pointing, to give force and +meaning to his words. I cannot recall the picture too often, or remind +myself too frequently how precious it was to be there, and to see him and +to hear him. I do not know why I have not said before that he smoked +continually during these dictations--probably as an aid to thought-- +though he smoked at most other times, for that matter. His cigars were +of that delicious fragrance which characterizes domestic tobacco; but I +had learned early to take refuge in another brand when he offered me one. +They were black and strong and inexpensive, and it was only his early +training in the printing-office and on the river that had seasoned him to +tobacco of that temper. Rich, admiring friends used to send him +quantities of expensive imported cigars; but he seldom touched them, and +they crumbled away or were smoked by visitors. Once, to a minister who +proposed to send him something very special, he wrote: + + I should accept your hospitable offer at once but for the fact that + I couldn't do it and remain honest. That is to say, if I allowed + you to send me what you believed to be good cigars it would + distinctly mean that I meant to smoke them, whereas I should do + nothing of the kind. I know a good cigar better than you do, for I + have had 60 years' experience. + + No, that is not what I mean; I mean I know a bad cigar better than + anybody else. I judge by the price only; if it costs above 5 cents + I know it to be either foreign or half foreign & unsmokable--by me. + I have many boxes of Havana cigars, of all prices from 20 cents + apiece up to $1.66 apiece; I bought none of them, they were all + presents; they are an accumulation of several years. I have never + smoked one of them & never shall; I work them off on the visitor. + You shall have a chance when you come. + +He smoked a pipe a good deal, and he preferred it to be old and violent; +and once, when he had bought a new, expensive English brier-root he +regarded it doubtfully for a time, and then handed it over to me, saying: + +"I'd like to have you smoke that a year or two, and when it gets so you +can't stand it, maybe it will suit me." + +I am happy to add that subsequently he presented me with the pipe +altogether, for it apparently never seemed to get qualified for his +taste, perhaps because the tobacco used was too mild. + +One day, after the dictation, word was brought up that a newspaper man +was down-stairs who wished to see him concerning a report that Chauncey +Depew was to resign his Senatorial seat and Mark Twain was to be +nominated in his place. The fancy of this appealed to him, and the +reporter was allowed to come up. He was a young man, and seemed rather +nervous, and did not wish to state where the report had originated. His +chief anxiety was apparently to have Mark Twain's comment on the matter. +Clemens said very little at the time. He did not wish to be a Senator; +he was too busy just now dictating biography, and added that he didn't +think he would care for the job, anyway. When the reporter was gone, +however, certain humorous possibilities developed. The Senatorship would +be a stepping-stone to the Presidency, and with the combination of +humorist, socialist, and peace-patriot in the Presidential chair the +nation could expect an interesting time. Nothing further came of the +matter. There was no such report. The young newspaper man had invented +the whole idea to get a "story" out of Mark Twain. The item as printed +next day invited a good deal of comment, and Collier's Weekly made it a +text for an editorial on his mental vigor and general fitness for the +place. + +If it happened that he had no particular engagement for the afternoon, he +liked to walk out, especially when the pleasant weather came. Sometimes +we walked up Fifth Avenue, and I must admit that for a good while I could +not get rid of a feeling of self-consciousness, for most people turned to +look, though I was fully aware that I did not in the least come into +their scope of vision. They saw only Mark Twain. The feeling was a more +comfortably one at The Players, where we sometimes went for luncheon, for +the acquaintance there and the democracy of that institution had a +tendency to eliminate contrasts and incongruities. We sat at the Round +Table among those good fellows who were always so glad to welcome him. + +Once we went to the "Music Master," that tender play of Charles Klein's, +given by that matchless interpreter, David Warfield. Clemens was +fascinated, and said more than once: + +"It is as permanent as 'Rip Van Winkle.' Warfield, like Jefferson, can go +on playing it all his life." + +We went behind when it was over, and I could see that Warfield glowed +with Mark Twain's unstinted approval. Later, when I saw him at The +Players, he declared that no former compliment had ever made him so +happy. + +There were some billiard games going on between the champions Hoppe and +Sutton, at the Madison Square Garden, and Clemens, with his eager +fondness for the sport, was anxious to attend them. He did not like to +go anywhere alone, and one evening he invited me to accompany him. Just +as he stepped into the auditorium there was a vigorous round of applause. +The players stopped, somewhat puzzled, for no especially brilliant shot +had been made. Then they caught the figure of Mark Twain and realized +that the game, for the moment, was not the chief attraction. The +audience applauded again, and waved their handkerchiefs. Such a tribute +is not often paid to a private citizen. + +Clemens had a great admiration for the young champion Hoppe, which the +billiardist's extreme youth and brilliancy invited, and he watched his +game with intense eagerness. When it was over the referee said a few +words and invited Mark Twain to speak. He rose and told them a story- +probably invented on the instant. He said: + + "Once in Nevada I dropped into a billiard-room casually, and picked + up a cue and began to knock the balls around. The proprietor, who + was a red-haired man, with such hair as I have never seen anywhere + except on a torch, asked me if I would like to play. I said, 'Yes.' + He said, 'Knock the balls around a little and let me see how you can + shoot.' So I knocked them around, and thought I was doing pretty + well, when he said, 'That's all right; I'll play you left-handed.' + It hurt my pride, but I played him. We banked for the shot and he + won it. Then he commenced to play, and I commenced to chalk my cue + to get ready to play, and he went on playing, and I went on chalking + my cue; and he played and I chalked all through that game. When he + had run his string out I said: + + "That's wonderful! perfectly wonderful! If you can play that way + left-handed what could you do right-handed?' + + "'Couldn't do anything,' he said. 'I'm a left-handed man.'" + +How it delighted them! I think it was the last speech of any sort he +made that season. A week or two later he went to Dublin, New Hampshire, +for the summer--this time to the Upton House, which had been engaged a +year before, the Copley Greene place being now occupied by its owner. + + + + +CCXLVI + +THE SECOND SUMMER AT DUBLIN + +The Upton House stands on the edge of a beautiful beech forest some two +or three miles from Dublin, just under Monadnock--a good way up the +slope. It is a handsome, roomy frame-house, and had a long colonnaded +veranda overlooking one of the most beautiful landscape visions on the +planet: lake, forest, hill, and a far range of blue mountains--all the +handiwork of God is there. I had seen these things in paintings, but I +had not dreamed that such a view really existed. The immediate +foreground was a grassy slope, with ancient, blooming apple-trees; and +just at the right hand Monadnock rose, superb and lofty, sloping down to +the panorama below that stretched away, taking on an ever deeper blue, +until it reached that remote range on which the sky rested and the world +seemed to end. It was a masterpiece of the Greater Mind, and of the +highest order, perhaps, for it had in it nothing of the touch of man. A +church spire glinted here and there, but there was never a bit of field, +or stone wall, or cultivated land. It was lonely; it was unfriendly; it +cared nothing whatever for humankind; it was as if God, after creating +all the world, had wrought His masterwork here, and had been so engrossed +with the beauty of it that He had forgotten to give it a soul. In a +sense this was true, for He had not made the place suitable for the +habitation of men. It lacked the human touch; the human interest, and I +could never quite believe in its reality. + +The time of arrival heightened this first impression. It was mid-May and +the lilacs were prodigally in bloom; but the bright sunlight was chill +and unnatural, and there was a west wind that laid the grass flat and +moaned through the house, and continued as steadily as if it must never +stop from year's end to year's end. It seemed a spectral land, a place +of supernatural beauty. Warm, still, languorous days would come, but +that first feeling of unreality would remain permanent. I believe Jean +Clemens was the only one who ever really loved the place. Something +about it appealed to her elemental side and blended with her melancholy +moods. She dressed always in white, and she was tall and pale and +classically beautiful, and she was often silent, like a spirit. She had +a little retreat for herself farther up the mountain-side, and spent most +of her days there wood-carving, which was her chief diversion. + +Clara Clemens did not come to the place at all. She was not yet strong, +and went to Norfolk, Connecticut, where she could still be in quiet +retirement and have her physician's care. Miss Hobby came, and on the +21st of May the dictations were resumed. We began in his bedroom, as +before, but the feeling there was depressing--the absence of the great +carved bed and other furnishings, which had been so much a part of the +picture, was felt by all of us. Nothing of the old luxury and richness +was there. It was a summer-furnished place, handsome but with the +customary bareness. At the end of this first session he dressed in his +snowy flannels, which he had adopted in the place of linen for summer +wear, and we descended to the veranda and looked out over that wide, +wonderful expanse of scenery. + +"I think I shall like it," he said, "when I get acquainted with it, and +get it classified and labeled, and I think we'll do our dictating out +here hereafter. It ought to be an inspiring place." + +So the dictations were transferred to the long veranda, and he was +generally ready for them, a white figure pacing up and down before that +panoramic background. During the earlier, cooler weeks he usually +continued walking with measured step during the dictations, pausing now +and then to look across the far-lying horizon. When it stormed we moved +into the great living-room, where at one end there was a fireplace with +blazing logs, and at the other the orchestrelle, which had once more been +freighted up those mountain heights for the comfort of its harmonies. +Sometimes, when the wind and rain were beating outside, and he was +striding up and down the long room within, with only the blurred shapes +of mountains and trees outlined through the trailing rain, the feeling of +the unreality became so strong that it was hard to believe that somewhere +down below, beyond the rain and the woods, there was a literal world--a +commonplace world, where the ordinary things of life were going on in the +usual way. When the dictation finished early, there would be music--the +music that he loved most--Beethoven's symphonies, or the Schubert +impromptu, or the sonata by Chopin.--[Schubert, Op. 142, No. 2; Chopin, +Op. 37, No. 2.]-- It is easy to understand that this carried one a remove +farther from the customary things of life. It was a setting far out of +the usual, though it became that unique white figure and his occupation. +In my notes, made from day to day, I find that I have set down more than +once an impression of the curious unreality of the place and its +surroundings, which would show that it was not a mere passing fancy. + +I had lodgings in the village, and drove out mornings for the dictations, +but often came out again afoot on pleasant afternoons; for he was not +much occupied with social matters, and there was opportunity for quiet, +informing interviews. There was a woods path to the Upton place, and it +was a walk through a fairyland. A part of the way was through such a +growth of beech timber as I have never seen elsewhere: tall, straight, +mottled trees with an undergrowth of laurel, the sunlight sifting +through; one found it easy to expect there storybook ladies, wearing +crowns and green mantles, riding on white palfreys. Then came a more +open way, an abandoned grass-grown road full of sunlight and perfume; and +this led to a dim, religious place, a natural cathedral, where the +columns were stately pine-trees branching and meeting at the top: a +veritable temple in which it always seemed that music was about to play. +You crossed a brook and climbed a little hill, and pushed through a hedge +into a place more open, and the house stood there among the trees. + +The days drifted along, one a good deal like another, except, as the +summer deepened, the weather became warmer, the foliage changed, a drowsy +haze gathered along the valleys and on the mountain-side. He sat more +often now in a large rocking-chair, and generally seemed to be looking +through half-dosed lids toward the Monadnock heights, that were always +changing in aspect-in color and in form--as cloud shapes drifted by or +gathered in those lofty hollows. White and yellow butterflies hovered +over the grass, and there were some curious, large black ants--the +largest I have ever seen and quite harmless--that would slip in and out +of the cracks on the veranda floor, wholly undisturbed by us. Now and +then a light flutter of wind would come murmuring up from the trees +below, and when the apple-bloom was falling there would be a whirl of +white and pink petals that seemed a cloud of smaller butterflies. + +On June 1st I find in my note-book this entry: + + Warm and pleasant. The dictation about Grant continues; a great + privilege to hear this foremost man, of letters review his + associations with that foremost man of arms. He remained seated + today, dressed in white as usual, a large yellow pansy in his + buttonhole, his white hair ruffled by the breeze. He wears his worn + morocco slippers with black hose; sits in the rocker, smoking and + looking out over the hazy hills, delivering his sentences with a + measured accuracy that seldom calls for change. He is speaking just + now of a Grant dinner which he attended where Depew spoke. One is + impressed with the thought that we are looking at and listening to + the war-worn veteran of a thousand dinners--the honored guest of + many; an honored figure of all. Earlier, when he had been + chastising some old offender, he added, "However, he's dead, and I + forgive him." Then, after a moment's reflection, "No; strike that + last sentence out." When we laughed, he added, "We can't forgive + him yet." + +A few days later--it was June 4th, the day before the second anniversary +of the death of Mrs. Clemens--we found him at first in excellent humor +from the long dictation of the day before. Then his mind reverted to the +tragedy of the season, and he began trying to tell of it. It was hard +work. He walked back and forth in the soft sunlight, saying almost +nothing. He gave it up at last, remarking, "We will not work to-morrow." +So we went away. + +He did not dictate on the 5th or the 6th, but on the 7th he resumed the +story of Mrs. Clemens's last days at Florence. The weather had changed: +the sunlight and warmth had all gone; a chill, penetrating mist was on +the mountains; Monadnock was blotted out. We expected him to go to the +fire, but evidently he could not bear being shut in with that subject in +his mind. A black cape was brought out and thrown about his shoulders, +which seemed to fit exactly into the somberness of the picture. For two +hours or more we sat there in the gloom and chill, while he paced up and +down, detailing as graphically as might be that final chapter in the life +of the woman he had loved. + +It is hardly necessary to say that beyond the dictation Clemens did very +little literary work during these months. He had brought his "manuscript +trunk" as usual, thinking, perhaps, to finish the "microbe" story and +other of the uncompleted things; but the dictation gave him sufficient +mental exercise, and he did no more than look over his "stock in trade," +as he called it, and incorporate a few of the finished manuscripts into +"autobiography." Among these were the notes of his trip down the Rhone, +made in 1891, and the old Stormfield story, which he had been treasuring +and suppressing so long. He wrote Howells in June: + + The dictating goes lazily and pleasantly on. With intervals. I + find that I've been at it, off & on, nearly two hours for 155 days + since January 9. To be exact, I've dictated 75 hours in 8o days & + loafed 75 days. I've added 60,000 words in the month that I've been + here; which indicates that I've dictated during 20 days of that + time--40 hours, at an average of 1,500 words an hour. It's a + plenty, & I'm satisfied. + + There's a good deal of "fat." I've dictated (from January 9) + 210,000 words, & the "fat" adds about 50,000 more. + + The "fat" is old pigeonholed things of the years gone by which I or + editors didn't das't to print. For instance, I am dumping in the + little old book which I read to you in Hartford about 30 years ago & + which you said "publish & ask Dean Stanley to furnish an + introduction; he'll do it" (Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven). + It reads quite to suit me without altering a word now that it isn't + to see print until I am dead. + + To-morrow I mean to dictate a chapter which will get my heirs & + assigns burned alive if they venture to print it this side of A.D. + 2006--which I judge they won't. There'll be lots of such chapters + if I live 3 or 4 years longer. The edition of A.D. 2006 will make a + stir when it comes out. I shall be hovering around taking notice, + along with other dead pals. You are invited. + +The chapter which was to invite death at the stake for his successors was +naturally one of religious heresies a violent attack on the orthodox, +scriptural God, but really an expression of the highest reverence for the +God which, as he said, had created the earth and sky and the music of the +constellations. Mark Twain once expressed himself concerning reverence +and the lack of it: + +"I was never consciously and purposely irreverent in my life, yet one +person or another is always charging me with a lack of reverence. +Reverence for what--for whom? Who is to decide what ought to command my +reverence--my neighbor or I? I think I ought to do the electing myself. +The Mohammedan reveres Mohammed--it is his privilege; the Christian +doesn't--apparently that is his privilege; the account is square enough. +They haven't any right to complain of the other, yet they do complain of +each other, and that is where the unfairness comes in. Each says that +the other is irreverent, and both are mistaken, for manifestly you can't +have reverence for a thing that doesn't command it. If you could do that +you could digest what you haven't eaten, and do other miracles and get a +reputation." + +He was not reading many books at this time--he was inclined rather to be +lazy, as he said, and to loaf during the afternoons; but I remember that +he read aloud 'After the Wedding' and 'The Mother'--those two beautiful +word-pictures by Howells--which he declared sounded the depths of +humanity with a deep-sea lead. Also he read a book by William Allen +White, 'In Our Town', a collection of tales that he found most admirable. +I think he took the trouble to send White a personal, hand-written letter +concerning them, although, with the habit of dictation, he had begun, as +he said, to "loathe the use of the pen." + +There were usually some sort of mild social affairs going on in the +neighborhood, luncheons and afternoon gatherings like those of the +previous year, though he seems to have attended fewer of them, for he did +not often leave the house. Once, at least, he assisted in an afternoon +entertainment at the Dublin Club, where he introduced his invention of +the art of making an impromptu speech, and was assisted in its +demonstration by George de Forest Brush and Joseph Lindon Smith, to the +very great amusement of a crowd of summer visitors. The "art" consisted +mainly of having on hand a few reliable anecdotes and a set formula which +would lead directly to them from any given subject. + +Twice or more he collected the children of the neighborhood for charades +and rehearsed them, and took part in the performance, as in the Hartford +days. Sometimes he drove out or took an extended walk. But these things +were seldom. + +Now and then during the summer he made a trip to New York of a semi- +business nature, usually going by the way of Fairhaven, where he would +visit for a few days, journeying the rest of the way in Mr. Rogers's +yacht. Once they made a cruise of considerable length to Bar Harbor and +elsewhere. Here is an amusing letter which he wrote to Mrs. Rogers after +such a visit: + + DEAR MRS. ROGERS,--In packing my things in your house yesterday + morning I inadvertently put in some articles that was laying around, + I thinking about theology & not noticing, the way this family does + in similar circumstances like these. Two books, Mr. Rogers' brown + slippers, & a ham. I thought it was ourn, it looks like one we used + to have. I am very sorry it happened, but it sha'n't occur again & + don't you worry. He will temper the wind to the shorn lamb & I will + send some of the things back anyway if there is some that won't + keep. + + + + +CCXLVI + +DUBLIN, CONTINUED + +In time Mark Twain became very lonely in Dublin. After the brilliant +winter the contrast was too great. He was not yet ready for exile. In +one of his dictations he said: + + The skies are enchantingly blue. The world is a dazzle of sunshine. + Monadnock is closer to us than usual by several hundred yards. The + vast extent of spreading valley is intensely green--the lakes as + intensely blue. And there is a new horizon, a remoter one than we + have known before, for beyond the mighty half-circle of hazy + mountains that form the usual frame of the picture rise certain + shadowy great domes that are unfamiliar to our eyes . . . . + + But there is a defect--only one, but it is a defect which almost + entitles it to be spelled with a capital D. This is the defect of + loneliness. We have not a single neighbor who is a neighbor. + Nobody lives within two miles of us except Franklin MacVeagh, and he + is the farthest off of any, because he is in Europe . . . . + + I feel for Adam and Eve now, for I know how it was with them. I am + existing, broken-hearted, in a Garden of Eden.... The Garden of + Eden I now know was an unendurable solitude. I know that the advent + of the serpent was a welcome change--anything for society . . . . + + I never rose to the full appreciation of the utter solitude of this + place until a symbol of it--a compact and visible allegory of it-- + furnished me the lacking lift three days ago. I was standing alone + on this veranda, in the late afternoon, mourning over the stillness, + the far-spreading, beautiful desolation, and the absence of visible + life, when a couple of shapely and graceful deer came sauntering + across the grounds and stopped, and at their leisure impudently + looked me over, as if they had an idea of buying me as bric-a-brac. + Then they seemed to conclude that they could do better for less + money elsewhere, and they sauntered indolently away and disappeared + among the trees. It sized up this solitude. It is so complete, so + perfect, that even the wild animals are satisfied with it. Those + dainty creatures were not in the least degree afraid of me. + +This was no more than a mood--though real enough while it lasted--somber, +and in its way regal. It was the loneliness of a king--King Lear. Yet +he returned gladly enough to solitude after each absence. + +It was just before one of his departures that I made another set of +pictures of him, this time on the colonnaded veranda, where his figure +had become so familiar. He had determined to have his hair cut when he +reached New York, and I was anxious to get the pictures before this +happened. When the proofs came seven of them--he arranged them as a +series to illustrate what he called "The Progress of a Moral Purpose." +He ordered a number of sets of this series, and he wrote a legend on each +photograph, numbering them from 1 to 7, laying each set in a sheet of +letter-paper which formed a sort of wrapper, on which was written: + + This series of q photographs registers with scientific precision, + stage by stage, the progress of a moral purpose through the + mind of the human race's Oldest Friend. S. L. C. + +He added a personal inscription, and sent one to each of his more +intimate friends. One of the pictures amused him more than the others, +because during the exposure a little kitten, unnoticed, had walked into +it, and paused near his foot. He had never outgrown his love for cats, +and he had rented this kitten and two others for the summer from a +neighbor. He didn't wish to own them, he said, for then he would have to +leave them behind uncared for, so he preferred to rent them and pay +sufficiently to insure their subsequent care. These kittens he called +Sackcloth and Ashes--Ashes being the joint name of the two that looked +exactly alike, and so did not need distinctive titles. Their gambols +always amused him. He would stop any time in the midst of dictation to +enjoy them. Once, as he was about to enter the screen-door that led into +the hall, two of the kittens ran up in front of him and stood waiting. +With grave politeness he opened the door, made a low bow, and stepped +back and said: "Walk in, gentlemen. I always give precedence to +royalty." And the kittens marched in, tails in air. All summer long +they played up and down the wide veranda, or chased grasshoppers and +butterflies down the clover slope. It was a never-ending amusement to +him to see them jump into the air after some insect, miss it and tumble +back, and afterward jump up, with a surprised expression and a look of +disappointment and disgust. I remember once, when he was walking up and +down discussing some very serious subject--and one of the kittens was +lying on the veranda asleep--a butterfly came drifting along three feet +or so above the floor. The kitten must have got a glimpse of the insect +out of the corner of its eye, and perhaps did not altogether realize its +action. At all events, it suddenly shot straight up into the air, +exactly like a bounding rubber ball, missed the butterfly, fell back on +the porch floor with considerable force and with much surprise. Then it +sprang to its feet, and, after spitting furiously once or twice, bounded +away. Clemens had seen the performance, and it completely took his +subject out of his mind. He laughed extravagantly, and evidently cared +more for that moment's entertainment than for many philosophies. + +In that remote solitude there was one important advantage--there was no +procession of human beings with axes to grind, and few curious callers. +Occasionally an automobile would find its way out there and make a +circuit of the drive, but this happened too seldom to annoy him. Even +newspaper men rarely made the long trip from Boston or New York to secure +his opinions, and when they came it was by permission and appointment. +Newspaper telegrams arrived now and then, asking for a sentiment on some +public condition or event, and these he generally answered willingly +enough. When the British Premier, Campbell-Bannerman, celebrated his +seventieth birthday, the London Tribune and the New York Herald requested +a tribute. He furnished it, for Bannerman was a very old friend. He had +known him first at Marienbad in '91, and in Vienna in '98, in daily +intercourse, when they had lived at the same hotel. His tribute ran: + +To HIS EXCELLENCY THE BRITISH PREMIER,--Congratulations, not condolences. +Before seventy we are merely respected, at best, and we have to behave +all the time, or we lose that asset; but after seventy we are respected, +esteemed, admired, revered, and don't have to behave unless we want to. +When I first knew you, Honored Sir, one of us was hardly even respected. + MARK TWAIN. + +He had some misgivings concerning the telegram after it had gone, but he +did not recall it. + +Clemens became the victim of a very clever hoax that summer. One day a +friend gave him two examples of the most deliciously illiterate letters, +supposed to have been written by a woman who had contributed certain +articles of clothing to the San Francisco sufferers, and later wished to +recall them because of the protests of her household. He was so sure +that the letters were genuine that he included them in his dictations, +after reading them aloud with great effect. To tell the truth, they did +seem the least bit too well done, too literary in their illiteracy; but +his natural optimism refused to admit of any suspicion, and a little +later he incorporated one of the Jennie Allen letters in a speech which +he made at a Press Club dinner in New York on the subject of simplified +spelling--offering it as an example of language with phonetic brevity +exercising its supreme function, the direct conveyance of ideas. The +letters, in the end, proved to be the clever work of Miss Grace Donworth, +who has since published them serially and in book form. Clemens was not +at all offended or disturbed by the exposure. He even agreed to aid the +young author in securing a publisher, and wrote to Miss Stockbridge, +through whom he had originally received the documents: + + DEAR MISS STOCKBRIDGE (if she really exists), + + 257 Benefit Street (if there is any such place): + + Yes, I should like a copy of that other letter. This whole fake is + delightful; & I tremble with fear that you are a fake yourself & + that I am your guileless prey. (But never mind, it isn't any + matter.) + + Now as to publication---- + +He set forth his views and promised his assistance when enough of the +letters should be completed. + +Clemens allowed his name to be included with the list of spelling +reformers, but he never employed any of the reforms in his letters or +writing. His interest was mainly theoretical, and when he wrote or spoke +on the subject his remarks were not likely to be testimonials in its +favor. His own theory was that the alphabet needed reform, first of all, +so that each letter or character should have one sound, and one sound +only; and he offered as a solution of this an adaptation of shorthand. +He wrote and dictated in favor of this idea to the end of his life. Once +he said: + +"Our alphabet is pure insanity. It can hardly spell any large word in +the English language with any degree of certainty. Its sillinesses are +quite beyond enumeration. English orthography may need reforming and +simplifying, but the English alphabet needs it a good many times as +much." + +He would naturally favor simplicity in anything. I remember him reading, +as an example of beautiful English, The Death of King Arthur, by Sir +Thomas Malory, and his verdict: + +"That is one of the most beautiful things ever written in English, and +written when we had no vocabulary." + +"A vocabulary, then, is sometimes a handicap?" + +"It is indeed." + +Still I think it was never a handicap with him, but rather the plumage of +flight. Sometimes, when just the right word did not come, he would turn +his head a little at different angles, as if looking about him for the +precise term. He would find it directly, and it was invariably the word +needed. Most writers employ, now and again, phrases that do not sharply +present the idea--that blur the picture like a poor opera-glass. Mark +Twain's English always focused exactly. + + + + +CCXLVIII + +"WHAT IS MAN?" AND THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY + +Clemens decided to publish anonymously, or, rather, to print privately, +the Gospel, which he had written in Vienna some eight years before and +added to from time to time. He arranged with Frank Doubleday to take +charge of the matter, and the De Vinne Press was engaged to do the work. +The book was copyrighted in the name of J. W. Bothwell, the +superintendent of the De Vinne company, and two hundred and fifty +numbered copies were printed on hand-made paper, to be gradually +distributed to intimate friends. --[In an introductory word (dated +February, 1905) the author states that the studies for these papers had +been made twenty-five or twenty-seven years before. He probably referred +to the Monday Evening Club essay, "What Is Happiness?" (February, 1883). +See chap. cxli.]-- A number of the books were sent to newspaper +reviewers, and so effectually had he concealed the personality of his +work that no critic seems to have suspected the book's authorship. It +was not over-favorably received. It was generally characterized as a +clever, and even brilliant, expose of philosophies which were no longer +startlingly new. The supremacy of self-interest and "man the +irresponsible machine" are the main features of 'What Is Man' and both of +these and all the rest are comprehended in his wider and more absolute +doctrine of that inevitable life-sequence which began with the first +created spark. There can be no training of the ideals, "upward and still +upward," no selfishness and unselfishness, no atom of voluntary effort +within the boundaries of that conclusion. Once admitting the postulate, +that existence is merely a sequence of cause and effect beginning with +the primal atom, and we have a theory that must stand or fall as a whole. +We cannot say that man is a creature of circumstance and then leave him +free to select his circumstance, even in the minutest fractional degree. +It was selected for him with his disposition; in that first instant of +created life. Clemens himself repeatedly emphasized this doctrine, and +once, when it was suggested to him that it seemed to "surround every +thing, like the sky," he answered: + +"Yes, like the sky; you can't break through anywhere." + +Colonel Harvey came to Dublin that summer and persuaded Clemens to let +him print some selections from the dictations in the new volume of the +North American Review, which he proposed to issue fortnightly. The +matter was discussed a good deal, and it was believed that one hundred +thousand words could be selected which would be usable forthwith, as well +as in that long-deferred period for which it was planned. Colonel Harvey +agreed to take a copy of the dictated matter and make the selections +himself, and this plan was carried out. It may be said that most of the +chapters were delightful enough; though, had it been possible to edit +them with the more positive documents as a guide, certain complications +might have been avoided. It does not matter now, and it was not a matter +of very wide import then. + +The payment of these chapters netted Clemens thirty thousand dollars--a +comfortable sum, which he promptly proposed to spend in building on the +property at Redding. He engaged John Mead Howells to prepare some +preliminary plans. + +Clara Clemens, at Norfolk, was written to of the matter. + +A little later I joined her in Redding, and she was the first of the +family to see that beautiful hilltop. She was well pleased with the +situation, and that day selected the spot where the house should stand. +Clemens wrote Howells that he proposed to call it "Autobiography House," +as it was to be built out of the Review money, and he said: + +"If you will build on my farm and live there it will set Mrs. Howells's +health up for sure. Come and I'll sell you the site for twenty-five +dollars. John will tell you it is a choice place." + +The unusual summer was near its close. In my notebook, under date of +September 16th, appears this entry: + + Windy in valleys but not cold. This veranda is protected. It is + peaceful here and perfect, but we are at the summer's end. + +This is my last entry, and the dictations must have ceased a few days +later. I do not remember the date of the return to New York, and +apparently I made no record of it; but I do not think it could have been +later than the 20th. It had been four months since the day of arrival, a +long, marvelous summer such as I would hardly know again. When I think +of that time I shall always hear the ceaseless slippered, shuffling walk, +and see the white figure with its rocking, rolling movement passing up +and down the long gallery, with that preternaturally beautiful landscape +behind, and I shall hear his deliberate speech--always deliberate, save +at rare intervals; always impressive, whatever the subject might be; +whether recalling some old absurdity of youth, or denouncing orthodox +creeds, or detailing the shortcomings of human-kind. + + + + +CCXLIX + +BILLIARDS + +The return to New York marked the beginning of a new era in my relations +with Mark Twain. I have not meant to convey up to this time that there +was between us anything resembling a personal friendship. Our relations +were friendly, certainly, but they were relations of convenience and +mainly of a business, or at least of a literary nature. He was twenty- +six years my senior, and the discrepancy of experience and attainments +was not measurable. With such conditions friendship must be a deliberate +growth; something there must be to bridge the dividing gulf. Truth +requires the confession that, in this case, the bridge took a very solid, +material form, it being, in fact, nothing less than a billiard-table.-- +[Clemens had been without a billiard-table since 1891, the old one having +been disposed of on the departure from Hartford.] + +It was a present from Mrs. Henry H. Rogers, and had been intended for +his Christmas; but when he heard of it he could not wait, and suggested +delicately that if he had it "right now" he could begin using it sooner. +So he went one day with Mr. Rogers to the Balke-Collender Company, and +they selected a handsome combination table suitable to all games--the +best that money could buy. He was greatly excited over the prospect, and +his former bedroom was carefully measured, to be certain that it was +large enough for billiard purposes. Then his bed was moved into the +study, and the bookcases and certain appropriate pictures were placed and +hung in the billiard-room to give it the proper feeling. + +The billiard-table arrived and was put in place, the brilliant green +cloth in contrast with the rich red wallpaper and the bookbindings and +pictures making the room wonderfully handsome and inviting. + +Meantime, Clemens, with one of his sudden impulses, had conceived the +notion of spending the winter in Egypt, on the Nile. He had gone so far, +within a few hours after the idea developed, as to plan the time of his +departure, and to partially engage a traveling secretary, so that he +might continue his dictations. He was quite full of the idea just at the +moment when the billiard table was being installed. He had sent for a +book on the subject--the letters of Lady Duff-Gordon, whose daughter, +Janet Ross, had become a dear friend in Florence during the Viviani days. +He spoke of this new purpose on the morning when we renewed the New York +dictations, a month or more following the return from Dublin. When the +dictation ended he said: + +"Have you any special place to lunch to-day?" + +I replied that I had not. + +"Lunch here," he said, "and we'll try the new billiard-table." + +I said what was eminently true--that I could not play--that I had never +played more "than a few games of pool, and those very long ago. + +"No matter," he answered; "the poorer you play, the better I shall like +it." + +So I remained for luncheon and we began, November 2d, the first game ever +played on the Christmas table. We played the English game, in which +caroms and pockets both count. I had a beginner's luck, on the whole, +and I remember it as a riotous, rollicking game, the beginning of a +closer understanding between us--of a distinct epoch in our association. +When it was ended he said: + +"I'm not going to Egypt. There was a man here yesterday afternoon who +said it was bad for bronchitis, and, besides, it's too far away from this +billiard-table." + +He suggested that I come back in the evening and play some more. I did +so, and the game lasted until after midnight. He gave me odds, of +course, and my "nigger luck," as he called it, continued. It kept him +sweating and swearing feverishly to win. Finally, once I made a great +fluke--a carom, followed by most of the balls falling into the pockets. + +"Well," he said, "when you pick up that cue this damn table drips at +every pore." + +After that the morning dictations became a secondary interest. Like a +boy, he was looking forward to the afternoon of play, and it never seemed +to come quick enough to suit him. I remained regularly for luncheon, and +he was inclined to cut the courses short, that he might the sooner get +up-stairs to the billiard-room. His earlier habit of not eating in the +middle of the day continued; but he would get up and dress, and walk +about the dining-room in his old fashion, talking that marvelous, +marvelous talk which I was always trying to remember, and with only +fractional success at best. To him it was only a method of killing time. +I remember once, when he had been discussing with great earnestness the +Japanese question, he suddenly noticed that the luncheon was about +ending, and he said: + +"Now we'll proceed to more serious matters--it's your--shot." And he was +quite serious, for the green cloth and the rolling balls afforded him a +much larger interest. + +To the donor of his new possession Clemens wrote: + + DEAR MRS. ROGERS,-- The billiard-table is better than the doctors. + I have a billiardist on the premises, & walk not less than ten miles + every day with the cue in my hand. And the walking is not the whole + of the exercise, nor the most health giving part of it, I think. + Through the multitude of the positions and attitudes it brings into + play every muscle in the body & exercises them all. + + The games begin right after luncheons, daily, & continue until + midnight, with 2 hours' intermission for dinner & music. And so it + is 9 hours' exercise per day & 10 or 12 on Sunday. Yesterday & last + night it was 12--& I slept until 8 this morning without waking. The + billiard-table as a Sabbath-breaker can beat any coal-breaker in + Pennsylvania & give it 30 in the game. If Mr. Rogers will take to + daily billiards he can do without the doctors & the massageur, I + think. + + We are really going to build a house on my farm, an hour & a half + from New York. It is decided. + + With love & many thanks. + S. L. C. + +Naturally enough, with continued practice I improved my game, and he +reduced my odds accordingly. He was willing to be beaten, but not too +often. Like any other boy, he preferred to have the balance in his +favor. We set down a record of the games, and he went to bed happier if +the tally-sheet showed him winner. + +It was natural, too, that an intimacy of association and of personal +interest should grow under such conditions--to me a precious boon--and I +wish here to record my own boundless gratitude to Mrs. Rogers for her +gift, which, whatever it meant to him, meant so much more to me. The +disparity of ages no longer existed; other discrepancies no longer +mattered. The pleasant land of play is a democracy where such things do +not count. + +To recall all the humors and interesting happenings of those early +billiard-days would be to fill a large volume. I can preserve no more +than a few characteristic phases. + +He was not an even-tempered player. When the balls were perverse in +their movements and his aim unsteady, he was likely to become short with +his opponent--critical and even fault-finding. Then presently a reaction +would set in, and he would be seized with remorse. He would become +unnecessarily gentle and kindly--even attentive--placing the balls as I +knocked them into the pockets, hurrying from one end of the table to +render this service, endeavoring to show in every way except by actual +confession in words that he was sorry for what seemed to him, no doubt, +an unworthy display of temper, unjustified irritation. + +Naturally, this was a mood that I enjoyed less than that which had +induced it. I did not wish him to humble himself; I was willing that he +should be severe, even harsh, if he felt so inclined; his age, his +position, his genius entitled him to special privileges; yet I am glad, +as I remember it now, that the other side revealed itself, for it +completes the sum of his great humanity. + +Indeed, he was always not only human, but superhuman; not only a man, but +superman. Nor does this term apply only to his psychology. In no other +human being have I ever seen such physical endurance. I was +comparatively a young man, and by no means an invalid; but many a time, +far in the night, when I was ready to drop with exhaustion, he was still +as fresh and buoyant and eager for the game as at the moment of +beginning. He smoked and smoked continually, and followed the endless +track around the billiard-table with the light step of youth. At three +or four o'clock in the morning he would urge just one more game, and +would taunt me for my weariness. I can truthfully testify that never +until the last year of his life did he willingly lay down the billiard- +cue, or show the least suggestion of fatigue. + +He played always at high pressure. Now and then, in periods of +adversity, he would fly into a perfect passion with things in general. +But, in the end, it was a sham battle, and he saw the uselessness and +humor of it, even in the moment of his climax. Once, when he found it +impossible to make any of his favorite shots, he became more and more +restive, the lightning became vividly picturesque as the clouds +blackened. Finally, with a regular thunder-blast, he seized the cue with +both hands and literally mowed the balls across the table, landing one or +two of them on the floor. I do not recall his exact remarks during the +performance; I was chiefly concerned in getting out of the way, and those +sublime utterances were lost. I gathered up the balls and we went on +playing as if nothing had happened, only he was very gentle and sweet, +like the sun on the meadows after the storm has passed by. After a +little he said: + +"This is a most amusing game. When you play badly it amuses me, and when +I play badly and lose my temper it certainly must amuse you." + +His enjoyment of his opponent's perplexities was very keen. When he had +left the balls in some unfortunate position which made it almost +impossible for me to score he would laugh boisterously. I used to affect +to be injured and disturbed by this ridicule. Once, when he had made the +conditions unusually hard for me, and was enjoying the situation +accordingly, I was tempted to remark: + +"Whenever I see you laugh at a thing like that I always doubt your sense +of humor." Which seemed to add to his amusement. + +Sometimes, when the balls were badly placed for me, he would offer +ostensible advice, suggesting that I should shoot here and there--shots +that were possible, perhaps, but not promising. Often I would follow his +advice, and then when I failed to score his amusement broke out afresh. + +Other billiardists came from time to time: Colonel Harvey, Mr. Duneka, +and Major Leigh, of the Harper Company, and Peter Finley Dunne (Mr. +Dooley); but they were handicapped by their business affairs, and were +not dependable for daily and protracted sessions. Any number of his +friends were willing, even eager, to come for his entertainment; but the +percentage of them who could and would devote a number of hours each day +to being beaten at billiards and enjoy the operation dwindled down to a +single individual. Even I could not have done it--could not have +afforded it, however much I might have enjoyed the diversion--had it not +been contributory to my work. To me the association was invaluable; it +drew from him a thousand long-forgotten incidents; it invited a stream of +picturesque comments and philosophies; it furnished the most intimate +insight into his character. + +He was not always glad to see promiscuous callers, even some one that he +might have met pleasantly elsewhere. One afternoon a young man whom he +had casually invited to "drop in some day in town" happened to call in +the midst of a very close series of afternoon games. It would all have +been well enough if the visitor had been content to sit quietly on the +couch and "bet on the game," as Clemens suggested, after the greetings +were over; but he was a very young man, and he felt the necessity of +being entertaining. He insisted on walking about the room and getting in +the way, and on talking about the Mark Twain books he had read, and the +people he had met from time to time who had known Mark Twain on the +river, or on the Pacific coast, or elsewhere. I knew how fatal it was +for him to talk to Clemens during his play, especially concerning matters +most of which had been laid away. I trembled for our visitor. If I +could have got his ear privately I should have said: "For heaven's sake +sit down and keep still or go away! There's going to be a combination of +earthquake and cyclone and avalanche if you keep this thing up." + +I did what I could. I looked at my watch every other minute. At last, +in desperation, I suggested that I retire from the game and let the +visitor have my cue. I suppose I thought this would eliminate an element +of danger. He declined on the ground that he seldom played, and +continued his deadly visit. I have never been in an atmosphere so +fraught with danger. I did not know how the game stood, and I played +mechanically and forgot to count the score. Clemens's face was grim and +set and savage. He no longer ventured even a word. By and by I noticed +that he was getting white, and I said, privately, "Now, this young man's +hour has come." + +It was certainly by the mercy of God just then that the visitor said: + +"I'm sorry, but I've got to go. I'd like to stay longer, but I've got an +engagement for dinner." + +I don't remember how he got out, but I know that tons lifted as the door +closed behind him. Clemens made his shot, then very softly said: + +"If he had stayed another five minutes I should have offered him twenty- +five cents to go." + +But a moment later he glared at me. + +"Why in nation did you offer him your cue?" + +"Wasn't that the courteous thing to do?" I asked. + +"No!" he ripped out. "The courteous and proper thing would have been to +strike him dead. Did you want to saddle that disaster upon us for life?" + +He was blowing off steam, and I knew it and encouraged it. My impulse +was to lie down on the couch and shout with hysterical laughter, but I +suspected that would be indiscreet. He made some further comment on the +propriety of offering a visitor a cue, and suddenly began to sing a +travesty of an old hymn: + + "How tedious are they + Who their sovereign obey," + +and so loudly that I said: + +"Aren't you afraid he'll hear you and come back?" Whereupon he pretended +alarm and sang under his breath, and for the rest of the evening was in +boundless good-humor. + +I have recalled this incident merely as a sample of things that were +likely to happen at any time in his company, and to show the difficulty +one might find in fitting himself to his varying moods. He was not to be +learned in a day, or a week, or a month; some of those who knew him +longest did not learn him at all. + +We celebrated his seventy-first birthday by playing billiards all day. +He invented a new game for the occasion; inventing rules for it with +almost every shot. + +It happened that no member of the family was at home on this birthday. +Ill health had banished every one, even the secretary. Flowers, +telegrams, and congratulations came, and there was a string of callers; +but he saw no one beyond some intimate friends--the Gilders--late in the +afternoon. When they had gone we went down to dinner. We were entirely +alone, and I felt the great honor of being his only guest on such an +occasion. Once between the courses, when he rose, as usual, to walk +about, he wandered into the drawing-room, and seating himself at the +orchestrelle began to play the beautiful flower-song from "Faust." It +was a thing I had not seen him do before, and I never saw him do it +again. When he came back to the table he said: + +"Speaking of companions of the long ago, after fifty years they become +only shadows and might as well be in the grave. Only those whom one has +really loved mean anything at all. Of my playmates I recall John Briggs, +John Garth, and Laura Hawkins--just those three; the rest I buried long +ago, and memory cannot even find their graves." + +He was in his loveliest humor all that day and evening; and that night, +when he stopped playing, he said: + +"I have never had a pleasanter day at this game." + +I answered, "I hope ten years from to-night we shall still be playing +it." + +"Yes," he said, "still playing the best game on earth." + + + + + +CCL + +PHILOSOPHY AND PESSIMISM + +In a letter to MacAlister, written at this time, he said: + + The doctors banished Jean to the country 5 weeks ago; they banished + my secretary to the country for a fortnight last Saturday; they + banished Clara to the country for a fortnight last Monday . . . . + They banished me to Bermuda to sail next Wednesday, but I struck and + sha'n't go. My complaint is permanent bronchitis & is one of the + very best assets I've got, for it excuses me from every public + function this winter--& all other winters that may come. + +If he had bronchitis when this letter was written, it must have been of a +very mild form, for it did not interfere with billiard games, which were +more protracted and strenuous than at almost any other period. I +conclude, therefore, that it was a convenient bronchitis, useful on +occasion. + +For a full ten days we were alone in the big house with the servants. It +was a holiday most of the time. We hurried through the mail in the +morning and the telephone calls; then, while I answered such letters as +required attention, he dictated for an hour or so to Miss Hobby, after +which, billiards for the rest of the day and evening. When callers were +reported by the butler, I went down and got rid of them. Clara Clemens, +before her departure, had pinned up a sign, "NO BILLIARDS AFTER 10 P.M.," +which still hung on the wall, but it was outlawed. Clemens occasionally +planned excursions to Bermuda and other places; but, remembering the +billiard-table, which he could not handily take along, he abandoned these +projects. He was a boy whose parents had been called away, left to his +own devices, and bent on a good time. + +There were likely to be irritations in his morning's mail, and more often +he did not wish to see it until it had been pretty carefully sifted. So +many people wrote who wanted things, so many others who made the claim of +more or less distant acquaintanceship the excuse for long and trivial +letters. + +"I have stirred up three generations," he said; "first the grandparents, +then the children, and now the grandchildren; the great-grandchildren +will begin to arrive soon." + +His mail was always large; but often it did not look interesting. One +could tell from the envelope and the superscription something of the +contents. Going over one assortment he burst out: + +"Look at them! Look how trivial they are! Every envelope looks as if it +contained a trivial human soul." + +Many letters were filled with fulsome praise and compliment, usually of +one pattern. He was sated with such things, and seldom found it possible +to bear more than a line or two of them. Yet a fresh, well-expressed +note of appreciation always pleased him. + +"I can live for two months on a good compliment," he once said. +Certain persistent correspondents, too self-centered to realize their +lack of consideration, or the futility of their purpose, followed him +relentlessly. Of one such he remarked: + +"That woman intends to pursue me to the grave. I wish something could be +done to appease her." + +And again: + +"Everybody in the world who wants something--0something of no interest to +me--writes to me to get it." + +These morning sessions were likely to be of great interest. Once a +letter spoke of the desirability of being an optimist. "That word +perfectly disgusts me," he said, and his features materialized the +disgust, "just as that other word, pessimist, does; and the idea that one +can, by any effort of will, be one or the other, any more than he can +change the color of his hair. The reason why a man is a pessimist or an +optimist is not because he wants to be, but because he was born so; and +this man [a minister of the Gospel who was going to explain life to him] +is going to tell me why he isn't a pessimist. Oh, he'll do it, but he +won't tell the truth; he won't make it short enough." + +Yet he was always patient with any one who came with spiritual messages, +theological arguments, and consolations. He might have said to them: +"Oh, dear friends, those things of which you speak are the toys that long +ago I played with and set aside." He could have said it and spoken the +truth; but I believe he did not even think it. He listened to any one +for whom he had respect, and was grateful for any effort in his behalf. +One morning he read aloud a lecture given in London by George Bernard +Shaw on religion, commenting as he read. He said: + +"This letter is a frank breath of expression [and his comments were +equally frank]. There is no such thing as morality; it is not immoral +for the tiger to eat the wolf, or the wolf the cat, or the cat the bird, +and so on down; that is their business. There is always enough for each +one to live on. It is not immoral for one nation to seize another nation +by force of arms, or for one man to seize another man's property or life +if he is strong enough and wants to take it. It is not immoral to create +the human species--with or without ceremony; nature intended exactly +these things." + +At one place in the lecture Shaw had said: "No one of good sense can +accept any creed to-day without reservation." + +"Certainly not," commented Clemens; "the reservation is that he is a d--d +fool to accept it at all." + +He was in one of his somber moods that morning. I had received a print +of a large picture of Thomas Nast--the last one taken. The face had a +pathetic expression which told the tragedy of his last years. Clemens +looked at the picture several moments without speaking. Then he broke +out: + +"Why can't a man die when he's had his tragedy? I ought to have died +long ago." And somewhat later: "Once Twichell heard me cussing the human +race, and he said, 'Why, Mark, you are the last person in the world to do +that--one selected and set apart as you are.' I said 'Joe, you don't +know what you are talking about. I am not cussing altogether about my +own little troubles. Any one can stand his own misfortunes; but when I +read in the papers all about the rascalities and outrages going on I +realize what a creature the human animal is. Don't you care more about +the wretchedness of others than anything that happens to you?' Joe said +he did, and shut up." + +It occurred to me to suggest that he should not read the daily papers. +"No difference," he said. "I read books printed two hundred years ago, +and they hurt just the same." + +"Those people are all dead and gone," I objected. + +"They hurt just the same," he maintained. + +I sometimes thought of his inner consciousness as a pool darkened by his +tragedies, its glassy surface, when calm, reflecting all the joy and +sunlight and merriment of the world, but easily--so easily--troubled and +stirred even to violence. Once following the dictation, when I came to +the billiard-room he was shooting the balls about the table, apparently +much depressed. He said: + +"I have been thinking it out--if I live two years more I will put an end +to it all. I will kill myself." + +"You have much to live for----" + +"But I am so tired of the eternal round," he interrupted; "so tired." +And I knew he meant that he was ill of the great loneliness that had come +to him that day in Florence, and would never pass away. + +I referred to the pressure of social demands in the city, and the relief +he would find in his country home. He shook his head. + +"The country home I need," he said, fiercely, "is a cemetery." + +Yet the mood changed quickly enough when the play began. He was gay and +hilarious presently, full of the humors and complexities of the game. +H. H. Rogers came in with a good deal of frequency, seldom making very +long calls, but never seeming to have that air of being hurried which one +might expect to find in a man whose day was only twenty-four hours long, +and whose interests were so vast and innumerable. He would come in where +we were playing, and sit down and watch the game, or perhaps would pick +up a book and read, exchanging a remark now and then. More often, +however, he sat in the bedroom, for his visits were likely to be in the +morning. They were seldom business calls, or if they were, the business +was quickly settled, and then followed gossip, humorous incident, or +perhaps Clemens would read aloud something he had written. But once, +after greetings, he began: + +"Well, Rogers, I don't know what you think of it, but I think I have had +about enough of this world, and I wish I were out of it." + +Mr. Rogers replied, "I don't say much about it, but that expresses my +view." + +This from the foremost man of letters and one of the foremost financiers +of the time was impressive. Each at the mountain-top of his career, they +agreed that the journey was not worth while--that what the world had +still to give was not attractive enough to tempt them to prevent a desire +to experiment with the next stage. One could remember a thousand poor +and obscure men who were perfectly willing to go on struggling and +starving, postponing the day of settlement as long as possible; but +perhaps, when one has had all the world has to give, when there are no +new worlds in sight to conquer, one has a different feeling. + +Well, the realization lay not so far ahead for either of them, though at +that moment they both seemed full of life and vigor--full of youth. One +could not imagine the day when for them it would all be over. + + + + +CCLI + +A LOBBYING EXPEDITION + +Clara Clemens came home now and then to see how matters were progressing, +and very properly, for Clemens was likely to become involved in social +intricacies which required a directing hand. The daughter inherited no +little of the father's characteristics of thought and phrase, and it was +always a delight to see them together when one could be just out of range +of the crossfire. I remember soon after her return, when she was making +some searching inquiries concerning the billiard-room sign, and other +suggested or instituted reforms, he said: + +"Oh well, never mind, it doesn't matter. I'm boss in this house." + +She replied, quickly: "Oh no, you're not. You're merely owner. I'm the +captain--the commander-in-chief." + +One night at dinner she mentioned the possibility of going abroad that +year. During several previous summers she had planned to visit Vienna to +see her old music-master, Leschetizky, once more before his death. She +said: + +"Leschetizky is getting so old. If I don't go soon I'm afraid I sha'n't +be in time for his funeral." + +"Yes," said her father, thoughtfully, "you keep rushing over to +Leschetizky's funeral, and you'll miss mine." + +He had made one or two social engagements without careful reflection, and +the situation would require some delicacy of adjustment. During a moment +between the courses, when he left the table and was taking his exercise +in the farther room, she made some remark which suggested a doubt of her +father's gift for social management. I said: + +"Oh, well, he is a king, you know, and a king can do no wrong." + +"Yes, I know," she answered. "The king can do no wrong; but he frightens +me almost to death, sometimes, he comes so near it." + +He came back and began to comment rather critically on some recent +performance of Roosevelt's, which had stirred up a good deal of newspaper +amusement--it was the Storer matter and those indiscreet letters which +Roosevelt had written relative to the ambassadorship which Storer so much +desired. Miss Clemens was inclined to defend the President, and spoke +with considerable enthusiasm concerning his elements of popularity, which +had won him such extraordinary admiration. + +"Certainly he is popular," Clemens admitted, "and with the best of +reasons. If the twelve apostles should call at the White House, he would +say, 'Come in, come in! I am delighted to see you. I've been watching +your progress, and I admired it very much.' Then if Satan should come, +he would slap him on the shoulder and say, 'Why, Satan, how do you do? I +am so glad to meet you. I've read all your works and enjoyed every one +of them.' Anybody could be popular with a gift like that." + +It was that evening or the next, perhaps, that he said to her: + +"Ben [one of his pet names for her], now that you are here to run the +ranch, Paine and I are going to Washington on a vacation. You don't seem +to admire our society much, anyhow." + +There were still other reasons for the Washington expedition. There was +an important bill up for the extension of the book royalty period, and +the forces of copyright were going down in a body to use every possible +means to get the measure through. + +Clemens, during Cleveland's first administration, some nineteen years +before, had accompanied such an expedition, and through S. S. ("Sunset") +Cox had obtained the "privileges of the floor" of the House, which had +enabled him to canvass the members individually. Cox assured the +doorkeeper that Clemens had received the thanks of Congress for national +literary service, and was therefore entitled to that privilege. This was +not strictly true; but regulations were not very severe in those days, +and the ruse had been regarded as a good joke, which had yielded +excellent results. Clemens had a similar scheme in mind now, and +believed that his friendship with Speaker Cannon--" Uncle Joe"--would +obtain for him a similar privilege. The Copyright Association working in +its regular way was very well, he said, but he felt he could do more as +an individual than by acting merely as a unit of that body. + +"I canvassed the entire House personally that other time," he said. "Cox +introduced me to the Democrats, and John D. Long, afterward Secretary of +the Navy, introduced me to the Republicans. I had a darling time +converting those members, and I'd like to try the experiment again." + +I should have mentioned earlier, perhaps, that at this time he had begun +to wear white clothing regularly, regardless of the weather and season. +On the return from Dublin he had said: + +"I can't bear to put on black clothes again. I wish I could wear white +all winter. I should prefer, of course, to wear colors, beautiful +rainbow hues, such as the women have monopolized. Their clothing makes a +great opera audience an enchanting spectacle, a delight to the eye and to +the spirit--a garden of Eden for charm and color. + +The men, clothed in odious black, are scattered here and there over the +garden like so many charred stumps. If we are going to be gay in spirit, +why be clad in funeral garments? I should like to dress in a loose and +flowing costume made all of silks and velvets resplendent with stunning +dyes, and so would every man I have ever known; but none of us dares to +venture it. If I should appear on Fifth Avenue on a Sunday morning +clothed as I would like to be clothed the churches would all be vacant +and the congregation would come tagging after me. They would scoff, of +course, but they would envy me, too. When I put on black it reminds me +of my funerals. I could be satisfied with white all the year round." + +It was not long after this that he said: + +"I have made up my mind not to wear black any more, but white, and let +the critics say what they will." + +So his tailor was sent for, and six creamy flannel and serge suits were +ordered, made with the short coats, which he preferred, with a gray suit +or two for travel, and he did not wear black again, except for evening +dress and on special occasions. It was a gratifying change, and though +the newspapers made much of it, there was no one who was not gladdened by +the beauty of his garments and their general harmony with his person. He +had never worn anything so appropriate or so impressive. + +This departure of costume came along a week or two before the Washington +trip, and when his bags were being packed for the excursion he was +somewhat in doubt as to the propriety of bursting upon Washington in +December in that snowy plumage. I ventured: + +"This is a lobbying expedition of a peculiar kind, and does not seem to +invite any half-way measures. I should vote in favor of the white suit." + +I think Miss Clemens was for it, too. She must have been or the vote +wouldn't have carried, though it was clear he strongly favored the idea. +At all events, the white suits came along. + +We were off the following afternoon: Howells, Robert Underwood Johnson, +one of the Appletons, one of the Putnams, George Bowker, and others were +on the train. On the trip down in the dining-car there was a discussion +concerning the copyrighting of ideas, which finally resolved itself into +the possibility of originating a new one. Clemens said: + +"There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take +a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We +give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on +turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same +old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages." + +We put up at the Willard, and in the morning drove over to the +Congressional Library, where the copyright hearing was in progress. +There was a joint committee of the two Houses seated round a long table +at work, and a number of spectators more or less interested in the bill, +mainly, it would seem, men concerned with the protection of mechanical +music-rolls. The fact that this feature was mixed up with literature was +not viewed with favor by most of the writers. Clemens referred to the +musical contingent as "those hand-organ men who ought to have a bill of +their own." + +I should mention that early that morning Clemens had written this letter +to Speaker Cannon: + +December 7, 1906. + +DEAR UNCLE JOSEPH,--Please get me the thanks of the Congress--not next +week, but right away. It is very necessary. Do accomplish this for your +affectionate old friend right away; by persuasion, if you can; by +violence, if you must, for it is imperatively necessary that I get on the +floor for two or three hours and talk to the members, man by man, in +behalf of the support, encouragement, and protection of one of the +nation's most valuable assets and industries--its literature. I have +arguments with me, also a barrel with liquid in it. + +Give me a chance. Get me the thanks of Congress. Don't wait for others +--there isn't time. I have stayed away and let Congress alone for +seventy-one years and I am entitled to thanks. Congress knows it +perfectly well, and I have long felt hurt that this quite proper and +earned expression of gratitude has been merely felt by the House and +never publicly uttered. Send me an order on the Sergeant-at-Arms quick. +When shall I come? + With love and a benediction; + MARK TWAIN. + + +We went over to the Capitol now to deliver to "Uncle Joe" this +characteristic letter. We had picked up Clemens's nephew, Samuel E. +Moffett, at the Library, and he came along and led the way to the +Speaker's room. Arriving there, Clemens laid off his dark overcoat and +stood there, all in white, certainly a startling figure among those +clerks, newspaper men, and incidental politicians. He had been noticed +as he entered the Capitol, and a number of reporters had followed close +behind. Within less than a minute word was being passed through the +corridors that Mark Twain was at the Capitol in his white suit. The +privileged ones began to gather, and a crowd assembled in the hall +outside. + +Speaker Cannon was not present at the moment; but a little later he +"billowed" in--which seems to be the word to express it--he came with +such a rush and tide of life. After greetings, Clemens produced the +letter and read it to him solemnly, as if he were presenting a petition. +Uncle Joe listened quite seriously, his head bowed a little, as if it +were really a petition, as in fact it was. He smiled, but he said, quite +seriously: + +"That is a request that ought to be granted; but the time has gone by +when I am permitted any such liberties. Tom Reed, when he was Speaker, +inaugurated a strict precedent excluding all outsiders from the use of +the floor of the House." + +"I got in the other time," Clemens insisted. + +"Yes," said Uncle Joe; "but that ain't now. Sunset Cox could let you in, +but I can't. They'd hang me." He reflected a moment, and added: "I'll +tell you what I'll do: I've got a private room down-stairs that I never +use. It's all fitted up with table and desk, stationery, chinaware, and +cutlery; you could keep house there, if you wanted to. I'll let you have +it as long as you want to stay here, and I'll give you my private +servant, Neal, who's been here all his life and knows every official, +every Senator and Representative, and they all know him. He'll bring you +whatever you want, and you can send in messages by him. You can have the +members brought down singly or in bunches, and convert them as much as +you please. I'd give you a key to the room, only I haven't got one +myself. I never can get in when I want to, but Neal can get in, and +he'll unlock it for you. You can have the room, and you can have Neal. +Now, will that do you?" + +Clemens said it would. It was, in fact, an offer without precedent. +Probably never in the history of the country had a Speaker given up his +private room to lobbyists. We went in to see the House open, and then +went down with Neal and took possession of the room. The reporters had +promptly seized upon the letter, and they now got hold of its author, led +him to their own quarters, and, gathering around him, fired questions at +him, and kept their note-books busy. He made a great figure, all in +white there among them, and they didn't fail to realize the value of it +as "copy." He talked about copyright, and about his white clothes, and +about a silk hat which Howells wore. + +Back in the Speaker's room, at last, he began laying out the campaign, +which would begin next day. By and by he said: + +"Look here! I believe I've got to speak over there in that committee- +room to-day or to-morrow. I ought to know just when it is." + +I had not heard of this before, and offered to go over and see about it, +which I did at once. I hurried back faster than I had gone. + +"Mr. Clemens, you are to speak in half an hour, and the room is crowded +full; people waiting to hear you." + +"The devil!" he said. "Well, all right; I'll just lie down here a few +minutes and then we'll go over. Take paper and pencil and make a few +headings." + +There was a couch in the room. He lay down while I sat at the table with +a pencil, making headings now and then, as he suggested, and presently he +rose and, shoving the notes into his pocket, was ready. It was half past +three when we entered the committee-room, which was packed with people +and rather dimly lighted, for it was gloomy outside. Herbert Putnam, the +librarian, led us to seats among the literary group, and Clemens, +removing his overcoat, stood in that dim room clad as in white armor. +There was a perceptible stir. Howells, startled for a moment, whispered: + +"What in the world did he wear that white suit for?" though in his heart +he admired it as much as the others. + +I don't remember who was speaking when we came in, but he was saying +nothing important. Whoever it was, he was followed by Dr. Edward Everett +Hale, whose age always commanded respect, and whose words always invited +interest. Then it was Mark Twain's turn. He did not stand by his chair, +as the others had done, but walked over to the Speaker's table, and, +turning, faced his audience. I have never seen a more impressive sight +than that snow-white figure in that dim-lit, crowded room. He never +touched his notes; he didn't even remember them. He began in that even, +quiet, deliberate voice of his the most even, the most quiet, the most +deliberate voice in the world--and, without a break or a hesitation for a +word, he delivered a copyright argument, full of humor and serious +reasoning, such a speech as no one in that room, I suppose, had ever +heard. Certainly it was a fine and dramatic bit of impromptu pleading. +The weary committee, which had been tortured all day with dull, +statistical arguments made by the mechanical device fiends, and dreary +platitudes unloaded by men whose chief ambition was to shine as copyright +champions, suddenly realized that they were being rewarded for the long +waiting. They began to brighten and freshen, and uplift and smile, like +flowers that have been wilted by a drought when comes the refreshing +shower that means renewed life and vigor. Every listener was as if +standing on tiptoe. When the last sentence was spoken the applause came +like an explosion. --[Howells in his book My Mark Twain speaks of +Clemens's white clothing as "an inspiration which few men would have had +the courage to act upon." He adds: "The first time I saw him wear it +was at the authors' hearing before the Congressional Committee on +Copyright in Washington. Nothing could have been more dramatic than the +gesture with which he flung off his long, loose overcoat and stood forth +in white from his feet to the crown of his silvery head. It was a +magnificent coup, and he dearly loved a coup; but the magnificent speech +which he made, tearing to shreds the venerable farrago of nonsense about +nonproperty in ideas which had formed the basis of all copyright +legislation, made you forget even his spectacularity."] + +There came a universal rush of men and women to get near enough for a +word and to shake his hand. But he was anxious to get away. We drove to +the Willard and talked and smoked, and got ready for dinner. He was +elated, and said the occasion required full-dress. We started down at +last, fronted and frocked like penguins. + +I did not realize then the fullness of his love for theatrical effect. +I supposed he would want to go down with as little ostentation as +possible, so took him by the elevator which enters the dining-room +without passing through the long corridor known as "Peacock Alley," +because of its being a favorite place for handsomely dressed fashionables +of the national capital. When we reached the entrance of the dining-room +he said: + +"Isn't there another entrance to this place?" + +I said there was, but that it was very conspicuous. We should have to go +down the long corridor. + +"Oh, well," he said, " I don't mind that. Let's go back and try it +over." + +So we went back up the elevator, walked to the other end of the hotel, +and came down to the F Street entrance. There is a fine, stately flight +of steps--a really royal stair--leading from this entrance down into +"Peacock Alley." To slowly descend that flight is an impressive thing to +do. It is like descending the steps of a throne-room, or to some royal +landing-place where Cleopatra's barge might lie. I confess that I was +somewhat nervous at the awfulness of the occasion, but I reflected that I +was powerfully protected; so side by side, both in full-dress, white +ties, white-silk waistcoats, and all, we came down that regal flight. + +Of course he was seized upon at once by a lot of feminine admirers, and +the passage along the corridor was a perpetual gantlet. I realize now +that this gave the dramatic finish to his day, and furnished him with +proper appetite for his dinner. I did not again make the mistake of +taking him around to the more secluded elevator. I aided and abetted him +every evening in making that spectacular descent of the royal stairway, +and in running that fair and frivolous gantlet the length of "Peacock +Alley." The dinner was a continuous reception. No sooner was he seated +than this Congressman and that Senator came over to shake hands with Mark +Twain. Governor Francis of Missouri also came. Eventually Howells +drifted in, and Clemens reviewed the day, its humors and successes. Back +in the rooms at last he summed up the progress thus far--smoked, laughed +over "Uncle Joe's" surrender to the "copyright bandits," and turned in +for the night. + +We were at the Capitol headquarters in Speaker Cannon's private room +about eleven o'clock next morning. Clemens was not in the best humor +because I had allowed him to oversleep. He was inclined to be +discouraged at the prospect, and did not believe many of the members +would come down to see him. He expressed a wish for some person of +influence and wide acquaintance, and walked up and down, smoking +gloomily. I slipped out and found the Speaker's colored body-guard, +Neal, and suggested that Mr. Clemens was ready now to receive the +members. + +That was enough. They began to arrive immediately. John Sharp Williams +came first, then Boutell, from Illinois, Littlefield, of Maine, and after +them a perfect procession, including all the leading lights--Dalzell, +Champ Clark, McCall--one hundred and eighty or so in all during the next +three or four hours. + +Neal announced each name at the door, and in turn I announced it to +Clemens when the press was not too great. He had provided boxes of +cigars, and the room was presently blue with smoke, Clemens in his white +suit in the midst of it, surrounded by those darker figures--shaking +hands, dealing out copyright gospel and anecdotes--happy and wonderfully +excited. There were chairs, but usually there was only standing room. +He was on his feet for several hours and talked continually; but when at +last it was over, and Champ Clark, who I believe remained longest and was +most enthusiastic in the movement, had bade him good-by, he declared that +he was not a particle tired, and added: + +"I believe if our bill could be presented now it would pass." + +He was highly elated, and pronounced everything a perfect success. Neal, +who was largely responsible for the triumph, received a ten-dollar bill. + +We drove to the hotel and dined that night with the Dodges, who had been +neighbors at Riverdale. Later, the usual crowd of admirers gathered +around him, among them I remember the minister from Costa Rica, the +Italian minister, and others of the diplomatic service, most of whom he +had known during his European residence. Some one told of traveling in +India and China, and how a certain Hindu "god" who had exchanged +autographs with Mark Twain during his sojourn there was familiar with +only two other American names--George Washington and Chicago; while the +King of Siam had read but three English books--the Bible, Bryce's +American Commonwealth, and The Innocents Abroad. + +We were at Thomas Nelson Page's for dinner next evening--a wonderfully +beautiful home, full of art treasures. A number of guests had been +invited. Clemens naturally led the dinner-talk, which eventually drifted +to reading. He told of Mrs. Clemens's embarrassment when Stepniak had +visited them and talked books, and asked her what her husband thought of +Balzac, Thackeray, and the others. She had been obliged to say that he +had not read them. + +"'How interesting!' said Stepniak. But it wasn't interesting to Mrs. +Clemens. It was torture." + +He was light-spirited and gay; but recalling Mrs. Clemens saddened him, +perhaps, for he was silent as we drove to the hotel, and after he was in +bed he said, with a weary despair which even the words do not convey: + +"If I had been there a minute earlier, it is possible--it is possible +that she might have died in my arms. Sometimes I think that perhaps +there was an instant--a single instant--when she realized that she was +dying and that I was not there." + +In New York I had once brought him a print of the superb "Adams +Memorial," by Saint-Gaudens--the bronze woman who sits in the still court +in the Rock Creek Cemetery at Washington. + +On the morning following the Page dinner at breakfast, he said: + +"Engage a carriage and we will drive out and see the Saint-Gaudens +bronze." + +It was a bleak, dull December day, and as we walked down through the +avenues of the dead there was a presence of realized sorrow that seemed +exactly suited to such a visit. We entered the little inclosure of +cedars where sits the dark figure which is art's supreme expression of +the great human mystery of life and death. Instinctively we removed our +hats, and neither spoke until after we had come away. Then: + +"What does he call it?" he asked. + +I did not know, though I had heard applied to it that great line of +Shakespeare's--"the rest is silence." + +"But that figure is not silent," he said. + +And later, as we were driving home: + +"It is in deep meditation on sorrowful things." + +When we returned to New York he had the little print framed, and kept it +always on his mantelpiece. + + + + +CCLII + +THEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION + +>From the Washington trip dates a period of still closer association with +Mark Twain. On the way to New York he suggested that I take up residence +in his house--a privilege which I had no wish to refuse. There was room +going to waste, he said, and it would be handier for the early and late +billiard sessions. So, after that, most of the days and nights I was +there. + +Looking back on that time now, I see pretty vividly three quite distinct +pictures. One of them, the rich, red interior of the billiard-room with +the brilliant, green square in the center, on which the gay balls are +rolling, and bending over it that luminous white figure in the instant of +play. Then there is the long, lighted drawing-room with the same figure +stretched on a couch in the corner, drowsily smoking, while the rich +organ tones fill the place summoning for him scenes and faces which +others do not see. This was the hour between dinner and billiards--the +hour which he found most restful of the day. Sometimes he rose, walking +the length of the parlors, his step timed to the music and his thought. +Of medium height, he gave the impression of being tall-his head thrown +up, and like a lion's, rather large for his body. But oftener he lay +among the cushions, the light flooding his white hair and dress and +heightening his brilliant coloring. + +The third picture is that of the dinner-table--always beautifully laid, +and always a shrine of wisdom when he was there. He did not always talk; +but it was his habit to do so, and memory holds the clearer vision of him +when, with eyes and face alive with interest, he presented some new angle +of thought in fresh picturesqueness of speech. These are the pictures +that have remained to me out of the days spent under his roof, and they +will not fade while memory lasts. + +Of Mark Twain's table philosophies it seems proper to make rather +extended record. They were usually unpremeditated, and they presented +the man as he was, and thought. I preserved as much of them as I could, +and have verified phrase and idea, when possible, from his own notes and +other unprinted writings. + +This dinner-table talk naturally varied in character from that of the +billiard-room. The latter was likely to be anecdotal and personal; the +former was more often philosophical and commentative, ranging through a +great variety of subjects scientific, political, sociological, and +religious. His talk was often of infinity--the forces of creation--and +it was likely to be satire of the orthodox conceptions, intermingled with +heresies of his own devising. + +Once, after a period of general silence, he said: + +"No one who thinks can imagine the universe made by chance. It is too +nicely assembled and regulated. There is, of course, a great Master +Mind, but it cares nothing for our happiness or our unhappiness." + +It was objected, by one of those present, that as the Infinite Mind +suggested perfect harmony, sorrow and suffering were defects which that +Mind must feel and eventually regulate. + +"Yes," he said, "not a sparrow falls but He is noticing, if that is what +you mean; but the human conception of it is that God is sitting up nights +worrying over the individuals of this infinitesimal race." + +Then he recalled a fancy which I have since found among his memoranda. +In this note he had written: + + The suns & planets that form the constellations of a billion billion + solar systems & go pouring, a tossing flood of shining globes, + through the viewless arteries of space are the blood-corpuscles in + the veins of God; & the nations are the microbes that swarm and + wiggle & brag in each, & think God can tell them apart at that + distance & has nothing better to do than try. This--the + entertainment of an eternity. Who so poor in his ambitions as to + consent to be God on those terms? Blasphemy? No, it is not + blasphemy. If God is as vast as that, He is above blasphemy; if He + is as little as that, He is beneath it. + +"The Bible," he said, "reveals the character of its God with minute +exactness. It is a portrait of a man, if one can imagine a man with evil +impulses far beyond the human limit. In the Old Testament He is pictured +as unjust, ungenerous, pitiless, and revengeful, punishing innocent +children for the misdeeds of their parents; punishing unoffending people +for the sins of their rulers, even descending to bloody vengeance upon +harmless calves and sheep as punishment for puny trespasses committed by +their proprietors. It is the most damnatory biography that ever found +its way into print. Its beginning is merely childish. Adam is forbidden +to eat the fruit of a certain tree, and gravely informed that if he +disobeys he shall die. How could that impress Adam? He could have no +idea of what death meant. He had never seen a dead thing. He had never +heard of one. If he had been told that if he ate the apples he would be +turned into a meridian of longitude that threat would have meant just as +much as the other one. The watery intellect that invented that notion +could be depended on to go on and decree that all of Adam's descendants +down to the latest day should be punished for that nursery trespass in +the beginning. + +"There is a curious poverty of invention in Bibles. Most of the great +races each have one, and they all show this striking defect. Each +pretends to originality, without possessing any. Each of them borrows +from the other, confiscates old stage properties, puts them forth as +fresh and new inspirations from on high. We borrowed the Golden Rule +from Confucius, after it had seen service for centuries, and copyrighted +it without a blush. We went back to Babylon for the Deluge, and are as +proud of it and as satisfied with it as if it had been worth the trouble; +whereas we know now that Noah's flood never happened, and couldn't have +happened--not in that way. The flood is a favorite with Bible-makers. +Another favorite with the founders of religions is the Immaculate +Conception. It had been worn threadbare; but we adopted it as a new +idea. It was old in Egypt several thousand years before Christ was born. +The Hindus prized it ages ago. The Egyptians adopted it even for some of +their kings. The Romans borrowed the idea from Greece. We got it +straight from heaven by way of Rome. We are still charmed with it." + +He would continue in this strain, rising occasionally and walking about +the room. Once, considering the character of God--the Bible God-he said: + +"We haven't been satisfied with God's character as it is given in the Old +Testament; we have amended it. We have called Him a God of mercy and +love and morals. He didn't have a single one of those qualities in the +beginning. He didn't hesitate to send the plagues on Egypt, the most +fiendish punishments that could be devised--not for the king, but for his +innocent subjects, the women and the little children, and then only to +exhibit His power just to show off--and He kept hardening Pharaoh's heart +so that He could send some further ingenuity of torture, new rivers of +blood, and swarms of vermin and new pestilences, merely to exhibit +samples of His workmanship. Now and then, during the forty years' +wandering, Moses persuaded Him to be a little more lenient with the +Israelites, which would show that Moses was the better character of the +two. That Old Testament God never had an inspiration of His own." + +He referred to the larger conception of God, that Infinite Mind which had +projected the universe. He said: + +"In some details that Old Bible God is probably a more correct picture +than our conception of that Incomparable One that created the universe +and flung upon its horizonless ocean of space those giant suns, whose +signal-lights are so remote that we only catch their flash when it has +been a myriad of years on its way. For that Supreme One is not a God of +pity or mercy--not as we recognize these qualities. Think of a God of +mercy who would create the typhus germ, or the house-fly, or the +centipede, or the rattlesnake, yet these are all His handiwork. They are +a part of the Infinite plan. The minister is careful to explain that all +these tribulations are sent for a good purpose; but he hires a doctor to +destroy the fever germ, and he kills the rattlesnake when he doesn't run +from it, and he sets paper with molasses on it for the house-fly. + +"Two things are quite certain: one is that God, the limitless God, +manufactured those things, for no man could have done it. The man has +never lived who could create even the humblest of God's creatures. The +other conclusion is that God has no special consideration for man's +welfare or comfort, or He wouldn't have created those things to disturb +and destroy him. The human conception of pity and morality must be +entirely unknown to that Infinite God, as much unknown as the conceptions +of a microbe to man, or at least as little regarded. + +"If God ever contemplates those qualities in man He probably admires +them, as we always admire the thing which we do not possess ourselves; +probably a little grain of pity in a man or a little atom of mercy would +look as big to Him as a constellation. He could create a constellation +with a thought; but He has been all the measureless ages, and He has +never acquired those qualities that we have named--pity and mercy and +morality. He goes on destroying a whole island of people with an +earthquake, or a whole cityful with a plague, when we punish a man in the +electric chair for merely killing the poorest of our race. The human +being needs to revise his ideas again about God. Most of the scientists +have done it already; but most of them don't dare to say so." + +He pointed out that the moral idea was undergoing constant change; that +what was considered justifiable in an earlier day was regarded as highly +immoral now. He pointed out that even the Decalogue made no reference to +lying, except in the matter of bearing false witness against a neighbor. +Also, that there was a commandment against covetousness, though +covetousness to-day was the basis of all commerce: The general conclusion +being that the morals of the Lord had been the morals of the beginning; +the morals of the first-created man, the morals of the troglodyte, the +morals of necessity; and that the morals of mankind had kept pace with +necessity, whereas those of the Lord had remained unchanged. It is +hardly necessary to say that no one ever undertook to contradict any +statements of this sort from him. In the first place, there was no +desire to do so; and in the second place, any one attempting it would +have cut a puny figure with his less substantial arguments and his less +vigorous phrase. It was the part of wisdom and immeasurably the part of +happiness to be silent and listen. + +On another evening he began: + +"The mental evolution of the species proceeds apparently by regular +progress side by side with the physical development until it comes to +man, then there is a long, unexplained gulf. Somewhere man acquired an +asset which sets him immeasurably apart from the other animals--his +imagination. Out of it he created for himself a conscience, and clothes, +and immodesty, and a hereafter, and a soul. I wonder where he got that +asset. It almost makes one agree with Alfred Russel Wallace that the +world and the universe were created just for his benefit, that he is the +chief love and delight of God. Wallace says that the whole universe was +made to take care of and to keep steady this little floating mote in the +center of it, which we call the world. It looks like a good deal of +trouble for such a small result; but it's dangerous to dispute with a +learned astronomer like Wallace. Still, I don't think we ought to decide +too soon about it--not until the returns are all in. There is the +geological evidence, for instance. Even after the universe was created, +it took a long time to prepare the world for man. Some of the +scientists, ciphering out the evidence furnished by geology, have arrived +at the conviction that the world is prodigiously old. Lord Kelvin +doesn't agree with them. He says that it isn't more than a hundred +million years old, and he thinks the human race has inhabited it about +thirty thousand years of that time. Even so, it was 99,970,000 years +getting ready, impatient as the Creator doubtless was to see man and +admire him. That was because God first had to make the oyster. You +can't make an oyster out of nothing, nor you can't do it in a day. +You've got to start with a vast variety of invertebrates, belemnites, +trilobites, jebusites, amalekites, and that sort of fry, and put them +into soak in a primary sea and observe and wait what will happen. Some +of them will turn out a disappointment; the belemnites and the amalekites +and such will be failures, and they will die out and become extinct in +the course of the nineteen million years covered by the experiment; but +all is not lost, for the amalekites will develop gradually into +encrinites and stalactites and blatherskites, and one thing and another, +as the mighty ages creep on and the periods pile their lofty crags in the +primordial seas, and at last the first grand stage in the preparation of +the world for man stands completed; the oyster is done. Now an oyster +has hardly any more reasoning power than a man has, so it is probable +this one jumped to the conclusion that the nineteen million years was a +preparation for him. That would be just like an oyster, and, anyway, +this one could not know at that early date that he was only an incident +in a scheme, and that there was some more to the scheme yet. + +"The oyster being finished, the next step in the preparation of the world +for man was fish. So the old Silurian seas were opened up to breed the +fish in. It took twenty million years to make the fish and to fossilize +him so we'd have the evidence later. + +"Then, the Paleozoic limit having been reached, it was necessary to start +a new age to make the reptiles. Man would have to have some reptiles-- +not to eat, but to develop himself from. Thirty million years were +required for the reptiles, and out of such material as was left were made +those stupendous saurians that used to prowl about the steamy world in +remote ages, with their snaky heads forty feet in the air and their sixty +feet of body and tail racing and thrashing after them. They are all gone +now, every one of them; just a few fossil remnants of them left on this +far-flung fringe of time. + +"It took all those years to get one of those creatures properly +constructed to proceed to the next step. Then came the pterodactyl, who +thought all that preparation all those millions of years had been +intended to produce him, for there wasn't anything too foolish for a, +pterodactyl to imagine. I suppose he did attract a good deal of +attention, for even the least observant could see that there was the +making of a bird in him, also the making of a mammal, in the course of +time. You can't say too much for the picturesqueness of the pterodactyl +--he was the triumph of his period. He wore wings and had teeth, and was +a starchy-looking creature. But the progression went right along. + +"During the next thirty million years the bird arrived, and the kangaroo, +and by and by the mastodon, and the giant sloth, and the Irish elk, and +the old Silurian ass, and some people thought that man was about due. +But that was a mistake, for the next thing they knew there came a great +ice-sheet, and those creatures all escaped across the Bering Strait and +wandered around in Asia and died, all except a few to carry on the +preparation with. There were six of those glacial periods, with two +million years or so between each. They chased those poor orphans up and +down the earth, from weather to weather, from tropic temperature to fifty +degrees below. They never knew what kind of weather was going to turn up +next, and if they settled any place the whole continent suddenly sank +from under them, and they had to make a scramble for dry land. Sometimes +a volcano would turn itself loose just as they got located. They led +that uncertain, strenuous existence for about twenty-five million years, +always wondering what was going to happen next, never suspecting that it +was just a preparation for man, who had to be done just so or there +wouldn't be any proper or harmonious place for him when he arrived, and +then at last the monkey came, and everybody could see at a glance that +man wasn't far off now, and that was true enough. The monkey went on +developing for close upon five million years, and then he turned into a +man--to all appearances. + +"It does look like a lot of fuss and trouble to go through to build +anything, especially a human being, and nowhere along the way is there +any evidence of where he picked up that final asset--his imagination. It +makes him different from the others--not any better, but certainly +different. Those earlier animals didn't have it, and the monkey hasn't +it or he wouldn't be so cheerful." + + [Paine records Twain's thoughts in that magnificent essay: "Was the + World Made for Man" published long after his death in the group of + essays under the title "Letters from the Earth. There are minor + additions in the published version: 'coal' to fry the fish in; and + the remnants of life being chased from pole to pole "without a dry + rag on them,"; and the coat of paint on the top of the bulb on top + of the Eiffel Tower representing man's portion of this world's + history." D.W.] + +He often held forth on the shortcomings of the human race--always a +favorite subject--the incompetencies and imperfections of this final +creation, in spite of, or because of, his great attribute--the +imagination. Once (this was in the billiard-room) I started him by +saying that whatever the conditions in other planets, there seemed no +reason why life should not develop in each, adapted as perfectly to +prevailing conditions as man is suited to conditions here. He said: + +"Is it your idea, then, that man is perfectly adapted to the conditions +of this planet?" + +I began to qualify, rather weakly; but what I said did not matter. He +was off on his favorite theme. + +"Man adapted to the earth?" he said. "Why, he can't sleep out-of-doors +without freezing to death or getting the rheumatism or the malaria; he +can't keep his nose under water over a minute without being drowned; he +can't climb a tree without falling out and breaking his neck. Why, he's +the poorest, clumsiest excuse of all the creatures that inhabit this +earth. He has got to be coddled and housed and swathed and bandaged and +up holstered to be able to live at all. He is a rickety sort of a thing, +anyway you take him, a regular British Museum of infirmities and +inferiorities. He is always under going repairs. A machine that is as +unreliable as he is would have no market. The higher animals get their +teeth without pain or inconvenience. The original cave man, the +troglodyte, may have got his that way. But now they come through months +and months of cruel torture, and at a time of life when he is least able +to bear it. As soon as he gets them they must all be pulled out again, +for they were of no value in the first place, not worth the loss of a +night's rest. The second set will answer for a while; but he will never +get a set that can be depended on until the dentist makes one. The +animals are not much troubled that way. In a wild state, a natural +state, they have few diseases; their main one is old age. But man starts +in as a child and lives on diseases to the end as a regular diet. He has +mumps, measles, whooping-cough, croup, tonsilitis, diphtheria, scarlet- +fever, as a matter of course. Afterward, as he goes along, his life +continues to be threatened at every turn by colds, coughs, asthma, +bronchitis, quinsy, consumption, yellow-fever, blindness, influenza, +carbuncles, pneumonia, softening of the brain, diseases of the heart and +bones, and a thousand other maladies of one sort and another. He's just +a basketful of festering, pestilent corruption, provided for the support +and entertainment of microbes. Look at the workmanship of him in some of +its particulars. What are his tonsils for? They perform no useful +function; they have no value. They are but a trap for tonsilitis and +quinsy. And what is the appendix for? It has no value. Its sole +interest is to lie and wait for stray grape-seeds and breed trouble. +What is his beard for? It is just a nuisance. All nations persecute it +with the razor. Nature, however, always keeps him supplied with it, +instead of putting it on his head, where it ought to be. You seldom see +a man bald-headed on his chin, but on his head. A man wants to keep his +hair. It is a graceful ornament, a comfort, the best of all protections +against weather, and he prizes it above emeralds and rubies, and Nature +half the time puts it on so it won't stay. + +"Man's sight and smell and hearing are all inferior. If he were suited +to the conditions he could smell an enemy; he could hear him; he could +see him, just as the animals can detect their enemies. The robin hears +the earthworm burrowing his course under the ground; the bloodhound +follows a scent that is two days old. Man isn't even handsome, as +compared with the birds; and as for style, look at the Bengal tiger--that +ideal of grace, physical perfection, and majesty. Think of the lion and +the tiger and the leopard, and then think of man--that poor thing!--the +animal of the wig, the ear-trumpet, the glass eye, the porcelain teeth, +the wooden leg, the trepanned skull, the silver wind-pipe--a creature +that is mended and patched all over from top to bottom. If he can't get +renewals of his bric-a-brac in the next world what will he look like? He +has just that one stupendous superiority--his imagination, his intellect. +It makes him supreme--the higher animals can't match him there. It's +very curious." + +A letter which he wrote to J. Howard Moore concerning his book The +Universal Kinship was of this period, and seems to belong here. + + DEAR MR. MOORE, The book has furnished me several days of deep + pleasure & satisfaction.; it has compelled my gratitude at the same + time, since it saves me the labor of stating my own long-cherished + opinions & reflections & resentments by doing it lucidly & fervently + & irascibly for me. + + There is one thing that always puzzles me: as inheritors of the + mentality of our reptile ancestors we have improved the inheritance + by a thousand grades; but in the matter of the morals which they + left us we have gone backward as many grades. That evolution is + strange & to me unaccountable & unnatural. Necessarily we started + equipped with their perfect and blemishless morals; now we are + wholly destitute; we have no real morals, but only artificial ones-- + morals created and preserved by the forced suppression of natural & + healthy instincts. Yes, we are a sufficiently comical invention, we + humans. + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + + +CCLIII + +AN EVENING WITH HELEN KELLER + +I recall two pleasant social events of that winter: one a little party +given at the Clemenses' home on New-Year's Eve, with charades and story- +telling and music. It was the music feature of this party that was +distinctive; it was supplied by wire through an invention known as the +telharmonium which, it was believed, would revolutionize musical +entertainment in such places as hotels, and to some extent in private +houses. The music came over the regular telephone wire, and was +delivered through a series of horns or megaphones--similar to those used +for phonographs--the playing being done, meanwhile, by skilled performers +at the central station. Just why the telharmonium has not made good its +promises of popularity I do not know. Clemens was filled with enthusiasm +over the idea. He made a speech a little before midnight, in which he +told how he had generally been enthusiastic about inventions which had +turned out more or less well in about equal proportions. He did not +dwell on the failures, but he told how he had been the first to use a +typewriter for manuscript work; how he had been one of the earliest users +of the fountain-pen; how he had installed the first telephone ever used +in a private house, and how the audience now would have a demonstration +of the first telharmonium music so employed. It was just about the +stroke of midnight when he finished, and a moment later the horns began +to play chimes and "Auld Lang Syne" and "America." + +The other pleasant evening referred to was a little company given in +honor of Helen Keller. It was fascinating to watch her, and to realize +with what a store of knowledge she had lighted the black silence of her +physical life. To see Mark Twain and Helen Keller together was something +not easily to be forgotten. When Mrs. Macy (who, as Miss Sullivan, had +led her so marvelously out of the shadows) communicated his words to her +with what seemed a lightning touch of the fingers her face radiated every +shade of his meaning-humorous, serious, pathetic. Helen visited the +various objects in the room, and seemed to enjoy them more than the usual +observer of these things, and certainly in greater detail. Her sensitive +fingers spread over articles of bric-a-brac, and the exclamations she +uttered were always fitting, showing that she somehow visualized each +thing in all its particulars. There was a bronze cat of handsome +workmanship and happy expression, and when she had run those all--seeing +fingers of hers over it she said: "It is smiling." + + + + +CCLIV + +BILLIARD-ROOM NOTES + +The billiard games went along pretty steadily that winter. My play +improved, and Clemens found it necessary to eliminate my odds altogether, +and to change the game frequently in order to keep me in subjection. +Frequently there were long and apparently violent arguments over the +legitimacy of some particular shot or play--arguments to us quite as +enjoyable as the rest of the game. Sometimes he would count a shot which +was clearly out of the legal limits, and then it was always a delight to +him to have a mock-serious discussion over the matter of conscience, and +whether or not his conscience was in its usual state of repair. It would +always end by him saying: "I don't wish even to seem to do anything which +can invite suspicion. I refuse to count that shot," or something of like +nature. Sometimes when I had let a questionable play pass without +comment, he would watch anxiously until I had made a similar one and then +insist on my scoring it to square accounts. His conscience was always +repairing itself. + +He had experimented, a great many years before, with what was in the +nature of a trick on some unsuspecting player. It consisted in turning +out twelve pool-balls on the table with one cue ball, and asking his +guest how many caroms he thought he could make with all those twelve +balls to play on. He had learned that the average player would seldom +make more than thirty-one counts, and usually, before this number was +reached, he would miss through some careless play or get himself into a +position where he couldn't play at all. The thing looked absurdly easy. +It looked as if one could go on playing all day long, and the victim was +usually eager to bet that he could make fifty or perhaps a hundred; but +for more than an hour I tried it patiently, and seldom succeeded in +scoring more than fifteen or twenty without missing. Long after the play +itself ceased to be amusing to me, he insisted on my going on and trying +it some more, and he would throw himself back and roar with laughter, the +tears streaming down his cheeks, to see me work and fume and fail. + +It was very soon after that that Peter Dunne ("Mr. Dooley") came down for +luncheon, and after several games of the usual sort, Clemens quietly--as +if the idea had just occurred to him--rolled out the twelve balls and +asked Dunne how, many caroms he thought he could make without a miss. +Dunne said he thought he could make a thousand. Clemens quite +indifferently said that he didn't believe he could make fifty. Dunne +offered to bet five dollars that he could, and the wager was made. Dunne +scored about twenty-five the first time and missed; then he insisted on +betting five dollars again, and his defeats continued until Clemens had +twenty-five dollars of Dunne's money, and Dunne was sweating and +swearing, and Mark Twain rocking with delight. Dunne went away still +unsatisfied, promising that he would come back and try it again. Perhaps +he practised in his absence, for when he returned he had learned +something. He won his twenty-five dollars back, and I think something +more added. Mark Twain was still ahead, for Dunne furnished him with a +good five hundred dollars' worth of amusement. + +Clemens never cared to talk and never wished to be talked to when the +game was actually in progress. If there was anything to be said on +either side, he would stop and rest his cue on the floor, or sit down on +the couch, until the matter was concluded. Such interruptions happened +pretty frequently, and many of the bits of personal comment and incident +scattered along through this work are the result of those brief rests. +Some shot, or situation, or word would strike back through the past and +awaken a note long silent, and I generally kept a pad and pencil on the +window-sill with the score-sheet, and later, during his play, I would +scrawl some reminder that would be precious by and by. + +On one of these I find a memorandum of what he called his three recurrent +dreams. All of us have such things, but his seem worth remembering. + +"There is never a month passes," he said, "that I do not dream of being +in reduced circumstances, and obliged to go back to the river to earn a +living. It is never a pleasant dream, either. I love to think about +those days; but there's always something sickening about the thought that +I have been obliged to go back to them; and usually in my dream I am just +about to start into a black shadow without being able to tell whether it +is Selma bluff, or Hat Island, or only a black wall of night. + +"Another dream that I have of that kind is being compelled to go back to +the lecture platform. I hate that dream worse than the other. In it I +am always getting up before an audience with nothing to say, trying to be +funny; trying to make the audience laugh, realizing that I am only making +silly jokes. Then the audience realizes it, and pretty soon they +commence to get up and leave. That dream always ends by my standing +there in the semidarkness talking to an empty house. + +"My other dream is of being at a brilliant gathering in my night- +garments. People don't seem to notice me there at first, and then pretty +soon somebody points me out, and they all begin to look at me +suspiciously, and I can see that they are wondering who I am and why I am +there in that costume. Then it occurs to me that I can fix it by making +myself known. I take hold of some man and whisper to him, 'I am Mark +Twain'; but that does not improve it, for immediately I can hear him +whispering to the others, 'He says he is Mark Twain,' and they all look +at me a good deal more suspiciously than before, and I can see that they +don't believe it, and that it was a mistake to make that confession. +Sometimes, in that dream, I am dressed like a tramp instead of being in +my night-clothes; but it all ends about the same--they go away and leave +me standing there, ashamed. I generally enjoy my dreams, but not those +three, and they are the ones I have oftenest." + +Quite often some curious episode of the world's history would flash upon +him--something amusing, or coarse, or tragic, and he would bring the game +to a standstill and recount it with wonderful accuracy as to date and +circumstance. He had a natural passion for historic events and a gift +for mentally fixing them, but his memory in other ways was seldom +reliable. He was likely to forget the names even of those he knew best +and saw oftenest, and the small details of life seldom registered at all. + +He had his breakfast served in his room, and once, on a slip of paper, he +wrote, for his own reminder: + +The accuracy of your forgetfulness is absolute--it seems never to fail. +I prepare to pour my coffee so it can cool while I shave--and I always +forget to pour it. + +Yet, very curiously, he would sometimes single out a minute detail, +something every one else had overlooked, and days or even weeks afterward +would recall it vividly, and not always at an opportune moment. Perhaps +this also was a part of his old pilot-training. Once Clara Clemens +remarked: + +"It always amazes me the things that father does and does not remember. +Some little trifle that nobody else would notice, and you are hoping that +he didn't, will suddenly come back to him just when you least expect it +or care for it." + +My note-book contains the entry: + + February 11, 1907. He said to-day: + + "A blindfolded chess-player can remember every play and discuss the + game afterward, while we can't remember from one shot to the next." + + I mentioned his old pilot-memory as an example of what he could do + if he wished. + + "Yes," he answered, "those are special memories; a pilot will tell + you the number of feet in every crossing at any time, but he can't + remember what he had for breakfast." + + "How long did you keep your pilot-memory?" I asked. + + "Not long; it faded out right away, but the training served me, for + when I went to report on a paper a year or two later I never had to + make any notes." + + "I suppose you still remember some of the river?" + + "Not much. Hat Island, Helena and here and there a place; but that + is about all." + + + + +CCLV + +FURTHER PERSONALITIES + +Like every person living, Mark Twain had some peculiar and petty +economies. Such things in great men are noticeable. He lived +extravagantly. His household expenses at the time amounted to more than +fifty dollars a day. In the matter of food, the choicest, and most +expensive the market could furnish was always served in lavish abundance. +He had the best and highest-priced servants, ample as to number. His +clothes he bought generously; he gave without stint to his children; his +gratuities were always liberal. He never questioned pecuniary outgoes-- +seldom worried as to the state of his bank-account so long as there was +plenty. He smoked cheap cigars because he preferred their flavor. Yet +he had his economies. I have seen him, before leaving a room, go around +and carefully lower the gas-jets, to provide against that waste. I have +known him to examine into the cost of a cab, and object to an apparent +overcharge of a few cents. + +It seemed that his idea of economy might be expressed in these words: He +abhorred extortion and visible waste. + +Furthermore, he had exact ideas as to ownership. One evening, while we +were playing billiards, I noticed a five-cent piece on the floor. I +picked it up, saying: + +"Here is five cents; I don't know whose it is." + +He regarded the coin rather seriously, I thought, and said: + +"I don't know, either." + +I laid it on the top of the book-shelves which ran around the room. The +play went on, and I forgot the circumstance. When the game ended that +night I went into his room with him, as usual, for a good-night word. As +he took his change and keys from the pocket of his trousers, he looked +the assortment over and said: + +"That five-cent piece you found was mine." + +I brought it to him at once, and he took it solemnly, laid it with the +rest of his change, and neither of us referred to it again. It may have +been one of his jokes, but I think it more likely that he remembered +having had a five-cent piece, probably reserved for car fare, and that it +was missing. + +More than once, in Washington, he had said: + +"Draw plenty of money for incidental expenses. Don't bother to keep +account of them." + +So it was not miserliness; it was just a peculiarity, a curious attention +to a trifling detail. + +He had a fondness for riding on the then newly completed Subway, which he +called the Underground. Sometimes he would say: + +"I'll pay your fare on the Underground if you want to take a ride with +me." And he always insisted on paying the fare, and once when I rode far +up-town with him to a place where he was going to luncheon, and had taken +him to the door, he turned and said, gravely: + +"Here is five cents to pay your way home." And I took it in the same +spirit in which it had been offered. It was probably this trait which +caused some one occasionally to claim that Mark Twain was close in money +matters. Perhaps there may have been times in his life when he was +parsimonious; but, if so, I must believe that it was when he was sorely +pressed and exercising the natural instinct of self-preservation. He +wished to receive the full value (who does not?) of his labors and +properties. He took a childish delight in piling up money; but it became +greed only when he believed some one with whom he had dealings was trying +to get an unfair division of profits. Then it became something besides +greed. It became an indignation that amounted to malevolence. I was +concerned in a number of dealings with Mark Twain, and at a period in his +life when human traits are supposed to become exaggerated, which is to +say old age, and if he had any natural tendency to be unfair, or small, +or greedy in his money dealings I think I should have seen it. +Personally, I found him liberal to excess, and I never observed in him +anything less than generosity to those who were fair with him. + +Once that winter, when a letter came from Steve Gillis saying that he was +an invalid now, and would have plenty of tune to read Sam's books if he +owned them, Clemens ordered an expensive set from his publishers, and did +what meant to him even more than the cost in money--he autographed each +of those twenty-five volumes. Then he sent them, charges paid, to that +far Californian retreat. It was hardly the act of a stingy man. + +He had the human fondness for a compliment when it was genuine and from +an authoritative source, and I remember how pleased he was that winter +with Prof. William Lyon Phelps's widely published opinion, which ranked +Mark Twain as the greatest American novelist, and declared that his fame +would outlive any American of his time. Phelps had placed him above +Holmes, Howells, James, and even Hawthorne. He had declared him to be +more American than any of these--more American even than Whitman. +Professor Phelps's position in Yale College gave this opinion a certain +official weight; but I think the fact of Phelps himself being a writer of +great force, with an American freshness of style, gave it a still greater +value. + +Among the pleasant things that winter was a meeting with Eugene F. Ware, +of Kansas, with whose penname--"Ironquill"--Clemens had long been +familiar. + +Ware was a breezy Western genius of the finest type. If he had abandoned +law for poetry, there is no telling how far his fame might have reached. +There was in his work that same spirit of Americanism and humor and +humanity that is found in Mark Twain's writings, and he had the added +faculty of rhyme and rhythm, which would have set him in a place apart. +I had known Ware personally during a period of Western residence, and +later, when he was Commissioner of Pensions under Roosevelt. I usually +saw him when he came to New York, and it was a great pleasure now to +bring together the two men whose work I so admired. They met at a small +private luncheon at The Players, and Peter Dunne was there, and Robert +Collier, and it was such an afternoon as Howells has told of when he and +Aldrich and Bret Harte and those others talked until the day faded into +twilight, and twilight deepened into evening. Clemens had put in most of +the day before reading Ware's book of poems, 'The Rhymes of Ironquill', +and had declared his work to rank with the very greatest of American +poetry--I think he called it the most truly American in flavor. I +remember that at the luncheon he noted Ware's big, splendid physique and +his Western liberties of syntax with a curious intentness. I believe he +regarded him as being nearer his own type in mind and expression than any +one he had met before. + +Among Ware's poems he had been especially impressed with the "Fables," +and with some verses entitled "Whist," which, though rather more +optimistic, conformed to his own philosophy. They have a distinctly +"Western" feeling. + + WHIST + Hour after hour the cards were fairly shuffled, + And fairly dealt, and still I got no hand; + The morning came; but I, with mind unruffled, + Did simply say, "I do not understand." + Life is a game of whist. From unseen sources + The cards are shuffled, and the hands are dealt. + Blind are our efforts to control the forces + That, though unseen, are no less strongly felt. + I do not like the way the cards are shuffled, + But still I like the game and want to play; + And through the long, long night will I, unruffled, + Play what I get, until the break of day. + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext Volume 3, Part 1 of MARK TWAIN, +A BIOGRAPHY by Albert Bigelow Paine + diff --git a/old/mt5bg10.zip b/old/mt5bg10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1d8b9a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mt5bg10.zip diff --git a/old/mt5bg11.txt b/old/mt5bg11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..49cdab2 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mt5bg11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9230 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext Mark Twain, A Biography, 1900-1907, by Paine +#5 in our series by Albert Bigelow Paine + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. 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Then there had followed such ovation as has seldom been +conferred upon a private citizen, and now approaching old age, still in +the fullness of his mental vigor, he had returned to his native soil with +the prestige of these honors upon him and the vast added glory of having +made his financial fight single-handed-and won. + +He was heralded literally as a conquering hero. Every paper in the land +had an editorial telling the story of his debts, his sorrow, and his +triumphs. + +"He had behaved like Walter Scott," says Howells, "as millions rejoiced +to know who had not known how Walter Scott had behaved till they knew it +was like Clemens." + +Howells acknowledges that he had some doubts as to the permanency of the +vast acclaim of the American public, remembering, or perhaps assuming, a +national fickleness. Says Howells: + + He had hitherto been more intelligently accepted or more largely + imagined in Europe, and I suppose it was my sense of this that + inspired the stupidity of my saying to him when we came to consider + "the state of polite learning" among us, "You mustn't expect people + to keep it up here as they do in England." But it appeared that his + countrymen were only wanting the chance, and they kept it up in + honor of him past all precedent. + +Clemens went to the Earlington Hotel and began search for a furnished +house in New York. They would not return to Hartford--at least not yet. +The associations there were still too sad, and they immediately became +more so. Five days after Mark Twain's return to America, his old friend +and co-worker, Charles Dudley Warner, died. Clemens went to Hartford to +act as a pall-bearer and while there looked into the old home. To +Sylvester Baxter, of Boston, who had been present, he wrote a few days +later: + + It was a great pleasure to me to renew the other days with you, & + there was a pathetic pleasure in seeing Hartford & the house again; + but I realized that if we ever enter the house again to live our + hearts will break. I am not sure that we shall ever be strong + enough to endure that strain. + +Even if the surroundings had been less sorrowful it is not likely that +Clemens would have returned to Hartford at this time. He had become a +world-character, a dweller in capitals. Everywhere he moved a world +revolved about him. Such a figure in Germany would live naturally in +Berlin; in England London; in France, Paris; in Austria, Vienna; in +America his headquarters could only be New York. + +Clemens empowered certain of his friends to find a home for him, and Mr. +Frank N. Doubleday discovered an attractive and handsomely furnished +residence at 14 West Tenth Street, which was promptly approved. +Doubleday, who was going to Boston, left orders with the agent to draw +the lease and take it up to the new tenant for signature. To Clemens he +said: + +"The house is as good as yours. All you've got to do is to sign the +lease. You can consider it all settled." + +When Doubleday returned from Boston a few days later the agent called on +him and complained that he couldn't find Mark Twain anywhere. It was +reported at his hotel that he had gone and left no address. Doubleday +was mystified; then, reflecting, he had an inspiration. He walked over +to 14 West Tenth Street and found what he had suspected--Mark Twain had +moved in. He had convinced the caretaker that everything was all right +and he was quite at home. Doubleday said: + +"Why, you haven't executed the lease yet." + +"No," said Clemens, "but you said the house was as good as mine," to +which Doubleday agreed, but suggested that they go up to the real-estate +office and give the agent notice that he was in possession of the +premises. + +Doubleday's troubles were not quite over, however. Clemens began to find +defects in his new home and assumed to hold Doubleday responsible for +them. He sent a daily postal card complaining of the windows, furnace, +the range, the water-whatever he thought might lend interest to +Doubleday's life. As a matter of fact, he was pleased with the place. +To MacAlister he wrote: + + We were very lucky to get this big house furnished. There was not + another one in town procurable that would answer us, but this one is + all right-space enough in it for several families, the rooms all + old-fashioned, great size. + +The house at 14 West Tenth Street became suddenly one of the most +conspicuous residences in New York. The papers immediately made its +appearance familiar. Many people passed down that usually quiet street, +stopping to observe or point out where Mark Twain lived. There was a +constant procession of callers of every kind. Many were friends, old and +new, but there was a multitude of strangers. Hundreds came merely to +express their appreciation of his work, hoping for a personal word or a +hand-shake or an autograph; but there were other hundreds who came with +this thing and that thing--axes to grind--and there were newspaper +reporters to ask his opinion on politics, or polygamy, or woman's +suffrage; on heaven and hell and happiness; on the latest novel; on the +war in Africa, the troubles in China; on anything under the sun, +important or unimportant, interesting or inane, concerning which one +might possibly hold an opinion. He was unfailing "copy" if they could +but get a word with him. Anything that he might choose to say upon any +subject whatever was seized upon and magnified and printed with +head-lines. Sometimes opinions were invented for him. If he let fall a +few words they were multiplied into a column interview. + +"That reporter worked a miracle equal to the loaves and fishes," he said +of one such performance. + +Many men would have become annoyed and irritable as these things +continued; but Mark Twain was greater than that. Eventually he employed +a secretary to stand between him and the wash of the tide, as a sort of +breakwater; but he seldom lost his temper no matter what was the request +which was laid before him, for he recognized underneath it the great +tribute of a great nation. + +Of course his literary valuation would be affected by the noise of the +general applause. Magazines and syndicates besought him for manuscripts. +He was offered fifty cents and even a dollar a word for whatever he might +give them. He felt a child-like gratification in these evidences of his +market advancement, but he was not demoralized by them. He confined his +work to a few magazines, and in November concluded an arrangement with +the new management of Harper & Brothers, by which that firm was to have +the exclusive serial privilege of whatever he might write at a fixed rate +of twenty cents per word--a rate increased to thirty cents by a later +contract, which also provided an increased royalty for the publication of +his books. + +The United States, as a nation, does not confer any special honors upon +private citizens. We do not have decorations and titles, even though +there are times when it seems that such things might be not +inappropriately conferred. Certain of the newspapers, more lavish in +their enthusiasm than others, were inclined to propose, as one paper +phrased it, "Some peculiar recognition--something that should appeal to +Samuel L. Clemens, the man, rather than to Mark Twain, the literate. +Just what form this recognition should take is doubtful, for the case has +no exact precedent." + +Perhaps the paper thought that Mark Twain was entitled--as he himself +once humorously suggested-to the "thanks of Congress" for having come +home alive and out of debt, but it is just as well that nothing of the +sort was ever seriously considered. The thanks of the public at large +contained more substance, and was a tribute much more to his mind. The +paper above quoted ended by suggesting a very large dinner and memorial +of welcome as being more in keeping with the republican idea and the +American expression of good-will. + +But this was an unneeded suggestion. If he had eaten all the dinners +proposed he would not have lived to enjoy his public honors a month. As +it was, he accepted many more dinners than he could eat, and presently +fell into the habit of arriving when the banqueting was about over and +the after-dinner speaking about to begin. Even so the strain told on +him. + +"His friends saw that he was wearing himself out," says Howells, and +perhaps this was true, for he grew thin and pale and contracted a hacking +cough. He did not spare himself as often as he should have done. Once +to Richard Watson Gilder he sent this line of regrets: + + In bed with a chest cold and other company--Wednesday. + DEAR GILDER,--I can't. If I were a well man I could explain with + this pencil, but in the cir---ces I will leave it all to your + imagination. + + Was it Grady who killed himself trying to do all the dining and + speeching? + + No, old man, no, no! Ever yours, MARK. + + +He became again the guest of honor at the Lotos Club, which had dined him +so lavishly seven years before, just previous to his financial collapse. +That former dinner had been a distinguished occasion, but never before +had the Lotos Club been so brimming with eager hospitality as on the +second great occasion. In closing his introductory speech President +Frank Lawrence said, "We hail him as one who has borne great burdens with +manliness and courage, who has emerged from great struggles victorious," +and the assembled diners roared out their applause. Clemens in his reply +said: + + Your president has referred to certain burdens which I was weighted + with. I am glad he did, as it gives me an opportunity which I + wanted--to speak of those debts. You all knew what he meant when he + referred to it, & of the poor bankrupt firm of C. L. Webster & Co. + No one has said a word about those creditors. There were ninety-six + creditors in all, & not by a finger's weight did ninety-five out of + the ninety-six add to the burden of that time. They treated me + well; they treated me handsomely. I never knew I owed them + anything; not a sign came from them. + +It was like him to make that public acknowledgment. He could not let an +unfair impression remain that any man or any set of men had laid an +unnecessary burden upon him-his sense of justice would not consent to it. +He also spoke on that occasion of certain national changes. + + How many things have happened in the seven years I have been away + from home! We have fought a righteous war, and a righteous war is a + rare thing in history. We have turned aside from our own comfort + and seen to it that freedom should exist, not only within our own + gates, but in our own neighborhood. We have set Cuba free and + placed her among the galaxy of free nations of the world. We + started out to set those poor Filipinos free, but why that righteous + plan miscarried perhaps I shall never know. We have also been + making a creditable showing in China, and that is more than all the + other powers can say. The "Yellow Terror" is threatening the world, + but no matter what happens the United States says that it has had no + part in it. + + Since I have been away we have been nursing free silver. We have + watched by its cradle, we have done our best to raise that child, + but every time it seemed to be getting along nicely along came some + pestiferous Republican and gave it the measles or something. I fear + we will never raise that child. + + We've done more than that. We elected a President four years ago. + We've found fault and criticized him, and here a day or two ago we + go and elect him for another four years, with votes enough to spare + to do it over again. + +One club followed another in honoring Mark Twain--the Aldine, the St. +Nicholas, the Press clubs, and other associations and societies. His old +friends were at these dinners--Howells, Aldrich, Depew, Rogers, +ex-Speaker Reed--and they praised him and gibed him to his and their +hearts' content. + +It was a political year, and he generally had something to say on matters +municipal, national, or international; and he spoke out more and more +freely, as with each opportunity he warmed more righteously to his +subject. + +At the dinner given to him by the St. Nicholas Club he said, with deep +irony: + + Gentlemen, you have here the best municipal government in the world, + and the most fragrant and the purest. The very angels of heaven + envy you and wish they had a government like it up there. You got + it by your noble fidelity to civic duty; by the stern and ever + watchful exercise of the great powers lodged in you as lovers and + guardians of your city; by your manly refusal to sit inert when base + men would have invaded her high places and possessed them; by your + instant retaliation when any insult was offered you in her person, + or any assault was made upon her fair fame. It is you who have made + this government what it is, it is you who have made it the envy and + despair of the other capitals of the world--and God bless you for + it, gentlemen, God bless you! And when you get to heaven at last + they'll say with joy, "Oh, there they come, the representatives of + the perfectest citizenship in the universe show them the archangel's + box and turn on the limelight!" + +Those hearers who in former years had been indifferent to Mark Twain's +more serious purpose began to realize that, whatever he may have been +formerly, he was by no means now a mere fun-maker, but a man of deep and +grave convictions, able to give them the fullest and most forcible +expression. He still might make them laugh, but he also made them think, +and he stirred them to a truer gospel of patriotism. He did not preach a +patriotism that meant a boisterous cheering of the Stars and Stripes +right or wrong, but a patriotism that proposed to keep the Stars and +Stripes clean and worth shouting for. In an article, perhaps it was a +speech, begun at this time he wrote: + + We teach the boys to atrophy their independence. We teach them to + take their patriotism at second-hand; to shout with the largest + crowd without examining into the right or wrong of the matter-- + exactly as boys under monarchies are taught and have always been + taught. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion + and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, & so here in our + democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most + foreign to it & out of place--the delivery of our political + conscience into somebody else's keeping. This is patriotism on the + Russian plan. + +Howells tells of discussing these vital matters with him in "an upper +room, looking south over a quiet, open space of back yards where," he +says, "we fought our battles in behalf of the Filipinos and Boers, and he +carried on his campaign against the missionaries in China." + +Howells at the time expressed an amused fear that Mark Twain's +countrymen, who in former years had expected him to be merely a humorist, +should now, in the light of his wider acceptance abroad, demand that he +be mainly serious. + +But the American people were quite ready to accept him in any of his +phases, fully realizing that whatever his philosophy or doctrine it would +have somewhat of the humorous form, and whatever his humor, there would +somewhere be wisdom in it. He had in reality changed little; for a +generation he had thought the sort of things which he now, with advanced +years and a different audience, felt warranted in uttering openly. The +man who in '64 had written against corruption in San Francisco, who a few +years later had defended the emigrant Chinese against persecution, who at +the meetings of the Monday Evening Club had denounced hypocrisy in +politics, morals, and national issues, did not need to change to be able +to speak out against similar abuses now. And a newer generation as +willing to herald Mark Twain as a sage as well as a humorist, and on +occasion to quite overlook the absence of the cap and bells. + + + + +CCXIII + +MARK TWAIN--GENERAL SPOKESMAN + +Clemens did not confine his speeches altogether to matters of reform. At +a dinner given by the Nineteenth Century Club in November, 1900, he spoke +on the "Disappearance of Literature," and at the close of the discussion +of that subject, referring to Milton and Scott, he said: + + Professor Winchester also said something about there being no modern + epics like "Paradise Lost." I guess he's right. He talked as if he + was pretty familiar with that piece of literary work, and nobody + would suppose that he never had read it. I don't believe any of you + have ever read "Paradise Lost," and you don't want to. That's + something that you just want to take on trust. It's a classic, just + as Professor Winchester says, and it meets his definition of a + classic--something that everybody wants to have read and nobody + wants to read. + + Professor Trent also had a good deal to say about the disappearance + of literature. He said that Scott would outlive all his critics. + I guess that's true. That fact of the business is you've got to be + one of two ages to appreciate Scott. When you're eighteen you can + read Ivanhoe, and you want to wait until you're ninety to read some + of the rest. It takes a pretty well-regulated abstemious critic to + live ninety years. + +But a few days later he was back again in the forefront of reform, +preaching at the Berkeley Lyceum against foreign occupation in China. +It was there that he declared himself a Boxer. + + Why should not China be free from the foreigners, who are only + making trouble on her soil? If they would only all go home what a + pleasant place China would be for the Chinese! We do not allow + Chinamen to come here, and I say, in all seriousness, that it would + be a graceful thing to let China decide who shall go there. + + China never wanted foreigners any more than foreigners wanted + Chinamen, and on this question I am with the Boxers every time. The + Boxer is a patriot. He loves his country better than he does the + countries of other people. I wish him success. We drive the + Chinaman out of our country; the Boxer believes in driving us out of + his country. I am a Boxer, too, on those terms. + +Introducing Winston Churchill, of England, at a dinner some weeks later, +he explained how generous England and America had been in not requiring +fancy rates for "extinguished missionaries" in China as Germany had done. +Germany had required territory and cash, he said, in payment for her +missionaries, while the United States and England had been willing to +settle for produce--firecrackers and tea. + +The Churchill introduction would seem to have been his last speech for +the year 1900, and he expected it, with one exception, to be the last for +a long time. He realized that he was tired and that the strain upon him +made any other sort of work out of the question. Writing to MacAlister +at the end of the year, he said, "I seem to have made many speeches, but +it is not so. It is not more than ten, I think." Still, a respectable +number in the space of two months, considering that each was carefully +written and committed to memory, and all amid crushing social pressure. +Again to MacAlister: + + I declined 7 banquets yesterday (which is double the daily average) + & answered 29 letters. I have slaved at my mail every day since we + arrived in mid-October, but Jean is learning to typewrite & + presently I'll dictate & thereby save some scraps of time. + +He added that after January 4th he did not intend to speak again for a +year--that he would not speak then only that the matter concerned the +reform of city government. + +The occasion of January 4, 1901, was a rather important one. It was a +meeting of the City Club, then engaged in the crusade for municipal +reform. Wheeler H. Peckham presided, and Bishop Potter made the opening +address. It all seems like ancient history now, and perhaps is not very +vital any more; but the movement was making a great stir then, and Mark +Twain's declaration that he believed forty-nine men out of fifty were +honest, and that the forty-nine only needed to organize to disqualify the +fiftieth man (always organized for crime), was quoted as a sort of slogan +for reform. + +Clemens was not permitted to keep his resolution that he wouldn't speak +again that year. He had become a sort of general spokesman on public +matters, and demands were made upon him which could not be denied. He +declined a Yale alumni dinner, but he could not refuse to preside at the +Lincoln Birthday celebration at Carnegie Hall, February 11th, where he +must introduce Watterson as the speaker of the evening. + +"Think of it!" he wrote Twichell. "Two old rebels functioning there: I +as president and Watterson as orator of the day! Things have changed +somewhat in these forty years, thank God!" + +The Watterson introduction is one of the choicest of Mark Twain's +speeches--a pure and perfect example of simple eloquence, worthy of the +occasion which gave it utterance, worthy in spite of its playful +paragraphs (or even because of them, for Lincoln would have loved them), +to become the matrix of that imperishable Gettysburg phrase with which he +makes his climax. He opened by dwelling for a moment on Colonel +Watterson as a soldier, journalist, orator, statesman, and patriot; then +he said: + + It is a curious circumstance that without collusion of any kind, but + merely in obedience to a strange and pleasant and dramatic freak of + destiny, he and I, kinsmen by blood--[Colonel Watterson's forebears + had intermarried with the Lamptons.]--for we are that--and one-time + rebels--for we were that--should be chosen out of a million + surviving quondam rebels to come here and bare our heads in + reverence and love of that noble soul whom 40 years ago we tried + with all our hearts and all our strength to defeat and dispossess-- + Abraham Lincoln! Is the Rebellion ended and forgotten? Are the + Blue and the Gray one to-day? By authority of this sign we may + answer yes; there was a Rebellion--that incident is closed. + + I was born and reared in a slave State, my father was a slaveowner; + and in the Civil War I was a second lieutenant in the Confederate + service. For a while. This second cousin of mine, Colonel + Watterson, the orator of this present occasion, was born and reared + in a slave State, was a colonel in the Confederate service, and + rendered me such assistance as he could in my self-appointed great + task of annihilating the Federal armies and breaking up the Union. + I laid my plans with wisdom and foresight, and if Colonel Watterson + had obeyed my orders I should have succeeded in my giant + undertaking. It was my intention to drive General Grant into the + Pacific--if I could get transportation--and I told Colonel Watterson + to surround the Eastern armies and wait till I came. But he was + insubordinate, and stood upon a punctilio of military etiquette; he + refused to take orders from a second lieutenant--and the Union was + saved. This is the first time that this secret has been revealed. + Until now no one outside the family has known the facts. But there + they stand: Watterson saved the Union. Yet to this day that man + gets no pension. Those were great days, splendid days. What an + uprising it was! For the hearts of the whole nation, North and + South, were in the war. We of the South were not ashamed; for, like + the men of the North, we were fighting for 'flags we loved; and when + men fight for these things, and under these convictions, with + nothing sordid to tarnish their cause, that cause is holy, the blood + spilt for it is sacred, the life that is laid down for it is + consecrated. To-day we no longer regret the result, to-day we are + glad it came out as it did, but we are not ashamed that we did our + endeavor; we did our bravest best, against despairing odds, for the + cause which was precious to us and which our consciences approved; + and we are proud--and you are proud--the kindred blood in your veins + answers when I say it--you are proud of the record we made in those + mighty collisions in the fields. + + What an uprising it was! We did not have to supplicate for soldiers + on either side. "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred + thousand strong!" That was the music North and South. The very + choicest young blood and brawn and brain rose up from Maine to the + Gulf and flocked to the standards--just as men always do when in + their eyes their cause is great and fine and their hearts are in it; + just as men flocked to the Crusades, sacrificing all they possessed + to the cause, and entering cheerfully upon hardships which we cannot + even imagine in this age, and upon toilsome and wasting journeys + which in our time would be the equivalent of circumnavigating the + globe five times over. + + North and South we put our hearts into that colossal struggle, and + out of it came the blessed fulfilment of the prophecy of the + immortal Gettysburg speech which said: "We here highly resolve that + these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, + shall have a new birth of freedom; and that a government of the + people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the + earth." + + We are here to honor the birthday of the greatest citizen, and the + noblest and the best, after Washington, that this land or any other + has yet produced. The old wounds are healed, you and we are + brothers again; you testify it by honoring two of us, once soldiers + of the Lost Cause, and foes of your great and good leader--with the + privilege of assisting here; and we testify it by laying our honest + homage at the feet of Abraham Lincoln, and in forgetting that you of + the North and we of the South were ever enemies, and remembering + only that we are now indistinguishably fused together and nameable + by one common great name--Americans! + + + + +CCXIV + +MARK TWAIN AND THE MISSIONARIES + +Mark Twain had really begun his crusade for reform soon after his arrival +in America in a practical hand-to-hand manner. His housekeeper, Katie +Leary, one night employed a cabman to drive her from the Grand Central +Station to the house at 14 West Tenth Street. No contract had been made +as to price, and when she arrived there the cabman's extortionate charge +was refused. He persisted in it, and she sent into the house for her +employer. Of all men, Mark Twain was the last one to countenance an +extortion. He reasoned with the man kindly enough at first; when the +driver at last became abusive Clemens demanded his number, which was at +first refused. In the end he paid the legal fare, and in the morning +entered a formal complaint, something altogether unexpected, for the +American public is accustomed to suffering almost any sort of imposition +to avoid trouble and publicity. + +In some notes which Clemens had made in London four years earlier he +wrote: + + If you call a policeman to settle the dispute you can depend on one + thing--he will decide it against you every time. And so will the + New York policeman. In London if you carry your case into court the + man that is entitled to win it will win it. In New York--but no one + carries a cab case into court there. It is my impression that it is + now more than thirty years since any one has carried a cab case into + court there. + +Nevertheless, he was promptly on hand when the case was called to sustain +the charge and to read the cabdrivers' union and the public in general a +lesson in good-citizenship. At the end of the hearing, to a +representative of the union he said: + +"This is not a matter of sentiment, my dear sir. It is simply practical +business. You cannot imagine that I am making money wasting an hour or +two of my time prosecuting a case in which I can have no personal +interest whatever. I am doing this just as any citizen should do. He +has no choice. He has a distinct duty. He is a non-classified +policeman. Every citizen is, a policeman, and it is his duty to assist +the police and the magistracy in every way he can, and give his time, if +necessary, to do so. Here is a man who is a perfectly natural product of +an infamous system in this city--a charge upon the lax patriotism in this +city of New York that this thing can exist. You have encouraged him, in +every way you know how to overcharge. He is not the criminal here at +all. The criminal is the citizen of New York and the absence of +patriotism. I am not here to avenge myself on him. I have no quarrel +with him. My quarrel is with the citizens of New York, who have +encouraged him, and who created him by encouraging him to overcharge in +this way." + +The driver's license was suspended. The case made a stir in the +newspapers, and it is not likely that any one incident ever contributed +more to cab-driving morals in New York City. + +But Clemens had larger matters than this in prospect. His many speeches +on municipal and national abuses he felt were more or less ephemeral. He +proposed now to write himself down more substantially and for a wider +hearing. The human race was behaving very badly: unspeakable corruption +was rampant in the city; the Boers were being oppressed in South Africa; +the natives were being murdered in the Philippines; Leopold of Belgium +was massacring and mutilating the blacks in the Congo, and the allied +powers, in the cause of Christ, were slaughtering the Chinese. In his +letters he had more than once boiled over touching these matters, and for +New-Year's Eve, 1900, had written: + + + A GREETING FROM THE NINETEENTH TO THE TWENTIETH CENTURY + + I bring you the stately nation named Christendom, returning, + bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonored, from pirate raids in Kiao- + Chou, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Philippines, with her soul + full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of + pious hypocrisies. Give her soap and towel, but hide the looking- + glass.--[Prepared for Red Cross Society watch-meeting, which was + postponed until March. Clemens recalled his "Greeting" for that + reason and for one other, which he expressed thus: "The list of + greeters thus far issued by you contains only vague generalities and + one definite name--mine: 'Some kings and queens and Mark Twain.' Now + I am not enjoying this sparkling solitude and distinction. It makes + me feel like a circus-poster in a graveyard."] + +This was a sort of preliminary. Then, restraining himself no longer, he +embodied his sentiments in an article for the North American Review +entitled, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness." There was crying need for +some one to speak the right word. He was about the only one who could do +it and be certain of a universal audience. He took as his text some +Christmas Eve clippings from the New York Tribune and Sun which he had +been saving for this purpose. The Tribune clipping said: + + Christmas will dawn in the United States over a people full of hope + and aspiration and good cheer. Such a condition means contentment + and happiness. The carping grumbler who may here and there go forth + will find few to listen to him. The majority will wonder what is + the matter with him, and pass on. + +A Sun clipping depicted the "terrible offenses against humanity committed +in the name of politics in some of the most notorious East Side districts +"--the unmissionaried, unpoliced darker New York. The Sun declared that +they could not be pictured even verbally. But it suggested enough to +make the reader shudder at the hideous depths of vice in the sections +named. Another clipping from the same paper reported the "Rev. Mr. +Ament, of the American Board of Foreign Missions," as having collected +indemnities for Boxer damages in China at the rate of three hundred taels +for each murder, "full payment for all destroyed property belonging to +Christians, and national fines amounting to thirteen times the +indemnity." It quoted Mr. Ament as saying that the money so obtained was +used for the propagation of the Gospel, and that the amount so collected +was moderate when compared with the amount secured by the Catholics, who +had demanded, in addition to money, life for life, that is to say, "head +for head"--in one district six hundred and eighty heads having been so +collected. + +The despatch made Mr. Ament say a great deal more than this, but the gist +here is enough. Mark Twain, of course, was fiercely stirred. The +missionary idea had seldom appealed to him, and coupled with this +business of bloodshed, it was less attractive than usual. He printed the +clippings in full, one following the other; then he said: + + By happy luck we get all these glad tidings on Christmas Eve--just + the time to enable us to celebrate the day with proper gaiety and + enthusiasm. Our spirits soar and we find we can even make jokes; + taels I win, heads you lose. + +He went on to score Ament, to compare the missionary policy in China to +that of the Pawnee Indians, and to propose for him a monument-- +subscriptions to be sent to the American Board. He denounced the +national policies in Africa, China, and the Philippines, and showed by +the reports and by the private letters of soldiers home, how cruel and +barbarous and fiendish had been the warfare made by those whose avowed +purpose was to carry the blessed light of civilization and Gospel "to the +benighted native"--how in very truth these priceless blessings had been +handed on the point of a bayonet to the "Person Sitting in Darkness." + +Mark Twain never wrote anything more scorching, more penetrating in its +sarcasm, more fearful in its revelation of injustice and hypocrisy, than +his article "To the Person Sitting in Darkness." He put aquafortis on +all the raw places, and when it was finished he himself doubted the +wisdom of printing it. Howells, however, agreed that it should be +published, and "it ought to be illustrated by Dan Beard," he added, "with +such pictures as he made for the Yankee in King Arthur's Court, but you'd +better hang yourself afterward." + +Meeting Beard a few days later, Clemens mentioned the matter and said: + +"So if you make the pictures, you hang with me." + +But pictures were not required. It was published in the North American +Review for February, 1901, as the opening article; after which the +cyclone. Two storms moving in opposite directions produce a cyclone, and +the storms immediately developed; one all for Mark Twain and his +principles, the other all against him. Every paper in England and +America commented on it editorially, with bitter denunciations or with +eager praise, according to their lights and convictions. + +At 14 West Tenth Street letters, newspaper clippings, documents poured in +by the bushel--laudations, vituperations, denunciations, vindications; no +such tumult ever occurred in a peaceful literary home. It was really as +if he had thrown a great missile into the human hive, one-half of which +regarded it as a ball of honey and the remainder as a cobblestone. +Whatever other effect it may have had, it left no thinking person +unawakened. + +Clemens reveled in it. W. A. Rogers, in Harper's Weekly, caricatured him +as Tom Sawyer in a snow fort, assailed by the shower of snowballs, +"having the time of his life." Another artist, Fred Lewis, pictured him +as Huck Finn with a gun. + +The American Board was naturally disturbed. The Ament clipping which +Clemens had used had been public property for more than a month--its +authenticity never denied; but it was immediately denied now, and the +cable kept hot with inquiries. + +The Rev. Judson Smith, one of the board, took up the defense of Dr. +Ament, declaring him to be one who had suffered for the cause, and asked +Mark Twain, whose "brilliant article," he said, "would produce an effect +quite beyond the reach of plain argument," not to do an innocent man an +injustice. Clemens in the same paper replied that such was not his +intent, that Mr. Ament in his report had simply arraigned himself. + +Then it suddenly developed that the cable report had "grossly +exaggerated" the amount of Mr. Ament's collections. Instead of thirteen +times the indemnity it should have read "one and a third times" the +indemnity; whereupon, in another open letter, the board demanded +retraction and apology. Clemens would not fail to make the apology--at +least he would explain. It was precisely the kind of thing that would +appeal to him--the delicate moral difference between a demand thirteen +times as great as it should be and a demand that was only one and a third +times the correct amount. "To My Missionary Critics," in the North +American Review for April (1901), was his formal and somewhat lengthy +reply. + +"I have no prejudice against apologies," he wrote. "I trust I shall +never withhold one when it is due." + +He then proceeded to make out his case categorically. Touching the +exaggerated indemnity, he said: + +To Dr. Smith the "thirteen-fold-extra" clearly stood for "theft and +extortion," and he was right, distinctly right, indisputably right. He +manifestly thinks that when it got scaled away down to a mere "one-third" +a little thing like that was some other than "theft and extortion." Why, +only the board knows! + +I will try to explain this difficult problem so that the board can get an +idea of it. If a pauper owes me a dollar and I catch him unprotected and +make him pay me fourteen dollars thirteen of it is "theft and extortion." +If I make him pay only one dollar thirty-three and a third cents the +thirty-three and a third cents are "theft and extortion," just the same. + +I will put it in another way still simpler. If a man owes me one dog-- +any kind of a dog, the breed is of no consequence--and I--but let it go; +the board would never understand it. It can't understand these involved +and difficult things. + +He offered some further illustrations, including the "Tale of a King and +His Treasure" and another tale entitled "The Watermelons." + + I have it now. Many years ago, when I was studying for the gallows, + I had a dear comrade, a youth who was not in my line, but still a + scrupulously good fellow though devious. He was preparing to + qualify for a place on the board, for there was going to be a + vacancy by superannuation in about five years. This was down South, + in the slavery days. It was the nature of the negro then, as now, + to steal watermelons. They stole three of the melons of an adoptive + brother of mine, the only good ones he had. I suspected three of a + neighbor's negroes, but there was no proof, and, besides, the + watermelons in those negroes' private patches were all green and + small and not up to indemnity standard. But in the private patches + of three other negroes there was a number of competent melons. I + consulted with my comrade, the understudy of the board. He said + that if I would approve his arrangements he would arrange. I said, + "Consider me the board; I approve; arrange." So he took a gun and + went and collected three large melons for my brother-on-the- + halfshell, and one over. I was greatly pleased and asked: + + "Who gets the extra one?" + "Widows and orphans." + + "A good idea, too. Why didn't you take thirteen?" + + "It would have been wrong; a crime, in fact-theft and extortion." + + "What is the one-third extra--the odd melon--the same?" + + It caused him to reflect. But there was no result. + + The justice of the peace was a stern man. On the trial he found + fault with the scheme and required us to explain upon what we based + our strange conduct--as he called it. The understudy said: + + "On the custom of the niggers. They all do it."--[The point had + been made by the board that it was the Chinese custom to make the + inhabitants of a village responsible for individual crimes; and + custom, likewise, to collect a third in excess of the damage, such + surplus having been applied to the support of widows and orphans of + the slain converts.] + + The justice forgot his dignity and descended to sarcasm. + + "Custom of the niggers! Are our morals so inadequate that we have + to borrow of niggers?" + + Then he said to the jury: "Three melons were owing; they were + collected from persons not proven to owe them: this is theft; they + were collected by compulsion: this is extortion. A melon was added + for the widows and orphans. It was owed by no one. It is another + theft, another extortion. Return it whence it came, with the + others. It is not permissible here to apply to any purpose goods + dishonestly obtained; not even to the feeding of widows and orphans, + for this would be to put a shame upon charity and dishonor it." + + He said it in open court, before everybody, and to me it did not + seem very kind. + +It was in the midst of the tumult that Clemens, perhaps feeling the need +of sacred melody, wrote to Andrew Carnegie: + +DEAR SIR & FRIEND,--You seem to be in prosperity. Could you lend an +admirer $1.50 to buy a hymn-book with? God will bless you. I feel it; +I know it. + +N. B.--If there should be other applications, this one not to count. + Yours, MARK. + +P. S.-Don't send the hymn-book; send the money; I want to make the +selection myself. + + +Carnegie answered: + + Nothing less than a two-dollar & a half hymn-book gilt will do for + you. Your place in the choir (celestial) demands that & you shall + have it. + + There's a new Gospel of Saint Mark in the North American which I + like better than anything I've read for many a day. + + I am willing to borrow a thousand dollars to distribute that sacred + message in proper form, & if the author don't object may I send that + sum, when I can raise it, to the Anti-Imperialist League, Boston, to + which I am a contributor, the only missionary work I am responsible + for. + + Just tell me you are willing & many thousands of the holy little + missals will go forth. This inimitable satire is to become a + classic. I count among my privileges in life that I know you, the + author. + +Perhaps a few more of the letters invited by Mark Twain's criticism of +missionary work in China may still be of interest to the reader: +Frederick T. Cook, of the Hospital Saturday and Sunday Association, +wrote: "I hail you as the Voltaire of America. It is a noble +distinction. God bless you and see that you weary not in well-doing +in this noblest, sublimest of crusades." + +Ministers were by no means all against him. The associate pastor of the +Every-day Church, in Boston, sent this line: "I want to thank you for +your matchless article in the current North American. It must make +converts of well-nigh all who read it." + +But a Boston school-teacher was angry. "I have been reading the North +American," she wrote, "and I am filled with shame and remorse that I have +dreamed of asking you to come to Boston to talk to the teachers." + +On the outside of the envelope Clemens made this pencil note: + +"Now, I suppose I offended that young lady by having an opinion of my +own, instead of waiting and copying hers. I never thought. I suppose +she must be as much as twenty-five, and probably the only patriot in the +country." + +A critic with a sense of humor asked: "Please excuse seeming +impertinence, but were you ever adjudged insane? Be honest. How much +money does the devil give you for arraigning Christianity and missionary +causes?" + +But there were more of the better sort. Edward S. Martin, in a grateful +letter, said: "How gratifying it is to feel that we have a man among us +who understands the rarity of the plain truth, and who delights to utter +it, and has the gift of doing so without cant and with not too much +seriousness." + +Sir Hiram Maxim wrote: "I give you my candid opinion that what you have +done is of very great value to the civilization of the world. There is +no man living whose words carry greater weight than your own, as no one's +writings are so eagerly sought after by all classes." + +Clemens himself in his note-book set down this aphorism: + +"Do right and you will be conspicuous." + + + + +CCXV + +SUMMER AT "THE LAIR" + +In June Clemens took the family to Saranac Lake, to Ampersand. They +occupied a log cabin which he called "The Lair," on the south shore, near +the water's edge, a remote and beautiful place where, as had happened +before, they were so comfortable and satisfied that they hoped to return +another summer. There were swimming and boating and long walks in the +woods; the worry and noise of the world were far away. They gave little +enough attention to the mails. They took only a weekly paper, and were +likely to allow it to lie in the postoffice uncalled for. Clemens, +especially, loved the place, and wrote to Twichell: + + I am on the front porch (lower one-main deck) of our little bijou of + a dwelling-house. The lake edge (Lower Saranac) is so nearly under + me that I can't see the shore, but only the water, small-poxed with + rain splashes--for there is a heavy down pour. It is charmingly + like sitting snuggled up on a ship's deck with the stretching sea + all around but very much more satisfactory, for at sea a rainstorm + is depressing, while here of course the effect engendered is just a + deep sense of comfort & contentment. The heavy forest shuts us + solidly in on three sides--there are no neighbors. There are + beautiful little tan-colored impudent squirrels about. They take + tea 5 P.M. (not invited) at the table in the woods where Jean does + my typewriting, & one of them has been brave enough to sit upon + Jean's knee with his tail curved over his back & munch his food. + They come to dinner 7 P.M. on the front porch (not invited), but + Clara drives them away. It is an occupation which requires some + industry & attention to business. They all have the one name- + Blennerhasset, from Burr's friend--& none of them answers to it + except when hungry. + +Clemens could work at "The Lair," often writing in shady seclusions along +the shore, and he finished there the two-part serial,--[ Published in +Harper's Magazine for January and February, 1902.]--"The Double- +Barrelled Detective Story," intended originally as a burlesque on +Sherlock Holmes. It did not altogether fulfil its purpose, and is hardly +to be ranked as one of Mark Twain's successes. It contains, however, one +paragraph at least by which it is likely to be remembered, a hoax--his +last one--on the reader. It runs as follows: + + It was a crisp and spicy morning in early October. The lilacs and + laburnums, lit with the glory-fires of autumn, hung burning and + flashing in the upper air, a fairy bridge provided by kind nature + for the wingless wild things that have their home in the tree-tops + and would visit together; the larch and the pomegranate flung their + purple and yellow flames in brilliant broad splashes along the + slanting sweep of woodland, the sensuous fragrance of innumerable + deciduous flowers rose upon the swooning atmosphere, far in the + empty sky a solitary oesophagus slept upon motionless wing; + everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and the peace of God. + +The warm light and luxury of this paragraph are factitious. The careful +reader will, note that its various accessories are ridiculously +associated, and only the most careless reader will accept the oesophagus +as a bird. But it disturbed a great many admirers, and numerous letters +of inquiry came wanting to know what it was all about. Some suspected +the joke and taunted him with it; one such correspondent wrote: + + MY DEAR MARK TWAIN,--Reading your "Double-Barrelled Detective Story" + in the January Harper's late one night I came to the paragraph where + you so beautifully describe "a crisp and spicy morning in early + October." I read along down the paragraph, conscious only of its + woozy sound, until I brought up with a start against your oesophagus + in the empty sky. Then I read the paragraph again. Oh, Mark Twain! + Mark Twain! How could you do it? Put a trap like that into the + midst of a tragical story? Do serenity and peace brood over you + after you have done such a thing? + + Who lit the lilacs, and which end up do they hang? When did larches + begin to flame, and who set out the pomegranates in that canyon? + What are deciduous flowers, and do they always "bloom in the fall, + tra la"? + + I have been making myself obnoxious to various people by demanding + their opinion of that paragraph without telling them the name of the + author. They say, "Very well done." "The alliteration is so + pretty." "What's an oesophagus, a bird?" "What's it all mean, + anyway?" I tell them it means Mark Twain, and that an oesophagus is + a kind of swallow. Am I right? Or is it a gull? Or a gullet? + + Hereafter if you must write such things won't you please be so kind + as to label them? + Very sincerely yours, + ALLETTA F. DEAN. + +Mark Twain to Miss Dean: + + Don't you give that oesophagus away again or I'll never trust you + with another privacy! + +So many wrote, that Clemens finally felt called upon to make public +confession, and as one searching letter had been mailed from Springfield, +Massachusetts, he made his reply through the Republican of that city. +After some opening comment he said: + + I published a short story lately & it was in that that I put the + oesophagus. I will say privately that I expected it to bother some + people--in fact, that was the intention--but the harvest has been + larger than I was calculating upon. The oesophagus has gathered in + the guilty and the innocent alike, whereas I was only fishing for + the innocent--the innocent and confiding. + +He quoted a letter from a schoolmaster in the Philippines who thought the +passage beautiful with the exception of the curious creature which "slept +upon motionless wings." Said Clemens: + + Do you notice? Nothing in the paragraph disturbed him but that one + word. It shows that that paragraph was most ably constructed for + the deception it was intended to put upon the reader. It was my + intention that it should read plausibly, and it is now plain that it + does; it was my intention that it should be emotional and touching, + and you see yourself that it fetched this public instructor. Alas! + if I had but left that one treacherous word out I should have + scored, scored everywhere, and the paragraph would have slidden + through every reader's sensibilities like oil and left not a + suspicion behind. + + The other sample inquiry is from a professor in a New England + university. It contains one naughty word (which I cannot bear to + suppress), but he is not in the theological department, so it is no + harm: + + "DEAR MR. CLEMENS,--'Far in the empty sky a solitary oesophagus + slept upon motionless wing.' + + "It is not often I get a chance to read much periodical literature, + but I have just gone through at this belated period, with much + gratification and edification, your 'Double-Barrelled Detective + Story.' + + "But what in hell is an oesophagus? I keep one myself, but it never + sleeps in the air or anywhere else. My profession is to deal with + words, and oesophagus interested me the moment I lighted upon it. + But, as a companion of my youth used to say, 'I'll be eternally, co- + eternally cussed' if I can make it out. Is it a joke or am I an + ignoramus?" + + Between you and me, I was almost ashamed of having fooled that man, + but for pride's sake I was not going to say so. I wrote and told + him it was a joke--and that is what I am now saying to my + Springfield inquirer. And I told him to carefully read the whole + paragraph and he would find not a vestige of sense in any detail of + it. This also I recommend to my Springfield inquirer. + + I have confessed. I am sorry--partially. I will not do so any + more--for the present. Don't ask me any more questions; let the + oesophagus have a rest--on his same old motionless wing. + +He wrote Twichell that the story had been a six-day 'tour de force', +twenty-five thousand words, and he adds: + + How long it takes a literary seed to sprout sometimes! This seed was + planted in your house many years ago when you sent me to bed with a + book not heard of by me until then--Sherlock Holmes . . . . + I've done a grist of writing here this summer, but not for + publication soon, if ever. I did write two satisfactory articles + for early print, but I've burned one of them & have buried the other + in my large box of posthumous stuff. I've got stacks of literary + remains piled up there. + +Early in August Clemens went with H. H. Rogers in his yacht Kanawha on a +cruise to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Rogers had made up a party, +including ex-Speaker Reed, Dr. Rice, and Col. A. G. Paine. Young Harry +Rogers also made one of the party. Clemens kept a log of the cruise, +certain entries of which convey something of its spirit. On the 11th, at +Yarmouth, he wrote: + + Fog-bound. The garrison went ashore. Officers visited the yacht in + the evening & said an anvil had been missed. Mr. Rogers paid for + the anvil. + + August 13th. There is a fine picture-gallery here; the sheriff + photographed the garrison, with the exception of Harry (Rogers) and + Mr. Clemens. + + August 14th. Upon complaint of Mr. Reed another dog was procured. + He said he had been a sailor all his life, and considered it + dangerous to trust a ship to a dog-watch with only one dog in it. + + Poker, for a change. + + August 15th. To Rockland, Maine, in the afternoon, arriving about 6 + P.M. In the night Dr. Rice baited the anchor with his winnings & + caught a whale 90 feet long. He said so himself. It is thought + that if there had been another witness like Dr. Rice the whale would + have been longer. + + August 16th. We could have had a happy time in Bath but for the + interruptions caused by people who wanted Mr. Reed to explain votes + of the olden time or give back the money. Mr. Rogers recouped them. + + Another anvil missed. The descendant of Captain Kidd is the only + person who does not blush for these incidents. Harry and Mr. + Clemens blush continually. It is believed that if the rest of the + garrison were like these two the yacht would be welcome everywhere + instead of being quarantined by the police in all the ports. Mr. + Clemens & Harry have attracted a great deal of attention, & men have + expressed a resolve to turn over a new leaf & copy after them from + this out. + + Evening. Judge Cohen came over from another yacht to pay his + respects to Harry and Mr. Clemens, he having heard of their + reputation from the clergy of these coasts. He was invited by the + gang to play poker apparently as a courtesy & in a spirit of seeming + hospitality, he not knowing them & taking it all at par. Mr. Rogers + lent him clothes to go home in. + + August 17th. The Reformed Statesman growling and complaining again-- + not in a frank, straightforward way, but talking at the Commodore, + while letting on to be talking to himself. This time he was + dissatisfied about the anchor watch; said it was out of date, + untrustworthy, & for real efficiency didn't begin with the + Waterbury, & was going on to reiterate, as usual, that he had been a + pilot all his life & blamed if he ever saw, etc., etc., etc. + + But he was not allowed to finish. We put him ashore at Portland. + +That is to say, Reed landed at Portland, the rest of the party returning +with the yacht. + +"We had a noble good time in the yacht," Clemens wrote Twichell on their +return. "We caught a Chinee missionary and drowned him." + +Twichell had been invited to make one of the party, and this letter was +to make him feel sorry he had not accepted. + + + + +CCXVI + +RIVERDALE--A YALE DEGREE + +The Clemens household did not return to 14 West Tenth Street. They spent +a week in Elmira at the end of September, and after a brief stop in New +York took up their residence on the northern metropolitan boundary, at +Riverdale-on-the-Hudson, in the old Appleton home. They had permanently +concluded not to return to Hartford. They had put the property there +into an agent's hands for sale. Mrs. Clemens never felt that she had the +strength to enter the house again. + +They had selected the Riverdale place with due consideration. They +decided that they must have easy access to the New York center, but they +wished also to have the advantage of space and spreading lawn and trees, +large rooms, and light. The Appleton homestead provided these things. +It was a house built in the first third of the last century by one of the +Morris family, so long prominent in New York history. On passing into +the Appleton ownership it had been enlarged and beautified and named +"Holbrook Hall." It overlooked the Hudson and the Palisades. It had +associations: the Roosevelt family had once lived there, Huxley, Darwin, +Tyndall, and others of their intellectual rank had been entertained there +during its occupation by the first Appleton, the founder of the +publishing firm. The great hall of the added wing was its chief feature. +Clemens once remembered: + +"We drifted from room to room on our tour of inspection, always with a +growing doubt as to whether we wanted that house or not; but at last, +when we arrived in a dining-room that was 60 feet long, 30 feet wide, and +had two great fireplaces in it, that settled it." + +There were pleasant neighbors at Riverdale, and had it not been for the +illnesses that seemed always ready to seize upon that household the home +there might have been ideal. They loved the place presently, so much so +that they contemplated buying it, but decided that it was too costly. +They began to prospect for other places along the Hudson shore. They +were anxious to have a home again--one that they could call their own. + +Among the many pleasant neighbors at Riverdale were the Dodges, the +Quincy Adamses, and the Rev. Mr. Carstensen, a liberal-minded minister +with whom Clemens easily affiliated. Clemens and Carstensen visited back +and forth and exchanged views. Once Mr. Carstensen told him that he was +going to town to dine with a party which included the Reverend Gottheil, +a Catholic bishop, an Indian Buddhist, and a Chinese scholar of the +Confucian faith, after which they were all going to a Yiddish theater. +Clemens said: + +"Well, there's only one more thing you need to make the party complete-- +that is, either Satan or me." + +Howells often came to Riverdale. He was living in a New York apartment, +and it was handy and made an easy and pleasant outing for him. He says: + +"I began to see them again on something like the sweet old terms. They +lived far more unpretentiously than they used, and I think with a notion +of economy, which they had never very successfully practised. I recall +that at the end of a certain year in Hartford, when they had been saving +and paying cash for everything, Clemens wrote, reminding me of their +avowed experiment, and asking me to guess how many bills they had at New- +Year's; he hastened to say that a horse-car would not have held them. At +Riverdale they kept no carriage, and there was a snowy night when I drove +up to their handsome old mansion in the station carryall, which was +crusted with mud, as from the going down of the Deluge after transporting +Noah and his family from the Ark to whatever point they decided to settle +provisionally. But the good talk, the rich talk, the talk that could +never suffer poverty of mind or soul was there, and we jubilantly found +ourselves again in our middle youth." + +Both Howells and Clemens were made doctors of letters by Yale that year +and went over in October to receive their degrees. It was Mark Twain's +second Yale degree, and it was the highest rank that an American +institution of learning could confer. + +Twichell wrote: + +I want you to understand, old fellow, that it will be in its intention +the highest public compliment, and emphatically so in your case, for it +will be tendered you by a corporation of gentlemen, the majority of whom +do not at all agree with the views on important questions which you have +lately promulgated in speech and in writing, and with which you are +identified to the public mind. They grant, of course, your right to hold +and express those views, though for themselves they don't like 'em; but +in awarding you the proposed laurel they will make no count of that +whatever. Their action will appropriately signify simply and solely +their estimate of your merit and rank as a man of letters, and so, as I +say, the compliment of it will be of the pure, unadulterated quality. + +Howells was not especially eager to go, and tried to conspire with +Clemens to arrange some excuse which would keep them at home. + +I remember with satisfaction [he wrote] our joint success in keeping away +from the Concord Centennial in 1875, and I have been thinking we might +help each other in this matter of the Yale Anniversary. What are your +plans for getting left, or shall you trust to inspiration? + +Their plans did not avail. Both Howells and Clemens went to New Haven to +receive their honors. + +When they had returned, Howells wrote formally, as became the new rank: + + DEAR SIR,--I have long been an admirer of your complete works, + several of which I have read, and I am with you shoulder to shoulder + in the cause of foreign missions. I would respectfully request a + personal interview, and if you will appoint some day and hour most + inconvenient to you I will call at your baronial hall. I cannot + doubt, from the account of your courtesy given me by the Twelve + Apostles, who once visited you in your Hartford home and were + mistaken for a syndicate of lightning-rod men, that our meeting will + be mutually agreeable. + + Yours truly, + W. D. HOWELLS. + DR. CLEMENS. + + + + +CCXVII + +MARK TWAIN IN POLITICS + +There was a campaign for the mayoralty of New York City that fall, with +Seth Low on the Fusion ticket against Edward M. Shepard as the Tammany +candidate. Mark Twain entered the arena to try to defeat Tammany Hall. +He wrote and he spoke in favor of clean city government and police +reform. He was savagely in earnest and openly denounced the clan of +Croker, individually and collectively. He joined a society called 'The +Acorns'; and on the 17th of October, at a dinner given by the order at +the Waldorf-Astoria, delivered a fierce arraignment, in which he +characterized Croker as the Warren Hastings of New York. His speech was +really a set of extracts from Edmund Burke's great impeachment of +Hastings, substituting always the name of Croker, and paralleling his +career with that of the ancient boss of the East India Company. + +It was not a humorous speech. It was too denunciatory for that. It +probably contained less comic phrasing than any former effort. There is +hardly even a suggestion of humor from beginning to end. It concluded +with this paraphrase of Burke's impeachment: + + I impeach Richard Croker of high crimes and misdemeanors. I impeach + him in the name of the people, whose trust he has betrayed. + + I impeach him in the name of all the people of America, whose + national character he has dishonored. + + I impeach him in the name and by virtue of those eternal laws of + justice which he has violated. + + I impeach him in the name of human nature itself, which he has + cruelly outraged, injured, and oppressed, in both sexes, in every + age, rank, situation, and condition of life. + +The Acorn speech was greatly relied upon for damage to the Tammany ranks, +and hundreds of thousands of copies of it were printed and circulated.-- +[The "Edmund Burke on Croker and Tammany" speech had originally been +written as an article for the North American Review.] + +Clemens was really heart and soul in the campaign. He even joined a +procession that marched up Broadway, and he made a speech to a great +assemblage at Broadway and Leonard Street, when, as he said, he had been +sick abed two days and, according to the doctor, should be in bed then. + + But I would not stay at home for a nursery disease, and that's what + I've got. Now, don't let this leak out all over town, but I've been + doing some indiscreet eating--that's all. It wasn't drinking. If + it had been I shouldn't have said anything about it. + + I ate a banana. I bought it just to clinch the Italian vote for + fusion, but I got hold of a Tammany banana by mistake. Just one + little nub of it on the end was nice and white. That was the + Shepard end. The other nine-tenths were rotten. Now that little + white end won't make the rest of the banana good. The nine-tenths + will make that little nub rotten, too. + + We must get rid of the whole banana, and our Acorn Society is going + to do its share, for it is pledged to nothing but the support of + good government all over the United States. We will elect the + President next time. + + It won't be I, for I have ruined my chances by joining the Acorns, + and there can be no office-holders among us. + +There was a movement which Clemens early nipped in the bud--to name a +political party after him. + +"I should be far from willing to have a political party named after me," +he wrote, "and I would not be willing to belong to a party which allowed +its members to have political aspirations or push friends forward for +political preferment." + +In other words, he was a knight-errant; his sole purpose for being in +politics at all--something he always detested--was to do what he could +for the betterment of his people. + +He had his reward, for when Election Day came, and the returns were in, +the Fusion ticket had triumphed and Tammany had fallen. Clemens received +his share of the credit. One paper celebrated him in verse: + + Who killed Croker? + I, said Mark Twain, + I killed Croker, + I, the jolly joker! + +Among Samuel Clemens's literary remains there is an outline plan for a +"Casting-Vote party," whose main object was "to compel the two great +parties to nominate their best man always." It was to be an organization +of an infinite number of clubs throughout the nation, no member of which +should seek or accept a nomination for office in any political +appointment, but in each case should cast its vote as a unit for the +candidate of one of the two great political parties, requiring that the +man be of clean record and honest purpose. + + From constable up to President [runs his final clause] there is no + office for which the two great parties cannot furnish able, clean, + and acceptable men. Whenever the balance of power shall be lodged + in a permanent third party, with no candidate of its own and no + function but to cast its whole vote for the best man put forward by + the Republicans and Democrats, these two parties will select the + best man they have in their ranks. Good and clean government will + follow, let its party complexion be what it may, and the country + will be quite content. + +It was a Utopian idea, very likely, as human nature is made; full of that +native optimism which was always overflowing and drowning his gloomier +logic. Clearly he forgot his despair of humanity when he formulated that +document, and there is a world of unselfish hope in these closing lines: + + If in the hands of men who regard their citizenship as a high trust + this scheme shall fail upon trial a better must be sought, a better + must be invented; for it cannot be well or safe to let the present + political conditions continue indefinitely. They can be improved, + and American citizenship should arouse up from its disheartenment + and see that it is done. + +Had this document been put into type and circulated it might have founded +a true Mark Twain party. + +Clemens made not many more speeches that autumn, closing the year at last +with the "Founder's Night" speech at The Players, the short address +which, ending on the stroke of midnight, dedicates each passing year to +the memory of Edwin Booth, and pledges each new year in a loving-cup +passed in his honor. + + + + +CCXVIII + +NEW INTERESTS AND INVESTMENTS + +The spirit which a year earlier had prompted Mark Twain to prepare his +"Salutation from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century" inspired him +now to conceive the "Stupendous International Procession," a gruesome +pageant described in a document (unpublished) of twenty-two typewritten +pages which begin: + + THE STUPENDOUS PROCESSION + + At the appointed hour it moved across the world in following order: + + + The Twentieth Century + + A fair young creature, drunk and disorderly, borne in the arms of + Satan. Banner with motto, "Get What You Can, Keep What You Get." + + Guard of Honor--Monarchs, Presidents, Tammany Bosses, Burglars, Land + Thieves, Convicts, etc., appropriately clothed and bearing the + symbols of their several trades. + + + Christendom + + A majestic matron in flowing robes drenched with blood. On her head + a golden crown of thorns; impaled on its spines the bleeding heads + of patriots who died for their countries Boers, Boxers, Filipinos; + in one hand a slung-shot, in the other a Bible, open at the text "Do + unto others," etc. Protruding from pocket bottle labeled "We bring + you the blessings of civilization." Necklace-handcuffs and a + burglar's jimmy. + Supporters--At one elbow Slaughter, at the other Hypocrisy. + Banner with motto--"Love Your Neighbor's Goods as Yourself." + Ensign--The Black Flag. + Guard of Honor--Missionaries and German, French, Russian, and + British soldiers laden with loot. + +And so on, with a section for each nation of the earth, headed each by +the black flag, each bearing horrid emblems, instruments of torture, +mutilated prisoners, broken hearts, floats piled with bloody corpses. At +the end of all, banners inscribed: + + "All White Men are Born Free and Equal." + + "Christ died to make men holy, + Christ died to make men free." + +with the American flag furled and draped in crepe, and the shade of +Lincoln towering vast and dim toward the sky, brooding with sorrowful +aspect over the far-reaching pageant. With much more of the same sort. +It is a fearful document, too fearful, we may believe, for Mrs. Clemens +ever to consent to its publication. + +Advancing years did little toward destroying Mark Twain's interest in +human affairs. At no time in his life was he more variously concerned +and employed than in his sixty-seventh year--matters social, literary, +political, religious, financial, scientific. He was always alive, young, +actively cultivating or devising interests--valuable and otherwise, +though never less than important to him. + +He had plenty of money again, for one thing, and he liked to find +dazzlingly new ways for investing it. As in the old days, he was always +putting "twenty-five or forty thousand dollars," as he said, into +something that promised multiplied returns. Howells tells how he found +him looking wonderfully well, and when he asked the name of his elixir he +learned that it was plasmon. + + I did not immediately understand that plasmon was one of the + investments which he had made from "the substance of things hoped + for," and in the destiny of a disastrous disappointment. But after + paying off the creditors of his late publishing firm he had to do + something with his money, and it was not his fault if he did not + make a fortune out of plasmon. + +It was just at this period (the beginning of 1902) that he was promoting +with his capital and enthusiasm the plasmon interests in America, +investing in it one of the "usual amounts," promising to make Howells +over again body and soul with the life-giving albuminate. Once he wrote +him explicit instructions: + + Yes--take it as a medicine--there is nothing better, nothing surer + of desired results. If you wish to be elaborate--which isn't + necessary--put a couple of heaping teaspoonfuls of the powder in an + inch of milk & stir until it is a paste; put in some more milk and + stir the paste to a thin gruel; then fill up the glass and drink. + + Or, stir it into your soup. + + Or, into your oatmeal. + + Or, use any method you like, so's you get it down--that is the only + essential. + +He put another "usual sum" about this time in a patent cash register +which was acknowledged to be "a promise rather than a performance," and +remains so until this day. + +He capitalized a patent spiral hat-pin, warranted to hold the hat on in +any weather, and he had a number of the pins handsomely made to present +to visitors of the sex naturally requiring that sort of adornment and +protection. It was a pretty and ingenious device and apparently +effective enough, though it failed to secure his invested thousands. + +He invested a lesser sum in shares of the Booklover's Library, which was +going to revolutionize the reading world, and which at least paid a few +dividends. Even the old Tennessee land will-o'-the-wisp-long since +repudiated and forgotten--when it appeared again in the form of a +possible equity in some overlooked fragment, kindled a gentle interest, +and was added to his list of ventures. + +He made one substantial investment at this period. They became more and +more in love with the Hudson environment, its beauty and its easy access +to New York. Their house was what they liked it to be--a gathering-- +place for friends and the world's notables, who could reach it easily and +quickly from New York. They had a steady procession of company when Mrs. +Clemens's health would permit, and during a single week in the early part +of this year entertained guests at no less than seventeen out of their +twenty-one meals, and for three out of the seven nights--not an unusual +week. Their plan for buying a home on the Hudson ended with the purchase +of what was known as Hillcrest, or the Casey place, at Tarrytown, +overlooking that beautiful stretch of river, the Tappan Zee, close to the +Washington Irving home. The beauty of its outlook and surroundings +appealed to them all. The house was handsome and finely placed, and they +planned to make certain changes that would adapt it to their needs. The +price, which was less than fifty thousand dollars, made it an attractive +purchase; and without doubt it would have made them a suitable and happy +home had it been written in the future that they should so inherit it. + +Clemens was writing pretty steadily these days. The human race was +furnishing him with ever so many inspiring subjects, and he found time to +touch more or less on most of them. He wreaked his indignation upon the +things which exasperated him often--even usually--without the expectation +of print; and he delivered himself even more inclusively at such times as +he walked the floor between the luncheon or dinner courses, amplifying on +the poverty of an invention that had produced mankind as a supreme +handiwork. In a letter to Howells he wrote: + +Your comments on that idiot's "Ideals" letter reminds me that I preached +a good sermon to my family yesterday on his particular layer of the human +race, that grotesquest of all the inventions of the Creator. It was a +good sermon, but coldly received, & it seemed best not to try to take up +a collection. + +He once told Howells, with the wild joy of his boyish heart, how Mrs. +Clemens found some compensation, when kept to her room by illness, in the +reflection that now she would not hear so much about the "damned human +race." + +Yet he was always the first man to champion that race, and the more +unpromising the specimen the surer it was of his protection, and he never +invited, never expected gratitude. + +One wonders how he found time to do all the things that he did. Besides +his legitimate literary labors and his preachments, he was always writing +letters to this one and that, long letters on a variety of subjects, +carefully and picturesquely phrased, and to people of every sort. He +even formed a curious society, whose members were young girls--one in +each country of the earth. They were supposed to write to him at +intervals on some subject likely to be of mutual interest, to which +letters he agreed to reply. He furnished each member with a typewritten +copy of the constitution and by-laws of the juggernaut Club, as he called +it, and he apprised each of her election, usually after this fashion: + + I have a club--a private club, which is all my own. I appoint the + members myself, & they can't help themselves, because I don't allow + them to vote on their own appointment & I don't allow them to + resign! They are all friends whom I have never seen (save one), but + who have written friendly letters to me. By the laws of my club + there can be only one member in each country, & there can be no male + member but myself. Some day I may admit males, but I don't know- + they are capricious & inharmonious, & their ways provoke me a good + deal. It is a matter, which the club shall decide. I have made + four appointments in the past three or four months: You as a member + for Scotland--oh, this good while!; a young citizeness of Joan of + Arc's home region as a member for France; a Mohammedan girl as + member for Bengal; & a dear & bright young niece of mine as member + for the United States--for I do not represent a country myself, but + am merely member-at-large for the human race. You must not try to + resign, for the laws of the club do not allow that. You must + console yourself by remembering that you are in the best company; + that nobody knows of your membership except yourself; that no member + knows another's name, but only her country; that no taxes are levied + and no meetings held (but how dearly I should like to attend one!). + One of my members is a princess of a royal house, another is the + daughter of a village bookseller on the continent of Europe, for the + only qualification for membership is intellect & the spirit of good- + will; other distinctions, hereditary or acquired, do not count. May + I send you the constitution & laws of the club? I shall be so glad + if I may. + +It was just one of his many fancies, and most of the active memberships +would not long be maintained; though some continued faithful in their +reports, as he did in his replies, to the end. + +One of the more fantastic of his conceptions was a plan to advertise for +ante-mortem obituaries of himself--in order, as he said, that he might +look them over and enjoy them and make certain corrections in the matter +of detail. Some of them he thought might be appropriate to read from the +platform. + + I will correct them--not the facts, but the verdicts--striking out + such clauses as could have a deleterious influence on the other + side, and replacing them with clauses of a more judicious character. + +He was much taken with the new idea, and his request for such obituaries, +with an offer of a prize for the best--a portrait of himself drawn by his +own hand--really appeared in Harper's Weekly later in the year. +Naturally he got a shower of responses--serious, playful, burlesque. +Some of them were quite worth while. + +The obvious "Death loves a shining Mark" was of course numerously +duplicated, and some varied it "Death loves an Easy Mark," and there was +"Mark, the perfect man." + +The two that follow gave him especial pleasure. + + OBITUARY FOR "MARK TWAIN" + + Worthy of his portrait, a place on his monument, as well as a place + among his "perennial-consolation heirlooms": + + "Got up; washed; went to bed." + + The subject's own words (see Innocents Abroad). Can't go back on + your own words, Mark Twain. There's nothing "to strike out"; + nothing "to replace." What more could be said of any one? + + "Got up!"--Think of the fullness of meaning! The possibilities of + life, its achievements--physical, intellectual, spiritual. Got up + to the top!--the climax of human aspiration on earth! + + "Washed"--Every whit clean; purified--body, soul, thoughts, + purposes. + + "Went to bed"--Work all done--to rest, to sleep. The culmination of + the day well spent! + + God looks after the awakening. + + Mrs. S. A. OREN-HAYNES. + + + Mark Twain was the only man who ever lived, so far as we know, whose + lies were so innocent, and withal so helpful, as to make them worth + more than a whole lot of fossilized priests' eternal truths. + + D. H. KENNER. + + + + +CCXIX + +YACHTING AND THEOLOGY + +Clemens made fewer speeches during the Riverdale period. He was as +frequently demanded, but he had a better excuse for refusing, especially +the evening functions. He attended a good many luncheons with friendly +spirits like Howells, Matthews, James L. Ford, and Hamlin Garland. At +the end of February he came down to the Mayor's dinner given to Prince +Henry of Prussia, but he did not speak. Clemens used to say afterward +that he had not been asked to speak, and that it was probably because of +his supposed breach of etiquette at the Kaiser's dinner in Berlin; but +the fact that Prince Henry sought him out, and was most cordially and +humanly attentive during a considerable portion of the evening, is +against the supposition. + +Clemens attended a Yale alumni dinner that winter and incidentally +visited Twichell in Hartford. The old question of moral responsibility +came up and Twichell lent his visitor a copy of Jonathan Edwards's +'Freedom of the Will' for train perusal. Clemens found it absorbing. +Later he wrote Twichell his views. + + DEAR JOE,--(After compliments.)--[Meaning "What a good time you gave + me; what a happiness it was to be under your roof again," etc. See + opening sentence of all translations of letters passing between Lord + Roberts and Indian princes and rulers.]--From Bridgeport to New + York, thence to home, & continuously until near midnight I wallowed + & reeked with Jonathan in his insane debauch; rose immensely + refreshed & fine at ten this morning, but with a strange & haunting + sense of having been on a three days' tear with a drunken lunatic. + It is years since I have known these sensations. All through the + book is the glare of a resplendent intellect gone mad--a marvelous + spectacle. No, not all through the book + --the drunk does not come on till the last third, where what I take + to be Calvinism & its God begins to show up & shine red & hideous in + the glow from the fires of hell, their only right and proper + adornment. + + Jonathan seems to hold (as against the Armenian position) that the + man (or his soul or his will) never creates an impulse itself, but + is moved to action by an impulse back of it. That's sound! + + Also, that of two or more things offered it, it infallibly chooses + the one which for the moment is most pleasing to ITSELF. Perfectly + correct! An immense admission for a man not otherwise sane. + + Up to that point he could have written Chapters III & IV of my + suppressed Gospel. But there we seem to separate. He seems to + concede the indisputable & unshaken dominion of Motive & Necessity + (call them what he may, these are exterior forces & not under the + man's authority, guidance, or even suggestion); then he suddenly + flies the logical track & (to all seeming) makes the man & not those + exterior forces responsible to God for the man's thoughts, words, & + acts. It is frank insanity. + + I think that when he concedes the autocratic dominion of Motive and + Necessity he grants a third position of mine--that a man's mind is a + mere machine--an automatic machine--which is handled entirely from + the outside, the man himself furnishing it absolutely nothing; not + an ounce of its fuel, & not so much as a bare suggestion to that + exterior engineer as to what the machine shall do nor how it shall + do it nor when. + + After that concession it was time for him to get alarmed & shirk-- + for he was pointed straight for the only rational & possible next + station on that piece of road--the irresponsibility of man to God. + + And so he shirked. Shirked, and arrived at this handsome result: + + Man is commanded to do so & so. + + It has been ordained from the beginning of time that some men + sha'n't & others can't. + + These are to blame: let them be damned. + + I enjoy the Colonel very much, & shall enjoy the rest of him with an + obscene delight. + + Joe, the whole tribe shout love to you & yours! + MARK. + +Clemens was moved to set down some theology of his own, and did so in a +manuscript which he entitled, "If I Could Be There." It is in the +dialogue form he often adopted for polemic writing. It is a colloquy +between the Master of the Universe and a Stranger. It begins: + + +I + +If I could be there, hidden under the steps of the throne, I should hear +conversations like this: + +A STRANGER. Lord, there is one who needs to be punished, and has been +overlooked. It is in the record. I have found it. + +LORD. By searching? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. Who is it? What is it? + +S. A man. + +L. Proceed. + +S. He died in sin. Sin committed by his great-grandfather. + +L. When was this? + +S. Eleven million years ago. + +L. Do you know what a microbe is? + +S. Yes, Lord. It is a creature too small to be detected by my eye. + +L. He commits depredations upon your blood? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. I give you leave to subject him to a billion years of misery for this +offense. Go! Work your will upon him. + +S. But, Lord, I have nothing against him; I am indifferent to him. + +L. Why? + +S. He is so infinitely small and contemptible. I am to him as is a +mountain-range to a grain of sand. + +L. What am I to man? + +S. (Silent.) + +L. Am I not, to a man, as is a billion solar systems to a grain of sand? + +S. It is true, Lord. + +L. Some microbes are larger than others. Does man regard the +difference? + +S. No, Lord. To him there is no difference of consequence. To him they +are all microbes, all infinitely little and equally inconsequential. + +L. To me there is no difference of consequence between a man & a +microbe. Man looks down upon the speck at his feet called a microbe from +an altitude of a thousand miles, so to speak, and regards him with +indifference; I look down upon the specks called a man and a microbe from +an altitude of a billion leagues, so to speak, and to me they are of a +size. To me both are inconsequential. Man kills the microbes when he +can? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. Then what? Does he keep him in mind years and years and go on +contriving miseries for him? + +S. No, Lord. + +L. Does he forget him? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. Why? + +S. He cares nothing more about him. + +L. Employs himself with more important matters? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. Apparently man is quite a rational and dignified person, and can +divorce his mind from uninteresting trivialities. Why does he affront me +with the fancy that I interest Myself in trivialities--like men and +microbes? + + +II + +L. Is it true the human race thinks the universe was created for its +convenience? + +S. Yes, Lord. + +L. The human race is modest. Speaking as a member of it, what do you +think the other animals are for? + +S. To furnish food and labor for man. + +L. What is the sea for? + +S. To furnish food for man. Fishes. + +L. And the air? + +S. To furnish sustenance for man. Birds and breath. + +L. How many men are there? + +S. Fifteen hundred millions. + +L. (Referring to notes.) Take your pencil and set down some statistics. +In a healthy man's lower intestine 28,000,000 microbes are born daily and +die daily. In the rest of a man's body 122,000,000 microbes are born +daily and die daily. The two sums aggregate-what? + +S. About 150,000,000. + +L. In ten days the aggregate reaches what? + +S. Fifteen hundred millions. + +L. It is for one person. What would it be for the whole human +population? + +S. Alas, Lord, it is beyond the power of figures to set down that +multitude. It is billions of billions multiplied by billions of +billions, and these multiplied again and again by billions of billions. +The figures would stretch across the universe and hang over into space on +both sides. + +L. To what intent are these uncountable microbes introduced into the +human race? + +S. That they may eat. + +L. Now then, according to man's own reasoning, what is man for? + +S. Alas-alas! + +L. What is he for? + +S. To-to-furnish food for microbes. + +L. Manifestly. A child could see it. Now then, with this common-sense +light to aid your perceptions, what are the air, the land, and the ocean +for? + +S. To furnish food for man so that he may nourish, support, and multiply +and replenish the microbes. + +L. Manifestly. Does one build a boarding-house for the sake of the +boarding-house itself or for the sake of the boarders? + +S. Certainly for the sake of the boarders. + +L. Man's a boarding-house. + +S. I perceive it, Lord. + +L. He is a boarding-house. He was never intended for anything else. If +he had had less vanity and a clearer insight into the great truths that +lie embedded in statistics he would have found it out early. As concerns +the man who has gone unpunished eleven million years, is it your belief +that in life he did his duty by his microbes? + +S. Undoubtedly, Lord. He could not help it. + +L. Then why punish him? He had no other duty to perform. + + +Whatever else may be said of this kind of doctrine, it is at least +original and has a conclusive sound. Mark Twain had very little use for +orthodoxy and conservatism. When it was announced that Dr. Jacques Loeb, +of the University of California, had demonstrated the creation of life by +chemical agencies he was deeply interested. When a newspaper writer +commented that a "consensus of opinion among biologists" would probably +rate Dr. Loeb as a man of lively imagination rather than an inerrant +investigator of natural phenomena, he felt called to chaff the consensus +idea. + + I wish I could be as young as that again. Although I seem so old + now I was once as young as that. I remember, as if it were but + thirty or forty years ago, how a paralyzing consensus of opinion + accumulated from experts a-setting around about brother experts who + had patiently and laboriously cold-chiseled their way into one or + another of nature's safe-deposit vaults and were reporting that they + had found something valuable was plenty for me. It settled it. + + But it isn't so now-no. Because in the drift of the years I by and + by found out that a Consensus examines a new thing with its feelings + rather oftener than with its mind. + + There was that primitive steam-engine-ages back, in Greek times: a + Consensus made fun of it. There was the Marquis of Worcester's + steam-engine 250 years ago: a Consensus made fun of it. There was + Fulton's steamboat of a century ago: a French Consensus, including + the great Napoleon, made fun of it. There was Priestley, with his + oxygen: a Consensus scoffed at him, mobbed him, burned him out, + banished him. While a Consensus was proving, by statistics and + things, that a steamship could not cross the Atlantic, a steamship + did it. + +And so on through a dozen pages or more of lively satire, ending with an +extract from Adam's Diary. + + Then there was a Consensus about it. It was the very first one. It + sat six days and nights. It was then delivered of the verdict that + a world could not be made out of nothing; that such small things as + sun and moon and stars might, maybe, but it would take years and + years if there was considerable many of them. Then the Consensus + got up and looked out of the window, and there was the whole outfit, + spinning and sparkling in space! You never saw such a disappointed + lot. + ADAM. + +He was writing much at this time, mainly for his own amusement, though +now and then he offered one of his reflections for print. That beautiful +fairy tale, "The Five Boons of Life," of which the most precious is +"Death," was written at this period. Maeterlinck's lovely story of the +bee interested him; he wrote about that. Somebody proposed a Martyrs' +Day; he wrote a paper ridiculing the suggestion. In his note-book, too, +there is a memorandum for a love-story of the Quarternary Epoch which +would begin, "On a soft October afternoon 2,000,000 years ago." John +Fiske's Discovery of America, Volume I, he said, was to furnish the +animals and scenery, civilization and conversation to be the same as to- +day; but apparently this idea was carried no further. He ranged through +every subject from protoplasm to infinity, exalting, condemning, +ridiculing, explaining; his brain was always busy--a dynamo that rested +neither night nor day. + +In April Clemens received notice of another yachting trip on the Kanawha, +which this time would sail for the Bahama and West India islands. The +guests were to be about the same.--[The invited ones of the party were +Hon. T. B. Reed, A. G. Paine, Laurence Hutton, Dr. C. C. Rice, W. T. +Foote, and S. L. Clemens. "Owners of the yacht," Mr. Rogers called them, +signing himself as "Their Guest."] + +He sent this telegram: + +H. H. ROGERS, +Fairhaven, Mass. + +Can't get away this week. I have company here from tonight till middle +of next week. Will Kanawha be sailing after that & can I go as Sunday- +school superintendent at half rate? Answer and prepay. + DR. CLEMENS. + +The sailing date was conveniently arranged and there followed a happy +cruise among those balmy islands. Mark Twain was particularly fond of +"Tom" Reed, who had been known as "Czar" Reed in Congress, but was +delightfully human in his personal life. They argued politics a good +deal, and Reed, with all his training and intimate practical knowledge of +the subject, confessed that he "couldn't argue with a man like that." + +"Do you believe the things you say?" he asked once, in his thin, falsetto +voice. + +"Yes," said Clemens. "Some of them." + +"Well, you want to look out. If you go on this way, by and by you'll get +to believing nearly everything you say." + +Draw poker appears to have been their favorite diversion. Clemens in his +notes reports that off the coast of Florida Reed won twenty-three pots in +succession. It was said afterward that they made no stops at any harbor; +that when the chief officer approached the poker-table and told them they +were about to enter some important port he received peremptory orders to +"sail on and not interrupt the game." This, however, may be regarded as +more or less founded on fiction. + + + + +CCXX + +MARK TWAIN AND THE PHILIPPINES + +Among the completed manuscripts of the early part of 1902 was a North +American Review article (published in April)--"Does the Race of Man Love +a Lord?"--a most interesting treatise on snobbery as a universal +weakness. There were also some papers on the Philippine situation. In +one of these Clemens wrote: + + We have bought some islands from a party who did not own them; with + real smartness and a good counterfeit of disinterested friendliness + we coaxed a confiding weak nation into a trap and closed it upon + them; we went back on an honored guest of the Stars and Stripes when + we had no further use for him and chased him to the mountains; we + are as indisputably in possession of a wide-spreading archipelago as + if it were our property; we have pacified some thousands of the + islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their + villages, and turned their widows and orphans out-of-doors; + furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable + patriots; subjugated the remaining ten millions by Benevolent + Assimilation, which is the pious new name of the musket; we have + acquired property in the three hundred concubines and other slaves + of our business partner, the Sultan of Sulu, and hoisted our + protecting flag over that swag. + + And so, by these Providences of God--the phrase is the government's, + not mine--we are a World Power; and are glad and proud, and have a + back seat in the family. With tacks in it. At least we are letting + on to be glad and proud; it is the best way. Indeed, it is the only + way. We must maintain our dignity, for people are looking. We are + a World Power; we cannot get out of it now, and we must make the + best of it. + +And again he wrote: + + I am not finding fault with this use of our flag, for in order not + to seem eccentric I have swung around now and joined the nation in + the conviction that nothing can sully a flag. I was not properly + reared, and had the illusion that a flag was a thing which must be + sacredly guarded against shameful uses and unclean contacts lest it + suffer pollution; and so when it was sent out to the Philippines to + float over a wanton war and a robbing expedition I supposed it was + polluted, and in an ignorant moment I said so. But I stand + corrected. I concede and acknowledge that it was only the + government that sent it on such an errand that was polluted. Let us + compromise on that. I am glad to have it that way. For our flag + could not well stand pollution, never having been used to it, but it + is different with the administration. + +But a much more conspicuous comment on the Philippine policy was the so- +called "Defense of General Funston" for what Funston himself referred to +as a "dirty Irish trick"; that is to say, deception in the capture of +Aguinaldo. Clemens, who found it hard enough to reconcile himself to- +any form of warfare, was especially bitter concerning this particular +campaign. The article appeared in the North American Review for May, +1902, and stirred up a good deal of a storm. He wrote much more on the +subject--very much more--but it is still unpublished. + + + + +CCXXI + +THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE + +One day in April, 1902, Samuel Clemens received the following letter from +the president of the University of Missouri: + +MY DEAR MR. CLEMENS, Although you received the degree of doctor of +literature last fall from Yale, and have had other honors conferred upon +you by other great universities, we want to adopt you here as a son of +the University of Missouri. In asking your permission to confer upon you +the degree of LL.D. the University of Missouri does not aim to confer an +honor upon you so much as to show her appreciation of you. The rules of +the University forbid us to confer the degree upon any one in absentia. +I hope very much that you can so arrange your plans as to be with us on +the fourth day of next June, when we shall hold our Annual Commencement. + + Very truly yours, + R. H. JESSE. + + +Clemens had not expected to make another trip to the West, but a +proffered honor such as this from one's native State was not a thing to +be declined. + +It was at the end of May when he arrived in St. Louis, and he was met at +the train there by his old river instructor and friend, Horace Bixby--as +fresh, wiry, and capable as he had been forty-five years before. + +"I have become an old man. You are still thirty-five," Clemens said. + +They went to the Planters Hotel, and the news presently got around that +Mark Twain was there. There followed a sort of reception in the hotel +lobby, after which Bixby took him across to the rooms of the Pilots +Association, where the rivermen gathered in force to celebrate his +return. A few of his old comrades were still alive, among them Beck +Jolly. The same afternoon he took the train for Hannibal. + +It was a busy five days that he had in Hannibal. High-school +commencement day came first. He attended, and willingly, or at least +patiently, sat through the various recitals and orations and +orchestrations, dreaming and remembering, no doubt, other high-school +commencements of more than half a century before, seeing in some of those +young people the boys and girls he had known in that vanished time. A +few friends of his youth were still there, but they were among the +audience now, and no longer fresh and looking into the future. Their +heads were white, and, like him, they were looking down the recorded +years. Laura Hawkins was there and Helen Kercheval (Mrs. Frazer and Mrs. +Garth now), and there were others, but they were few and scattering. + +He was added to the program, and he made himself as one of the graduates, +and told them some things of the young people of that earlier time that +brought their laughter and their tears. + +He was asked to distribute the diplomas, and he undertook the work in his +own way. He took an armful of them and said to the graduates: + +"Take one. Pick out a good one. Don't take two, but be sure you get a +good one." + +So each took one "unsight and unseen" aid made the more exact +distributions among themselves later. + +Next morning it was Saturday--he visited the old home on Hill Street, and +stood in the doorway all dressed in white while a battalion of +photographers made pictures of "this return of the native" to the +threshold of his youth. + +"It all seems so small to me," he said, as he looked through the house; +"a boy's home is a big place to him. I suppose if I should come back +again ten years from now it would be the size of a birdhouse." + +He went through the rooms and up-stairs where he had slept and looked out +the window down in the back yard where, nearly sixty years before, Tom +Sawyer, Huck Finn, Joe Harper, and the rest--that is to say, Tom +Blankenship, John Briggs, Will Pitts, and the Bowen boys--set out on +their nightly escapades. Of that lightsome band Will Pitts and John +Briggs still remained, with half a dozen others--schoolmates of the less +adventurous sort. Buck Brown, who had been his rival in the spelling +contests, was still there, and John Robards, who had worn golden curls +and the medal for good conduct, and Ed Pierce. And while these were +assembled in a little group on the pavement outside the home a small old +man came up and put out his hand, and it was Jimmy MacDaniel, to whom so +long before, sitting on the river-bank and eating gingerbread, he had +first told the story of Jim Wolfe and the cats. + +They put him into a carriage, drove him far and wide, and showed the +hills and resorts and rendezvous of Tom Sawyer and his marauding band. + +He was entertained that evening by the Labinnah Club (whose name was +achieved by a backward spelling of Hannibal), where he found most of the +survivors of his youth. The news report of that occasion states that he +was introduced by Father McLoughlin, and that he "responded in a very +humorous and touchingly pathetic way, breaking down in tears at the +conclusion. Commenting on his boyhood days and referring to his mother +was too much for the great humorist. Before him as he spoke were sitting +seven of his boyhood friends." + +On Sunday morning Col. John Robards escorted him to the various churches +and Sunday-schools. They were all new churches to Samuel Clemens, but he +pretended not to recognize this fact. In each one he was asked to speak +a few words, and he began by saying how good it was to be back in the old +home Sunday-school again, which as a boy he had always so loved, and he +would go on and point out the very place he had sat, and his escort +hardly knew whether or not to enjoy the proceedings. At one place he +told a moral story. He said: + +Little boys and girls, I want to tell you a story which illustrates the +value of perseverance--of sticking to your work, as it were. It is a +story very proper for a Sunday-school. When I was a little boy in +Hannibal I used to play a good deal up here on Holliday's Hill, which of +course you all know. John Briggs and I played up there. I don't suppose +there are any little boys as good as we were then, but of course that is +not to be expected. Little boys in those days were 'most always good +little boys, because those were the good old times when everything was +better than it is now, but never mind that. Well, once upon a time, on +Holliday's Hill, they were blasting out rock, and a man was drilling for +a blast. He sat there and drilled and drilled and drilled perseveringly +until he had a hole down deep enough for the blast. Then he put in the +powder and tamped and tamped it down, but maybe he tamped it a little too +hard, for the blast went off and he went up into the air, and we watched +him. He went up higher and higher and got smaller and smaller. First he +looked as big as a child, then as big as a dog, then as big as a kitten, +then as big as a bird, and finally he went out of sight. John Briggs was +with me, and we watched the place where he went out of sight, and by and +by we saw him coming down first as big as a bird, then as big as a +kitten, then as big as a dog, then as big as a child, and then he was a +man again, and landed right in his seat and went to drilling just +persevering, you see, and sticking to his work. Little boys and girls, +that's the secret of success, just like that poor but honest workman on +Holliday's Hill. Of course you won't always be appreciated. He wasn't. +His employer was a hard man, and on Saturday night when he paid him he +docked him fifteen minutes for the time he was up in the air--but never +mind, he had his reward. + +He told all this in his solemn, grave way, though the Sunday-school was +in a storm of enjoyment when he finished. There still remains a doubt in +Hannibal as to its perfect suitability, but there is no doubt as to its +acceptability. + +That Sunday afternoon, with John Briggs, he walked over Holliday's Hill-- +the Cardiff Hill of Tom Sawyer. It was jest such a Sunday as that one +when they had so nearly demolished the negro driver and had damaged a +cooper-shop. They calculated that nearly three thousand Sundays had +passed since then, and now here they were once more, two old men with the +hills still fresh and green, the river still sweeping by and rippling in +the sun. Standing there together and looking across to the low-lying +Illinois shore, and to the green islands where they had played, and to +Lover's Leap on the south, the man who had been Sam Clemens said: + +"John, that is one of the loveliest sights I ever saw. Down there by the +island is the place we used to swim, and yonder is where a man was +drowned, and there's where the steamboat sank. Down there on Lover's +Leap is where the Millerites put on their robes one night to go to +heaven. None of them went that night, but I suppose most of them have +gone now." + +John Briggs said: + +"Sam, do you remember the day we stole the peaches from old man Price and +one of his bow-legged niggers came after us with the dogs, and how we +made up our minds that we'd catch that nigger and drown him?" + +They came to the place where they had pried out the great rock that had +so nearly brought them to grief. Sam Clemens said: + +"John, if we had killed that man we'd have had a dead nigger on our hands +without a cent to pay for him." + +And so they talked on of this thing and that, and by and by they drove +along the river, and Sam Clemens pointed out the place where he swam it +and was taken with a cramp on the return swim, and believed for a while +that his career was about to close. + +"Once, near the shore, I thought I would let down," he said, "but was +afraid to, knowing that if the water was deep I was a goner, but finally +my knees struck the sand and I crawled out. That was the closest call I +ever had." + +They drove by the place where the haunted house had stood. They drank +from a well they had always known, and from the bucket as they had always +drunk, talking and always talking, fondling lovingly and lingeringly that +most beautiful of all our possessions, the past. + +"Sam," said John, when they parted, "this is probably the last time we +shall meet on this earth. God bless you. Perhaps somewhere we shall +renew our friendship." + +"John," was the answer, "this day has been worth thousands of dollars to +me. We were like brothers once, and I feel that we are the same now. +Good-by, John. I'll try to meet you--somewhere." + + + + +CCXXII + +A PROPHET HONORED IN HIS COUNTRY + +Clemens left next day for Columbia. Committees met him at Rensselaer, +Monroe City, Clapper, Stoutsville, Paris, Madison, Moberly--at every +station along the line of his travel. At each place crowds were gathered +when the train pulled in, to cheer and wave and to present him with +flowers. Sometimes he spoke a few words; but oftener his eyes were full +of tears--his voice would not come. + +There is something essentially dramatic in official recognition by one's +native State--the return of the lad who has set out unknown to battle +with life, and who, having conquered, is invited back to be crowned. No +other honor, however great and spectacular, is quite like that, for there +is in it a pathos and a completeness that are elemental and stir emotions +as old as life itself. + +It was on the 4th of June, 1902, that Mark Twain received his doctor of +laws degree from the State University at Columbia, Missouri. James +Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, and Ethan Allen Hitchcock, Secretary of +the Interior, were among those similarly honored. Mark Twain was +naturally the chief attraction. Dressed in his Yale scholastic gown he +led the procession of graduating students, and, as in Hannibal, awarded +them their diplomas. The regular exercises were made purposely brief in +order that some time might be allowed for the conferring of the degrees. +This ceremony was a peculiarly impressive one. Gardner Lathrop read a +brief statement introducing "America's foremost author and best-loved +citizen, Samuel Langhorne Clemens--Mark Twain." + +Clemens rose, stepped out to the center of the stage, and paused. He +seemed to be in doubt as to whether he should make a speech or simply +express his thanks and retire. Suddenly, and without a signal, the great +audience rose as one man and stood in silence at his feet. He bowed, but +he could not speak. Then that vast assembly began a peculiar chant, +spelling out slowly the word Missouri, with a pause between each letter. +It was dramatic; it was tremendous in its impressiveness. He had +recovered himself when they finished. He said he didn't know whether he +was expected to make a speech or not. They did not leave'him in doubt. +They cheered and demanded a speech, a speech, and he made them one--one +of the speeches he could make best, full of quaint phrasing, happy humor, +gentle and dramatic pathos. He closed by telling the watermelon story +for its "moral effect." + +He was the guest of E. W. Stevens in Columbia, and a dinner was given in +his honor. They would have liked to keep him longer, but he was due in +St. Louis again to join in the dedication of the grounds, where was to be +held a World's Fair, to celebrate the Louisiana Purchase. Another +ceremony he attended was the christening of the St. Louis harbor-boat, or +rather the rechristening, for it had been decided to change its name from +the St. Louis--[Originally the Elon G. Smith, built in 1873.]--to the +Mark Twain. A short trip was made on it for the ceremony. Governor +Francis and Mayor Wells were of the party, and Count and Countess +Rochambeau and Marquis de Lafayette, with the rest of the French group +that had come over for the dedication of the World's Fair grounds. + +Mark Twain himself was invited to pilot the harbor boat, and so returned +for the last time to his old place at the wheel. They all collected in +the pilot-house behind him, feeling that it was a memorable occasion. +They were going along well enough when he saw a little ripple running out +from the shore across the bow. In the old days he could have told +whether it indicated a bar there or was only caused by the wind, but he +could not be sure any more. Turning to the pilot languidly, he said: +"I feel a little tired. I guess you had better take the wheel." + +Luncheon was served aboard, and Mayor Wells made the christening speech; +then the Countess Rochambeau took a bottle of champagne from the hand of +Governor Francis and smashed it on the deck, saying, "I christen thee, +good boat, Mark Twain." So it was, the Mississippi joined in according +him honors. In his speech of reply he paid tribute to those illustrious +visitors from France and recounted something of the story of French +exploration along that great river. + +"The name of La Salle will last as long as the river itself," he said; +"will last until commerce is dead. We have allowed the commerce of the +river to die, but it was to accommodate the railroads, and we must be +grateful." + +Carriages were waiting for them when the boat landed in the afternoon, +and the party got in and were driven to a house which had been identified +as Eugene Field's birthplace. A bronze tablet recording this fact had +been installed, and this was to be the unveiling. The place was not in +an inviting quarter of the town. It stood in what is known as Walsh's +Row--was fashionable enough once, perhaps, but long since fallen into +disrepute. Ragged children played in the doorways, and thirsty lodgers +were making trips with tin pails to convenient bar-rooms. A curious +nondescript audience assembled around the little group of dedicators, +wondering what it was all about. The tablet was concealed by the +American flag, which could be easily pulled away by an attached cord. +Governor Francis spoke a few words, to the effect that they had gathered +here to unveil a tablet to an American poet, and that it was fitting that +Mark Twain should do this. They removed their hats, and Clemens, his +white hair blowing in the wind, said: + +"My friends; we are here with reverence and respect to commemorate and +enshrine in memory the house where was born a man who, by his life, made +bright the lives of all who knew him, and by his literary efforts cheered +the thoughts of thousands who never knew him. I take pleasure in +unveiling the tablet of Eugene Field." + +The flag fell and the bronze inscription was revealed. By this time the +crowd, generally, had recognized who it was that was speaking. A +working-man proposed three cheers for Mark Twain, and they were heartily +given. Then the little party drove away, while the neighborhood +collected to regard the old house with a new interest. + +It was reported to Clemens later that there was some dispute as to the +identity of the Field birthplace. He said: + +"Never mind. It is of no real consequence whether it is his birthplace +or not. A rose in any other garden will bloom as sweet." + + + + +CCXXIII + +AT YORK HARBOR + +They decided to spend the summer at York Harbor, Maine. They engaged a +cottage, there, and about the end of June Mr. Rogers brought his yacht +Kanawha to their water-front at Riverdale, and in perfect weather took +them to Maine by sea. They landed at York Harbor and took possession of +their cottage, The Pines, one of their many attractive summer lodges. +Howells, at Kittery Point, was not far away, and everything promised a +happy summer. + +Mrs. Clemens wrote to Mrs. Crane: + + We are in the midst of pines. They come up right about us, and the + house is so high and the roots of the trees are so far below the + veranda that we are right in the branches. We drove over to call on + Mr. and Mrs. Howells. The drive was most beautiful, and never in my + life have I seen such a variety of wild flowers in so short a space. + +Howells tells us of the wide, low cottage in a pine grove overlooking +York River, and how he used to sit with Clemens that summer at a corner +of the veranda farthest away from Mrs. Clemens's window, where they could +read their manuscripts to each other, and tell their stories and laugh +their hearts out without disturbing her. + +Clemens, as was his habit, had taken a work-room in a separate cottage +"in the house of a friend and neighbor, a fisherman and a boatman": + + There was a table where he could write, and a bed where he could lie + down and read; and there, unless my memory has played me one of + those constructive tricks that people's memories indulge in, he read + me the first chapters of an admirable story. The scene was laid in + a Missouri town, and the characters such as he had known in boyhood; + but often as I tried to make him own it, he denied having written + any such story; it is possible that I dreamed it, but I hope the MS. + will yet be found. + +Howells did not dream it; but in one way his memory misled him. The +story was one which Clemens had heard in Hannibal, and he doubtless +related it in his vivid way. Howells, writing at a later time, quite +naturally included it among the several manuscripts which Clemens read +aloud to him. Clemens may have intended to write the tale, may even have +begun it, though this is unlikely. The incidents were too well known and +too notorious in his old home for fiction. + +Among the stories that Clemens did show, or read, to Howells that summer +was "The Belated Passport," a strong, intensely interesting story with +what Howells in a letter calls a "goat's tail ending," perhaps meaning +that it stopped with a brief and sudden shake--with a joke, in fact, +altogether unimportant, and on the whole disappointing to the reader. A +far more notable literary work of that summer grew out of a true incident +which Howells related to Clemens as they sat chatting together on the +veranda overlooking the river one summer afternoon. It was a pathetic +episode in the life of some former occupants of The Pines--the tale of a +double illness in the household, where a righteous deception was carried +on during several weeks for the benefit of a life that was about to slip +away. Out of this grew the story, "Was it Heaven? or Hell?" a +heartbreaking history which probes the very depths of the human soul. +Next to "Hadleyburg," it is Mark Twain's greatest fictional sermon. + +Clemens that summer wrote, or rather finished, his most pretentious poem. +One day at Riverdale, when Mrs. Clemens had been with him on the lawn, +they had remembered together the time when their family of little folks +had filled their lives so full, conjuring up dream-like glimpses of them +in the years of play and short frocks and hair-plaits down their backs. +It was pathetic, heart-wringing fancying; and later in the day Clemens +conceived and began the poem which now he brought to conclusion. It was +built on the idea of a mother who imagines her dead child still living, +and describes to any listener the pictures of her fancy. It is an +impressive piece of work; but the author, for some reason, did not offer +it for publication.--[This poem was completed on the anniversary of +Susy's death and is of considerable length. Some selections from it will +be found under Appendix U, at the end of this work.] + +Mrs. Clemens, whose health earlier in the year had been delicate, became +very seriously ill at York Harbor. Howells writes: + +At first she had been about the house, and there was one gentle afternoon +when she made tea for us in the parlor, but that was the last time I +spoke with her. After that it was really a question of how soonest and +easiest she could be got back to Riverdale. + +She had seemed to be in fairly good health and spirits for several weeks +after the arrival at York. Then, early in August, there came a great +celebration of some municipal anniversary, and for two or three days +there were processions, mass-meetings, and so on by day, with fireworks +at night. Mrs. Clemens, always young in spirit, was greatly interested. +She went about more than her strength warranted, seeing and hearing and +enjoying all that was going on. She was finally persuaded to forego the +remaining ceremonies and rest quietly on the pleasant veranda at home; +but she had overtaxed herself and a collapse was inevitable. Howells and +two friends called one afternoon, and a friend of the Queen of Rumania, a +Madame Hartwig, who had brought from that gracious sovereign a letter +which closed in this simple and modest fashion: + + I beg your pardon for being a bore to one I so deeply love and + admire, to whom I owe days and days of forgetfulness of self and + troubles, and the intensest of all joys-hero-worship! People don't + always realize what a happiness that is! God bless you for every + beautiful thought you poured into my tired heart, and for every + smile on a weary way. CARMEN SYLVA. + +This was the occasion mentioned by Howells when Mrs. Clemens made tea for +them in the parlor for the last time. Her social life may be said to +have ended that afternoon. Next morning the break came. Clemens, in his +notebook for that day, writes: + +Tuesday, August 12, 1902. At 7 A.M. Livy taken violently ill. +Telephoned and Dr. Lambert was here in 1/2 hour. She could not breathe- +was likely to stifle. Also she had severe palpitation. She believed she +was dying. I also believed it. + +Nurses were summoned, and Mrs. Crane and others came from Elmira. Clara +Clemens took charge of the household and matters generally, and the +patient was secluded and guarded from every disturbing influence. +Clemens slipped about with warnings of silence. A visitor found notices +in Mark Twain's writing pinned to the trees near Mrs. Clemens's window +warning the birds not to sing too loudly. + +The patient rallied, but she remained very much debilitated. On +September 3d the note-book says: + + Always Mr. Rogers keeps his yacht Kanawha in commission & ready to + fly here and take us to Riverdale on telegraphic notice. + +But Mrs. Clemens was unable to return by sea. When it was decided at +last, in October, that she could be removed to Riverdale, Clemens and +Howells went to Boston and engaged an invalid car to make the journey +from York Harbor to Riverdale without change. Howells tells us that +Clemens gave his strictest personal attention to the arrangement of these +details, and that they absorbed him. + + There was no particular of the business which he did not scrutinize + and master . . . . With the inertness that grows upon an aging + man he had been used to delegate more and more things, but of that + thing I perceived that he would not delegate the least detail. + +They made the journey on the 16th, in nine and a half hours. With the +exception of the natural weariness due to such a trip, the invalid was +apparently no worse on their arrival. The stout English butler carried +her to her room. It would be many months before she would leave it +again. In one of his memoranda Clemens wrote: + + Our dear prisoner is where she is through overwork-day & night + devotion to the children & me. We did not know how to value it. We + know now. + +And in a notation, on a letter praising him for what he had done for the +world's enjoyment, and for his splendid triumph over debt, he said: + + Livy never gets her share of these applauses, but it is because the + people do not know. Yet she is entitled to the lion's share. + +He wrote Twichell at the end of October: + + Livy drags along drearily. It must be hard times for that turbulent + spirit. It will be a long time before she is on her feet again. It + is a most pathetic case. I wish I could transfer it to myself. + Between ripping & raging & smoking & reading I could get a good deal + of holiday out of it. Clara runs the house smoothly & capitally. + +Heavy as was the cloud of illness, he could not help pestering Twichell a +little about a recent mishap--a sprained shoulder: + + I should like to know how & where it happened. In the pulpit, as + like as not, otherwise you would not be taking so much pains to + conceal it. This is not a malicious suggestion, & not a personally + invented one: you told me yourself once that you threw artificial + power & impressiveness in your sermons where needed by "banging the + Bible"--(your own words). You have reached a time of life when it + is not wise to take these risks. You would better jump around. We + all have to change our methods as the infirmities of age creep upon + us. Jumping around will be impressive now, whereas before you were + gray it would have excited remark. + +Mrs. Clemens seemed to improve as the weeks passed, and they had great +hopes of her complete recovery. Clemens took up some work--a new Huck +Finn story, inspired by his trip to Hannibal. It was to have two parts-- +Huck and Tom in youth, and then their return in old age. He did some +chapters quite in the old vein, and wrote to Howells of his plan. +Howells answered: + + It is a great lay-out: what I shall enjoy most will be the return of + the old fellows to the scene and their tall lying. There is a + matchless chance there. I suppose you will put in plenty of pegs in + this prefatory part. + +But the new story did not reach completion. Huck and Tom would not come +back, even to go over the old scenes. + + + + +CCXXIV + +THE SIXTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY DINNER + +It was on the evening of the 27th of November, 1902, I at the +Metropolitan Club, New York City, that Col. George Harvey, president of +the Harper Company, gave Mark Twain a dinner in celebration of his sixty- +seventh birthday. The actual date fell three days later; but that would +bring it on Sunday, and to give it on Saturday night would be more than +likely to carry it into Sabbath morning, and so the 27th was chosen. +Colonel Harvey himself presided, and Howells led the speakers with a +poem, "A Double-Barreled Sonnet to Mark Twain," which closed: + + Still, to have everything beyond cavil right, + We will dine with you here till Sunday night. + +Thomas Brackett Reed followed with what proved to be the last speech he +would ever make, as it was also one of his best. All the speakers did +well that night, and they included some of the country's foremost in +oratory: Chauncey Depew, St. Clair McKelway, Hamilton Mabie, and Wayne +MacVeagh. Dr. Henry van Dyke and John Kendrick Bangs read poems. The +chairman constantly kept the occasion from becoming too serious by +maintaining an attitude of "thinking ambassador" for the guest of the +evening, gently pushing Clemens back in his seat when he attempted to +rise and expressing for him an opinion of each of the various tributes. + +"The limit has been reached," he announced at the close of Dr. van Dyke's +poem. "More that is better could not be said. Gentlemen, Mr. Clemens." + +It is seldom that Mark Twain has made a better after-dinner speech than +he delivered then. He was surrounded by some of the best minds of the +nation, men assembled to do him honor. They expected much of him--to +Mark Twain always an inspiring circumstance. He was greeted with cheers +and hand-clapping that came volley after volley, and seemed never ready +to end. When it had died away at last he stood waiting a little in the +stillness for his voice; then he said, "I think I ought to be allowed to +talk as long as I want to," and again the storm broke. + +It is a speech not easy to abridge--a finished and perfect piece of +after-dinner eloquence,--[The "Sixty-seventh Birthday Speech" entire is +included in the volume Mark Twain's Speeches.]--full of humorous stories +and moving references to old friends--to Hay; and Reed, and Twichell, and +Howells, and Rogers, the friends he had known so long and loved so well. +He told of his recent trip to his boyhood home, and how he had stood with +John Briggs on Holliday's Hill and they had pointed out the haunts of +their youth. Then at the end he paid a tribute to the companion of his +home, who could not be there to share his evening's triumph. This +peroration--a beautiful heart-offering to her and to those that had +shared in long friendship--demands admission: + + Now, there is one invisible guest here. A part of me is not + present; the larger part, the better part, is yonder at her home; + that is my wife, and she has a good many personal friends here, and + I think it won't distress any one of them to know that, although she + is going to be confined to her bed for many months to come from that + nervous prostration, there is not any danger and she is coming along + very well--and I think it quite appropriate that I should speak of + her. I knew her for the first time just in the same year that I + first knew John Hay and Tom Reed and Mr. Twichell--thirty-six years + ago--and she has been the best friend I have ever had, and that is + saying a good deal--she has reared me--she and Twichell together-- + and what I am I owe to them. Twichell--why, it is such a pleasure + to look upon Twichell's face! For five and twenty years I was under + the Rev. Mr. Twichell's tuition, I was in his pastorate occupying a + pew in his church and held him in due reverence. That man is full + of all the graces that go to make a person companionable and + beloved; and wherever Twichell goes to start a church the people + flock there to buy the land; they find real estate goes up all + around the spot, and the envious and the thoughtful always try to + get Twichell to move to their neighborhood and start a church; and + wherever you see him go you can go and buy land there with + confidence, feeling sure that there will be a double price for you + before very long. + + I have tried to do good in this world, and it is marvelous in how + many different ways I have done good, and it is comfortable to + reflect--now, there's Mr. Rogers--just out of the affection I bear + that man many a time I have given him points in finance that he had + never thought of--and if he could lay aside envy, prejudice, and + superstition, and utilize those ideas in his business, it would make + a difference in his bank-account. + + Well, I liked the poetry. I liked all the speeches and the poetry, + too. I liked Dr. van Dyke's poem. I wish I could return thanks in + proper measure to you, gentlemen, who have spoken and violated your + feelings to pay me compliments; some were merited and some you + overlooked, it is true; and Colonel Harvey did slander every one of + you, and put things into my mouth that I never said, never thought + of at all. + + And now my wife and I, out of our single heart, return you our + deepest and most grateful thanks, and--yesterday was her birthday. + +The sixty-seventh birthday dinner was widely celebrated by the press, and +newspaper men generally took occasion to pay brilliant compliments to +Mark Twain. Arthur Brisbane wrote editorially: + + For more than a generation he has been the Messiah of a genuine + gladness and joy to the millions of three continents. + +It was little more than a week later that one of the old friends he had +mentioned, Thomas Brackett Reed, apparently well and strong that birthday +evening, passed from the things of this world. Clemens felt his death +keenly, and in a "good-by" which he wrote for Harper's Weekly he said: + + His was a nature which invited affection--compelled it, in fact--and + met it half-way. Hence, he was "Tom" to the most of his friends and + to half of the nation . . . . + + I cannot remember back to a time when he was not "Tom" Reed to me, + nor to a time when he could have been offended at being so addressed + by me. I cannot remember back to a time when I could let him alone + in an after-dinner speech if he was present, nor to a time when he + did not take my extravagance concerning him and misstatements about + him in good part, nor yet to a time when he did not pay them back + with usury when his turn came. The last speech he made was at my + birthday dinner at the end of November, when naturally I was his + text; my last word to him was in a letter the next day; a day later + I was illustrating a fantastic article on art with his portrait + among others--a portrait now to be laid reverently away among the + jests that begin in humor and end in pathos. These things happened + only eight days ago, and now he is gone from us, and the nation is + speaking of him as one who was. It seems incredible, impossible. + Such a man, such a friend, seems to us a permanent possession; his + vanishing from our midst is unthinkable, as was the vanishing of the + Campanile, that had stood for a thousand years and was turned to + dust in a moment. + +The appreciation closes: + + I have only wished to say how fine and beautiful was his life and + character, and to take him by the hand and say good-by, as to a + fortunate friend who has done well his work and gees a pleasant + journey. + + + + +CCXXV + +CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CONTROVERSIES + +The North American Review for December (1902) contained an instalment of +the Christian Science series which Mark Twain had written in Vienna +several years before. He had renewed his interest in the doctrine, and +his admiration for Mrs. Eddy's peculiar abilities and his antagonism +toward her had augmented in the mean time. Howells refers to the "mighty +moment when Clemens was building his engines of war for the destruction +of Christian Science, which superstition nobody, and he least of all, +expected to destroy": + + He believed that as a religious machine the Christian Science Church + was as perfect as the Roman Church, and destined to be more + formidable in its control of the minds of men . . . . + + An interesting phase of his psychology in this business was not. + only his admiration for the masterly policy of the Christian Science + hierarchy, but his willingness to allow the miracles of its healers + to be tried on his friends and family if they wished it. He had a + tender heart for the whole generation of empirics, as well as the + newer sorts of scienticians, but he seemed to base his faith in them + largely upon the failure of the regulars, rather than upon their own + successes, which also he believed in. He was recurrently, but not + insistently, desirous that you should try their strange magics when + you were going to try the familiar medicines. + +Clemens never had any quarrel with the theory of Christian Science or +mental healing, or with any of the empiric practices. He acknowledged +good in all of them, and he welcomed most of them in preference to +materia medica. It is true that his animosity for the founder of the +Christian Science cult sometimes seems to lap over and fringe the +religion itself; but this is apparent rather than real. Furthermore, he +frequently expressed a deep obligation which humanity owed to the founder +of the faith, in that she had organized a healing element ignorantly and +indifferently employed hitherto. His quarrel with Mrs. Eddy lay in the +belief that she herself, as he expressed it, was "a very unsound +Christian Scientist." + + I believe she has a serious malady--self-edification--and that it + will be well to have one of the experts demonstrate over her. [But + he added]: Closely examined, painstakingly studied, she is easily + the most interesting person on the planet, and in several ways as + easily the most extraordinary woman that was ever born upon it. + +Necessarily, the forces of Christian Science were aroused by these +articles, and there were various replies, among them, one by the founder +herself, a moderate rejoinder in her usual literary form. + + "Mrs. Eddy in Error," in the North American Review for April, 1903, + completed what Clemens had to say on the matter for this time. + +He was putting together a book on the subject, comprised of his various +published papers and some added chapters. It would not be a large +volume, and he offered to let his Christian Science opponents share it +with him, stating their side of the case. Mr. William D. McCrackan, one +of the church's chief advocates, was among those invited to participate. +McCrackan and Clemens, from having begun as enemies, had become quite +friendly, and had discussed their differences face to face at +considerable length. Early in the controversy Clemens one night wrote +McCrackan a pretty savage letter. He threw it on the hall table for +mailing, but later got out of bed and slipped down-stairs to get it. It +was too late--the letters had been gathered up and mailed. Next evening +a truly Christian note came from McCrackan, returning the hasty letter, +which he said he was sure the writer would wish to recall. Their +friendship began there. For some reason, however, the collaborated +volume did not materialize. In the end, publication was delayed a number +of years, by which time Clemens's active interest was a good deal +modified, though the practice itself never failed to invite his +attention. + +Howells refers to his anti-Christian Science rages, which began with the +postponement of the book, and these Clemens vented at the time in another +manuscript entitled, "Eddypus," an imaginary history of a thousand years +hence, when Eddyism should rule the world. By that day its founder would +have become a deity, and the calendar would be changed to accord with her +birth. It was not publishable matter, and really never intended as such. +It was just one of the things which Mark Twain wrote to relieve mental +pressure. + + + + +CCXXVI + +"WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?" + +The Christmas number of Harper's Magazine for 1902 contained the story, +"Was it Heaven? or Hell?" and it immediately brought a flood of letters +to its author from grateful readers on both sides of the ocean. An +Englishman wrote: "I want to thank you for writing so pathetic and so +profoundly true a story"; and an American declared it to be the best +short story ever written. Another letter said: + + I have learned to love those maiden liars--love and weep over them-- + then put them beside Dante's Beatrice in Paradise. + +There were plenty of such letters; but there was one of a different sort. +It was a letter from a man who had but recently gone through almost +precisely the experience narrated in the tale. His dead daughter had +even borne the same name--Helen. She had died of typhus while her mother +was prostrated with the same malady, and the deception had been +maintained in precisely the same way, even to the fictitiously written +letters. Clemens replied to this letter, acknowledging the striking +nature of the coincidence it related, and added that, had he invented the +story, he would have believed it a case of mental telegraphy. + + I was merely telling a true story just as it had been told to me by + one who well knew the mother and the daughter & all the beautiful & + pathetic details. I was living in the house where it had happened, + three years before, & I put it on paper at once while it was fresh + in my mind, & its pathos still straining at my heartstrings. + +Clemens did not guess that the coincidences were not yet complete, that +within a month the drama of the tale would be enacted in his own home. +In his note-book, under the date of December 24(1902), he wrote: + + Jean was hit with a chill: Clara was completing her watch in her + mother's room and there was no one able to force Jean to go to bed. + As a result she is pretty ill to-day-fever & high temperature. + +Three days later he added: + + It was pneumonia. For 5 days jean's temperature ranged between 103 + & 104 2/5, till this morning, when it got down to 101. She looks + like an escaped survivor of a forest fire. For 6 days now my story + in the Christmas Harper's "Was it Heaven? or Hell?"--has been + enacted in this household. Every day Clara & the nurses have lied + about Jean to her mother, describing the fine times she is having + outdoors in the winter sports. + +That proved a hard, trying winter in the Clemens home, and the burden of +it fell chiefly, indeed almost entirely, upon Clara Clemens. Mrs. +Clemens became still more frail, and no other member of the family, not +even her husband, was allowed to see her for longer than the briefest +interval. Yet the patient was all the more anxious to know the news, and +daily it had to be prepared--chiefly invented--for her comfort. In an +account which Clemens once set down of the "Siege and Season of +Unveracity," as he called it, he said: + + Clara stood a daily watch of three or four hours, and hers was a + hard office indeed. Daily she sealed up in her heart a dozen + dangerous truths, and thus saved her mother's life and hope and + happiness with holy lies. She had never told her mother a lie in + her life before, and I may almost say that she never told her a + truth afterward. It was fortunate for us all that Clara's + reputation for truthfulness was so well established in her mother's + mind. It was our daily protection from disaster. The mother never + doubted Clara's word. Clara could tell her large improbabilities + without exciting any suspicion, whereas if I tried to market even a + small and simple one the case would have been different. I was + never able to get a reputation like Clara's. Mrs. Clemens + questioned Clara every day concerning Jean's health, spirits, + clothes, employments, and amusements, and how she was enjoying + herself; and Clara furnished the information right along in minute + detail--every word of it false, of course. Every day she had to + tell how Jean dressed, and in time she got so tired of using Jean's + existing clothes over and over again, and trying to get new effects + out of them, that finally, as a relief to her hard-worked invention, + she got to adding imaginary clothes to Jean's wardrobe, and probably + would have doubled it and trebled it if a warning note in her + mother's comments had not admonished her that she was spending more + money on these spectral gowns and things than the family income + justified. + +Some portions of detailed accounts of Clara's busy days of this period, +as written at the time by Clemens to Twichell and to Mrs. Crane, are +eminently worth preserving. To Mrs. Crane: + + Clara does not go to her Monday lesson in New York today [her mother + having seemed not so well through the night], but forgets that fact + and enters her mother's room (where she has no business to be) + toward train-time dressed in a wrapper. + + LIVY. Why, Clara, aren't you going to your lesson? + CLARA (almost caught). Yes. + L. In that costume? + CL. Oh no. + L. Well, you can't make your train; it's impossible. + CL. I know, but I'm going to take the other one. + L. Indeed that won't do--you'll be ever so much too late for + your lesson. + CL. No, the lesson-time has been put an hour later. + L. (satisfied, then suddenly). But, Clara, that train and the late + lesson together will make you late to Mrs. Hapgood's luncheon. + CL. No, the train leaves fifteen minutes earlier than it used to. + L. (satisfied). Tell Mrs. Hapgood, etc., etc., etc. (which Clara + promises to do). Clara, dear, after the luncheon--I hate to put + this on you--but could you do two or three little shopping-errands + for me? + CL. Oh, it won't trouble me a bit-I can do it. (Takes a list of + the things she is to buy-a list which she will presently hand to + another.) + + At 3 or 4 P.M. Clara takes the things brought from New York, + studies over her part a little, then goes to her mother's room. + + LIVY. It's very good of you, dear. Of course, if I had known it + was going to be so snowy and drizzly and sloppy I wouldn't have + asked you to buy them. Did you get wet? + CL. Oh, nothing to hurt. + L. You took a cab both ways? + CL. Not from the station to the lesson-the weather was good enough + till that was over. + L. Well, now, tell me everything Mrs. Hapgood said. + + Clara tells her a long yarn-avoiding novelties and surprises and + anything likely to inspire questions difficult to answer; and of + course detailing the menu, for if it had been the feeding of the + 5,000 Livy would have insisted on knowing what kind of bread it was + and how the fishes were served. By and by, while talking of + something else: + + LIVY. Clams!--in the end of December. Are you sure it was clams? + CL. I didn't say cl---I meant Blue Points. + L. (tranquilized). It seemed odd. What is Jean doing? + CL. She said she was going to do a little typewriting. + L. Has she been out to-day? + CL. Only a moment, right after luncheon. She was determined to go + out again, but---- + + L. How did you know she was out? + CL. (saving herself in time). Katie told me. She was determined + to go out again in the rain and snow, but I persuaded her to stay + in. + L. (with moving and grateful admiration). Clara, you are + wonderful! the wise watch you keep over Jean, and the influence you + have over her; it's so lovely of you, and I tied here and can't take + care of her myself. (And she goes on with these undeserved praises + till Clara is expiring with shame.) + +To Twichell: + + I am to see Livy a moment every afternoon until she has another bad + night; and I stand in dread, for with all my practice I realize that + in a sudden emergency I am but a poor, clumsy liar, whereas a fine + alert and capable emergency liar is the only sort that is worth + anything in a sick-chamber. + + Now, Joe, just see what reputation can do. All Clara's life she has + told Livy the truth and now the reward comes; Clara lies to her + three and a half hours every day, and Livy takes it all at par, + whereas even when I tell her a truth it isn't worth much without + corroboration . . . . + + Soon my brief visit is due. I've just been up listening at Livy's + door. + + 5 P.M. A great disappointment. I was sitting outside Livy's door + waiting. Clara came out a minute ago and said L ivy is not so well, + and the nurse can't let me see her to-day. + +That pathetic drama was to continue in some degree for many a long month. +All that winter and spring Mrs. Clemens kept but a frail hold on life. +Clemens wrote little, and refused invitations everywhere he could. He +spent his time largely in waiting for the two-minute period each day when +he could stand at the bed-foot and say a few words to the invalid, and he +confined his writing mainly to the comforting, affectionate messages +which he was allowed to push under her door. He was always waiting there +long before the moment he was permitted to enter. Her illness and her +helplessness made manifest what Howells has fittingly characterized as +his "beautiful and tender loyalty to her, which was the most moving +quality of his most faithful soul." + + + + +CCXXVII + +THE SECOND RIVERDALE WINTER + +Most of Mark Twain's stories have been dramatized at one time or another, +and with more or less success. He had two plays going that winter, one +of them the little "Death Disk," which--in story form had appeared a year +before in Harper's Magazine. It was put on at the Carnegie Lyceum with +considerable effect, but it was not of sufficient importance to warrant a +long continuance. + +Another play of that year was a dramatization of Huckleberry Finn, by Lee +Arthur. This was played with a good deal of success in Baltimore, +Philadelphia, and elsewhere, the receipts ranging from three hundred to +twenty-one hundred dollars per night, according to the weather and +locality. Why the play was discontinued is not altogether apparent; +certainly many a dramatic enterprise has gone further, faring worse. + +Huck in book form also had been having adventures a little earlier, in +being tabooed on account of his morals by certain librarians of Denver +and Omaha. It was years since Huck had been in trouble of that sort, and +he acquired a good deal of newspaper notoriety in consequence. + +Certain entries in Mark Twain's note-book reveal somewhat of his life and +thought at this period. We find such entries as this: + + Saturday, January 3, 1903. The offspring of riches: Pride, vanity, + ostentation, arrogance, tyranny. + + Sunday, January 4, 1903. The offspring of poverty: Greed, + sordidness, envy, hate, malice, cruelty, meanness, lying, shirking, + cheating, stealing, murder. + + + Monday, February 2, 1903. 33d wedding anniversary. I was allowed + to see Livy 5 minutes this morning in honor of the day. She makes + but little progress toward recovery, still there is certainly some, + we are sure. + + Sunday, March 1, 1903. We may not doubt that society in heaven + consists mainly of undesirable persons. + + Thursday, March 19, 1903. Susy's birthday. She would be 31 now. + +The family illnesses, which presently included an allotment for himself, +his old bronchitis, made him rage more than ever at the imperfections of +the species which could be subject to such a variety of ills. Once he +wrote: + + Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired. + +And again: + + Adam, man's benefactor--he gave him all that he has ever received + that was worth having--death. + +The Riverdale home was in reality little more than a hospital that +spring. Jean had scarcely recovered her physical strength when she was +attacked by measles, and Clara also fell a victim to the infection. +Fortunately Mrs. Clemens's health had somewhat improved. + +It was during this period that Clemens formulated his eclectic +therapeutic doctrine. Writing to Twichell April 4, 1903, he said: + + Livy does make a little progress these past 3 or 4 days, progress + which is visible to even the untrained eye. The physicians are + doing good work for her, but my notion is, that no art of healing is + the best for all ills. I should distribute the ailments around: + surgery cases to the surgeon; lupus to the actinic-ray specialist; + nervous prostration to the Christian Scientist; most ills to the + allopath & the homeopath; & (in my own particular case) rheumatism, + gout, & bronchial attack to the osteopathist. + + +He had plenty of time to think and to read during those weeks of +confinement, and to rage, and to write when he felt the need of that +expression, though he appears to have completed not much for print beyond +his reply to Mrs. Eddy, already mentioned, and his burlesque, +"Instructions in Art," with pictures by himself, published in the +Metropolitan for April and May. + +Howells called his attention to some military outrages in the +Philippines, citing a case where a certain lieutenant had tortured one of +his men, a mild offender, to death out of pure deviltry, and had been +tried but not punished for his fiendish crime.--[The torture to death of +Private Edward C. Richter, an American soldier, by orders of a +commissioned officer of the United States army on the night of February +7, 1902. Private Richter was bound and gagged and the gag held in his +mouth by means of a club while ice-water was slowly poured into his face, +a dipper full at a time, for two hours and a half, until life became +extinct.] + +Clemens undertook to give expression to his feelings on this subject, but +he boiled so when he touched pen to paper to write of it that it was +simply impossible for him to say anything within the bounds of print. +Then his only relief was to rise and walk the floor, and curse out his +fury at the race that had produced such a specimen. + +Mrs. Clemens, who perhaps got some drift or the echo of these tempests, +now and then sent him a little admonitory, affectionate note. + +Among the books that Clemens read, or tried to read, during his +confinement were certain of the novels of Sir Walter Scott. He had never +been able to admire Scott, and determined now to try to understand this +author's popularity and his standing with the critics; but after wading +through the first volume of one novel, and beginning another one, he +concluded to apply to one who could speak as having authority. He wrote +to Brander Matthews: + + DEAR BRANDER,--I haven't been out of my bed for 4 weeks, but-well, I + have been reading a good deal, & it occurs to me to ask you to sit + down, some time or other when you have 8 or 9 months to spare, & jot + me down a certain few literary particulars for my help & elevation. + Your time need not be thrown away, for at your further leisure you + can make Columbian lectures out of the results & do your students a + good turn. + + 1. Are there in Sir Walter's novels passages done in good English-- + English which is neither slovenly nor involved? + + 2. Are there passages whose English is not poor & thin & + commonplace, but is of a quality above that? + + 3. Are there passages which burn with real fire--not punk, fox- + fire, make-believe? + 4. Has he heroes & heroines who are not cads and cadesses? + + 5. Has he personages whose acts & talk correspond with their + characters as described by him? + + 6. Has he heroes & heroines whom the reader admires--admires and + knows why? + + 7. Has he funny characters that are funny, and humorous passages + that are humorous? + + 8. Does he ever chain the reader's interest & make him reluctant to + lay the book down? + + 9. Are there pages where he ceases from posing, ceases from + admiring the placid flood & flow of his own dilution, ceases from + being artificial, & is for a time, long or short, recognizably + sincere & in earnest? + + 10. Did he know how to write English, & didn't do it because he + didn't want to? + + 11. Did he use the right word only when he couldn't think of + another one, or did he run so much to wrong words because he didn't + know the right one when he saw it? + + 12. Can you read him and keep your respect for him? Of course a + person could in his day--an era of sentimentality & sloppy + romantics--but land! can a body do it to-day? + + Brander, I lie here dying; slowly dying, under the blight of Sir + Walter. I have read the first volume of Rob Roy, & as far as + Chapter XIX of Guy Mannering, & I can no longer hold my head up or + take my nourishment. Lord, it's all so juvenile! so artificial, so + shoddy; & such wax figures & skeletons & specters. Interest? Why, + it is impossible to feel an interest in these bloodless shams, these + milk-&-water humbugs. And oh, the poverty of invention! Not + poverty in inventing situations, but poverty in furnishing reasons + for them. Sir Walter usually gives himself away when he arranges + for a situation--elaborates & elaborates & elaborates till, if you + live to get to it, you don't believe in it when it happens. + + I can't find the rest of Rob Roy, I, can't stand any more Mannering- + I do not know just what to do, but I will reflect, & not quit this + great study rashly .... + + My, I wish I could see you & Leigh Hunt! + + Sincerely yours, + + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +But a few days later he experienced a revelation. It came when he +perseveringly attacked still a third work of Scott--Quentin Durward. +Hastily he wrote to Matthews again: + +I'm still in bed, but the days have lost their dullness since I broke +into Sir Walter & lost my temper. I finished Guy Mannering that curious, +curious book, with its mob of squalid shadows gibbering around a single +flesh-&-blood being--Dinmont; a book crazily put together out of the very +refuse of the romance artist's stage properties--finished it & took up +Quentin Durward & finished that. + +It was like leaving the dead to mingle with the living; it was like +withdrawing from the infant class in the college of journalism to sit +under the lectures in English literature in Columbia University. + +I wonder who wrote Quentin Durward?--[This letter, enveloped, addressed, +and stamped, was evidently mislaid. It was found and mailed seven years +later, June, 1910 message from the dead.] + +Among other books which he read that winter and spring was Helen Keller's +'The Story of My Life', then recently published. That he finished it in +a mood of sweet gentleness we gather from a long, lovely letter which he +wrote her--a letter in which he said: + +I am charmed with your book--enchanted. You are a wonderful creature, +the most wonderful in the world--you and your other half together--Miss +Sullivan, I mean--for it took the pair of you to make a complete & +perfect whole. How she stands out in her letters! her brilliancy, +penetration, originality, wisdom, character, & the fine literary +competencies of her pen--they are all there. + +When reading and writing failed as diversion, Mark Twain often turned to +mathematics. With no special talent for accuracy in the matter of +figures, he had a curious fondness for calculations, scientific and +financial, and he used to cover pages, ciphering at one thing and +another, arriving pretty inevitably at the wrong results. When the +problem was financial, and had to do with his own fortunes, his figures +were as likely as not to leave him in a state of panic. The expenditures +were naturally heavy that spring; and one night, when he had nothing +better to do, he figured the relative proportion to his income. The +result showed that they were headed straight for financial ruin. He put +in the rest of the night fearfully rolling and tossing, and +reconstructing his figures that grew always worse, and next morning +summoned Jean and Clara and petrified them with the announcement that the +cost of living was one hundred and twenty-five per cent. more than the +money-supply. + +Writing to MacAlister three days later he said: + + It was a mistake. When I came down in the morning, a gray and aged + wreck, I found that in some unaccountable way (unaccountable to a + business man, but not to me) I had multiplied the totals by two. By + God, I dropped seventy-five years on the floor where I stood! + + Do you know it affected me as one is affected when one wakes out of + a hideous dream & finds it was only a dream. It was a great comfort + & satisfaction to me to call the daughters to a private meeting of + the board again. Certainly there is a blistering & awful reality + about a well-arranged unreality. It is quite within the + possibilities that two or three nights like that of mine would drive + a man to suicide. He would refuse to examine the figures, they + would revolt him so, & he would go to his death unaware that there + was nothing serious about them. I cannot get that night out of my + head, it was so vivid, so real, so ghastly: In any other year of + these thirty-three the relief would have been simple: go where you + can, cut your cloth to fit your income. You can't do that when your + wife can't be moved, even from one room to the next. + + The doctor & a specialist met in conspiracy five days ago, & in + their belief she will by and by come out of this as good as new, + substantially. They ordered her to Italy for next winter--which + seems to indicate that by autumn she will be able to undertake the + voyage. So Clara is writing to a Florence friend to take a look + around among the villas for us in the regions near that city. + + + + +CCXXVIII + +PROFFERED HONORS + +Mark Twain had been at home well on toward three years; but his +popularity showed no signs of diminishing. So far from having waned, it +had surged to a higher point than ever before. His crusade against +public and private abuses had stirred readers, and had set them to +thinking; the news of illness in his household; a report that he was +contemplating another residence abroad--these things moved deeply the +public heart, and a tide of letters flowed in, letters of every sort--of +sympathy, of love, or hearty endorsement, whatever his attitude of +reform. + +When a writer in a New York newspaper said, "Let us go outside the realm +of practical politics next time in choosing our candidates for the +Presidency," and asked, "Who is our ablest and most conspicuous private +citizen?" another editorial writer, Joseph Hollister, replied that Mark +Twain was "the greatest man of his day in private life, and entitled to +the fullest measure of recognition." + +But Clemens was without political ambitions. He knew the way of such +things too well. When Hollister sent him the editorial he replied only +with a word of thanks, and did not, even in jest, encourage that tiny +seed of a Presidential boom. One would like to publish many of the +beautiful letters received during this period, for they are beautiful, +most of them, however illiterate in form, however discouraging in length +--beautiful in that they overflow with the writers' sincerity and +gratitude. + +So many of them came from children, usually without the hope of a reply, +some signed only with initials, that the writers might not be open to the +suspicion of being seekers for his autograph. Almost more than any other +reward, Mark Twain valued this love of the children. + +A department in the St. Nicholas Magazine offered a prize for a +caricature drawing of some well-known man. There were one or two of +certain prominent politicians and capitalists, and there was literally a +wheelbarrow load of Mark Twain. When he was informed of this he wrote: +"No tribute could have pleased me more than that--the friendship of the +children." + +Tributes came to him in many forms. In his native State it was proposed +to form a Mark Twain Association, with headquarters at Hannibal, with the +immediate purpose of having a week set apart at the St. Louis World's +Fair, to be called the Mark Twain week, with a special Mark Twain day, on +which a national literary convention would be held. But when his consent +was asked, and his co-operation invited, he wrote characteristically: + +It is indeed a high compliment which you offer me, in naming an +association after me and in proposing the setting apart of a Mark Twain +day at the great St. Louis Fair, but such compliments are not proper for +the living; they are proper and safe for the dead only. I value the +impulse which moves you to tender me these honors. I value it as highly +as any one can, and am grateful for it, but I should stand in a sort of +terror of the honors themselves. So long as we remain alive we are not +safe from doing things which, however righteously and honorably intended, +can wreck our repute and extinguish our friendships. + +I hope that no society will be named for me while I am still alive, for I +might at some time or other do something which would cause its members to +regret having done me that honor. After I shall have joined the dead I +shall follow the custom of those people, and be guilty of no conduct that +can wound any friend; but until that time shall come I shall be a +doubtful quantity, like the rest of our race. + +The committee, still hoping for his consent, again appealed to him. But +again he wrote: + +While I am deeply touched by the desire of my friends of Hannibal to +confer these great honors upon me I must still forbear to accept them. +Spontaneous and unpremeditated honors, like those which came to me at +Hannibal, Columbia, St. Louis, and at the village stations all down the +line, are beyond all price and are a treasure for life in the memory, for +they are a free gift out of the heart and they come without solicitation; +but I am a Missourian, and so I shrink from distinctions which have to be +arranged beforehand and with my privity, for I then become a party to my +own exalting. I am humanly fond of honors that happen, but chary of +those that come by canvass and intention. + +Somewhat later he suggested a different feature for the fair; one that +was not practical, perhaps, but which certainly would have aroused +interest--that is to say, an old-fashioned six-day steamboat-race from +New Orleans to St. Louis, with the old-fashioned accessories, such as +torch-baskets, forecastle crowds of negro singers, with a negro on the +safety-valve. In his letter to President Francis he said: + +As to particulars, I think that the race should be a genuine reproduction +of the old-time race, not just an imitation of it, and that it should +cover the whole course. I think the boats should begin the trip at New +Orleans, and side by side (not an interval between), and end it at North +St. Louis, a mile or two above the Big Mound. + +In a subsequent letter to Governor Francis he wrote: + +It has been a dear wish of mine to exhibit myself at the great Fair & get +a prize, but circumstances beyond my control have interfered . . . . + +I suppose you will get a prize, because you have created the most +prodigious Fair the planet has ever seen. Very well, you have indeed +earned it, and with it the gratitude of the State and the nation. + +Newspaper men used every inducement to get interviews from him. They +invited him to name a price for any time he could give them, long or +short. One reporter offered him five hundred dollars for a two-hour +talk. Another proposed to pay him one hundred dollars a week for a +quarter of a day each week, allowing him to discuss any subject he +pleased. One wrote asking him two questions: the first, "Your favorite +method of escaping from Indians"; the second, "Your favorite method of +escaping capture by the Indians when they were in pursuit of you." They +inquired as to his favorite copy-book maxim; as to what he considered +most important to a young man's success; his definition of a gentleman. +They wished to know his plan for the settlement of labor troubles. But +they did not awaken his interest, or his cupidity. To one applicant he +wrote: + +No, there are temptations against which we are fire-proof. Your +proposition is one which comes to me with considerable frequency, but it +never tempts me. The price isn't the objection; you offer plenty. It is +the nature of the work that is the objection--a kind of work which I +could not do well enough to satisfy me. To multiply the price by twenty +would not enable me to do the work to my satisfaction, & by consequence +would make no impression upon me. + +Once he allowed himself to be interviewed for the Herald, when from Mr. +Rogers's yacht he had watched Sir Thomas Lipton's Shamrock go down to +defeat; but this was a subject which appealed to him--a kind of +hotweather subject--and he could be as light-minded about it as he chose. + + + + + +CCXXXIX + +THE LAST SUMMER AT ELMIRA + +The Clemenses were preparing to take up residence in Florence, Italy. +The Hartford house had been sold in May, ending forever the association +with the city that had so long been a part of their lives. The Tarrytown +place, which they had never occupied, they also agreed to sell, for it +was the belief now that Mrs. Clemens's health would never greatly prosper +there. Howells says, or at least implies, that they expected their +removal to Florence to be final. He tells us, too, of one sunny +afternoon when he and Clemens sat on the grass before the mansion at +Riverdale, after Mrs. Clemens had somewhat improved, and how they "looked +up toward a balcony where by and by that lovely presence made itself +visible, as if it had stooped there from a cloud. A hand frailly waved a +handkerchief; Clemens ran over the lawn toward it, calling tenderly." It +was a greeting to Howells the last he would ever receive from her. + +Mrs. Clemens was able to make a trip to Elmira by the end of June, and on +the 1st of July Mr. Rogers brought Clemens and his wife down the river on +his yacht to the Lackawanna pier, and they reached Quarry Farm that +evening. She improved in the quietude and restfulness of that beloved +place. Three weeks later Clemens wrote to Twichell: + +Livy is coming along: eats well, sleeps some, is mostly very gay, not +very often depressed; spends all day on the porch, sleeps there a part of +the night; makes excursions in carriage & in wheel-chair; &, in the +matter of superintending everything & everybody, has resumed business at +the old stand. + +During three peaceful months she spent most of her days reclining on the +wide veranda, surrounded by those dearest to her, and looking out on the +dreamlike landscape--the long, grassy slope, the drowsy city, and the +distant hills--getting strength for the far journey by sea. Clemens did +some writing, occupying the old octagonal study--shut in now and +overgrown with vines--where during the thirty years since it was built so +many of his stories had been written. 'A Dog's Tale'--that pathetic +anti-vivisection story--appears to have been the last manuscript ever +completed in the spot consecrated by Huck and Tom, and by Tom Canty the +Pauper and the little wandering Prince. + +It was October 5th when they left Elmira. Two days earlier Clemens had +written in his note-book: + + Today I placed flowers on Susy's grave--for the last time probably-- + & read words: + + "Good-night, dear heart, good-night." + +They did not return to Riverdale, but went to the Hotel Grosvenor for the +intervening weeks. They had engaged passage for Italy on the Princess +Irene, which would sail on the 24th. It was during the period of their +waiting that Clemens concluded his final Harper contract. On that day, +in his note-book, he wrote: + + THE PROPHECY + +In 1895 Cheiro the palmist examined my hand & said that in my 68th year +(1903) I would become suddenly rich. I was a bankrupt & $94,000 in debt +at the time through the failure of Charles L. Webster & Co. Two years +later--in London--Cheiro repeated this long-distance prediction, & added +that the riches would come from a quite unexpected source. I am +superstitious. I kept the prediction in mind & often thought of it. +When at last it came true, October 22, 1903, there was but a month & 9 +days to spare. + +The contract signed that day concentrates all my books in Harper's hands +& now at last they are valuable; in fact they are a fortune. They +guarantee me $25,000 a year for 5 years, and they will yield twice as +much as that.--[In earlier note-books and letters Clemens more than once +refers to this prophecy and wonders if it is to be realized. The Harper +contract, which brought all of his books into the hands of one publisher +(negotiated for him by Mr. Rogers), proved, in fact, a fortune. The +books yielded always more than the guarantee; sometimes twice that +amount, as he had foreseen.] + +During the conclusion of this contract Clemens made frequent visits to +Fairhaven on the Kanawha. Joe Goodman came from the Pacific to pay him a +good-by visit during this period. Goodman had translated the Mayan +inscriptions, and his work had received official recognition and +publication by the British Museum. It was a fine achievement for a man +in later life and Clemens admired it immensely. Goodman and Clemens +enjoyed each other in the old way at quiet resorts where they could talk +over the old tales. Another visitor of that summer was the son of an old +friend, a Hannibal printer named Daulton. Young Daulton came with +manuscripts seeking a hearing of the magazine editors, so Clemens wrote a +letter which would insure that favor: + +INTRODUCING MR. GEO. DAULTON: + +TO GILDER, ALDEN, HARVEY, McCLURE, WALKER, PAGE, BOK, COLLIER, and such +other members of the sacred guild as privilege me to call them friends- +these: + +Although I have no personal knowledge of the bearer of this, I have what +is better: He comes recommended to me by his own father--a thing not +likely to happen in any of your families, I reckon. I ask you, as a +favor to me, to waive prejudice & superstition for this once & examine +his work with an eye to its literary merit, instead of to the chastity of +its spelling. I wish to God you cared less for that particular. + +I set (or sat) type alongside of his father, in Hannibal, more than 50 +years ago, when none but the pure in heart were in that business. A true +man he was; and if I can be of any service to his son--and to you at the +same time, let me hope--I am here heartily to try. + +Yours by the sanctions of time & deserving, + + Sincerely, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +Among the kindly words which came to Mark Twain before leaving America +was this one which Rudyard Kipling had written to his publisher, Frank +Doubleday: + + I love to think of the great and godlike Clemens. He is the biggest + man you have on your side of the water by a damn sight, and don't + you forget it. Cervantes was a relation of his. + +It curiously happened that Clemens at the same moment was writing to +Doubleday about Kipling: + + I have been reading "The Bell Buoy" and "The Old Man" over and over + again-my custom with Kipling's work--and saving up the rest for + other leisurely and luxurious meals. A bell-buoy is a deeply + impressive fellow-being. In these many recent trips up and down the + Sound in the Kanawha he has talked to me nightly sometimes in his + pathetic and melancholy way, sometimes with his strenuous and urgent + note, and I got his meaning--now I have his words! No one but + Kipling could do this strong and vivid thing. Some day I hope to + hear the poem chanted or sung-with the bell-buoy breaking in out of + the distance. + + P. S.--Your letter has arrived. It makes me proud and glad--what + Kipling says. I hope Fate will fetch him to Florence while we are + there. I would rather see him than any other man. + + + + +CCXXX + +THE RETURN TO FLORENCE + +From the note-book: + + Saturday, October 24, 1903. Sailed in the Princess Irene for Genoa + at 11. Flowers & fruit from Mrs. Rogers & Mrs. Coe. We have with + us Katie Leary (in our domestic service 23 years) & Miss Margaret + Sherry (trained nurse). + +Two days later he wrote: + + Heavy storm all night. Only 3 stewardesses. Ours served 60 meals + in rooms this morning. + +On the 27th: + + Livy is enduring the voyage marvelously well. As well as Clara & + Jean, I think, & far better than the trained nurse. + + She has been out on deck an hour. + + November 2. Due at Gibraltar 10 days from New York. 3 days to + Naples, then 2 day to Genoa. + At supper the band played "Cavalleria Rusticana," which is forever + associated in my mind with Susy. I love it better than any other, + but it breaks my heart. + +It was the "Intermezzo" he referred to, which had been Susy's favorite +music, and whenever he heard it he remembered always one particular +opera-night long ago, and Susy's face rose before him. + +They were in Naples on the 5th; thence to Genoa, and to Florence, where +presently they were installed in the Villa Reale di Quarto, a fine old +Italian palace built by Cosimo more than four centuries ago. In later +times it has been occupied and altered by royal families of Wurtemberg +and Russia. Now it was the property of the Countess Massiglia, from whom +Clemens had leased it. + +They had hoped to secure the Villa Papiniano, under Fiesole, near +Professor Fiske, but negotiations for it had fallen through. The Villa +Quarto, as it is usually called, was a more pretentious place and as +beautifully located, standing as it does in an ancient garden looking out +over Florence toward Vallombrosa and the Chianti hills. Yet now in the +retrospect, it seems hardly to have been the retreat for an invalid. Its +garden was supernaturally beautiful, all that one expects that a garden +of Italy should be--such a garden as Maxfield Parrish might dream; but +its beauty was that which comes of antiquity--the accumulation of dead +years. Its funereal cypresses, its crumbling walls and arches, its +clinging ivy and moldering marbles, and a clock that long ago forgot the +hours, gave it a mortuary look. In a way it suggested Arnold Bocklin's +"Todteninsel," and it might well have served as the allegorical setting +for a gateway to the bourne of silence. + +The house itself, one of the most picturesque of the old Florentine +suburban palaces, was historically interesting, rather than cheerful. +The rooms, in number more than sixty, though richly furnished, were vast +and barnlike, and there were numbers of them wholly unused and never +entered. There was a dearth of the modern improvements which Americans +have learned to regard as a necessity, and the plumbing, such as it was, +was not always in order. The place was approached by narrow streets, +along which the more uninviting aspects of Italy were not infrequent. +Youth and health and romance might easily have reveled in the place; but +it seems now not to have been the best choice for that frail invalid, to +whom cheer and brightness and freshness and the lovelier things of hope +meant always so much.--[Villa Quarto has recently been purchased by +Signor P. de Ritter Lahony, and thoroughly restored and refreshed and +beautified without the sacrifice of any of its romantic features.] +--Neither was the climate of Florence all that they had hoped for. +Their former sunny winter had misled them. Tradition to the contrary, +Italy--or at least Tuscany--is not one perpetual dream of sunlight. It +is apt to be damp and cloudy; it is likely to be cold. Writing to +MacAlister, Clemens said: + +Florentine sunshine? Bless you, there isn't any. We have heavy fogs +every morning & rain all day. This house is not merely large, it is +vast--therefore I think it must always lack the home feeling. + +His dissatisfaction in it began thus early, and it grew as one thing +after another went wrong. With it all, however, Mrs. Clemens seemed to +gain a little, and was glad to see company--a reasonable amount of +company--to brighten her surroundings. + +Clemens began to work and wrote a story or two, and those lively articles +about the Italian language. + +To Twichell he reported progress: + + I have a handsome success in one way here. I left New York under a + sort of half-promise to furnish to the Harper magazines 30,000 words + this year. Magazining is difficult work because every third page + represents two pages that you have put in the fire (you are nearly + sure to start wrong twice), & so when you have finished an article & + are willing to let it go to print it represents only 10 cents a word + instead of 30. + + But this time I had the curious (& unprecedented) luck to start + right in each case. I turned out 37,000 words in 25 working days; & + the reason I think I started right every time is, that not only have + I approved and accepted the several articles, but the court of last + resort (Livy) has done the same. + + On many of the between-days I did some work, but only of an idle & + not necessarily necessary sort, since it will not see print until I + am dead. I shall continue this (an hour per day), but the rest of + the year I expect to put in on a couple of long books (half- + completed ones). No more magazine work hanging over my head. + + This secluded & silent solitude, this clean, soft air, & this + enchanting view of Florence, the great valley & snow-mountains that + frame it, are the right conditions for work. They are a persistent + inspiration. To-day is very lovely; when the afternoon arrives + there will be a new picture every hour till dark, & each of them + divine--or progressing from divine to diviner & divinest. On this + (second) floor Clara's room commands the finest; she keeps a window + ten feet high wide open all the time & frames it in that. I go in + from time to time every day & trade sass for a look. The central + detail is a distant & stately snow-hump that rises above & behind + black-forested hills, & its sloping vast buttresses, velvety & sun- + polished, with purple shadows between, make the sort of picture we + knew that time we walked in Switzerland in the days of our youth. + +From this letter, which is of January 7, 1904, we gather that the weather +had greatly improved, and with it Mrs. Clemens's health, notwithstanding +she had an alarming attack in December. One of the stories he had +finished was "The $30,000 Bequest." The work mentioned, which would not +see print until after his death, was a continuation of those +autobiographical chapters which for years he had been setting down as the +mood seized him. + +He experimented with dictation, which he had tried long before with +Redpath, and for a time now found it quite to his liking. He dictated +some of his copyright memories, and some anecdotes and episodes; but his +amanuensis wrote only longhand, which perhaps hampered him, for he tired +of it by and by and the dictations were discontinued. + +Among these notes there is one elaborate description of the Villa di +Quarto, dictated at the end of the winter, by which time we are not +surprised to find he had become much attached to the place. The Italian +spring was in the air, and it was his habit to grow fond of his +surroundings. Some atmospheric paragraphs of these impressions invite us +here: + + We are in the extreme south end of the house, if there is any such + thing as a south end to a house, whose orientation cannot be + determined by me, because I am incompetent in all cases where an + object does not point directly north & south. This one slants + across between, & is therefore a confusion. This little private + parlor is in one of the two corners of what I call the south end of + the house. The sun rises in such a way that all the morning it is + pouring its light through the 33 glass doors or windows which pierce + the side of the house which looks upon the terrace & garden; the + rest of the day the light floods this south end of the house, as I + call it; at noon the sun is directly above Florence yonder in the + distance in the plain, directly across those architectural features + which have been so familiar to the world in pictures for some + centuries, the Duomo, the Campanile, the Tomb of the Medici, & the + beautiful tower of the Palazzo Vecchio; in this position it begins + to reveal the secrets of the delicious blue mountains that circle + around into the west, for its light discovers, uncovers, & exposes a + white snowstorm of villas & cities that you cannot train yourself to + have confidence in, they appear & disappear so mysteriously, as if + they might not be villas & cities at all, but the ghosts of perished + ones of the remote & dim Etruscan times; & late in the afternoon the + sun sets down behind those mountains somewhere, at no particular + time & at no particular place, so far as I can see. + +Again at the end of March he wrote: + + Now that we have lived in this house four and a half months my + prejudices have fallen away one by one & the place has become very + homelike to me. Under certain conditions I should like to go on + living in it indefinitely. I should wish the Countess to move out + of Italy, out of Europe, out of the planet. I should want her + bonded to retire to her place in the next world & inform me which of + the two it was, so that I could arrange for my own hereafter. + +Complications with their landlady had begun early, and in time, next to +Mrs. Clemens's health, to which it bore such an intimate and vital +relation, the indifference of the Countess Massiglia to their needs +became the supreme and absorbing concern of life at the villa, and led to +continued and almost continuous house-hunting. + +Days when the weather permitted, Clemens drove over the hills looking for +a villa which he could lease or buy--one with conveniences and just the +right elevation and surroundings. There were plenty of villas; but some +of them were badly situated as to altitude or view; some were falling to +decay, and the search was rather a discouraging one. Still it was not +abandoned, and the reports of these excursions furnished new interest and +new hope always to the invalid at home. + +"Even if we find it," he wrote Howells, "I am afraid it will be months +before we can move Mrs. Clemens. Of course it will. But it comforts us +to let on that we think otherwise, and these pretensions help to keep +hope alive in her." + +She had her bad days and her good days, days when it was believed she had +passed the turning-point and was traveling the way to recovery; but the +good days were always a little less hopeful, the bad days a little more +discouraging. On February 22d Clemens wrote in his note-book: + +At midnight Livy's pulse went to 192 & there was a collapse. Great +alarm. Subcutaneous injection of brandy saved her. + +And to MacAlister toward the end of March: + +We are having quite perfect weather now & are hoping that it will bring +effects for Mrs. Clemens. + +But a few days later he added that he was watching the driving rain +through the windows, and that it was bad weather for the invalid. "But +it will not last," he said. + +The invalid improved then, and there was a concert in Florence at which +Clara Clemens sang. Clemens in his note-book says: + + April 8. Clara's concert was a triumph. Livy woke up & sent for + her to tell her all about it, near midnight. + +But a day or two later she was worse again--then better. The hearts in +that household were as pendulums, swinging always between hope and +despair. + +One familiar with the Clemens history might well have been filled with +forebodings. Already in January a member of the family, Mollie Clemens, +Orion's wife, died, news which was kept from Mrs. Clemens, as was the +death of Aldrich's son, and that of Sir Henry M. Stanley, both of which +occurred that spring. + +Indeed, death harvested freely that year among the Clemens friendships. +Clemens wrote Twichell: + + Yours has just this moment arrived-just as I was finishing a note to + poor Lady Stanley. I believe the last country-house visit we paid + in England was to Stanley's. Lord! how my friends & acquaintances + fall about me now in my gray-headed days! Vereshchagin, Mommsen, + Dvorak, Lenbach, & Jokai, all so recently, & now Stanley. I have + known Stanley 37 years. Goodness, who is there I haven't known? + + + + +CCXXXI + +THE CLOSE OF A BEAUTIFUL LIFE + +In one of his notes near the end of April Clemens writes that once more, +as at Riverdale, he has been excluded from Mrs. Clemens's room except for +the briefest moment at a time. But on May 12th, to R. W. Gilder, he +reported: + + For two days now we have not been anxious about Mrs. Clemens + (unberufen). After 20 months of bedridden solitude & bodily misery + she all of a sudden ceases to be a pallid, shrunken shadow, & looks + bright & young & pretty. She remains what she always was, the most + wonderful creature of fortitude, patience, endurance, and + recuperative power that ever was. But ah, dear! it won't last; + this fiendish malady will play new treacheries upon her, and I shall + go back to my prayers again--unutterable from any pulpit! + + May 13, A.M. I have just paid one of my pair of permitted 2-minute + visits per day to the sick-room. And found what I have learned to + expect--retrogression. + +There was a day when she was brought out on the terrace in a wheel-chair +to see the wonder of the early Italian summer. She had been a prisoner +so long that she was almost overcome with the delight of it all--the more +so, perhaps, in the feeling that she might so soon be leaving it. + +It was on Sunday, the 5th of June, that the end came. Clemens and Jean +had driven out to make some calls, and had stopped at a villa, which +promised to fulfil most of the requirements. They came home full of +enthusiasm concerning it, and Clemens, in his mind, had decided on the +purchase. In the corridor Clara said: + +"She is better to-day than she has been for three months." + +Then quickly, under her breath, "Unberufen," which the others, too, added +hastily--superstitiously. + +Mrs. Clemens was, in fact, bright and cheerful, and anxious to hear all +about the new property which was to become their home. She urged him to +sit by her during the dinner-hour and tell her the details; but once, +when the sense of her frailties came upon her, she said they must not +mind if she could not go very soon, but be content where they were. He +remained from half past seven until eight--a forbidden privilege, but +permitted because she was so animated, feeling so well. Their talk was +as it had been in the old days, and once during it he reproached himself, +as he had so often done, and asked forgiveness for the tears he had +brought into her life. When he was summoned to go at last he chided +himself for remaining so long; but she said there was no harm, and kissed +him, saying: "You will come back," and he answered, "Yes, to say good +night," meaning at half past nine, as was the permitted custom. He stood +a moment at the door throwing kisses to her, and she returning them, her +face bright with smiles. + +He was so hopeful and happy that it amounted to exaltation. He went to +his room at first, then he was moved to do a thing which he had seldom +done since Susy died. He went to the piano up-stairs and sang the old +jubilee songs that Susy had liked to hear him sing. Jean came in +presently, listening. She had not done this before, that he could +remember. He sang "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and "My Lord He Calls Me." +He noticed Jean then and stopped, but she asked him to go on. + +Mrs. Clemens, in her room, heard the distant music, and said to her +attendant: + +"He is singing a good-night carol to me." + +The music ceased presently, and then a moment later she asked to be +lifted up. Almost in that instant life slipped away without a sound. + +Clemens, coming to say good night, saw a little group about her bed, +Clara and Jean standing as if dazed. He went and bent over and looked +into her face, surprised that she did not greet him. He did not suspect +what had happened until he heard one of the daughters ask: + +"Katie, is it true? Oh, Katie, is it true?" + +He realized then that she was gone. + +In his note-book that night he wrote: + + At a quarter past 9 this evening she that was the life of my life + passed to the relief & the peace of death after as months of unjust + & unearned suffering. I first saw her near 37 years ago, & now I + have looked upon her face for the last time. Oh, so unexpected!... + I was full of remorse for things done & said in these 34 years of + married life that hurt Livy's heart. + +He envied her lying there, so free from it all, with the great peace upon +her face. He wrote to Howells and to Twichell, and to Mrs. Crane, those +nearest and dearest ones. To Twichell he said: + + How sweet she was in death, how young, how beautiful, how like her + dear girlish self of thirty years ago, not a gray hair showing! + This rejuvenescence was noticeable within two hours after her death; + & when I went down again (2.3o) it was complete. In all that night + & all that day she never noticed my caressing hand--it seemed + strange. + +To Howells he recalled the closing scene: + + I bent over her & looked in her face & I think I spoke--I was + surprised & troubled that she did not notice me. Then we understood + & our hearts broke. How poor we are to-day! + + But how thankful I am that her persecutions are ended! I would not + call her back if I could. + + To-day, treasured in her worn, old Testament, I found a dear & + gentle letter from you dated Far Rockaway, September 13, 1896, about + our poor Susy's death. I am tired & old; I wish I were with Livy. + +And in a few days: + +It would break Livy's heart to see Clara. We excuse ourself from all the +friends that call--though, of course, only intimates come. Intimates-- +but they are not the old, old friends, the friends of the old, old times +when we laughed. Shall we ever laugh again? If I could only see a dog +that I knew in the old times & could put my arms around his neck and tell +him all, everything, & ease my heart! + + + + +CCXXXII + +THE SAD JOURNEY HOME + +A tidal wave of sympathy poured in. Noble and commoner, friend and +stranger--humanity of every station--sent their messages of condolence to +the friend of mankind. The cablegrams came first--bundles of them from +every corner of the world--then the letters, a steady inflow. Howells, +Twichell, Aldrich--those oldest friends who had themselves learned the +meaning of grief--spoke such few and futile words as the language can +supply to allay a heart's mourning, each recalling the rarity and beauty +of the life that had slipped away. Twichell and his wife wrote: + +DEAR, DEAR MARK,--There is nothing we can say. What is there to say? +But here we are--with you all every hour and every minute--filled with +unutterable thoughts; unutterable affection for the dead and for the +living. + HARMONY AND JOE. + + +Howells in his letter said: + +She hallowed what she touched far beyond priests . . . . What are you +going to do, you poor soul? + + +A hundred letters crowd in for expression here, but must be denied--not, +however, the beam of hope out of Helen Keller's illumined night: + + Do try to reach through grief and feel the pressure of her hand, as + I reach through darkness and feel the smile on my friends' lips and + the light in their eyes though mine are closed. + +They were adrift again without plans for the future. They would return +to America to lay Mrs. Clemens to rest by Susy and little Langdon, but +beyond that they could not see. Then they remembered a quiet spot in +Massachusetts, Tyringham, near Lee, where the Gilders lived, and so, on +June 7th, he wrote: + + DEAR GILDER FAMILY,--I have been worrying and worrying to know what + to do; at last I went to the girls with an idea--to ask the Gilders + to get us shelter near their summer home. It was the first time + they have not shaken their heads. So to-morrow I will cable to you + and shall hope to be in time. + + An hour ago the best heart that ever beat for me and mine was + carried silent out of this house, and I am as one who wanders and + has lost his way. She who is gone was our head, she was our hands. + We are now trying to make plans--we: we who have never made a plan + before, nor ever needed to. If she could speak to us she would make + it all simple and easy with a word, & our perplexities would vanish + away. If she had known she was near to death she would have told us + where to go and what to do, but she was not suspecting, neither were + we. She was all our riches and she is gone; she was our breath, she + was our life, and now we are nothing. + + We send you our love-and with it the love of you that was in her + heart when she died. + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +They arranged to sail on the Prince Oscar on the 29th of June. There was +an earlier steamer, but it was the Princess Irene, which had brought +them, and they felt they would not make the return voyage on that vessel. +During the period of waiting a curious thing happened. Clemens one day +got up in a chair in his room on the second floor to pull down the high +window-sash. It did not move easily and his hand slipped. It was only +by the merest chance that he saved himself from falling to the ground far +below. He mentions this in his note-book, and once, speaking of it to +Frederick Duneka, he said: + +"Had I fallen it would probably have killed me, and in my bereaved +circumstances the world would have been convinced that it was suicide. +It was one of those curious coincidences which are always happening and +being misunderstood." + +The homeward voyage and its sorrowful conclusion are pathetically +conveyed in his notes: + + June 29, 1904. Sailed last night at 10. The bugle-call to + breakfast. I recognized the notes and was distressed. When I heard + them last Livy heard them with me; now they fall upon her ear + unheeded. + + In my life there have been 68 Junes--but how vague & colorless 67 of + them are contrasted with the deep blackness of this one! + + July 1, 1904. I cannot reproduce Livy's face in my mind's eye--I + was never in my life able to reproduce a face. It is a curious + infirmity--& now at last I realize it is a calamity. + + July 2, 1904. In these 34 years we have made many voyages together, + Livy dear--& now we are making our last; you down below & lonely; I + above with the crowd & lonely. + + July 3, 1904. Ship-time, 8 A.M. In 13 hours & a quarter it will be + 4 weeks since Livy died. + + Thirty-one years ago we made our first voyage together--& this is + our last one in company. Susy was a year old then. She died at 24 + & had been in her grave 8 years. + + July 10, 1904. To-night it will be 5 weeks. But to me it remains + yesterday--as it has from the first. But this funeral march--how + sad & long it is! + + Two days more will end the second stage of it. + + July 14, 1904 (ELMIRA). Funeral private in the house of Livy's + young maidenhood. Where she stood as a bride 34 years ago there her + coffin rested; & over it the same voice that had made her a wife + then committed her departed spirit to God now. + +It was Joseph Twichell who rendered that last service. Mr. Beecher was +long since dead. It was a simple, touching utterance, closing with this +tender word of farewell: + + Robert Browning, when he was nearing the end of his earthly days, + said that death was the thing that we did not believe in. Nor do we + believe in it. We who journeyed through the bygone years in + companionship with the bright spirit now withdrawn are growing old. + The way behind is long; the way before is short. The end cannot be + far off. But what of that? Can we not say, each one: + + "So long that power hath blessed me, sure it still + Will lead me on; + O'er moor and fen; o'er crag and torrent, till + The night is gone; + And with the morn, their angel faces smile, + Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!" + + And so good-by. Good-by, dear heart! Strong, tender, and true. + Good-by until for us the morning break and these shadows fly away. + +Dr. Eastman, who had succeeded Mr. Beecher, closed the service with a +prayer, and so the last office we can render in this life for those we +love was finished. + +Clemens ordered that a simple marker should be placed at the grave, +bearing, besides the name, the record of birth and death, followed by the +German line: + + 'Gott sei dir gnadig, O meine Wonne'! + + + + + +CCXXXIII + +BEGINNING ANOTHER HOME + +There was an extra cottage on the Gilder place at Tyringham, and this +they occupied for the rest of that sad summer. Clemens, in his note- +book, has preserved some of its aspects and incidents. + +July 24, 1904. Rain--rain--rain. Cold. We built a fire in my room. +Then clawed the logs out & threw water, remembering there was a brood of +swallows in the chimney. The tragedy was averted. + +July 31. LEE, MASSACHUSETTS (BERKSHIRE HILLS). Last night the young +people out on a moonlight ride. Trolley frightened Jean's horse-- +collision--horse killed. Rodman Gilder picked Jean up, unconscious; she +was taken to the doctor, per the car. Face, nose, side, back contused; +tendon of left ankle broken. + +August 10. NEW YORK. Clam here sick--never well since June 5. Jean is +at the summer home in the Berkshire Hills crippled. + +The next entry records the third death in the Clemens family within a +period of eight months--that of Mrs. Moffett, who had been Pamela +Clemens. Clemens writes: + + September 1. Died at Greenwich, Connecticut, my sister, Pamela + Moffett, aged about 73. + + Death dates this year January 14, June 5, September 1. + +That fall they took a house in New York City, on the corner of Ninth +Street and Fifth Avenue, No. 21, remaining for a time at the Grosvenor +while the new home was being set in order. The home furniture was +brought from Hartford, unwrapped, and established in the light of strange +environment. Clemens wrote: + +We have not seen it for thirteen years. Katie Leary, our old +housekeeper, who has been in our service more than twenty-four years, +cried when she told me about it to-day. She said, "I had forgotten it +was so beautiful, and it brought Mrs. Clemens right back to me--in that +old time when she was so young and lovely." + +Clara Clemens had not recovered from the strain of her mother's long +illness and the shock of her death, and she was ordered into retirement +with the care of a trained nurse. The life at 21 Fifth Avenue, +therefore, began with only two remaining members of the broken family-- +Clemens and Jean. + +Clemens had undertaken to divert himself with work at Tyringham, though +without much success. He was not well; he was restless and disturbed; +his heart bleak with a great loneliness. He prepared an article on +Copyright for the 'North American Review',--[Published Jan., 7905. A +dialogue presentation of copyright conditions, addressed to Thorwald +Stolberg, Register of Copyrights, Washington, D. C. One of the best of +Mark Twain's papers on the subject.]--and he began, or at least +contemplated, that beautiful fancy, 'Eve's Diary', which in the widest +and most reverential sense, from the first word to the last, conveys his +love, his worship, and his tenderness for the one he had laid away. +Adam's single comment at the end, "Wheresoever she was, there was Eden," +was his own comment, and is perhaps the most tenderly beautiful line he +ever wrote. These two books, Adam's Diary and Eve's--amusing and +sometimes absurd as they are, and so far removed from the literal--are as +autobiographic as anything he has done, and one of them as lovely in its +truth. Like the first Maker of men, Mark Twain created Adam in his own +image; and his rare Eve is no less the companion with whom, half a +lifetime before, he had begun the marriage journey. Only here the +likeness ceases. No Serpent ever entered their Eden. And they never +left it; it traveled with them so long as they remained together. + +In the Christmas Harper for 1904 was published "Saint Joan of Arc"--the +same being the Joan introduction prepared in London five years before. +Joan's proposed beatification had stirred a new interest in the martyred +girl, and this most beautiful article became a sort of key-note of the +public heart. Those who read it were likely to go back and read the +Recollections, and a new appreciation grew for that masterpiece. In his +later and wider acceptance by his own land, and by the world at large, +the book came to be regarded with a fresh understanding. Letters came +from scores of readers, as if it were a newly issued volume. A +distinguished educator wrote: + + I would rather have written your history of Joan of Arc than any + other piece of literature in any language. + +And this sentiment grew. The demand for the book increased, and has +continued to increase, steadily and rapidly. In the long and last +analysis the good must prevail. A day will come when there will be as +many readers of Joan as of any other of Mark Twain's works. + +[The growing appreciation of Joan is shown by the report of sales for the +three years following 1904. The sales for that year in America were +1,726; for 1905, 2,445 for 1906, 5,381; for 1907, 6,574. At this point +it passed Pudd'nhead Wilson, the Yankee, The Gilded Age, Life on the +Mississippi, overtook the Tramp Abroad, and more than doubled The +American Claimant. Only The Innocents Abroad, Huckleberry Finn, Tom +Sawyer, and Roughing It still ranged ahead of it, in the order named.] + + + + +CCXXXIV + +LIFE AT 21 FIFTH AVENUE + +The house at 21 Fifth Avenue, built by the architect who had designed +Grace Church, had a distinctly ecclesiastical suggestion about its +windows, and was of fine and stately proportions within. It was a proper +residence for a venerable author and a sage, and with the handsome +Hartford furnishings distributed through it, made a distinctly suitable +setting for Mark Twain. But it was lonely for him. It lacked soul. He +added, presently, a great AEolian Orchestrelle, with a variety of music +for his different moods. He believed that he would play it himself when +he needed the comfort of harmony, and that Jean, who had not received +musical training, or his secretary could also play to him. He had a +passion for music, or at least for melody and stately rhythmic measures, +though his ear was not attuned to what are termed the more classical +compositions. For Wagner, for instance, he cared little, though in a +letter to Mrs. Crane he said: + +Certainly nothing in the world is so solemn and impressive and so +divinely beautiful as "Tannhauser." It ought to be used as a religious +service. + +Beethoven's sonatas and symphonies also moved him deeply. Once, writing +to Jean, he asked: + +What is your favorite piece of music, dear? Mine is Beethoven's Fifth +Symphony. I have found that out within a day or two. + +It was the majestic movement and melodies of the second part that he +found most satisfying; but he oftener inclined to the still tenderer +themes of Chopin's nocturnes and one of Schubert's impromptus, while the +"Lorelei" and the "Erlking" and the Scottish airs never wearied him. +Music thus became a chief consolation during these lonely days--rich +organ harmonies that filled the emptiness of his heart and beguiled from +dull, material surroundings back into worlds and dreams that he had known +and laid away. + +He went out very little that winter--usually to the homes of old and +intimate friends. Once he attended a small dinner given him by George +Smalley at the Metropolitan Club; but it was a private affair, with only +good friends present. Still, it formed the beginning of his return to +social life, and it was not in his nature to retire from the brightness +of human society, or to submerge himself in mourning. As the months wore +on he appeared here and there, and took on something of his old-time +habit. Then his annual bronchitis appeared, and he was confined a good +deal to his home, where he wrote or planned new reforms and enterprises. + +The improvement of railway service, through which fewer persons should be +maimed and destroyed each year, interested him. He estimated that the +railroads and electric lines killed and wounded more than all of the wars +combined, and he accumulated statistics and prepared articles on the +subject, though he appears to have offered little of such matter for +publication. Once, however, when his sympathy was awakened by the victim +of a frightful trolley and train collision in Newark, New Jersey, he +wrote a letter which promptly found its way into print. + + DEAR MISS MADELINE, Your good & admiring & affectionate brother has + told me of your sorrowful share in the trolley disaster which + brought unaccustomed tears to millions of eyes & fierce resentment + against those whose criminal indifference to their responsibilities + caused it, & the reminder has brought back to me a pang out of that + bygone time. I wish I could take you sound & whole out of your bed + & break the legs of those officials & put them in it--to stay there. + For in my spirit I am merciful, and would not break their necks & + backs also, as some would who have no feeling. + + It is your brother who permits me to write this line--& so it is not + an intrusion, you see. + + May you get well-& soon! + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +A very little later he was writing another letter on a similar subject to +St. Clair McKelway, who had narrowly escaped injury in a railway +accident. + + DEAR McKELWAY, Your innumerable friends are grateful, most grateful. + + As I understand the telegrams, the engineers of your train had never + seen a locomotive before . . . . The government's official + report, showing that our railways killed twelve hundred persons last + year & injured sixty thousand, convinces me that under present + conditions one Providence is not enough properly & efficiently to + take care of our railroad business. But it is characteristically + American--always trying to get along short-handed & save wages. + +A massacre of Jews in Moscow renewed his animosity for semi-barbaric +Russia. Asked for a Christmas sentiment, he wrote: + + It is my warm & world-embracing Christmas hope that all of us that + deserve it may finally be gathered together in a heaven of rest & + peace, & the others permitted to retire into the clutches of Satan, + or the Emperor of Russia, according to preference--if they have a + preference. + +An article, "The Tsar's Soliloquy," written at this time, was published +in the North American Review for March (1905). He wrote much more, but +most of the other matter he put aside. On a subject like that he always +discarded three times as much as he published, and it was usually about +three times as terrific as that which found its way into type. "The +Soliloquy," however, is severe enough. It represents the Tsar as +contemplating himself without his clothes, and reflecting on what a poor +human specimen he presents: + + Is it this that 140,000,000 Russians kiss the dust before and + worship?--manifestly not! No one could worship this spectacle which + is Me. Then who is it, what is it, that they worship? Privately, + none knows better than I: it is my clothes! Without my clothes I + should be as destitute of authority as any other naked person. No + one could tell me from a parson and barber tutor. Then who is the + real Emperor of Russia! My clothes! There is no other. + +The emperor continues this fancy, and reflects on the fierce cruelties +that are done in his name. It was a withering satire on Russian +imperialism, and it stirred a wide response. This encouraged Clemens to +something even more pretentious and effective in the same line. He wrote +"King Leopold's Soliloquy," the reflections of the fiendish sovereign who +had maimed and slaughtered fifteen millions of African subjects in his +greed--gentle, harmless blacks-men, women, and little children whom he +had butchered and mutilated in his Congo rubber-fields. Seldom in the +history of the world have there been such atrocious practices as those of +King Leopold in the Congo, and Clemens spared nothing in his picture of +them. The article was regarded as not quite suitable for magazine +publication, and it was given to the Congo Reform Association and issued +as a booklet for distribution, with no return to the author, who would +gladly have written a hundred times as much if he could have saved that +unhappy race and have sent Leopold to the electric chair.--[The book was +price-marked twenty-five cents, but the returns from such as were sold +went to the cause. Thousands of them were distributed free. The Congo, +a domain four times as large as the German empire, had been made the ward +of Belgium at a convention in Berlin by the agreement of fourteen +nations, America and thirteen European states. Leopold promptly seized +the country for his personal advantage and the nations apparently found +themselves powerless to depose him. No more terrible blunder was ever +committed by an assemblage of civilized people.] + +Various plans and movements were undertaken for Congo reform, and Clemens +worked and wrote letters and gave his voice and his influence and +exhausted his rage, at last, as one after another of the half-organized +and altogether futile undertakings showed no results. His interest did +not die, but it became inactive. Eventually he declared: "I have said +all I can say on that terrible subject. I am heart and soul in any +movement that will rescue the Congo and hang Leopold, but I cannot write +any more." + +His fires were likely to burn themselves out, they raged so fiercely. +His final paragraph on the subject was a proposed epitaph for Leopold +when time should have claimed him. It ran: + + Here under this gilded tomb lies rotting the body of one the smell + of whose name will still offend the nostrils of men ages upon ages + after all the Caesars and Washingtons & Napoleons shall have ceased + to be praised or blamed & been forgotten--Leopold of Belgium. + +Clemens had not yet lost interest in the American policy in the +Philippines, and in his letters to Twichell he did not hesitate to +criticize tile President's attitude in this and related matters. Once, +in a moment of irritation, he wrote: + + DEAR JOE,--I knew I had in me somewhere a definite feeling about the + President. If I could only find the words to define it with! Here + they are, to a hair--from Leonard Jerome: + + "For twenty years I have loved Roosevelt the man, and hated + Roosevelt the statesman and politician." + + It's mighty good. Every time in twenty-five years that I have met + Roosevelt the man a wave of welcome has streaked through me with the + hand-grip; but whenever (as a rule) I meet Roosevelt the statesman & + politician I find him destitute of morals & not respect-worthy. It + is plain that where his political self & party self are concerned he + has nothing resembling a conscience; that under those inspirations + he is naively indifferent to the restraints of duty & even unaware + of them; ready to kick the Constitution into the back yard whenever + it gets in his way.... + + But Roosevelt is excusable--I recognize it & (ought to) concede it. + We are all insane, each in his own way, & with insanity goes + irresponsibility. Theodore the man is sane; in fairness we ought to + keep in mind that Theodore, as statesman & politician, is insane & + irresponsible. + +He wrote a great deal more from time to time on this subject; but that is +the gist of his conclusions, and whether justified by time, or otherwise, +it expresses today the deduction of a very large number of people. It is +set down here, because it is a part of Mark Twain's history, and also +because a little while after his death there happened to creep into print +an incomplete and misleading note (since often reprinted), which he once +made in a moment of anger, when he was in a less judicial frame of mind. +It seems proper that a man's honest sentiments should be recorded +concerning the nation's servants. + +Clemens wrote an article at this period which he called the "War Prayer." +It pictured the young recruits about to march away for war--the +excitement and the celebration--the drum-beat and the heart-beat of +patriotism--the final assembly in the church where the minister utters +that tremendous invocation: + + God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest, + Thunder, Thy clarion, and lightning, Thy sword! + +and the "long prayer" for victory to the nation's armies. As the prayer +closes a white-robed stranger enters, moves up the aisle, and takes the +preacher's place; then, after some moments of impressive silence, he +begins: + + "I come from the Throne-bearing a message from Almighty God!..... + He has heard the prayer of His servant, your shepherd, & will grant + it if such shall be your desire after I His messenger shall have + explained to you its import--that is to say its full import. For it + is like unto many of the prayers of men in that it asks for more + than he who utters it is aware of--except he pause & think. + + "God's servant & yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused & taken + thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two--one uttered, the other + not. Both have reached the ear of Him who heareth all + supplications, the spoken & the unspoken . . . . + + "You have heard your servant's prayer--the uttered part of it. I am + commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it--that + part which the pastor--and also you in your hearts--fervently + prayed, silently. And ignorantly & unthinkingly? God grant that it + was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our + God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is + completed into those pregnant words. + + "Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken + part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen! + + "O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go + forth to battle--be Thou near them! With them--in spirit--we + also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to + smite the foe. + + "O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody + shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields + with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the + thunder of the guns with the wounded, writhing in pain; help us + to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help + us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with + unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their + little children to wander unfriended through wastes of their + desolated land in rags & hunger & thirst, sport of the sun- + flames of summer & the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, + worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave & + denied it--for our sakes, who adore Thee, Lord, blast their + hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, + make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain + the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask of + one who is the Spirit of love & who is the ever-faithful refuge + & friend of all that are sore beset, & seek His aid with humble + & contrite hearts. Grant our prayer, O Lord; & Thine shall be + the praise & honor & glory now & ever, Amen." + + (After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, + speak!--the messenger of the Most High waits." + + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + + It was believed, afterward, that the man was a lunatic, because + there was no sense in what he said. + +To Dan Beard, who dropped in to see him, Clemens read the "War Prayer," +stating that he had read it to his daughter Jean, and others, who had +told him he must not print it, for it would be regarded as sacrilege. + +"Still you--are going to publish it, are you not?" + +Clemens, pacing up and down the room in his dressing-gown and slippers, +shook his head. + +"No," he said, "I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead men +can tell the truth in this world. It can be published after I am dead." + +He did not care to invite the public verdict that he was a lunatic, or +even a fanatic with a mission to destroy the illusions and traditions and +conclusions of mankind. To Twichell he wrote, playfully but sincerely: + +Am I honest? I give you my word of honor (privately) I am not. For +seven years I have suppressed a book which my conscience tells me I ought +to publish. I hold it a duty to publish it. There are other difficult +duties which I am equal to, but I am not equal to that one. Yes, even I +am dishonest. Not in many ways, but in some. Forty-one, I think it is. +We are certainly all honest in one or several ways--every man in the +world--though I have a reason to think I am the only one whose blacklist +runs so light. Sometimes I feel lonely enough in this lofty solitude. + +It was his Gospel he referred to as his unpublished book, his doctrine of +Selfishness, and of Man the irresponsible Machine. To Twichell he +pretended to favor war, which he declared, to his mind, was one of the +very best methods known of diminishing the human race. + +What a life it is!--this one! Everything we try to do, somebody intrudes +& obstructs it. After years of thought & labor I have arrived within one +little bit of a step of perfecting my invention for exhausting the oxygen +in the globe's air during a stretch of two minutes, & of course along +comes an obstructor who is inventing something to protect human life. +Damn such a world anyway. + +He generally wrote Twichell when he had things to say that were outside +of the pale of print. He was sure of an attentive audience of one, and +the audience, whether it agreed with him or not, would at least +understand him and be honored by his confidence. In one letter of that +year he said: + +I have written you to-day, not to do you a service, but to do myself one. +There was bile in me. I had to empty it or lose my day to-morrow. If I +tried to empty it into the North American Review--oh, well, I couldn't +afford the risk. No, the certainty! The certainty that I wouldn't be +satisfied with the result; so I would burn it, & try again to-morrow; +burn that and try again the next day. It happens so nearly every time. +I have a family to support, & I can't afford this kind of dissipation. +Last winter when I was sick I wrote a magazine article three times before +I got it to suit me. I Put $500 worth of work on it every day for ten +days, & at last when I got it to suit me it contained but 3,000 words- +$900. I burned it & said I would reform. + +And I have reformed. I have to work my bile off whenever it gets to +where I can't stand it, but I can work it off on you economically, +because I don't have to make it suit me. It may not suit you, but that +isn't any matter; I'm not writing it for that. I have used you as an +equilibrium--restorer more than once in my time, & shall continue, I +guess. I would like to use Mr. Rogers, & he is plenty good-natured +enough, but it wouldn't be fair to keep him rescuing me from my leather- +headed business snarls & make him read interminable bile-irruptions +besides; I can't use Howells, he is busy & old & lazy, & won't stand it; +I dasn't use Clara, there's things I have to say which she wouldn't put +up with--a very dear little ashcat, but has claws. And so--you're It. + + [See the preface to the "Autobiography of Mark Twain": 'I am writing + from the grave. On these terms only can a man be approximately + frank. He cannot be straitly and unqualifiedly frank either in the + grave or out of it.' D.W.] + + + + +CCXXXV + +A SUMMER IN NEW HAMPSHIRE + +He took for the summer a house at Dublin, New Hampshire, the home of +Henry Copley Greene, Lone Tree Hill, on the Monadnock slope. It was in a +lovely locality, and for neighbors there were artists, literary people, +and those of kindred pursuits, among them a number of old friends. +Colonel Higginson had a place near by, and Abbott H. Thayer, the painter, +and George de Forest Brush, and the Raphael Pumpelly family, and many +more. + +Colonel Higginson wrote Clemens a letter of welcome as soon as the news +got out that he was going to Dublin; and Clemens, answering, said: + + I early learned that you would be my neighbor in the summer & I + rejoiced, recognizing in you & your family a large asset. I hope + for frequent intercourse between the two households. I shall have + my youngest daughter with me. The other one will go from the rest- + cure in this city to the rest-cure in Norfolk, Connecticut; & we + shall not see her before autumn. We have not seen her since the + middle of October. + + Jean, the younger daughter, went to Dublin & saw the house & came + back charmed with it. I know the Thayers of old--manifestly there + is no lack of attractions up there. Mrs. Thayer and I were + shipmates in a wild excursion perilously near 40 years ago. + + Aldrich was here half an hour ago, like a breeze from over the + fields, with the fragrance still upon his spirit. I am tired + wanting for that man to get old. + +They went to Dublin in May, and became at once a part of the summer +colony which congregated there. There was much going to and fro among +the different houses, pleasant afternoons in the woods, mountain-climbing +for Jean, and everywhere a spirit of fine, unpretentious comradeship. + +The Copley Greene house was romantically situated, with a charming +outlook. Clemens wrote to Twichell: + + We like it here in the mountains, in the shadows of Monadnock. It + is a woody solitude. We have no near neighbors. We have neighbors + and I can see their houses scattered in the forest distances, for we + live on a hill. I am astonished to find that I have known 8 of + these 14 neighbors a long time; 10 years is the shortest; then seven + beginning with 25 years & running up to 37 years' friendship. It is + the most remarkable thing I ever heard of. + +This letter was written in July, and he states in it that he has turned +out one hundred thousand words of a large manuscript. . It was a +fantastic tale entitled "3,000 Years among the Microbes," a sort of +scientific revel--or revelry--the autobiography of a microbe that had +been once a man, and through a failure in a biological experiment +transformed into a cholera germ when the experimenter was trying to turn +him into a bird. His habitat was the person of a disreputable tramp +named Blitzowski, a human continent of vast areas, with seething microbic +nations and fantastic life problems. It was a satire, of course-- +Gulliver's Lilliput outdone--a sort of scientific, socialistic, +mathematical jamboree. + +He tired of it before it reached completion, though not before it had +attained the proportions of a book of size. As a whole it would hardly +have added to his reputation, though it is not without fine and humorous +passages, and certainly not without interest. Its chief mission was to +divert him mentally that summer during, those days and nights when he +would otherwise have been alone and brooding upon his loneliness.--[For +extracts from "3,000 Years among the Microbes" see Appendix V, at the end +of this work.] + +MARK TWAIN'S SUGGESTED TITLE-PAGE FOR HIS MICROBE BOOK: + + + 3000 YEARS + AMONG THE MICROBES + + By a Microbe + + WITH NOTES + added by the same Hand + 7000 years later + + Translated from the Original + Microbic + by + + Mark Twain + + +His inability to reproduce faces in his mind's eye he mourned as an +increasing calamity. Photographs were lifeless things, and when he tried +to conjure up the faces of his dead they seemed to drift farther out of +reach; but now and then kindly sleep brought to him something out of that +treasure-house where all our realities are kept for us fresh and fair, +perhaps for a day when we may claim them again. Once he wrote to Mrs. +Crane: + + SUSY DEAR,--I have had a lovely dream. Livy, dressed in black, was + sitting up in my bed (here) at my right & looking as young & sweet + as she used to when she was in health. She said, "What is the name + of your sweet sister?" I said," Pamela." "Oh yes, that is it, I + thought it was--(naming a name which has escaped me) won't you write + it down for me?" I reached eagerly for a pen & pad, laid my hands + upon both, then said to myself, "It is only a dream," and turned + back sorrowfully & there she was still. The conviction flamed + through me that our lamented disaster was a dream, & this a reality. + I said, "How blessed it is, how blessed it is, it was all a dream, + only a dream!" She only smiled and did not ask what dream I meant, + which surprised me. She leaned her head against mine & kept saying, + "I was perfectly sure it was a dream; I never would have believed it + wasn't." I think she said several things, but if so they are gone + from my memory. I woke & did not know I had been dreaming. She was + gone. I wondered how she could go without my knowing it, but I did + not spend any thought upon that. I was too busy thinking of how + vivid & real was the dream that we had lost her, & how unspeakably + blessed it was to find that it was not true & that she was still + ours & with us. + +He had the orchestrelle moved to Dublin, although it was no small +undertaking, for he needed the solace of its harmonies; and so the days +passed along, and he grew stronger in body and courage as his grief +drifted farther behind him. Sometimes, in the afternoon or in the +evening; when the neighbors had come in for a little while, he would walk +up and down and talk in his old, marvelous way of all the things on land +and sea, of the past and of the future, "Of Providence, foreknowledge, +will, and fate," of the friends he had known and of the things he had +done, of the sorrow and absurdities of the world. + +It was the same old scintillating, incomparable talk of which Howells +once said: + +"We shall never know its like again. When he dies it will die with him." + +It was during the summer at Dublin that Clemens and Rogers together made +up a philanthropic ruse on Twichell. Twichell, through his own prodigal +charities, had fallen into debt, a fact which Rogers knew. Rogers was a +man who concealed his philanthropies when he could, and he performed many +of them of which the world will never know: In this case he said: + +"Clemens, I want to help Twichell out of his financial difficulty. I +will supply the money and you will do the giving. Twichell must think it +comes from you." + +Clemens agreed to this on the condition that he be permitted to leave a +record of the matter for his children, so that he would not appear in a +false light to them, and that Twichell should learn the truth of the +gift, sooner or later. So the deed was done, and Twichell and his wife +lavished their thanks upon Clemens, who, with his wife, had more than +once been their benefactors, making the deception easy enough now. +Clemens writhed under these letters of gratitude, and forwarded them to +Clara in Norfolk, and later to Rogers himself. He pretended to take +great pleasure in this part of the conspiracy, but it was not an unmixed +delight. To Rogers he wrote: + + I wanted her [Clara] to see what a generous father she's got. I + didn't tell her it was you, but by and by I want to tell her, when I + have your consent; then I shall want her to remember the letters. I + want a record there, for my Life when I am dead, & must be able to + furnish the facts about the Relief-of-Lucknow-Twichell in case I + fall suddenly, before I get those facts with your consent, before + the Twichells themselves. + + I read those letters with immense pride! I recognized that I had + scored one good deed for sure on my halo account. I haven't had + anything that tasted so good since the stolen watermelon. + + P. S.-I am hurrying them off to you because I dasn't read them + again! I should blush to my heels to fill up with this unearned + gratitude again, pouring out of the thankful hearts of those poor + swindled people who do not suspect you, but honestly believe I gave + that money. + +Mr. Rogers hastily replied: + + MY DEAR CLEMENS,--The letters are lovely. Don't breathe. They are + so happy! It would be a crime to let them think that you have in + any way deceived them. I can keep still. You must. I am sending + you all traces of the crime, so that you may look innocent and tell + the truth, as you usually do when you think you can escape + detection. Don't get rattled. + + Seriously. You have done a kindness. You are proud of it, I know. + You have made your friends happy, and you ought to be so glad as to + cheerfully accept reproof from your conscience. Joe Wadsworth and I + once stole a goose and gave it to a poor widow as a Christmas + present. No crime in that. I always put my counterfeit money on + the plate. "The passer of the sasser" always smiles at me and I get + credit for doing generous things. But seriously again, if you do + feel a little uncomfortable wait until I see you before you tell + anybody. Avoid cultivating misery. I am trying to loaf ten solid + days. We do hope to see you soon. + +The secret was kept, and the matter presently (and characteristically) +passed out of Clemens's mind altogether. He never remembered to tell +Twichell, and it is revealed here, according to his wish. + +The Russian-Japanese war was in progress that summer, and its settlement +occurred in August. The terms of it did not please Mark Twain. When a +newspaper correspondent asked him for an expression of opinion on the +subject he wrote: + + Russia was on the highroad to emancipation from an insane and + intolerable slavery. I was hoping there would be no peace until + Russian liberty was safe. I think that this was a holy war, in the + best and noblest sense of that abused term, and that no war was ever + charged with a higher mission. + + I think there can be no doubt that that mission is now defeated and + Russia's chain riveted; this time to stay. I think the Tsar will + now withdraw the small humanities that have been forced from him, + and resume his medieval barbarisms with a relieved spirit and an + immeasurable joy. I think Russian liberty has had its last chance + and has lost it. + + I think nothing has been gained by the peace that is remotely + comparable to what has been sacrificed by it. One more battle would + have abolished the waiting chains of billions upon billions of + unborn Russians, and I wish it could have been fought. I hope I am + mistaken, yet in all sincerity I believe that this peace is entitled + to rank as the most conspicuous disaster in political history. + +It was the wisest public utterance on the subject--the deep, resonant +note of truth sounding amid a clamor of foolish joy-bells. It was the +message of a seer--the prophecy of a sage who sees with the clairvoyance +of knowledge and human understanding. Clemens, a few days later, was +invited by Colonel Harvey to dine with Baron Rosen and M. Sergius Witte; +but an attack of his old malady--rheumatism--prevented his acceptance. +His telegram of declination apparently pleased the Russian officials, for +Witte asked permission to publish it, and declared that he was going to +take it home to show to the Tsar. It was as follows: + +To COLONEL HARVEY,--I am still a cripple, otherwise I should be more than +glad of this opportunity to meet the illustrious magicians who came here +equipped with nothing but a pen, & with it have divided the honors of the +war with the sword. It is fair to presume that in thirty centuries +history will not get done in admiring these men who attempted what the +world regarded as the impossible & achieved it. + MARK TWAIN. + + +But this was a modified form. His original draft would perhaps have been +less gratifying to that Russian embassy. It read: + + To COLONEL HARVEY,--I am still a cripple, otherwise I should be more + than glad of this opportunity to meet those illustrious magicians + who with the pen have annulled, obliterated, & abolished every high + achievement of the Japanese sword and turned the tragedy of a + tremendous war into a gay & blithesome comedy. If I may, let me in + all respect and honor salute them as my fellow-humorists, I taking + third place, as becomes one who was not born to modesty, but by + diligence & hard work is acquiring it. + MARK. + + + +There was still another form, brief and expressive: + +DEAR COLONEL,--No, this is a love-feast; when you call a lodge of sorrow +send for me. MARK. + + +Clemens's war sentiment was given the widest newspaper circulation, and +brought him many letters, most of them applauding his words. Charles +Francis Adams wrote him: + + It attracted my attention because it so exactly expresses the views + I have myself all along entertained. + +And this was the gist of most of the expressed sentiments which came to +him. + +Clemens wrote a number of things that summer, among them a little essay +entitled, "The Privilege of the Grave"--that is to say, free speech. +He was looking forward, he said, to the time when he should inherit that +privilege, when some of the things he had said, written and laid away, +could be published without damage to his friends or family. An article +entitled, "Interpreting the Deity," he counted as among the things to be +uttered when he had entered into that last great privilege. It is an +article on the reading of signs and auguries in all ages to discover the +intentions of the Almighty, with historical examples of God's judgments +and vindications. Here is a fair specimen. It refers to the chronicle +of Henry Huntington: + + All through this book Henry exhibits his familiarity with the + intentions of God and with the reasons for the intentions. + Sometimes very often, in fact--the act follows the intention after + such a wide interval of time that one wonders how Henry could fit + one act out of a hundred to one intention, and get the thing right + every time, when there was such abundant choice among acts and + intentions. Sometimes a man offends the Deity with a crime, and is + punished for it thirty years later; meantime he has committed a + million other crimes: no matter, Henry can pick out the one that + brought the worms. Worms were generally used in those days for the + slaying of particularly wicked people. This has gone out now, but + in the old times it was a favorite. It always indicated a case of + "wrath." For instance: + + "The just God avenging Robert Fitzhildebrand's perfidity, a worm + grew in his vitals which, gradually gnawing its way through his + intestines, fattened on the abandoned man till, tortured with + excruciating sufferings and venting himself in bitter moans, he was + by a fitting punishment brought to his end" (p. 400). + + It was probably an alligator, but we cannot tell; we only know it + was a particular breed, and only used to convey wrath. Some + authorities think it was an ichthyosaurus, but there is much doubt. + +The entire article is in this amusing, satirical strain, and might well +enough be printed to-day. It is not altogether clear why it was +withheld, even then. + +He finished his Eve's Diary that summer, and wrote a story which was +originally planned to oblige Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske, to aid her in a +crusade against bullfighting in Spain. Mrs. Fiske wrote him that she had +read his dog story, written against the cruelties of vivisection, and +urged him to do something to save the horses that, after faithful +service, were sacrificed in the bull-ring. Her letter closed: + + I have lain awake nights very often wondering if I dare ask you to + write a story of an old horse that is finally given over to the + bull-ring. The story you would write would do more good than all + the laws we are trying to have made and enforced for the prevention + of cruelty to animals in Spain. We would translate and circulate + the story in that country. I have wondered if you would ever write + it. + + With most devoted homage, + Sincerely yours, + MINNIE MADDERN FISKE. + +Clemens promptly replied: + +DEAR MRS. FISKE, I shall certainly write the story. But I may not get it +to suit me, in which case it will go in the fire. Later I will try it +again--& yet again--& again. I am used to this. It has taken me twelve +years to write a short story--the shortest one I ever wrote, I think.-- +[Probably "The Death Disk:"]--So do not be discouraged; I will stick to +this one in the same way. + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + +It was an inspiring subject, and he began work on it immediately. Within +a month from the time he received Mrs. Fiske's letter he had written that +pathetic, heartbreaking little story, "A Horse's Tale," and sent it to +Harper's Magazine for illustration. In a letter written to Mr. Duneka at +the time, he tells of his interest in the narrative, and adds: + + This strong interest is natural, for the heroine is my small + daughter Susy, whom we lost. It was not intentional--it was a good + while before I found it out, so I am sending you her picture to use + --& to reproduce with photographic exactness the unsurpassable + expression & all. May you find an artist who has lost an idol. + +He explains how he had put in a good deal of work, with his secretary, on +the orchestrelle to get the bugle-calls. + + We are to do these theatricals this evening with a couple of + neighbors for audience, and then pass the hat. + +It is not one of Mark Twain's greatest stories, but its pathos brings the +tears, and no one can read it without indignation toward the custom which +it was intended to oppose. When it was published, a year later, Mrs. +Fiske sent him her grateful acknowledgments, and asked permission to have +it printed for pamphlet circulation m Spain. + +A number of more or less notable things happened in this, Mark Twain's +seventieth year. There was some kind of a reunion going on in +California, and he was variously invited to attend. Robert Fulton, of +Nevada, was appointed a committee of one to invite him to Reno for a +great celebration which was to be held there. Clemens replied that he +remembered, as if it were but yesterday, when he had disembarked from the +Overland stage in front of the Ormsby Hotel, in Carson City, and told how +he would like to accept the invitation. + +If I were a few years younger I would accept it, and promptly, and I +would go. I would let somebody else do the oration, but as for me I +would talk--just talk. I would renew my youth; and talk--and talk--and +talk--and have the time of my life! I would march the unforgotten and +unforgetable antiques by, and name their names, and give them reverent +hail and farewell as they passed--Goodman, McCarthy, Gillis, Curry, +Baldwin, Winters, Howard, Nye, Stewart, Neely Johnson, Hal Clayton, +North, Root--and my brother, upon whom be peace!--and then the +desperadoes, who made life a joy, and the "slaughter-house," a precious +possession: Sam Brown, Farmer Pete, Bill Mayfield, Six-fingered Jake, +Jack Williams, and the rest of the crimson discipleship, and so on, and +so on. Believe me, I would start a resurrection it would do you more +good to look at than the next one will, if you go on the way you are +going now. + +Those were the days!--those old ones. They will come no more; youth will +come no more. They were so full to the brim with the wine of life; there +have been no others like them. It chokes me up to think of them. Would +you like me to come out there and cry? It would not beseem my white +head. + +Good-by. I drink to you all. Have a good time-and take an old man's +blessing. + +In reply to another invitation from H. H. Bancroft, of San Francisco, he +wrote that his wandering days were over, and that it was his purpose to +sit by the fire for the rest of his "remnant of life." + + A man who, like me, is going to strike 70 on the 30th of next + November has no business to be flitting around the way Howells does + --that shameless old fictitious butterfly. (But if he comes don't + tell him I said it, for it would hurt him & I wouldn't brush a flake + of powder from his wing for anything. I only say it in envy of his + indestructible youth anyway. Howells will be 88 in October.) + +And it was either then or on a similar occasion that he replied after +this fashion: + + I have done more for San Francisco than any other of its old + residents. Since I left there it has increased in population fully + 300,000. I could have done more--I could have gone earlier--it was + suggested. + +Which, by the way, is a perfect example of Mark Twain's humorous manner, +the delicately timed pause, and the afterthought. Most humorists would +have been contented to end with the statement, "I could have gone +earlier." Only Mark Twain could have added that final exquisite touch-- +"it was suggested." + + + + +CCXXXVI + +AT PIER 70 + +Mark Twain was nearing seventy, the scriptural limitation of life, and +the returns were coming in. Some one of the old group was dying all the +time. The roll-call returned only a scattering answer. Of his oldest +friends, Charles Henry Webb, John Hay, and Sir Henry Irving, all died +that year. When Hay died Clemens gave this message to the press: + + I am deeply grieved, & I mourn with the nation this loss which is + irreparable. My friendship with Mr. Hay & my admiration of him + endured 38 years without impairment. + +It was only a little earlier that he had written Hay an anonymous letter, +a copy of which he preserved. It here follows: + + DEAR & HONORED SIR,--I never hear any one speak of you & of your + long roll of illustrious services in other than terms of pride & + praise--& out of the heart. I think I am right in believing you to + be the only man in the civil service of the country the cleanness of + whose motives is never questioned by any citizen, & whose acts + proceed always upon a broad & high plane, never by accident or + pressure of circumstance upon a narrow or low one. There are + majorities that are proud of more than one of the nation's great + servants, but I believe, & I think I know, that you are the only one + of whom the entire nation is proud. Proud & thankful. + + Name & address are lacking here, & for a purpose: to leave you no + chance to make my words a burden to you and a reproach to me, who + would lighten your burdens if I could, not add to them. + +Irving died in October, and Clemens ordered a wreath for his funeral. To +MacAlister he wrote: + + I profoundly grieve over Irving's death. It is another reminder. + My section of the procession has but a little way to go. I could + not be very sorry if I tried. + +Mark Twain, nearing seventy, felt that there was not much left for him to +celebrate; and when Colonel Harvey proposed a birthday gathering in his +honor, Clemens suggested a bohemian assembly over beer and sandwiches in +some snug place, with Howells, Henry Rogers, Twichell, Dr. Rice, Dr. +Edward Quintard, Augustus Thomas, and such other kindred souls as were +still left to answer the call. But Harvey had something different in +view: something more splendid even than the sixty-seventh birthday feast, +more pretentious, indeed, than any former literary gathering. He felt +that the attainment of seventy years by America's most distinguished man +of letters and private citizen was a circumstance which could not be +moderately or even modestly observed. The date was set five days later +than the actual birthday--that is to say, on December 5th, in order that +it might not conflict with the various Thanksgiving holidays and +occasions. Delmonico's great room was chosen for the celebration of it, +and invitations were sent out to practically every writer of any +distinction in America, and to many abroad. Of these nearly two hundred +accepted, while such as could not come sent pathetic regrets. + +What an occasion it was! The flower of American literature gathered to +do honor to its chief. The whole atmosphere of the place seemed +permeated with his presence, and when Colonel Harvey presented William +Dean Howells, and when Howells had read another double-barreled sonnet, +and introduced the guest of the evening with the words, "I will not say, +'O King, live forever,' but, 'O King, live as long as you like!'" and +Mark Twain rose, his snow-white hair gleaming above that brilliant +assembly, it seemed that a world was speaking out in a voice of applause +and welcome. With a great tumult the throng rose, a billow of life, the +white handkerchiefs flying foam-like on its crest. Those who had +gathered there realized that it was a mighty moment, not only in his life +but in theirs. They were there to see this supreme embodiment of the +American spirit as he scaled the mountain-top. He, too, realized the +drama of that moment--the marvel of it--and he must have flashed a swift +panoramic view backward over the long way he had come, to stand, as he +had himself once expressed it, "for a single, splendid moment on the Alps +of fame outlined against the sun." He must have remembered; for when he +came to speak he went back to the very beginning, to his very first +banquet, as he called it, when, as he said, "I hadn't any hair; I hadn't +any teeth; I hadn't any clothes." He sketched the meagerness of that +little hamlet which had seen his birth, sketched it playfully, +delightfully, so that his hearers laughed and shouted; but there was +always a tenderness under it all, and often the tears were not far +beneath the surface. He told of his habits of life, how he had attained +seventy years by simply sticking to a scheme of living which would kill +anybody else; how he smoked constantly, loathed exercise, and had no +other regularity of habits. Then, at last, he reached that wonderful, +unforgetable close: + + Threescore years and ten! + + It is the scriptural statute of limitations. After that you owe no + active duties; for you the strenuous life is over. You are a time- + expired man, to use Kipling's military phrase: You have served your + term, well or less well, and you are mustered out. You are become + an honorary member of the republic, you are emancipated, compulsions + are not for you, nor any bugle-call but "lights out." You pay the + time-worn duty bills if you choose, or decline if you prefer--and + without prejudice--for they are not legally collectable. + + The previous-engagement plea, which in forty years has cost you so + many twinges, you can lay aside forever; on this side of the grave + you will never need it again. If you shrink at thought of night, + and winter, and the late homecomings from the banquet and the lights + and laughter through the deserted streets--a desolation which would + not remind you now, as for a generation it did, that your friends + are sleeping and you must creep in a-tiptoe and not disturb them, + but would only remind you that you need not tiptoe, you can never + disturb them more--if you shrink at the thought of these things you + need only reply, "Your invitation honors me and pleases me because + you still keep me in your remembrance, but I am seventy; seventy, + and would nestle in the chinmey-corner, and smoke my pipe, and read + my book, and take my rest, wishing you well in all affection, and + that when you in your turn shall arrive at Pier 70 you may step + aboard your waiting ship with a reconciled spirit, and lay your + course toward the sinking sun with a contented heart." + +The tears that had been lying in wait were not restrained now. If there +were any present who did not let them flow without shame, who did not +shout their applause from throats choked with sobs, the writer of these +lines failed to see them or to hear of them. There was not one who was +ashamed to pay the great tribute of tears. + +Many of his old friends, one after another, rose to tell their love for +him--Brander Matthews, Cable, Kate Douglas Riggs, Gilder, Carnegie, +Bangs, Bacheller--they kept it up far into the next morning. No other +arrival at Pier 70 ever awoke a grander welcome. + + + + +CCXXXVII + +AFTERMATH + +The announcement of the seventieth birthday dinner had precipitated a +perfect avalanche of letters, which continued to flow in until the news +accounts of it precipitated another avalanche. The carriers' bags were +stuffed with greetings that came from every part of the world, from every +class of humanity. They were all full of love and tender wishes. A card +signed only with initials said: "God bless your old sweet soul for having +lived." + +Aldrich, who could not attend the dinner, declared that all through the +evening he had been listening in his mind to a murmur of voices in the +hall at Delmonico's. A group of English authors in London combined in a +cable of congratulations. Anstey, Alfred Austin, Balfour, Barrie, Bryce, +Chesterton, Dobson, Doyle, Gosse, Hardy, Hope, Jacobs, Kipling, Lang, +Parker, Tenniel, Watson, and Zangwill were among the signatures. + +Helen Keller wrote: + + And you are seventy years old? Or is the report exaggerated, like + that of your death? I remember, when I saw you last, at the house + of dear Mr. Hutton, in Princeton, you said: + + "If a man is a pessimist before he is forty-eight he knows too much. + If he is an optimist after he is forty-eight he knows too little." + + Now we know you are an optimist, and nobody would dare to accuse one + on the "seven-terraced summit" of knowing little. So probably you + are not seventy after all, but only forty-seven! + +Helen Keller was right. Mark Twain was not a pessimist in his heart, but +only by premeditation. It was his observation and his logic that led him +to write those things that, even in their bitterness, somehow conveyed +that spirit of human sympathy which is so closely linked to hope. To +Miss Keller he wrote: + +"Oh, thank you for your lovely words!" + +He was given another birthday celebration that month--this time by the +Society of Illustrators. Dan Beard, president, was also toast-master; +and as he presented Mark Twain there was a trumpet-note, and a lovely +girl, costumed as Joan of Arc, entered and, approaching him, presented +him with a laurel wreath. It was planned and carried out as a surprise +to him, and he hardly knew for the moment whether it was a vision or a +reality. He was deeply affected, so much so that for several moments he +could not find his voice to make any acknowledgments. + +Clemens was more than ever sought now, and he responded when the cause +was a worthy one. He spoke for the benefit of the Russian sufferers at +the Casino on December 18th. Madame Sarah Bernhardt was also there, and +spoke in French. He followed her, declaring that it seemed a sort of +cruelty to inflict upon an audience our rude English after hearing that +divine speech flowing in that lucid Gallic tongue. + + It has always been a marvel to me--that French language; it has + always been a puzzle to me. How beautiful that language is! How + expressive it seems to be! How full of grace it is! + + And when it comes from lips like those, how eloquent and how limpid + it is! And, oh, I am always deceived--I always think I am going to + understand it. + + It is such a delight to me, such a delight to me, to meet Madame + Bernhardt, and laugh hand to hand and heart to heart with her. I + have seen her play, as we all have, and, oh, that is divine; but I + have always wanted to know Madame Bernhardt herself--her fiery self. + I have wanted to know that beautiful character. + + Why, she is the youngest person I ever saw, except myself--for I + always feel young when I come in the presence of young people. + +And truly, at seventy, Mark Twain was young, his manner, his movement, +his point of view-these were all, and always, young. + +A number of palmists about that time examined impressions of his hand +without knowledge as to the owner, and they all agreed that it was the +hand of a man with the characteristics of youth, with inspiration, and +enthusiasm, and sympathy--a lover of justice and of the sublime. They +all agreed, too, that he was a deep philosopher, though, alas! they +likewise agreed that he lacked the sense of humor, which is not as +surprising as it sounds, for with Mark Twain humor was never mere fun- +making nor the love of it; rather it was the flower of his philosophy-- +its bloom arid fragrance. + +When the fanfare and drum-beat of his birthday honors had passed by, and +a moment of calm had followed, Mark Twain set down some reflections on +the new estate he had achieved. The little paper, which forms a perfect +pendant to the "Seventieth Birthday Speech," here follows: + + OLD AGE + + I think it likely that people who have not been here will be + interested to know what it is like. I arrived on the thirtieth of + November, fresh from carefree & frivolous 69, & was disappointed. + + There is nothing novel about it, nothing striking, nothing to thrill + you & make your eye glitter & your tongue cry out, "Oh, it is + wonderful, perfectly wonderful!" Yes, it is disappointing. You + say, "Is this it?--this? after all this talk and fuss of a thousand + generations of travelers who have crossed this frontier & looked + about them & told what they saw & felt? Why, it looks just like + 69." + + And that is true. Also it is natural, for you have not come by the + fast express; you have been lagging & dragging across the world's + continents behind oxen; when that is your pace one country melts + into the next one so gradually that you are not able to notice the + change; 70 looks like 69; 69 looked like 68; 68 looked like 67--& so + on back & back to the beginning. If you climb to a summit & look + back--ah, then you see! + + Down that far-reaching perspective you can make out each country & + climate that you crossed, all the way up from the hot equator to the + ice-summit where you are perched. You can make out where Infancy + verged into Boyhood; Boyhood into down-lipped Youth; Youth into + bearded, indefinite Young-Manhood; indefinite Young-Manhood into + definite Manhood; definite Manhood, with large, aggressive + ambitions, into sobered & heedful Husbandhood & Fatherhood; these + into troubled & foreboding Age, with graying hair; this into Old + Age, white-headed, the temple empty, the idols broken, the + worshipers in their graves, nothing left but You, a remnant, a + tradition, belated fag-end of a foolish dream, a dream that was so + ingeniously dreamed that it seemed real all the time; nothing left + but You, center of a snowy desolation, perched on the ice-summit, + gazing out over the stages of that long trek & asking Yourself, + "Would you do it again if you had the chance?" + + + + +CCXXXVIII + +THE WRITER MEETS MARK TWAIN + +We have reached a point in this history where the narrative becomes +mainly personal, and where, at the risk of inviting the charge of +egotism, the form of the telling must change. + +It was at the end of 1901 that I first met Mark Twain--at The Players +Club on the night when he made the Founder's Address mentioned in an +earlier chapter. + +I was not able to arrive in time for the address, but as I reached the +head of the stairs I saw him sitting on the couch at the dining-room +entrance, talking earnestly to some one, who, as I remember it, did not +enter into my consciousness at all. I saw only that crown of white hair, +that familiar profile, and heard the slow modulations of his measured +speech. I was surprised to see how frail and old he looked. From his +pictures I had conceived him different. I did not realize that it was a +temporary condition due to a period of poor health and a succession of +social demands. I have no idea how long I stood there watching him. He +had been my literary idol from childhood, as he had been of so many +others; more than that, for the personality in his work had made him +nothing less than a hero to his readers. + +He rose presently to go, and came directly toward me. A year before I +had done what new writers were always doing--I had sent him a book I had +written, and he had done what he was always doing--acknowledged it with a +kindly letter. I made my thanks now an excuse for addressing him. It +warmed me to hear him say that he remembered the book, though at the time +I confess I thought it doubtful. Then he was gone; but the mind and ear +had photographed those vivid first impressions that remain always clear. + +It was the following spring that I saw him again--at an afternoon +gathering, and the memory of that occasion is chiefly important because I +met Mrs. Clemens there for the only time, and like all who met her, +however briefly, felt the gentleness and beauty of her spirit. I think I +spoke with her at two or three different moments during the afternoon, +and on each occasion was impressed with that feeling of acquaintanceship +which we immediately experience with those rare beings whose souls are +wells of human sympathy and free from guile. Bret Harte had just died, +and during the afternoon Mr. Clemens asked me to obtain for him some item +concerning the obsequies. + +It was more than three years before I saw him again. Meantime, a sort of +acquaintance had progressed. I had been engaged in writing the life of +Thomas Nast, the cartoonist, and I had found among the material a number +of letters to Nast from Mark Twain. I was naturally anxious to use those +fine characteristic letters, and I wrote him for his consent. He wished +to see the letters, and the permission that followed was kindness itself. +His admiration of Nast was very great. + +It was proper, under the circumstances, to send him a copy of the book +when it appeared; but that was 1904, his year of sorrow and absence, and +the matter was postponed. Then came the great night of his seventieth +birthday dinner, with an opportunity to thank him in person for the use +of the letters. There was only a brief exchange of words, and it was the +next day, I think, that I sent him a copy of the book. It did not occur +to me that I should hear of it again. + +We step back a moment here. Something more than a year earlier, through +a misunderstanding, Mark Twain's long association with The Players had +been severed. It was a sorrow to him, and a still greater sorrow to the +club. There was a movement among what is generally known' as the "Round +Table Group"--because its members have long had a habit of lunching at a +large, round table in a certain window--to bring him back again. David +Munro, associate editor of the North American Review-" David," a man well +loved of men--and Robert Reid, the painter, prepared this simple +document: + + TO + MARK TWAIN + from + THE CLANSMEN + + Will ye no come back again? + Will ye no come back again? + Better lo'ed ye canna be, + Will ye no come back again? + +It was signed by Munro and by Reid and about thirty others, and it +touched Mark Twain deeply. The lines had always moved him. He wrote: + + TO ROBT. REID & THE OTHERS-- + + WELL-BELOVED,--Surely those lovely verses went to Prince Charlie's + heart, if he had one, & certainly they have gone to mine. I shall + be glad & proud to come back again after such a moving & beautiful + compliment as this from comrades whom I have loved so long. I hope + you can poll the necessary vote; I know you will try, at any rate. + It will be many months before I can foregather with you, for this + black border is not perfunctory, not a convention; it symbolizes the + loss of one whose memory is the only thing I worship. + + It is not necessary for me to thank you--& words could not deliver + what I feel, anyway. I will put the contents of your envelope in + the small casket where I keep the things which have become sacred to + me. + S. L. C. + + +So the matter was temporarily held in abeyance until he should return. +to social life. At the completion of his seventieth year the club had +taken action, and Mark Twain had been brought back, not in the regular +order of things, but as an honorary life member without dues or duties. +There was only one other member of this class, Sir Henry Irving. + +The Players, as a club, does not give dinners. Whatever is done in that +way is done by one or more of the members in the private dining-room, +where there is a single large table that holds twenty-five, even thirty +when expanded to its limit. That room and that table have mingled with +much distinguished entertainment, also with history. Henry James made +his first after-dinner speech there, for one thing--at least he claimed +it was his first, though this is by the way. + +A letter came to me which said that those who had signed the plea for the +Prince's return were going to welcome him in the private dining-room on +the 5th of January. It was not an invitation, but a gracious privilege. +I was in New York a day or two in advance of the date, and I think David +Munro was the first person I met at The Players. As he greeted me his +eyes were eager with something he knew I would wish to hear. He had been +delegated to propose the dinner to Mark Twain, and had found him propped +up in bed, and noticed on the table near him a copy of the Nast book. I +suspect that Munro had led him to speak of it, and that the result had +lost nothing filtered through that radiant benevolence of his. + +The night of January 5, 1906, remains a memory apart from other dinners. +Brander Matthews presided, and Gilder was there, and Frank Millet and +Willard Metcalf and Robert Reid, and a score of others; some of them are +dead now, David Munro among them. It so happened that my seat was nearly +facing the guest of the evening, who, by custom of The Players, is placed +at the side and not at the end of the long table. He was no longer frail +and thin, as when I had first met him. He had a robust, rested look; his +complexion had the tints of a miniature painting. Lit by the glow of the +shaded candles, relieved against the dusk richness of the walls, he made +a picture of striking beauty. One could not take his eyes from it, and +to one guest at least it stirred the farthest memories. I suddenly saw +the interior of a farm-house sitting-room in the Middle West, where I had +first heard uttered the name of Mark Twain, and where night after night a +group gathered around the evening lamp to hear the tale of the first +pilgrimage, which, to a boy of eight, had seemed only a wonderful poem +and fairy tale. To Charles Harvey Genung, who sat next to me, I +whispered something of this, and how, during the thirty-six years since +then, no other human being to me had meant quite what Mark Twain had +meant--in literature, in life, in the ineffable thing which means more +than either, and which we call "inspiration," for lack of a truer word. +Now here he was, just across the table. It was the fairy tale come true. + +Genung said: + +"You should write his life." + +His remark seemed a pleasant courtesy, and was put aside as such. When +he persisted I attributed it to the general bloom of the occasion, and a +little to the wine, maybe, for the dinner was in its sweetest stage just +then--that happy, early stage when the first glass of champagne, or the +second, has proved its quality. He urged, in support of his idea, the +word that Munro had brought concerning the Nast book, but nothing of what +he said kindled any spark of hope. I could not but believe that some one +with a larger equipment of experience, personal friendship, and abilities +had already been selected for the task. By and by the speaking began-- +delightful, intimate speaking in that restricted circle--and the matter +went out of my mind. + +When the dinner had ended, and we were drifting about the table in +general talk, I found an opportunity to say a word to the guest of the +evening about his Joan of Arc, which I had recently re-read. To my +happiness, he detained me while he told me the long-ago incident which +had led to his interest, not only in the martyred girl, but in all +literature. I think we broke up soon after, and descended to the lower +rooms. At any rate, I presently found the faithful Charles Genung +privately reasserting to me the proposition that I should undertake the +biography of Mark Twain. Perhaps it was the brief sympathy established +by the name of Joan of Arc, perhaps it was only Genung's insistent +purpose--his faith, if I may be permitted the word. Whatever it was, +there came an impulse, in the instant of bidding good-by to our guest of +honor, which prompted me to say: + +"May I call to see you, Mr. Clemens, some day?" + +And something--dating from the primal atom, I suppose--prompted him to +answer: + +"Yes, come soon." + +This was on Wednesday night, or rather on Thursday morning, for it was +past midnight, and a day later I made an appointment with his secretary +to call on Saturday. + +I can say truly that I set out with no more than the barest hope of +success, and wondering if I should have the courage, when I saw him, even +to suggest the thought in my mind. I know I did not have the courage to +confide in Genung that I had made the appointment--I was so sure it would +fail. I arrived at 21 Fifth Avenue and was shown into that long library +and drawing-room combined, and found a curious and deep interest in the +books and ornaments along the shelves as I waited. Then I was summoned, +and I remember ascending the stairs, wondering why I had come on so +futile an errand, and trying to think of an excuse to offer for having +come at all. + +He was propped up in bed--in that stately bed-sitting, as was his habit, +with his pillows placed at the foot, so that he might have always before +him the rich, carved beauty of its headboard. He was delving through a +copy of Huckleberry Finn, in search of a paragraph concerning which some +random correspondent had asked explanation. He was commenting +unfavorably on this correspondent and on miscellaneous letter-writing in +general. He pushed the cigars toward me, and the talk of these matters +ran along and blended into others more or less personal. By and by I +told him what so many thousands had told him before: what he had meant to +me, recalling the childhood impressions of that large, black-and-gilt- +covered book with its wonderful pictures and adventures--the +Mediterranean pilgrimage. Very likely it bored him--he had heard it so +often--and he was willing enough, I dare say, to let me change the +subject and thank him for the kindly word which David Munro had brought. +I do not remember what he said then, but I suddenly found myself +suggesting that out of his encouragement had grown a hope--though +certainly it was something less--that I might some day undertake a book +about himself. I expected the chapter to end at this point, and his +silence which followed seemed long and ominous. + +He said, at last, that at various times through his life he had been +preparing some autobiographical matter, but that he had tired of the +undertaking, and had put it aside. He added that he had hoped his +daughters would one day collect his letters; but that a biography-- +a detailed story of personality and performance, of success and failure-- +was of course another matter, and that for such a work no arrangement had +been made. He may have added one or two other general remarks; then, +turning those piercing agate-blue eyes directly upon me, he said: + +"When would you like to begin?" + +There was a dresser with a large mirror behind him. I happened to catch +my reflection in it, and I vividly recollect saying to it mentally: "This +is not true; it is only one of many similar dreams." But even in a dream +one must answer, and I said: + +"Whenever you like. I can begin now." + +He was always eager in any new undertaking. + +"Very good," he said. "The sooner, then, the better. Let's begin while +we are in the humor. The longer you postpone a thing of this kind the +less likely you are ever to get at it." + +This was on Saturday, as I have stated. I mentioned that my family was +still in the country, and that it would require a day or two to get +established in the city. I asked if Tuesday, January 9th, would be too +soon to begin. He agreed that Tuesday would do, and inquired something +about my plan of work. Of course I had formed nothing definite, but I +said that in similar undertakings a part of the work had been done with a +stenographer, who had made the notes while I prompted the subject to +recall a procession of incidents and episodes, to be supplemented with +every variety of material obtainable--letters and other documentary +accumulations. Then he said: + +"I think I should enjoy dictating to a stenographer, with some one to +prompt me and to act as audience. The room adjoining this was fitted up +for my study. My manuscripts and notes and private books and many of my +letters are there, and there are a trunkful or two of such things in the +attic. I seldom use the room myself. I do my writing and reading in +bed. I will turn that room over to you for this work. Whatever you need +will be brought to you. We can have the dictation here in the morning, +and you can put in the rest of the day to suit yourself. You can have a +key and come and go as you please." + +That was always his way. He did nothing by halves; nothing without +unquestioning confidence and prodigality. He got up and showed me the +lovely luxury of the study, with its treasures of material. I did not +believe it true yet. It had all the atmosphere of a dream, and I have no +distinct recollection of how I came away. When I returned to The Players +and found Charles Harvey Genung there, and told him about it, it is quite +certain that he perjured himself when he professed to believe it true and +pretended that he was not surprised. + + + + +CCXXXIX + +WORKING WITH MARK TWAIN + +On Tuesday, January 9, 1906, I was on hand with a capable stenographer-- +Miss Josephine Hobby, who had successively, and successfully, held +secretarial positions with Charles Dudley Warner and Mrs. Mary Mapes +Dodge, and was therefore peculiarly qualified for the work in hand. + +Clemens, meantime, had been revolving our plans and adding some features +of his own. He proposed to double the value and interest of our +employment by letting his dictations continue the form of those earlier +autobiographical chapters, begun with Redpath in 1885, and continued +later in Vienna and at the Villa Quarto. He said he did not think he +could follow a definite chronological program; that he would like to +wander about, picking up this point and that, as memory or fancy +prompted, without any particular biographical order. It was his purpose, +he declared, that his dictations should not be published until he had +been dead a hundred years or more--a prospect which seemed to give him an +especial gratification.--[As early as October, 1900, he had proposed to +Harper & Brothers a contract for publishing his personal memoirs at the +expiration of one hundred years from date; and letters covering the +details were exchanged with Mr. Rogers. The document, however, was not +completed.] + +He wished to pay the stenographer, and to own these memoranda, he said, +allowing me free access to them for any material I might find valuable. +I could also suggest subjects for dictation, and ask particulars of any +special episode or period. I believe this covered the whole arrangement, +which did not require more than five minutes, and we set to work without +further prologue. + +I ought to state that he was in bed when we arrived, and that he remained +there during almost all of these earlier dictations, clad in a handsome +silk dressing-gown of rich Persian pattern, propped against great snowy +pillows. He loved this loose luxury and ease, and found it conducive to +thought. On the little table beside him, where lay his cigars, papers, +pipes, and various knickknacks, shone a reading-lamp, making more +brilliant the rich coloring of his complexion and the gleam of his +shining hair. There was daylight, too, but it was north light, and the +winter days were dull. Also the walls of the room were a deep, +unreflecting red, and his eyes were getting old. The outlines of that +vast bed blending into the luxuriant background, the whole focusing to +the striking central figure, remain in my mind to-day--a picture of +classic value. + +He dictated that morning some matters connected with the history of the +Comstock mine; then he drifted back to his childhood, returning again to +the more modern period, and closed, I think, with some comments on +current affairs. It was absorbingly interesting; his quaint, unhurried +fashion of speech, the unconscious movement of his hands, the play of his +features as his fancies and phrases passed in mental review and were +accepted or waved aside. We were watching one of the great literary +creators of his time in the very process of his architecture. We +constituted about the most select audience in the world enjoying what +was, likely enough, its most remarkable entertainment. When he turned at +last and inquired the time we were all amazed that two hours and more had +slipped away. + +"And how much I have enjoyed it!" he said. "It is the ideal plan for +this kind of work. Narrative writing is always disappointing. The +moment you pick up a pen you begin to lose the spontaneity of the +personal relation, which contains the very essence of interest. With +shorthand dictation one can talk as if he were at his own dinner-table-- +always a most inspiring place. I expect to dictate all the rest of my +life, if you good people are willing to come and listen to it." + +The dictations thus begun continued steadily from week to week, and +always with increasing charm. We never knew what he was going to talk +about, and it was seldom that he knew until the moment of beginning; then +he went drifting among episodes, incidents, and periods in his +irresponsible fashion; the fashion of table-conversation, as he said, the +methodless method of the human mind. It was always delightful, and +always amusing, tragic, or instructive, and it was likely to be one of +these at one instant, and another the next. I felt myself the most +fortunate biographer in the world, as undoubtedly I was, though not just +in the way that I first imagined. + +It was not for several weeks that I began to realize that these marvelous +reminiscences bore only an atmospheric relation to history; that they +were aspects of biography rather than its veritable narrative, and built +largely--sometimes wholly--from an imagination that, with age, had +dominated memory, creating details, even reversing them, yet with a +perfect sincerity of purpose on the part of the narrator to set down the +literal and unvarnished truth. It was his constant effort to be frank +and faithful to fact, to record, to confess, and to condemn without +stint. If you wanted to know the worst of Mark Twain you had only to ask +him for it. He would give it, to the last syllable--worse than the +worst, for his imagination would magnify it and adorn it with new +iniquities, and if he gave it again, or a dozen times, he would improve +upon it each time, until the thread of history was almost impossible to +trace through the marvel of that fabric; and he would do the same for +another person just as willingly. Those vividly real personalities that +he marched and countermarched before us were the most convincing +creatures in the world; the most entertaining, the most excruciatingly +humorous, or wicked, or tragic; but, alas, they were not always safe to +include in a record that must bear a certain semblance to history. They +often disagreed in their performance, and even in their characters, with +the documents in the next room, as I learned by and by when those +records, disentangled, began to rebuild the structure of the years. + +His gift of dramatization had been exercised too long to be discarded +now. The things he told of Mrs. Clemens and of Susy were true-- +marvelously and beautifully true, in spirit and in aspect--and the actual +detail of these mattered little in such a record. The rest was history +only as 'Roughing It' is history, or the 'Tramp Abroad'; that is to say, +it was fictional history, with fact as a starting-point. In a prefatory +note to these volumes we have quoted Mark Twain's own lovely and +whimsical admission, made once when he realized his deviations: + +"When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or +not; but I am getting old, and soon I shall remember only the latter." + +At another time he paraphrased one of Josh Billings's sayings in the +remark: "It isn't so astonishing, the number of things that I can +remember, as the number of things I can remember that aren't so." + +I do not wish to say, by any means, that his so-called autobiography is a +mere fairy tale. It is far from that. It is amazingly truthful in the +character-picture it represents of the man himself. It is only not +reliable--and it is sometimes even unjust--as detailed history. Yet, +curiously enough, there were occasional chapters that were +photographically exact, and fitted precisely with the more positive, if +less picturesque, materials. It is also true that such chapters were +likely to be episodes intrinsically so perfect as to not require the +touch of art. + +In the talks which we usually had, when the dictations were ended and +Miss Hobby had gone, I gathered much that was of still greater value. +Imagination was temporarily dispossessed, as it were, and, whether +expounding some theory or summarizing some event, he cared little for +literary effect, and only for the idea and the moment immediately +present. + +It was at such times that he allowed me to make those inquiries we had +planned in the beginning, and which apparently had little place in the +dictations themselves. Sometimes I led him to speak of the genesis of +his various books, how he had come to write them, and I think there was +not a single case where later I did not find his memory of these matters +almost exactly in accord with the letters of the moment, written to +Howells or Twichell, or to some member of his family. Such reminiscence +was usually followed by some vigorous burst of human philosophy, often +too vigorous for print, too human, but as dazzling as a search-light in +its revelation. + +It was during this earlier association that he propounded, one day, his +theory of circumstance, already set down, that inevitable sequence of +cause and effect, beginning with the first act of the primal atom. He +had been dictating that morning his story of the clairvoyant dream which +preceded his brother's death, and the talk of foreknowledge had +continued. I said one might logically conclude from such a circumstance +that the future was a fixed quantity. + +"As absolutely fixed as the past," he said; and added the remark already +quoted.--[Chap. lxxv] A little later he continued: + +"Even the Almighty Himself cannot check or change that sequence of events +once it is started. It is a fixed quantity, and a part of the scheme is +a mental condition during certain moments usually of sleep--when the mind +may reach out and grasp some of the acts which are still to come." + +It was a new angle to me--a line of logic so simple and so utterly +convincing that I have remained unshaken in it to this day. I have never +been able to find any answer to it, nor any one who could even attempt to +show that the first act of the first created atom did not strike the key- +note of eternity. + +At another time, speaking of the idea that God works through man, he +burst out: + +"Yes, of course, just about as much as a man works through his microbes!" + +He had a startling way of putting things like that, and it left not much +to say. + +I was at this period interested a good deal in mental healing, and had +been treated for neurasthenia with gratifying results. Like most of the +world, I had assumed, from his published articles, that he condemned +Christian Science and its related practices out of hand. When I +confessed, rather reluctantly, one day, the benefit I had received, he +surprised me by answering: + +"Of course you have been benefited. Christian Science is humanity's +boon. Mother Eddy deserves a place in the Trinity as much as any member +of it. She has organized and made available a healing principle that for +two thousand years has never been employed, except as the merest kind of +guesswork. She is the benefactor of the age." + +It seemed strange, at the time, to hear him speak in this way concerning +a practice of which he was generally regarded as the chief public +antagonist. It was another angle of his many-sided character. + + + + +CCXL + +THE DEFINITION OF A GENTLEMAN + +That was a busy winter for him socially. He was constantly demanded for +this thing and that--for public gatherings, dinners--everywhere he was a +central figure. Once he presided at a Valentine dinner given by some +Players to David Munro. He had never presided at a dinner before, he +said, and he did it in his own way, which certainly was a taking one, +suitable to that carefree company and occasion--a real Scotch occasion, +with the Munro tartan everywhere, the table banked with heather, and a +wild piper marching up and down in the anteroom, blowing savage airs in +honor of Scotland's gentlest son. + +An important meeting of that winter was at Carnegie Hall--a great +gathering which had assembled for the purpose of aiding Booker T. +Washington in his work for the welfare of his race. The stage and the +auditorium were thronged with notables. Joseph H. Choate and Mark Twain +presided, and both spoke; also Robert C. Ogden and Booker T. Washington +himself. It was all fine and interesting. Choate's address was ably +given, and Mark Twain was at his best. He talked of politics and of +morals--public and private--how the average American citizen was true to +his Christian principles three hundred and sixty-three days in the year, +and how on the other two days of the year he left those principles at +home and went to the tax-office and the voting-booths, and did his best +to damage and undo his whole year's faithful and righteous work. + + I used to be an honest man, but I am crumbling--no, I have crumbled. + When they assessed me at $75,000 a fortnight ago I went out and + tried to borrow the money and couldn't. Then when I found they were + letting a whole crowd of millionaires live in New York at a third of + the price they were charging me I was hurt, I was indignant, and + said, this is the last feather. I am not going to run this town all + by myself. In that moment--in that memorable moment, I began to + crumble. In fifteen minutes the disintegration was complete. In + fifteen minutes I was become just a mere moral sand-pile, and I + lifted up my hand, along with those seasoned and experienced + deacons, and swore off every rag of personal property I've got in + the world. + +I had never heard him address a miscellaneous audience. It was marvelous +to see how he convulsed it, and silenced it, and controlled it at will. +He did not undertake any special pleading for the negro cause; he only +prepared the way with cheerfulness. + +Clemens and Choate joined forces again, a few weeks later, at a great +public meeting assembled in aid of the adult blind. Helen Keller was to +be present, but she had fallen ill through overwork. She sent to Clemens +one of her beautiful letters, in which she said: + + I should be happy if I could have spelled into my hand the words as + they fall from your lips, and receive, even as it is uttered, the + eloquence of our newest ambassador to the blind. + +Clemens, dictating the following morning, told of his first meeting with +Helen Keller at a little gathering in Lawrence Hutton's home, when she +was about the age of fourteen. It was an incident that invited no +elaboration, and probably received none. + + Henry Rogers and I went together. The company had all assembled and + had been waiting a while. The wonderful child arrived now with her + about equally wonderful teacher, Miss Sullivan, and seemed quite + well to recognize the character of her surroundings. She said, "Oh, + the books, the books, so many, many books. How lovely!" + + The guests were brought one after another. As she shook hands with + each she took her hand away and laid her fingers lightly against + Miss Sullivan's lips, who spoke against them the person's name. + + Mr. Howells seated himself by Helen on the sofa, and she put her + fingers against his lips and he told her a story of considerable + length, and you could see each detail of it pass into her mind and + strike fire there and throw the flash of it into her face. + + After a couple of hours spent very pleasantly some one asked if + Helen would remember the feel of the hands of the company after this + considerable interval of time and be able to discriminate the hands + and name the possessors of them. Miss Sullivan said, "Oh, she will + have no difficulty about that." So the company filed past, shook + hands in turn, and with each hand-shake Helen greeted the owner of + the hand pleasantly and spoke the name that belonged to it without + hesitation. + + By and by the assemblage proceeded to the dining-room and sat down + to the luncheon. I had to go away before it was over, and as I + passed by Helen I patted her lightly on the head and passed on. + Miss Sullivan called to me and said, "Stop, Mr. Clemens, Helen is + distressed because she did not recognize your hand. Won't you come + back and do that again?" I went back and patted her lightly on the + head, and she said at once, "Oh, it's Mr. Clemens." + + Perhaps some one can explain this miracle, but I have never been + able to do it. Could she feel the wrinkles in my hand through her + hair? Some one else must answer this. + +It was three years following this dictation that the mystery received a +very simple and rather amusing solution. Helen had come to pay a visit +to Mark Twain's Connecticut home, Stormfield, then but just completed. +He had met her, meantime, but it had not occurred to him before to ask +her how she had recognized him that morning at Hutton's, in what had +seemed such a marvelous way. She remembered, and with a smile said: + +"I smelled you." Which, after all, did not make the incident seem much +less marvelous. + +On one of the mornings after Miss Hobby had gone Clemens said: + +"A very curious thing has happened--a very large-sized-joke." He was +shaving at the time, and this information came in brief and broken +relays, suited to a performance of that sort. The reader may perhaps +imagine the effect without further indication of it. + +"I was going on a yachting trip once, with Henry Rogers, when a reporter +stopped me with the statement that Mrs. Astor had said that there had +never been a gentleman in the White House, and he wanted me to give him +my definition of a gentleman. I didn't give him my definition; but he +printed it, just the same, in the afternoon paper. I was angry at first, +and wanted to bring a damage suit. When I came to read the definition it +was a satisfactory one, and I let it go. Now to-day comes a letter and a +telegram from a man who has made a will in Missouri, leaving ten thousand +dollars to provide tablets for various libraries in the State, on which +shall be inscribed Mark Twain's definition of a gentleman. He hasn't got +the definition--he has only heard of it, and he wants me to tell him in +which one of my books or speeches he can find it. I couldn't think, when +I read that letter, what in the nation the man meant, but shaving somehow +has a tendency to release thought, and just now it all came to me." + +It was a situation full of amusing possibilities; but he reached no +conclusion in the matter. Another telegram was brought in just then, +which gave a sadder aspect to his thought, for it said that his old +coachman, Patrick McAleer, who had begun in the Clemens service with the +bride and groom of thirty-six years before, was very low, and could not +survive more than a few days. This led him to speak of Patrick, his +noble and faithful nature, and how he always claimed to be in their +service, even during their long intervals of absence abroad. Clemens +gave orders that everything possible should be done for Patrick's +comfort. When the end came, a few days later, he traveled to Hartford to +lay flowers on Patrick's bier, and to serve, with Patrick's friends-- +neighbor coachmen and John O'Neill, the gardener--as pall-bearer, taking +his allotted place without distinction or favor. + +It was the following Sunday, at the Majestic Theater, in New York, that +Mark Twain spoke to the Young Men's Christian Association. For several +reasons it proved an unusual meeting. A large number of free tickets had +been given out, far more than the place would hold; and, further, it had +been announced that when the ticket-holders had been seated the admission +would be free to the public. The subject chosen for the talk was +"Reminiscences." + +When we arrived the streets were packed from side to side for a +considerable distance and a riot was in progress. A great crowd had +swarmed about the place, and the officials, instead of throwing the doors +wide and letting the theater fill up, regardless of tickets, had locked +them. As a result there was a shouting, surging human mass that +presently dashed itself against the entrance. Windows and doors gave +way, and there followed a wild struggle for entrance. A moment later the +house was packed solid. A detachment of police had now arrived, and in +time cleared the street. It was said that amid the tumult some had lost +their footing and had been trampled and injured, but of this we did not +learn until later. We had been taken somehow to a side entrance and +smuggled into boxes.--[The paper next morning bore the head-lines: +"10,000 Stampeded at the Mark Twain Meeting. Well-dressed Men and Women +Clubbed by Police at Majestic Theater." In this account the paper stated +that the crowd had collected an hour before the time for opening; that +nothing of the kind had been anticipated and no police preparation had +been made.] + +It was peaceful enough in the theater until Mark Twain appeared on the +stage. He was wildly greeted, and when he said, slowly and seriously, +"I thank you for this signal recognition of merit," there was a still +noisier outburst. In the quiet that followed he began his memories, and +went wandering along from one anecdote to another in the manner of his +daily dictations. + +At last it seemed to occur to him, in view of the character of his +audience, that he ought to close with something in the nature of counsel +suited to young men. + + It is from experiences such as mine [he said] that we get our + education of life. We string them into jewels or into tinware, as + we may choose. I have received recently several letters asking for + counsel or advice, the principal request being for some incident + that may prove helpful to the young. It is my mission to teach, and + I am always glad to furnish something. There have been a lot of + incidents in my career to help me along--sometimes they helped me + along faster than I wanted to go. + +He took some papers from his pocket and started to unfold one of them; +then, as if remembering, he asked how long he had been talking. The +answer came, "Thirty-five minutes." He made as if to leave the stage, +but the audience commanded him to go on. + +"All right," he said, "I can stand more of my own talk than any one I +ever knew." Opening one of the papers, a telegram, he read: + +"In which one of your works can we find the definition of a gentleman?" +Then he added: + + I have not answered that telegram. I couldn't. I never wrote any + such definition, though it seems to me that if a man has just, + merciful, and kindly instincts he would be a gentleman, for he would + need nothing else in this world. + +He opened a letter. "From Howells," he said. + + My old friend, William Dean Howells--Howells, the head of American + literature. No one is able to stand with him. He is an old, old + friend of mine, and he writes me, "To-morrow I shall be sixty-nine + years old." Why, I am surprised at Howells writing so. I have + known him myself longer than that. I am sorry to see a man trying + to appear so young. Let's see. Howells says now, "I see you have + been burying Patrick. I suppose he was old, too." + +The house became very still. Most of them had read an account of Mark +Twain's journey to Hartford and his last service to his faithful +servitor. The speaker's next words were not much above a whisper, but +every syllable was distinct. + + No, he was never old-Patrick. He came to us thirty-six years ago. + He was our coachman from the day that I drove my young bride to our + new home. He was a young Irishman, slender, tall, lithe, honest, + truthful, and he never changed in all his life. He really was with + us but twenty-five years, for he did not go with us to Europe; but + he never regarded that a separation. As the children grew up he was + their guide. He was all honor, honesty, and affection. He was with + us in New Hampshire last summer, and his hair was just as black, his + eyes were just as blue, his form just as straight, and his heart + just as good as on the day we first met. In all the long years + Patrick never made a mistake. He never needed an order; he never + received a command. He knew. I have been asked for my idea of an + ideal gentleman, and I give it to you--Patrick McAleer. + +It was the sort of thing that no one but Mark Twain has quite been able +to do, and it was just that recognized quality behind it that had made +crowds jam the street and stampede the entrance to be in his presence-to +see him and to hear his voice. + + + + +CCXLI + +GORKY, HOWELLS, AND MARK TWAIN + +Clemens was now fairly back again in the wash of banquets and speech- +making that had claimed him on his return from England, five years +before. He made no less than a dozen speeches altogether that winter, +and he was continually at some feasting or other, where he was sure to be +called upon for remarks. He fell out of the habit of preparing his +addresses, relying upon the inspiration of the moment, merely following +the procedure of his daily dictations, which had doubtless given him +confidence for this departure from his earlier method. There was seldom +an afternoon or an evening that he was not required, and seldom a morning +that the papers did not have some report of his doings. Once more, and +in a larger fashion than ever, he had become "the belle of New York." +But he was something further. An editorial in the Evening Mail said: + + Mark Twain, in his "last and best of life for which the first was + made," seems to be advancing rapidly to a position which makes him a + kind of joint Aristides, Solon, and Themistocles of the American + metropolis--an Aristides for justness and boldness as well as + incessancy of opinion, a Solon for wisdom and cogency, and a + Themistocles for the democracy of his views and the popularity of + his person. + + Things have reached the point where, if Mark Twain is not at a + public meeting or banquet, he is expected to console it with one of + his inimitable letters of advice and encouragement. If he deigns to + make a public appearance there is a throng at the doors which + overtaxes the energy and ability of the police. We must be glad + that we have a public commentator like Mark Twain always at hand and + his wit and wisdom continually on tap. His sound, breezy + Mississippi Valley Americanism is a corrective to all sorts of + snobbery. He cultivates respect for human rights by always making + sure that he has his own. + +He talked one afternoon to the Barnard girls, and another afternoon to +the Women's University Club, illustrating his talk with what purported to +be moral tales. He spoke at a dinner given to City Tax Commissioner Mr. +Charles Putzel; and when he was introduced there as the man who had said, +"When in doubt tell the truth," he replied that he had invented that +maxim for others, but that when in doubt himself, he used more sagacity. + +The speeches he made kept his hearers always in good humor; but he made +them think, too, for there was always substance and sound reason and +searching satire in the body of what he said. + +It was natural that there should be reporters calling frequently at Mark +Twain's home, and now and then the place became a veritable storm-center +of news. Such a moment arrived when it became known that a public +library in Brooklyn had banished Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer from the +children's room, presided over by a young woman of rather severe morals. +The incident had begun in November of the previous year. One of the +librarians, Asa Don Dickinson, who had vigorously voted against the +decree, wrote privately of the matter. Clemens had replied: + + DEAR SIR,--I am greatly troubled by what you say. I wrote Tom + Sawyer & Huck Finn for adults exclusively, & it always distresses me + when I find that boys & girls have been allowed access to them. The + mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. + I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an + unappeasable bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young + life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an + unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do + that and ever draw a clean, sweet breath again this side of the + grave. Ask that young lady--she will tell you so. + + Most honestly do I wish that I could say a softening word or two in + defense of Huck's character since you wish it, but really, in my + opinion, it is no better than those of Solomon, David, & the rest of + the sacred brotherhood. + + If there is an unexpurgated in the Children's Department, won't you + please help that young woman remove Tom & Huck from that + questionable companionship? + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + I shall not show your letter to any one-it is safe with me. + + +Mr. Dickinson naturally kept this letter from the public, though he read +it aloud to the assembled librarians, and the fact of its existence and +its character eventually leaked out.--[It has been supplied to the +writer by Mr. Dickinson, and is published here with his consent.]--One +of the librarians who had heard it mentioned it at a theater-party in +hearing of an unrealized newspaper man. This was near the end of the +following March. + +The "tip" was sufficient. Telephone-bells began to jingle, and groups of +newspaper men gathered simultaneously on Mr. Dickinson's and on Mark +Twain's door-steps. At a 21 Fifth Avenue you could hardly get in or out, +for stepping on them. The evening papers surmised details, and Huck and +Tom had a perfectly fresh crop of advertising, not only in America, but +in distant lands. Dickinson wrote Clemens that he would not give out the +letter without his authority, and Clemens replied: + + Be wise as a serpent and wary as a dove! The newspaper boys want + that letter--don't you let them get hold of it. They say you refuse + to allow them to see it without my consent. Keep on refusing, and + I'll take care of this end of the line. + +In a recent letter to the writer Mr. Dickinson states that Mark Twain's +solicitude was for the librarian, whom he was unwilling to involve in +difficulties with his official superiors, and he adds: + + There may be some doubt as to whether Mark Twain was or was not a + religious man, for there are many definitions of the word religion. + He was certainly a hater of conventions, had no patience with + sanctimony and bibliolatry, and was perhaps irreverent. But any one + who reads carefully the description of the conflict in Huck's soul, + in regard to the betrayal of Jim, will credit the creator of the + scene with deep and true moral feeling. + +The reporters thinned out in the course of a few days when no result was +forthcoming; but they were all back again presently when the Maxim Gorky +fiasco came along. The distinguished revolutionist, Tchaykoffsky, as a +sort of advance agent for Gorky, had already called upon Clemens to +enlist his sympathy in their mission, which was to secure funds in the +cause of Russian emancipation. Clemens gave his sympathy, and now +promised his aid, though he did not hesitate to discourage the mission. +He said that American enthusiasm in such matters stopped well above their +pockets, and that this revolutionary errand would fail. Howells, too, +was of this opinion. In his account of the episode he says: + + I told a valued friend of his and mine that I did not believe he + could get twenty-five hundred dollars, and I think now I set the + figure too high. + +Clemens's interest, however, grew. He attended a dinner given to Gorky +at the "A Club," No. 3 Fifth Avenue, and introduced Gorky to the diners. +Also he wrote a letter to be read by Tchaykoffsky at a meeting held at +the Grand Central Palace, where three thousand people gathered to hear +this great revolutionist recite the story of Russia's wrongs. The letter +ran: + + DEAR MR. TCHAYKOFFSKY,--My sympathies are with the Russian + revolution, of course. It goes without saying. I hope it will + succeed, and now that I have talked with you I take heart to believe + it will. Government by falsified promises, by lies, by treachery, + and by the butcher-knife, for the aggrandizement of a single family + of drones and its idle and vicious kin has been borne quite long + enough in Russia, I should think. And it is to be hoped that the + roused nation, now rising in its strength, will presently put an end + to it and set up the republic in its place. Some of us, even the + white-headed, may live to see the blessed day when tsars and grand + dukes will be as scarce there as I trust they are in heaven. + Most sincerely yours, + MARK TWAIN. + +Clemens and Howells called on Gorky and agreed to figure prominently in a +literary dinner to be given in his honor. The movement was really +assuming considerable proportions, when suddenly something happened which +caused it to flatten permanently, and rather ridiculously. + +Arriving at 21 Fifth Avenue, one afternoon, I met Howells coming out. +I thought he had an unhappy, hunted look. I went up to the study, and on +opening the door I found the atmosphere semi-opaque with cigar smoke, and +Clemens among the drifting blue wreaths and layers, pacing up and down +rather fiercely. He turned, inquiringly, as I entered. I had clipped a +cartoon from a morning paper, which pictured him as upsetting the Tsar's +throne--the kind of thing he was likely to enjoy. I said: + +"Here is something perhaps you may wish to see, Mr. Clemens." + +He shook his head violently. + +"No, I can't see anything now," and in another moment had disappeared +into his own room. Something extraordinary had happened. I wondered if, +after all their lifelong friendship, he and Howells had quarreled. I was +naturally curious, but it was not a good time to investigate. By and by +I went down on the street, where the newsboys were calling extras. When +I had bought one, and glanced at the first page, I knew. Gorky had been +expelled from his hotel for having brought to America, as his wife, a +woman not so recognized by the American laws. Madame Andreieva, a +Russian actress, was a leader in the cause of freedom, and by Russian +custom her relation with Gorky was recognized and respected; but it was +not sufficiently orthodox for American conventions, and it was certainly +unfortunate that an apostle of high purpose should come handicapped in +that way. Apparently the news had already reached Howells and Clemens, +and they had been feverishly discussing what was best to do about the +dinner. + +Within a day or two Gorky and Madame Andreieva were evicted from a +procession of hotels, and of course the papers rang with the head-lines. +An army of reporters was chasing Clemens and Howells. The Russian +revolution was entirely forgotten in this more lively, more intimate +domestic interest. Howells came again, the reporters following and +standing guard at the door below. In 'My Mark Twain' he says: + + That was the moment of the great Vesuvian eruption, and we figured + ourselves in easy reach of a volcano which was every now and then + "blowing a cone off," as the telegraphic phrase was. The roof of + the great market in Naples had just broken in under its load of + ashes and cinders, and crushed hundreds of people; and we asked each + other if we were not sorry we had not been there, where the pressure + would have been far less terrific than it was with us in Fifth + Avenue. The forbidden butler came up with a message that there were + some gentlemen below who wanted to see Clemens. + + "How many?" he demanded. + + "Five," the butler faltered. + + "Reporters?" + + The butler feigned uncertainty. + + "What would you do?" he asked me. + + "I wouldn't see them," I said, and then Clemens went directly down + to them. How or by what means he appeased their voracity I cannot + say, but I fancy it was by the confession of the exact truth, which + was harmless enough. They went away joyfully, and he came back in + radiant satisfaction with having seen them. + +It is not quite clear at this time just what word was sent to Gorky but +the matter must have been settled that night, for Clemens was in a fine +humor next morning. It was before dictation time, and he came drifting +into the study and began at once to speak of the dinner and the +impossibility of its being given now. Then he said: + +"American public opinion is a delicate fabric. It shrivels like the webs +of morning at the lightest touch." + +Later in the day he made this memorandum: + + Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly + transgressed custom brings sure punishment. The penalty may be + unfair, unrighteous, illogical, and a cruelty; no matter, it will be + inflicted just the same. Certainly, then, there can be but one wise + thing for a visiting stranger to do--find out what the country's + customs are and refrain from offending against them. + + The efforts which have been made in Gorky's justification are + entitled to all respect because of the magnanimity of the motive + back of them, but I think that the ink was wasted. Custom is + custom: it is built of brass, boiler-iron, granite; facts, + seasonings, arguments have no more effect upon it than the idle + winds have upon Gibraltar.--[To Dan Beard he said, "Gorky made an + awful mistake, Dan. He might as well have come over here in his + shirt-tail."] + +The Gorky disturbance had hardly begun to subside when there came another +upheaval that snuffed it out completely. On the afternoon of the 18th of +April I heard, at The Players, a wandering telephonic rumor that a great +earthquake was going on in San Francisco. Half an hour later, perhaps, I +met Clemens coming out of No. 21. He asked: + +"Have you heard the news about San Francisco?" + +I said I had heard a rumor of an earthquake; and had seen an extra with +big scare-heads; but I supposed the matter was exaggerated. + +"No," he said, "I am afraid it isn't. We have just had a telephone +message that it is even worse than at first reported. A great fire is +consuming the city. Come along to the news-stand and we'll see if there +is a later edition." + +We walked to Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street and got some fresh extras. +The news was indeed worse, than at first reported. San Francisco was +going to destruction. Clemens was moved deeply, and began to recall this +old friend and that whose lives and property might be in danger. He +spoke of Joe Goodman and the Gillis families, and pictured conditions in +the perishing city. + + + + +CCXLII + +MARK TWAIN'S GOOD-BY TO THE PLATFORM + +It was on April 19, 1906, the day following the great earthquake, that +Mark Twain gave a "Farewell Lecture" at Carnegie Hall for the benefit of +the Robert Fulton Memorial Association. Some weeks earlier Gen. +Frederick D. Grant, its president, had proposed to pay one thousand +dollars for a Mark Twain lecture; but Clemens' had replied that he was +permanently out of the field, and would never again address any audience +that had to pay to hear him. + +"I always expect to talk as long as I can get people to listen to me," he +sand, "but I never again expect to charge for it." Later came one of his +inspirations, and he wrote: "I will lecture for one thousand dollars, on +one condition: that it will be understood to be my farewell lecture, and +that I may contribute the thousand dollars to the Fulton Association." + +It was a suggestion not to be discouraged, and the bills and notices, +"Mark Twain's Farewell Lecture," were published without delay. + +I first heard of the matter one afternoon when General Grant had called. +Clemens came into the study where I was working; he often wandered in and +out-sometimes without a word, sometimes to relieve himself concerning +things in general. But this time he suddenly chilled me by saying: + +"I'm going to deliver my farewell lecture, and I want you to appear on +the stage and help me." + +I feebly expressed my pleasure at the prospect. Then he said: + +"I am going to lecture on Fulton--on the story of his achievements. It +will be a burlesque, of course, and I am going to pretend to forget my +facts, and I want you to sit there in a chair. Now and then, when I seem +to get stuck, I'll lean over and pretend to ask you some thing, and I +want you to pretend to prompt me. You don't need to laugh, or to pretend +to be assisting in the performance any more than just that." + + +HANDBILL OF MARK TWAIN'S "FAREWELL LECTURE": + + MARK TWAIN + + Will Deliver His Farewell Lecture + --------------------------------- + + CARNEGIE HALL + + APRIL 19TH, 1906 + + FOR THE BENEFIT OF + + Robert Fulton Memorial Association + + MILITARY ORGANIZATION OLD GUARD IN + FULL DRESS UNIFORM WILL BE PRESENT + + MUSIC BY OLD GUARD BAND + + TICKETS AND BOXES ON SALE AT CARNEGIE HALL + AND WALDORF-ASTORIA + + SEATS $1.50, $1.00, 50 CENTS + + +It was not likely that I should laugh. I had a sinking feeling in the +cardiac region which does not go with mirth. It did not for the moment +occur to me that the stage would be filled with eminent citizens and +vice-presidents, and I had a vision of myself sitting there alone in the +chair in that wide emptiness, with the chief performer directing +attention to me every other moment or so, for perhaps an hour. Let me +hurry on to say that it did not happen. I dare say he realized my +unfitness for the work, and the far greater appropriateness of conferring +the honor on General Grant, for in the end he gave him the assignment, to +my immeasurable relief. + +It was a magnificent occasion. That spacious hall was hung with bunting, +the stage was banked and festooned with decoration of every sort. +General Grant, surrounded by his splendidly uniformed staff, sat in the +foreground, and behind was ranged a levee of foremost citizens of the +republic. The band played "America" as Mark Twain entered, and the great +audience rose and roared out its welcome. Some of those who knew him +best had hoped that on this occasion of his last lecture he would tell of +that first appearance in San Francisco, forty years before, when his +fortunes had hung in the balance. Perhaps he did not think of it, and no +one had had the courage to suggest it. At all events, he did a different +thing. He began by making a strong plea for the smitten city where the +flames were still raging, urging prompt help for those who had lost not +only their homes, but the last shred of their belongings and their means +of livelihood. Then followed his farcical history of Fulton, with +General Grant to make the responses, and presently he drifted into the +kind of lecture he had given so often in his long trip around the world- +retelling the tales which had won him fortune and friends in many lands. + +I do not know whether the entertainment was long or short. I think few +took account of time. To a letter of inquiry as to how long the +entertainment would last, he had replied: + + I cannot say for sure. It is my custom to keep on talking till I + get the audience cowed. Sometimes it takes an hour and fifteen + minutes, sometimes I can do it in an hour. + +There was no indication at any time that the audience was cowed. The +house was packed, and the applause was so recurrent and continuous that +often his voice was lost to those in its remoter corners. It did not +matter. The tales were familiar to his hearers; merely to see Mark +Twain, in his old age and in that splendid setting, relating them was +enough. The audience realized that it was witnessing the close of a +heroic chapter in a unique career. + + + + +CCXLIII + +AN INVESTMENT IN REDDING + +Many of the less important happenings seem worth remembering now. Among +them was the sale, at the Nast auction, of the Mark Twain letters, +already mentioned. The fact that these letters brought higher prices +than any others offered in this sale was gratifying. Roosevelt, Grant, +and even Lincoln items were sold; but the Mark Twain letters led the +list. One of them sold for forty-three dollars, which was said to be the +highest price ever paid for the letter of a living man. It was the +letter written in 1877, quoted earlier in this work, in which Clemens +proposed the lecture tour to Nast. None of the Clemens-Nast letters +brought less than twenty-seven dollars, and some of them were very brief. +It was a new measurement of public sentiment. Clemens, when he heard of +it, said: + +"I can't rise to General Grant's lofty place in the estimation of this +country; but it is a deep satisfaction to me to know that when it comes +to letter-writing he can't sit in the front seat along with me. That +forty-three-dollar letter ought to be worth as much as eighty-six dollars +after I'm dead." + +A perpetual string of callers came to 21 Fifth Avenue, and it kept the +secretary busy explaining to most of them why Mark Twain could not +entertain their propositions, or listen to their complaints, or allow +them to express in person their views on public questions. He did see a +great many of what might be called the milder type persons who were +evidently sincere and not too heavily freighted with eloquence. Of these +there came one day a very gentle-spoken woman who had promised that she +would stay but a moment, and say no more than a few words, if only she +might sit face to face with the great man. It was in the morning hour +before the dictations, and he received her, quite correctly clad in his +beautiful dressing-robe and propped against his pillows. She kept her +contract to the letter; but when she rose to go she said, in a voice of +deepest reverence: + +"May I kiss your hand?" + +It was a delicate situation, and might easily have been made ludicrous. +Denial would have hurt her. As it was, he lifted his hand, a small, +exquisite hand it was, with the gentle dignity and poise of a king, and +she touched her lips to it with what was certainly adoration. Then, as +she went, she said: + +"How God must love you!" + +"I hope so," he said, softly, and he did not even smile; but after she +had gone he could not help saying, in a quaint, half-pathetic voice +"I guess she hasn't heard of our strained relations." + +Sitting in that royal bed, clad in that rich fashion, he easily conveyed +the impression of royalty, and watching him through those marvelous +mornings he seemed never less than a king, as indeed he was--the king of +a realm without national boundaries. Some of those nearest to him fell +naturally into the habit of referring to him as "the King," and in time +the title crept out of the immediate household and was taken up by others +who loved him. + +He had been more than once photographed in his bed; but it was by those +who had come and gone in a brief time, with little chance to study his +natural attitudes. I had acquired some knowledge of the camera, and I +obtained his permission to let me photograph him--a permission he seldom +denied to any one. We had no dictations on Saturdays, and I took the +pictures on one of these holiday mornings. He was so patient and +tractable, and so natural in every attitude, that it was a delight to +make the negatives. I was afraid he would become impatient, and made +fewer exposures than I might otherwise have done. I think he expected +very little from this amateur performance; but, by that happy element of +accident which plays so large a part in photographic success, the results +were better than I had hoped for. When I brought him the prints, a few +days later, he expressed pleasure and asked, "Why didn't you make more?" + +Among them was one in an attitude which had grown so familiar to us, that +of leaning over to get his pipe from the smoking-table, and this seemed +to give him particular satisfaction. It being a holiday, he had not +donned his dressing-gown, which on the whole was well for the +photographic result. He spoke of other pictures that had been made of +him, especially denouncing one photograph, taken some twenty years before +by Sarony, a picture, as he said, of a gorilla in an overcoat, which the +papers and magazines had insisted on using ever since. + +"Sarony was as enthusiastic about wild animals as he was about +photography, and when Du Chaillu brought over the first gorilla he sent +for me to look at it and see if our genealogy was straight. I said it +was, and Sarony was so excited that I had recognized the resemblance +between us, that he wanted to make it more complete, so he borrowed my +overcoat and put it on the gorilla and photographed it, and spread that +picture out over the world as mine. It turns up every week in some +newspaper or magazine; but it's not my favorite; I have tried to get it +suppressed." + +Mark Twain made his first investment in Redding that spring. I had +located there the autumn before, and bought a vacant old house, with a +few acres of land, at what seemed a modest price. I was naturally +enthusiastic over the bargain, and the beauty and salubrity of the +situation. His interest was aroused, and when he learned that there was +a place adjoining, equally reasonable and perhaps even more attractive, +he suggested immediately that I buy it for him; and he wanted to write a +check then for the purchase price, for fear the opportunity might be +lost. I think there was then no purpose in his mind of building a +country home; but he foresaw that such a site, at no great distance from +New York, would become more valuable, and he had plenty of idle means. +The purchase was made without difficulty--a tract of seventy-five acres, +to which presently was added another tract of one hundred and ten acres, +and subsequently still other parcels of land, to complete the ownership +of the hilltop, for it was not long until he had conceived the idea of a +home. He was getting weary of the heavy pressure of city life. He +craved the retirement of solitude--one not too far from the maelstrom, so +that he might mingle with it now and then when he chose. The country +home would not be begun for another year yet, but the purpose of it was +already in the air. No one of the family had at this time seen the +location. + + + + +CCXLIV + +TRAITS AND PHILOSOPHIES + +I brought to the dictation one morning the Omar Khayyam card which +Twichell had written him so long ago; I had found it among the letters. +It furnished him a subject for that morning. He said: + + How strange there was a time when I had never heard of Omar Khayyam! + When that card arrived I had already read the dozen quatrains or so + in the morning paper, and was still steeped in the ecstasy of + delight which they occasioned. No poem had ever given me so much + pleasure before, and none has given me so much pleasure since. It + is the only poem I have ever carried about with me. It has not been + from under my hand all these years. + +He had no general fondness for poetry; but many poems appealed to him, +and on occasion he liked to read them aloud. Once, during the dictation, +some verses were sent up by a young authoress who was waiting below for +his verdict. The lines pictured a phase of negro life, and she wished to +know if he thought them worthy of being read at some Tuskegee ceremony. +He did not fancy the idea of attending to the matter just then and said: + +"Tell her she can read it. She has my permission. She may commit any +crime she wishes in my name." + +It was urged that the verses were of high merit and the author a very +charming young lady. + +"I'm very glad," he said, "and I am glad the Lord made her; I hope He +will make some more just like her. I don't always approve of His +handiwork, but in this case I do." + +Then suddenly he added: + +"Well, let me see it--no time like the present to get rid of these +things." + +He took the manuscript and gave such a rendition of those really fine +verses as I believe could not be improved upon. We were held breathless +by his dramatic fervor and power. He returned a message to that young +aspirant that must have made her heart sing. When the dictation had +ended that day, I mentioned his dramatic gift. + +"Yes," he said, "it is a gift, I suppose, like spelling and punctuation +and smoking. I seem to have inherited all those." Continuing, he spoke +of inherited traits in general. + +"There was Paige," he said; "an ignorant man who could not make a machine +himself that would stand up, nor draw the working plans for one; but he +invented the eighteen thousand details of the most wonderful machine the +world has ever known. He watched over the expert draftsmen, and +superintended the building of that marvel. Pratt & Whitney built it; but +it was Paige's machine, nevertheless--the child of his marvelous gift. +We don't create any of our traits; we inherit all of them. They have +come down to us from what we impudently call the lower animals. Man is +the last expression, and combines every attribute of the animal tribes +that preceded him. One or two conspicuous traits distinguish each family +of animals from the others, and those one or two traits are found in +every member of each family, and are so prominent as to eternally and +unchangeably establish the character of that branch of the animal world. +In these cases we concede that the several temperaments constitute a law +of God, a command of God, and that whatsoever is done in obedience to +that law is blameless. Man, in his evolution, inherited the whole sum of +these numerous traits, and with each trait its share of the law of God. +He widely differs from them in this: that he possesses not a single +characteristic that is equally prominent in each member of his race. You +can say the housefly is limitlessly brave, and in saying it you describe +the whole house-fly tribe; you can say the rabbit is limitlessly timid, +and by the phrase you describe the whole rabbit tribe; you can say the +spider and the tiger are limitlessly murderous, and by that phrase you +describe the whole spider and tiger tribes; you can say the lamb is +limitlessly innocent and sweet and gentle, and by that phrase you +describe all the lambs. There is hardly a creature that you cannot +definitely and satisfactorily describe by one single trait--except man. +Men are not all cowards like the rabbit, nor all brave like the house- +fly, nor all sweet and innocent and gentle like the lamb, nor all +murderous like the spider and the tiger and the wasp, nor all thieves +like the fox and the bluejay, nor all vain like the peacock, nor all +frisky like the monkey. These things are all in him somewhere, and they +develop according to the proportion of each he received in his allotment: +We describe a man by his vicious traits and condemn him; or by his fine +traits and gifts, and praise him and accord him high merit for their +possession. It is comical. He did not invent these things; he did not +stock himself with them. God conferred them upon him in the first +instant of creation. They constitute the law, and he could not escape +obedience to the decree any more than Paige could have built the type- +setter he invented, or the Pratt & Whitney machinists could have invented +the machine which they built." + +He liked to stride up and down, smoking as he talked, and generally his +words were slowly measured, with varying pauses between them. He halted +in the midst of his march, and without a suggestion of a smile added: + +"What an amusing creature the human being is!" + +It is absolutely impossible, of course, to preserve the atmosphere and +personality of such talks as this--the delicacies of his speech and +manner which carried an ineffable charm. It was difficult, indeed, to +record the substance. I did not know shorthand, and I should not have +taken notes at such times in any case; but I had trained myself in +similar work to preserve, with a fair degree of accuracy, the form of +phrase, and to some extent its wording, if I could get hold of pencil and +paper soon enough afterward. In time I acquired a sort of phonographic +faculty; though it always seemed to me that the bouquet, the subtleness +of speech, was lacking in the result. Sometimes, indeed, he would +dictate next morning the substance of these experimental reflections; or +I would find among his papers memoranda and fragmentary manuscripts where +he had set them down himself, either before or after he had tried them +verbally. In these cases I have not hesitated to amend my notes where it +seemed to lend reality to his utterance, though, even so, there is always +lacking--and must be--the wonder of his personality. + + + + +CCXLV + +IN THE DAY'S ROUND + +A number of dictations of this period were about Susy, her childhood, and +the biography she had written of him, most of which he included in his +chapters. More than once after such dictations he reproached himself +bitterly for the misfortunes of his house. He consoled himself a little +by saying that Susy had died at the right time, in the flower of youth +and happiness; but he blamed himself for the lack of those things which +might have made her childhood still more bright. Once he spoke of the +biography she had begun, and added: + +"Oh, I wish I had paid more attention to that little girl's work! If I +had only encouraged her now and then, what it would have meant to her, +and what a beautiful thing it would have been to have had her story of me +told in her own way, year after year! If I had shown her that I cared, +she might have gone on with it. We are always too busy for our children; +we never give them the time nor the interest they deserve. We lavish +gifts upon them; but the most precious gift-our personal association, +which means so much to them-we give grudgingly and throw it away on those +who care for it so little." Then, after a moment of silence: "But we are +repaid for it at last. There comes a time when we want their company and +their interest. We want it more than anything in the world, and we are +likely to be starved for it, just as they were starved so long ago. +There is no appreciation of my books that is so precious to me as +appreciation from my children. Theirs is the praise we want, and the +praise we are least likely to get." + +His moods of remorse seemed to overwhelm him at times. He spoke of +Henry's death and little Langdon's, and charged himself with both. +He declared that for years he had filled Mrs. Clemens's life with +privations, that the sorrow of Susy's death had hastened her own end. +How darkly he painted it! One saw the jester, who for forty years had +been making the world laugh, performing always before a background of +tragedy. + +But such moods were evanescent. He was oftener gay than somber. One +morning before we settled down to work he related with apparent joy how +he had made a failure of story-telling at a party the night before. An +artist had told him a yarn, he said, which he had considered the most +amusing thing in the world. But he had not been satisfied with it, and +had attempted to improve on it at the party. He had told it with what he +considered the nicest elaboration of detail and artistic effect, and when +he had concluded and expected applause, only a sickening silence had +followed. + +"A crowd like that can make a good deal of silence when they combine," he +said, "and it probably lasted as long as ten seconds, because it seemed +an hour and a half. Then a lady said, with evident feeling, 'Lord, how +pathetic!' For a moment I was stupefied. Then the fountains of my great +deeps were broken up, and I rained laughter for forty days and forty +nights during as much as three minutes. By that time I realized it was +my fault. I had overdone the thing. I started in to deceive them with +elaborate burlesque pathos, in order to magnify the humorous explosion at +the end; but I had constructed such a fog of pathos that when I got to +the humor you couldn't find it." + +He was likely to begin the morning with some such incident which perhaps +he did not think worth while to include in his dictations, and sometimes +he interrupted his dictations to relate something aside, or to outline +some plan or scheme which his thought had suggested. + +Once, when he was telling of a magazine he had proposed to start, the +Back Number, which was, to contain reprints of exciting events from +history--newspaper gleanings--eye-witness narrations, which he said never +lost their freshness of interest--he suddenly interrupted himself to +propose that we start such a magazine in the near future--he to be its +publisher and I its editor. I think I assented, and the dictation +proceeded, but the scheme disappeared permanently. + +He usually had a number of clippings or slips among the many books on the +bed beside him from which he proposed to dictate each day, but he seldom +could find the one most needed. Once, after a feverishly impatient +search for a few moments, he invited Miss Hobby to leave the room +temporarily, so, as he said, that he might swear. He got up and we began +to explore the bed, his profanity increasing amazingly with each moment. +It was an enormously large bed, and he began to disparage the size of it. + +"One could lose a dog in this bed," he declared. + +Finally I suggested that he turn over the clipping which he had in his +hand. He did so, and it proved to be the one he wanted. Its discovery +was followed by a period of explosions, only half suppressed as to +volume. Then he said: + +"There ought to be a room in this house to swear in. It's dangerous to +have to repress an emotion like that." + +A moment later, when Miss Hobby returned, he was serene and happy again. +He was usually gentle during the dictations, and patient with those +around him--remarkably so, I thought, as a rule. But there were moments +that involved risk. He had requested me to interrupt his dictation at +any time that I found him repeating or contradicting himself, or +misstating some fact known to me. At first I hesitated to do this, and +cautiously mentioned the matter when he had finished. Then he was likely +to say: + +"Why didn't you stop me? Why did you let me go on making a jackass of +myself when you could have saved me?" + +So then I used to take the risk of getting struck by lightning, and +nearly always stopped him at the time. But if it happened that I upset +his thought the thunderbolt was apt to fly. He would say: + +"Now you've knocked everything out of my head." + +Then, of course, I would apologize and say I was sorry, which would +rectify matters, though half an hour later it might happen again. I +became lightning-proof at last; also I learned better to select the +psychological moment for the correction. + +There was a humorous complexion to the dictations which perhaps I have +not conveyed to the reader at all; humor was his natural breath and life, +and was not wholly absent in his most somber intervals. + +But poetry was there as well. His presence was full of it: the grandeur +of his figure; the grace of his movement; the music of his measured +speech. Sometimes there were long pauses when he was wandering in +distant valleys of thought and did not speak at all. At such times he +had a habit of folding and refolding the sleeve of his dressing-gown +around his wrist, regarding it intently, as it seemed. His hands were so +fair and shapely; the palms and finger-tips as pink as those of a child. +Then when he spoke he was likely to fling back his great, white mane, his +eyes half closed yet showing a gleam of fire between the lids, his +clenched fist lifted, or his index-finger pointing, to give force and +meaning to his words. I cannot recall the picture too often, or remind +myself too frequently how precious it was to be there, and to see him and +to hear him. I do not know why I have not said before that he smoked +continually during these dictations--probably as an aid to thought-- +though he smoked at most other times, for that matter. His cigars were +of that delicious fragrance which characterizes domestic tobacco; but I +had learned early to take refuge in another brand when he offered me one. +They were black and strong and inexpensive, and it was only his early +training in the printing-office and on the river that had seasoned him to +tobacco of that temper. Rich, admiring friends used to send him +quantities of expensive imported cigars; but he seldom touched them, and +they crumbled away or were smoked by visitors. Once, to a minister who +proposed to send him something very special, he wrote: + + I should accept your hospitable offer at once but for the fact that + I couldn't do it and remain honest. That is to say, if I allowed + you to send me what you believed to be good cigars it would + distinctly mean that I meant to smoke them, whereas I should do + nothing of the kind. I know a good cigar better than you do, for I + have had 60 years' experience. + + No, that is not what I mean; I mean I know a bad cigar better than + anybody else. I judge by the price only; if it costs above 5 cents + I know it to be either foreign or half foreign & unsmokable--by me. + I have many boxes of Havana cigars, of all prices from 20 cents + apiece up to $1.66 apiece; I bought none of them, they were all + presents; they are an accumulation of several years. I have never + smoked one of them & never shall; I work them off on the visitor. + You shall have a chance when you come. + +He smoked a pipe a good deal, and he preferred it to be old and violent; +and once, when he had bought a new, expensive English brier-root he +regarded it doubtfully for a time, and then handed it over to me, saying: + +"I'd like to have you smoke that a year or two, and when it gets so you +can't stand it, maybe it will suit me." + +I am happy to add that subsequently he presented me with the pipe +altogether, for it apparently never seemed to get qualified for his +taste, perhaps because the tobacco used was too mild. + +One day, after the dictation, word was brought up that a newspaper man +was down-stairs who wished to see him concerning a report that Chauncey +Depew was to resign his Senatorial seat and Mark Twain was to be +nominated in his place. The fancy of this appealed to him, and the +reporter was allowed to come up. He was a young man, and seemed rather +nervous, and did not wish to state where the report had originated. His +chief anxiety was apparently to have Mark Twain's comment on the matter. +Clemens said very little at the time. He did not wish to be a Senator; +he was too busy just now dictating biography, and added that he didn't +think he would care for the job, anyway. When the reporter was gone, +however, certain humorous possibilities developed. The Senatorship would +be a stepping-stone to the Presidency, and with the combination of +humorist, socialist, and peace-patriot in the Presidential chair the +nation could expect an interesting time. Nothing further came of the +matter. There was no such report. The young newspaper man had invented +the whole idea to get a "story" out of Mark Twain. The item as printed +next day invited a good deal of comment, and Collier's Weekly made it a +text for an editorial on his mental vigor and general fitness for the +place. + +If it happened that he had no particular engagement for the afternoon, he +liked to walk out, especially when the pleasant weather came. Sometimes +we walked up Fifth Avenue, and I must admit that for a good while I could +not get rid of a feeling of self-consciousness, for most people turned to +look, though I was fully aware that I did not in the least come into +their scope of vision. They saw only Mark Twain. The feeling was a more +comfortably one at The Players, where we sometimes went for luncheon, for +the acquaintance there and the democracy of that institution had a +tendency to eliminate contrasts and incongruities. We sat at the Round +Table among those good fellows who were always so glad to welcome him. + +Once we went to the "Music Master," that tender play of Charles Klein's, +given by that matchless interpreter, David Warfield. Clemens was +fascinated, and said more than once: + +"It is as permanent as 'Rip Van Winkle.' Warfield, like Jefferson, can go +on playing it all his life." + +We went behind when it was over, and I could see that Warfield glowed +with Mark Twain's unstinted approval. Later, when I saw him at The +Players, he declared that no former compliment had ever made him so +happy. + +There were some billiard games going on between the champions Hoppe and +Sutton, at the Madison Square Garden, and Clemens, with his eager +fondness for the sport, was anxious to attend them. He did not like to +go anywhere alone, and one evening he invited me to accompany him. Just +as he stepped into the auditorium there was a vigorous round of applause. +The players stopped, somewhat puzzled, for no especially brilliant shot +had been made. Then they caught the figure of Mark Twain and realized +that the game, for the moment, was not the chief attraction. The +audience applauded again, and waved their handkerchiefs. Such a tribute +is not often paid to a private citizen. + +Clemens had a great admiration for the young champion Hoppe, which the +billiardist's extreme youth and brilliancy invited, and he watched his +game with intense eagerness. When it was over the referee said a few +words and invited Mark Twain to speak. He rose and told them a story- +probably invented on the instant. He said: + + "Once in Nevada I dropped into a billiard-room casually, and picked + up a cue and began to knock the balls around. The proprietor, who + was a red-haired man, with such hair as I have never seen anywhere + except on a torch, asked me if I would like to play. I said, 'Yes.' + He said, 'Knock the balls around a little and let me see how you can + shoot.' So I knocked them around, and thought I was doing pretty + well, when he said, 'That's all right; I'll play you left-handed.' + It hurt my pride, but I played him. We banked for the shot and he + won it. Then he commenced to play, and I commenced to chalk my cue + to get ready to play, and he went on playing, and I went on chalking + my cue; and he played and I chalked all through that game. When he + had run his string out I said: + + "That's wonderful! perfectly wonderful! If you can play that way + left-handed what could you do right-handed?' + + "'Couldn't do anything,' he said. 'I'm a left-handed man.'" + +How it delighted them! I think it was the last speech of any sort he +made that season. A week or two later he went to Dublin, New Hampshire, +for the summer--this time to the Upton House, which had been engaged a +year before, the Copley Greene place being now occupied by its owner. + + + + +CCXLVI + +THE SECOND SUMMER AT DUBLIN + +The Upton House stands on the edge of a beautiful beech forest some two +or three miles from Dublin, just under Monadnock--a good way up the +slope. It is a handsome, roomy frame-house, and had a long colonnaded +veranda overlooking one of the most beautiful landscape visions on the +planet: lake, forest, hill, and a far range of blue mountains--all the +handiwork of God is there. I had seen these things in paintings, but I +had not dreamed that such a view really existed. The immediate +foreground was a grassy slope, with ancient, blooming apple-trees; and +just at the right hand Monadnock rose, superb and lofty, sloping down to +the panorama below that stretched away, taking on an ever deeper blue, +until it reached that remote range on which the sky rested and the world +seemed to end. It was a masterpiece of the Greater Mind, and of the +highest order, perhaps, for it had in it nothing of the touch of man. A +church spire glinted here and there, but there was never a bit of field, +or stone wall, or cultivated land. It was lonely; it was unfriendly; it +cared nothing whatever for humankind; it was as if God, after creating +all the world, had wrought His masterwork here, and had been so engrossed +with the beauty of it that He had forgotten to give it a soul. In a +sense this was true, for He had not made the place suitable for the +habitation of men. It lacked the human touch; the human interest, and I +could never quite believe in its reality. + +The time of arrival heightened this first impression. It was mid-May and +the lilacs were prodigally in bloom; but the bright sunlight was chill +and unnatural, and there was a west wind that laid the grass flat and +moaned through the house, and continued as steadily as if it must never +stop from year's end to year's end. It seemed a spectral land, a place +of supernatural beauty. Warm, still, languorous days would come, but +that first feeling of unreality would remain permanent. I believe Jean +Clemens was the only one who ever really loved the place. Something +about it appealed to her elemental side and blended with her melancholy +moods. She dressed always in white, and she was tall and pale and +classically beautiful, and she was often silent, like a spirit. She had +a little retreat for herself farther up the mountain-side, and spent most +of her days there wood-carving, which was her chief diversion. + +Clara Clemens did not come to the place at all. She was not yet strong, +and went to Norfolk, Connecticut, where she could still be in quiet +retirement and have her physician's care. Miss Hobby came, and on the +21st of May the dictations were resumed. We began in his bedroom, as +before, but the feeling there was depressing--the absence of the great +carved bed and other furnishings, which had been so much a part of the +picture, was felt by all of us. Nothing of the old luxury and richness +was there. It was a summer-furnished place, handsome but with the +customary bareness. At the end of this first session he dressed in his +snowy flannels, which he had adopted in the place of linen for summer +wear, and we descended to the veranda and looked out over that wide, +wonderful expanse of scenery. + +"I think I shall like it," he said, "when I get acquainted with it, and +get it classified and labeled, and I think we'll do our dictating out +here hereafter. It ought to be an inspiring place." + +So the dictations were transferred to the long veranda, and he was +generally ready for them, a white figure pacing up and down before that +panoramic background. During the earlier, cooler weeks he usually +continued walking with measured step during the dictations, pausing now +and then to look across the far-lying horizon. When it stormed we moved +into the great living-room, where at one end there was a fireplace with +blazing logs, and at the other the orchestrelle, which had once more been +freighted up those mountain heights for the comfort of its harmonies. +Sometimes, when the wind and rain were beating outside, and he was +striding up and down the long room within, with only the blurred shapes +of mountains and trees outlined through the trailing rain, the feeling of +the unreality became so strong that it was hard to believe that somewhere +down below, beyond the rain and the woods, there was a literal world--a +commonplace world, where the ordinary things of life were going on in the +usual way. When the dictation finished early, there would be music--the +music that he loved most--Beethoven's symphonies, or the Schubert +impromptu, or the sonata by Chopin.--[Schubert, Op. 142, No. 2; Chopin, +Op. 37, No. 2.]--It is easy to understand that this carried one a remove +farther from the customary things of life. It was a setting far out of +the usual, though it became that unique white figure and his occupation. +In my notes, made from day to day, I find that I have set down more than +once an impression of the curious unreality of the place and its +surroundings, which would show that it was not a mere passing fancy. + +I had lodgings in the village, and drove out mornings for the dictations, +but often came out again afoot on pleasant afternoons; for he was not +much occupied with social matters, and there was opportunity for quiet, +informing interviews. There was a woods path to the Upton place, and it +was a walk through a fairyland. A part of the way was through such a +growth of beech timber as I have never seen elsewhere: tall, straight, +mottled trees with an undergrowth of laurel, the sunlight sifting +through; one found it easy to expect there storybook ladies, wearing +crowns and green mantles, riding on white palfreys. Then came a more +open way, an abandoned grass-grown road full of sunlight and perfume; and +this led to a dim, religious place, a natural cathedral, where the +columns were stately pine-trees branching and meeting at the top: a +veritable temple in which it always seemed that music was about to play. +You crossed a brook and climbed a little hill, and pushed through a hedge +into a place more open, and the house stood there among the trees. + +The days drifted along, one a good deal like another, except, as the +summer deepened, the weather became warmer, the foliage changed, a drowsy +haze gathered along the valleys and on the mountain-side. He sat more +often now in a large rocking-chair, and generally seemed to be looking +through half-dosed lids toward the Monadnock heights, that were always +changing in aspect-in color and in form--as cloud shapes drifted by or +gathered in those lofty hollows. White and yellow butterflies hovered +over the grass, and there were some curious, large black ants--the +largest I have ever seen and quite harmless--that would slip in and out +of the cracks on the veranda floor, wholly undisturbed by us. Now and +then a light flutter of wind would come murmuring up from the trees +below, and when the apple-bloom was falling there would be a whirl of +white and pink petals that seemed a cloud of smaller butterflies. + +On June 1st I find in my note-book this entry: + + Warm and pleasant. The dictation about Grant continues; a great + privilege to hear this foremost man, of letters review his + associations with that foremost man of arms. He remained seated + today, dressed in white as usual, a large yellow pansy in his + buttonhole, his white hair ruffled by the breeze. He wears his worn + morocco slippers with black hose; sits in the rocker, smoking and + looking out over the hazy hills, delivering his sentences with a + measured accuracy that seldom calls for change. He is speaking just + now of a Grant dinner which he attended where Depew spoke. One is + impressed with the thought that we are looking at and listening to + the war-worn veteran of a thousand dinners--the honored guest of + many; an honored figure of all. Earlier, when he had been + chastising some old offender, he added, "However, he's dead, and I + forgive him." Then, after a moment's reflection, "No; strike that + last sentence out." When we laughed, he added, "We can't forgive + him yet." + +A few days later--it was June 4th, the day before the second anniversary +of the death of Mrs. Clemens--we found him at first in excellent humor +from the long dictation of the day before. Then his mind reverted to the +tragedy of the season, and he began trying to tell of it. It was hard +work. He walked back and forth in the soft sunlight, saying almost +nothing. He gave it up at last, remarking, "We will not work to-morrow." +So we went away. + +He did not dictate on the 5th or the 6th, but on the 7th he resumed the +story of Mrs. Clemens's last days at Florence. The weather had changed: +the sunlight and warmth had all gone; a chill, penetrating mist was on +the mountains; Monadnock was blotted out. We expected him to go to the +fire, but evidently he could not bear being shut in with that subject in +his mind. A black cape was brought out and thrown about his shoulders, +which seemed to fit exactly into the somberness of the picture. For two +hours or more we sat there in the gloom and chill, while he paced up and +down, detailing as graphically as might be that final chapter in the life +of the woman he had loved. + +It is hardly necessary to say that beyond the dictation Clemens did very +little literary work during these months. He had brought his "manuscript +trunk" as usual, thinking, perhaps, to finish the "microbe" story and +other of the uncompleted things; but the dictation gave him sufficient +mental exercise, and he did no more than look over his "stock in trade," +as he called it, and incorporate a few of the finished manuscripts into +"autobiography." Among these were the notes of his trip down the Rhone, +made in 1891, and the old Stormfield story, which he had been treasuring +and suppressing so long. He wrote Howells in June: + + The dictating goes lazily and pleasantly on. With intervals. I + find that I've been at it, off & on, nearly two hours for 155 days + since January 9. To be exact, I've dictated 75 hours in 80 days & + loafed 75 days. I've added 60,000 words in the month that I've been + here; which indicates that I've dictated during 20 days of that + time--40 hours, at an average of 1,500 words an hour. It's a + plenty, & I'm satisfied. + + There's a good deal of "fat." I've dictated (from January 9) + 210,000 words, & the "fat" adds about 50,000 more. + + The "fat" is old pigeonholed things of the years gone by which I or + editors didn't das't to print. For instance, I am dumping in the + little old book which I read to you in Hartford about 30 years ago & + which you said "publish & ask Dean Stanley to furnish an + introduction; he'll do it" (Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven). + It reads quite to suit me without altering a word now that it isn't + to see print until I am dead. + + To-morrow I mean to dictate a chapter which will get my heirs & + assigns burned alive if they venture to print it this side of A.D. + 2006--which I judge they won't. There'll be lots of such chapters + if I live 3 or 4 years longer. The edition of A.D. 2006 will make a + stir when it comes out. I shall be hovering around taking notice, + along with other dead pals. You are invited. + +The chapter which was to invite death at the stake for his successors was +naturally one of religious heresies a violent attack on the orthodox, +scriptural God, but really an expression of the highest reverence for the +God which, as he said, had created the earth and sky and the music of the +constellations. Mark Twain once expressed himself concerning reverence +and the lack of it: + +"I was never consciously and purposely irreverent in my life, yet one +person or another is always charging me with a lack of reverence. +Reverence for what--for whom? Who is to decide what ought to command my +reverence--my neighbor or I? I think I ought to do the electing myself. +The Mohammedan reveres Mohammed--it is his privilege; the Christian +doesn't--apparently that is his privilege; the account is square enough. +They haven't any right to complain of the other, yet they do complain of +each other, and that is where the unfairness comes in. Each says that +the other is irreverent, and both are mistaken, for manifestly you can't +have reverence for a thing that doesn't command it. If you could do that +you could digest what you haven't eaten, and do other miracles and get a +reputation." + +He was not reading many books at this time--he was inclined rather to be +lazy, as he said, and to loaf during the afternoons; but I remember that +he read aloud 'After the Wedding' and 'The Mother'--those two beautiful +word-pictures by Howells--which he declared sounded the depths of +humanity with a deep-sea lead. Also he read a book by William Allen +White, 'In Our Town', a collection of tales that he found most admirable. +I think he took the trouble to send White a personal, hand-written letter +concerning them, although, with the habit of dictation, he had begun, as +he said, to "loathe the use of the pen." + +There were usually some sort of mild social affairs going on in the +neighborhood, luncheons and afternoon gatherings like those of the +previous year, though he seems to have attended fewer of them, for he did +not often leave the house. Once, at least, he assisted in an afternoon +entertainment at the Dublin Club, where he introduced his invention of +the art of making an impromptu speech, and was assisted in its +demonstration by George de Forest Brush and Joseph Lindon Smith, to the +very great amusement of a crowd of summer visitors. The "art" consisted +mainly of having on hand a few reliable anecdotes and a set formula which +would lead directly to them from any given subject. + +Twice or more he collected the children of the neighborhood for charades +and rehearsed them, and took part in the performance, as in the Hartford +days. Sometimes he drove out or took an extended walk. But these things +were seldom. + +Now and then during the summer he made a trip to New York of a semi- +business nature, usually going by the way of Fairhaven, where he would +visit for a few days, journeying the rest of the way in Mr. Rogers's +yacht. Once they made a cruise of considerable length to Bar Harbor and +elsewhere. Here is an amusing letter which he wrote to Mrs. Rogers after +such a visit: + + DEAR MRS. ROGERS,--In packing my things in your house yesterday + morning I inadvertently put in some articles that was laying around, + I thinking about theology & not noticing, the way this family does + in similar circumstances like these. Two books, Mr. Rogers' brown + slippers, & a ham. I thought it was ourn, it looks like one we used + to have. I am very sorry it happened, but it sha'n't occur again & + don't you worry. He will temper the wind to the shorn lamb & I will + send some of the things back anyway if there is some that won't + keep. + + + + +CCXLVI + +DUBLIN, CONTINUED + +In time Mark Twain became very lonely in Dublin. After the brilliant +winter the contrast was too great. He was not yet ready for exile. In +one of his dictations he said: + + The skies are enchantingly blue. The world is a dazzle of sunshine. + Monadnock is closer to us than usual by several hundred yards. The + vast extent of spreading valley is intensely green--the lakes as + intensely blue. And there is a new horizon, a remoter one than we + have known before, for beyond the mighty half-circle of hazy + mountains that form the usual frame of the picture rise certain + shadowy great domes that are unfamiliar to our eyes . . . . + + But there is a defect--only one, but it is a defect which almost + entitles it to be spelled with a capital D. This is the defect of + loneliness. We have not a single neighbor who is a neighbor. + Nobody lives within two miles of us except Franklin MacVeagh, and he + is the farthest off of any, because he is in Europe . . . . + + I feel for Adam and Eve now, for I know how it was with them. I am + existing, broken-hearted, in a Garden of Eden.... The Garden of + Eden I now know was an unendurable solitude. I know that the advent + of the serpent was a welcome change--anything for society . . . . + + I never rose to the full appreciation of the utter solitude of this + place until a symbol of it--a compact and visible allegory of it-- + furnished me the lacking lift three days ago. I was standing alone + on this veranda, in the late afternoon, mourning over the stillness, + the far-spreading, beautiful desolation, and the absence of visible + life, when a couple of shapely and graceful deer came sauntering + across the grounds and stopped, and at their leisure impudently + looked me over, as if they had an idea of buying me as bric-a-brac. + Then they seemed to conclude that they could do better for less + money elsewhere, and they sauntered indolently away and disappeared + among the trees. It sized up this solitude. It is so complete, so + perfect, that even the wild animals are satisfied with it. Those + dainty creatures were not in the least degree afraid of me. + +This was no more than a mood--though real enough while it lasted--somber, +and in its way regal. It was the loneliness of a king--King Lear. Yet +he returned gladly enough to solitude after each absence. + +It was just before one of his departures that I made another set of +pictures of him, this time on the colonnaded veranda, where his figure +had become so familiar. He had determined to have his hair cut when he +reached New York, and I was anxious to get the pictures before this +happened. When the proofs came seven of them--he arranged them as a +series to illustrate what he called "The Progress of a Moral Purpose." +He ordered a number of sets of this series, and he wrote a legend on each +photograph, numbering them from 1 to 7, laying each set in a sheet of +letter-paper which formed a sort of wrapper, on which was written: + + This series of q photographs registers with scientific precision, + stage by stage, the progress of a moral purpose through the + mind of the human race's Oldest Friend. S. L. C. + +He added a personal inscription, and sent one to each of his more +intimate friends. One of the pictures amused him more than the others, +because during the exposure a little kitten, unnoticed, had walked into +it, and paused near his foot. He had never outgrown his love for cats, +and he had rented this kitten and two others for the summer from a +neighbor. He didn't wish to own them, he said, for then he would have to +leave them behind uncared for, so he preferred to rent them and pay +sufficiently to insure their subsequent care. These kittens he called +Sackcloth and Ashes--Ashes being the joint name of the two that looked +exactly alike, and so did not need distinctive titles. Their gambols +always amused him. He would stop any time in the midst of dictation to +enjoy them. Once, as he was about to enter the screen-door that led into +the hall, two of the kittens ran up in front of him and stood waiting. +With grave politeness he opened the door, made a low bow, and stepped +back and said: "Walk in, gentlemen. I always give precedence to +royalty." And the kittens marched in, tails in air. All summer long +they played up and down the wide veranda, or chased grasshoppers and +butterflies down the clover slope. It was a never-ending amusement to +him to see them jump into the air after some insect, miss it and tumble +back, and afterward jump up, with a surprised expression and a look of +disappointment and disgust. I remember once, when he was walking up and +down discussing some very serious subject--and one of the kittens was +lying on the veranda asleep--a butterfly came drifting along three feet +or so above the floor. The kitten must have got a glimpse of the insect +out of the corner of its eye, and perhaps did not altogether realize its +action. At all events, it suddenly shot straight up into the air, +exactly like a bounding rubber ball, missed the butterfly, fell back on +the porch floor with considerable force and with much surprise. Then it +sprang to its feet, and, after spitting furiously once or twice, bounded +away. Clemens had seen the performance, and it completely took his +subject out of his mind. He laughed extravagantly, and evidently cared +more for that moment's entertainment than for many philosophies. + +In that remote solitude there was one important advantage--there was no +procession of human beings with axes to grind, and few curious callers. +Occasionally an automobile would find its way out there and make a +circuit of the drive, but this happened too seldom to annoy him. Even +newspaper men rarely made the long trip from Boston or New York to secure +his opinions, and when they came it was by permission and appointment. +Newspaper telegrams arrived now and then, asking for a sentiment on some +public condition or event, and these he generally answered willingly +enough. When the British Premier, Campbell-Bannerman, celebrated his +seventieth birthday, the London Tribune and the New York Herald requested +a tribute. He furnished it, for Bannerman was a very old friend. He had +known him first at Marienbad in '91, and in Vienna in '98, in daily +intercourse, when they had lived at the same hotel. His tribute ran: + +To HIS EXCELLENCY THE BRITISH PREMIER,--Congratulations, not condolences. +Before seventy we are merely respected, at best, and we have to behave +all the time, or we lose that asset; but after seventy we are respected, +esteemed, admired, revered, and don't have to behave unless we want to. +When I first knew you, Honored Sir, one of us was hardly even respected. + MARK TWAIN. + +He had some misgivings concerning the telegram after it had gone, but he +did not recall it. + +Clemens became the victim of a very clever hoax that summer. One day a +friend gave him two examples of the most deliciously illiterate letters, +supposed to have been written by a woman who had contributed certain +articles of clothing to the San Francisco sufferers, and later wished to +recall them because of the protests of her household. He was so sure +that the letters were genuine that he included them in his dictations, +after reading them aloud with great effect. To tell the truth, they did +seem the least bit too well done, too literary in their illiteracy; but +his natural optimism refused to admit of any suspicion, and a little +later he incorporated one of the Jennie Allen letters in a speech which +he made at a Press Club dinner in New York on the subject of simplified +spelling--offering it as an example of language with phonetic brevity +exercising its supreme function, the direct conveyance of ideas. The +letters, in the end, proved to be the clever work of Miss Grace Donworth, +who has since published them serially and in book form. Clemens was not +at all offended or disturbed by the exposure. He even agreed to aid the +young author in securing a publisher, and wrote to Miss Stockbridge, +through whom he had originally received the documents: + + DEAR MISS STOCKBRIDGE (if she really exists), + + 257 Benefit Street (if there is any such place): + + Yes, I should like a copy of that other letter. This whole fake is + delightful; & I tremble with fear that you are a fake yourself & + that I am your guileless prey. (But never mind, it isn't any + matter.) + + Now as to publication---- + +He set forth his views and promised his assistance when enough of the +letters should be completed. + +Clemens allowed his name to be included with the list of spelling +reformers, but he never employed any of the reforms in his letters or +writing. His interest was mainly theoretical, and when he wrote or spoke +on the subject his remarks were not likely to be testimonials in its +favor. His own theory was that the alphabet needed reform, first of all, +so that each letter or character should have one sound, and one sound +only; and he offered as a solution of this an adaptation of shorthand. +He wrote and dictated in favor of this idea to the end of his life. Once +he said: + +"Our alphabet is pure insanity. It can hardly spell any large word in +the English language with any degree of certainty. Its sillinesses are +quite beyond enumeration. English orthography may need reforming and +simplifying, but the English alphabet needs it a good many times as +much." + +He would naturally favor simplicity in anything. I remember him reading, +as an example of beautiful English, The Death of King Arthur, by Sir +Thomas Malory, and his verdict: + +"That is one of the most beautiful things ever written in English, and +written when we had no vocabulary." + +"A vocabulary, then, is sometimes a handicap?" + +"It is indeed." + +Still I think it was never a handicap with him, but rather the plumage of +flight. Sometimes, when just the right word did not come, he would turn +his head a little at different angles, as if looking about him for the +precise term. He would find it directly, and it was invariably the word +needed. Most writers employ, now and again, phrases that do not sharply +present the idea--that blur the picture like a poor opera-glass. Mark +Twain's English always focused exactly. + + + + +CCXLVIII + +"WHAT IS MAN?" AND THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY + +Clemens decided to publish anonymously, or, rather, to print privately, +the Gospel, which he had written in Vienna some eight years before and +added to from time to time. He arranged with Frank Doubleday to take +charge of the matter, and the De Vinne Press was engaged to do the work. +The book was copyrighted in the name of J. W. Bothwell, the +superintendent of the De Vinne company, and two hundred and fifty +numbered copies were printed on hand-made paper, to be gradually +distributed to intimate friends.--[In an introductory word (dated +February, 1905) the author states that the studies for these papers had +been made twenty-five or twenty-seven years before. He probably referred +to the Monday Evening Club essay, "What Is Happiness?" (February, 1883). +See chap. cxli.]--A number of the books were sent to newspaper +reviewers, and so effectually had he concealed the personality of his +work that no critic seems to have suspected the book's authorship. It +was not over-favorably received. It was generally characterized as a +clever, and even brilliant, expose of philosophies which were no longer +startlingly new. The supremacy of self-interest and "man the +irresponsible machine" are the main features of 'What Is Man' and both of +these and all the rest are comprehended in his wider and more absolute +doctrine of that inevitable life-sequence which began with the first +created spark. There can be no training of the ideals, "upward and still +upward," no selfishness and unselfishness, no atom of voluntary effort +within the boundaries of that conclusion. Once admitting the postulate, +that existence is merely a sequence of cause and effect beginning with +the primal atom, and we have a theory that must stand or fall as a whole. +We cannot say that man is a creature of circumstance and then leave him +free to select his circumstance, even in the minutest fractional degree. +It was selected for him with his disposition; in that first instant of +created life. Clemens himself repeatedly emphasized this doctrine, and +once, when it was suggested to him that it seemed to "surround every +thing, like the sky," he answered: + +"Yes, like the sky; you can't break through anywhere." + +Colonel Harvey came to Dublin that summer and persuaded Clemens to let +him print some selections from the dictations in the new volume of the +North American Review, which he proposed to issue fortnightly. The +matter was discussed a good deal, and it was believed that one hundred +thousand words could be selected which would be usable forthwith, as well +as in that long-deferred period for which it was planned. Colonel Harvey +agreed to take a copy of the dictated matter and make the selections +himself, and this plan was carried out. It may be said that most of the +chapters were delightful enough; though, had it been possible to edit +them with the more positive documents as a guide, certain complications +might have been avoided. It does not matter now, and it was not a matter +of very wide import then. + +The payment of these chapters netted Clemens thirty thousand dollars--a +comfortable sum, which he promptly proposed to spend in building on the +property at Redding. He engaged John Mead Howells to prepare some +preliminary plans. + +Clara Clemens, at Norfolk, was written to of the matter. + +A little later I joined her in Redding, and she was the first of the +family to see that beautiful hilltop. She was well pleased with the +situation, and that day selected the spot where the house should stand. +Clemens wrote Howells that he proposed to call it "Autobiography House," +as it was to be built out of the Review money, and he said: + +"If you will build on my farm and live there it will set Mrs. Howells's +health up for sure. Come and I'll sell you the site for twenty-five +dollars. John will tell you it is a choice place." + +The unusual summer was near its close. In my notebook, under date of +September 16th, appears this entry: + + Windy in valleys but not cold. This veranda is protected. It is + peaceful here and perfect, but we are at the summer's end. + +This is my last entry, and the dictations must have ceased a few days +later. I do not remember the date of the return to New York, and +apparently I made no record of it; but I do not think it could have been +later than the 20th. It had been four months since the day of arrival, a +long, marvelous summer such as I would hardly know again. When I think +of that time I shall always hear the ceaseless slippered, shuffling walk, +and see the white figure with its rocking, rolling movement passing up +and down the long gallery, with that preternaturally beautiful landscape +behind, and I shall hear his deliberate speech--always deliberate, save +at rare intervals; always impressive, whatever the subject might be; +whether recalling some old absurdity of youth, or denouncing orthodox +creeds, or detailing the shortcomings of human-kind. + + + + +CCXLIX + +BILLIARDS + +The return to New York marked the beginning of a new era in my relations +with Mark Twain. I have not meant to convey up to this time that there +was between us anything resembling a personal friendship. Our relations +were friendly, certainly, but they were relations of convenience and +mainly of a business, or at least of a literary nature. He was twenty- +six years my senior, and the discrepancy of experience and attainments +was not measurable. With such conditions friendship must be a deliberate +growth; something there must be to bridge the dividing gulf. Truth +requires the confession that, in this case, the bridge took a very solid, +material form, it being, in fact, nothing less than a billiard-table.-- +[Clemens had been without a billiard-table since 1891, the old one having +been disposed of on the departure from Hartford.] + +It was a present from Mrs. Henry H. Rogers, and had been intended for +his Christmas; but when he heard of it he could not wait, and suggested +delicately that if he had it "right now" he could begin using it sooner. +So he went one day with Mr. Rogers to the Balke-Collender Company, and +they selected a handsome combination table suitable to all games--the +best that money could buy. He was greatly excited over the prospect, and +his former bedroom was carefully measured, to be certain that it was +large enough for billiard purposes. Then his bed was moved into the +study, and the bookcases and certain appropriate pictures were placed and +hung in the billiard-room to give it the proper feeling. + +The billiard-table arrived and was put in place, the brilliant green +cloth in contrast with the rich red wallpaper and the bookbindings and +pictures making the room wonderfully handsome and inviting. + +Meantime, Clemens, with one of his sudden impulses, had conceived the +notion of spending the winter in Egypt, on the Nile. He had gone so far, +within a few hours after the idea developed, as to plan the time of his +departure, and to partially engage a traveling secretary, so that he +might continue his dictations. He was quite full of the idea just at the +moment when the billiard table was being installed. He had sent for a +book on the subject--the letters of Lady Duff-Gordon, whose daughter, +Janet Ross, had become a dear friend in Florence during the Viviani days. +He spoke of this new purpose on the morning when we renewed the New York +dictations, a month or more following the return from Dublin. When the +dictation ended he said: + +"Have you any special place to lunch to-day?" + +I replied that I had not. + +"Lunch here," he said, "and we'll try the new billiard-table." + +I said what was eminently true--that I could not play--that I had never +played more "than a few games of pool, and those very long ago. + +"No matter," he answered; "the poorer you play, the better I shall like +it." + +So I remained for luncheon and we began, November 2d, the first game ever +played on the Christmas table. We played the English game, in which +caroms and pockets both count. I had a beginner's luck, on the whole, +and I remember it as a riotous, rollicking game, the beginning of a +closer understanding between us--of a distinct epoch in our association. +When it was ended he said: + +"I'm not going to Egypt. There was a man here yesterday afternoon who +said it was bad for bronchitis, and, besides, it's too far away from this +billiard-table." + +He suggested that I come back in the evening and play some more. I did +so, and the game lasted until after midnight. He gave me odds, of +course, and my "nigger luck," as he called it, continued. It kept him +sweating and swearing feverishly to win. Finally, once I made a great +fluke--a carom, followed by most of the balls falling into the pockets. + +"Well," he said, "when you pick up that cue this damn table drips at +every pore." + +After that the morning dictations became a secondary interest. Like a +boy, he was looking forward to the afternoon of play, and it never seemed +to come quick enough to suit him. I remained regularly for luncheon, and +he was inclined to cut the courses short, that he might the sooner get +up-stairs to the billiard-room. His earlier habit of not eating in the +middle of the day continued; but he would get up and dress, and walk +about the dining-room in his old fashion, talking that marvelous, +marvelous talk which I was always trying to remember, and with only +fractional success at best. To him it was only a method of killing time. +I remember once, when he had been discussing with great earnestness the +Japanese question, he suddenly noticed that the luncheon was about +ending, and he said: + +"Now we'll proceed to more serious matters--it's your--shot." And he was +quite serious, for the green cloth and the rolling balls afforded him a +much larger interest. + +To the donor of his new possession Clemens wrote: + + DEAR MRS. ROGERS,--The billiard-table is better than the doctors. + I have a billiardist on the premises, & walk not less than ten miles + every day with the cue in my hand. And the walking is not the whole + of the exercise, nor the most health giving part of it, I think. + Through the multitude of the positions and attitudes it brings into + play every muscle in the body & exercises them all. + + The games begin right after luncheons, daily, & continue until + midnight, with 2 hours' intermission for dinner & music. And so it + is 9 hours' exercise per day & 10 or 12 on Sunday. Yesterday & last + night it was 12--& I slept until 8 this morning without waking. The + billiard-table as a Sabbath-breaker can beat any coal-breaker in + Pennsylvania & give it 30 in the game. If Mr. Rogers will take to + daily billiards he can do without the doctors & the massageur, I + think. + + We are really going to build a house on my farm, an hour & a half + from New York. It is decided. + + With love & many thanks. + S. L. C. + +Naturally enough, with continued practice I improved my game, and he +reduced my odds accordingly. He was willing to be beaten, but not too +often. Like any other boy, he preferred to have the balance in his +favor. We set down a record of the games, and he went to bed happier if +the tally-sheet showed him winner. + +It was natural, too, that an intimacy of association and of personal +interest should grow under such conditions--to me a precious boon--and I +wish here to record my own boundless gratitude to Mrs. Rogers for her +gift, which, whatever it meant to him, meant so much more to me. The +disparity of ages no longer existed; other discrepancies no longer +mattered. The pleasant land of play is a democracy where such things do +not count. + +To recall all the humors and interesting happenings of those early +billiard-days would be to fill a large volume. I can preserve no more +than a few characteristic phases. + +He was not an even-tempered player. When the balls were perverse in +their movements and his aim unsteady, he was likely to become short with +his opponent--critical and even fault-finding. Then presently a reaction +would set in, and he would be seized with remorse. He would become +unnecessarily gentle and kindly--even attentive--placing the balls as I +knocked them into the pockets, hurrying from one end of the table to +render this service, endeavoring to show in every way except by actual +confession in words that he was sorry for what seemed to him, no doubt, +an unworthy display of temper, unjustified irritation. + +Naturally, this was a mood that I enjoyed less than that which had +induced it. I did not wish him to humble himself; I was willing that he +should be severe, even harsh, if he felt so inclined; his age, his +position, his genius entitled him to special privileges; yet I am glad, +as I remember it now, that the other side revealed itself, for it +completes the sum of his great humanity. + +Indeed, he was always not only human, but superhuman; not only a man, but +superman. Nor does this term apply only to his psychology. In no other +human being have I ever seen such physical endurance. I was +comparatively a young man, and by no means an invalid; but many a time, +far in the night, when I was ready to drop with exhaustion, he was still +as fresh and buoyant and eager for the game as at the moment of +beginning. He smoked and smoked continually, and followed the endless +track around the billiard-table with the light step of youth. At three +or four o'clock in the morning he would urge just one more game, and +would taunt me for my weariness. I can truthfully testify that never +until the last year of his life did he willingly lay down the billiard- +cue, or show the least suggestion of fatigue. + +He played always at high pressure. Now and then, in periods of +adversity, he would fly into a perfect passion with things in general. +But, in the end, it was a sham battle, and he saw the uselessness and +humor of it, even in the moment of his climax. Once, when he found it +impossible to make any of his favorite shots, he became more and more +restive, the lightning became vividly picturesque as the clouds +blackened. Finally, with a regular thunder-blast, he seized the cue with +both hands and literally mowed the balls across the table, landing one or +two of them on the floor. I do not recall his exact remarks during the +performance; I was chiefly concerned in getting out of the way, and those +sublime utterances were lost. I gathered up the balls and we went on +playing as if nothing had happened, only he was very gentle and sweet, +like the sun on the meadows after the storm has passed by. After a +little he said: + +"This is a most amusing game. When you play badly it amuses me, and when +I play badly and lose my temper it certainly must amuse you." + +His enjoyment of his opponent's perplexities was very keen. When he had +left the balls in some unfortunate position which made it almost +impossible for me to score he would laugh boisterously. I used to affect +to be injured and disturbed by this ridicule. Once, when he had made the +conditions unusually hard for me, and was enjoying the situation +accordingly, I was tempted to remark: + +"Whenever I see you laugh at a thing like that I always doubt your sense +of humor." Which seemed to add to his amusement. + +Sometimes, when the balls were badly placed for me, he would offer +ostensible advice, suggesting that I should shoot here and there--shots +that were possible, perhaps, but not promising. Often I would follow his +advice, and then when I failed to score his amusement broke out afresh. + +Other billiardists came from time to time: Colonel Harvey, Mr. Duneka, +and Major Leigh, of the Harper Company, and Peter Finley Dunne (Mr. +Dooley); but they were handicapped by their business affairs, and were +not dependable for daily and protracted sessions. Any number of his +friends were willing, even eager, to come for his entertainment; but the +percentage of them who could and would devote a number of hours each day +to being beaten at billiards and enjoy the operation dwindled down to a +single individual. Even I could not have done it--could not have +afforded it, however much I might have enjoyed the diversion--had it not +been contributory to my work. To me the association was invaluable; it +drew from him a thousand long-forgotten incidents; it invited a stream of +picturesque comments and philosophies; it furnished the most intimate +insight into his character. + +He was not always glad to see promiscuous callers, even some one that he +might have met pleasantly elsewhere. One afternoon a young man whom he +had casually invited to "drop in some day in town" happened to call in +the midst of a very close series of afternoon games. It would all have +been well enough if the visitor had been content to sit quietly on the +couch and "bet on the game," as Clemens suggested, after the greetings +were over; but he was a very young man, and he felt the necessity of +being entertaining. He insisted on walking about the room and getting in +the way, and on talking about the Mark Twain books he had read, and the +people he had met from time to time who had known Mark Twain on the +river, or on the Pacific coast, or elsewhere. I knew how fatal it was +for him to talk to Clemens during his play, especially concerning matters +most of which had been laid away. I trembled for our visitor. If I +could have got his ear privately I should have said: "For heaven's sake +sit down and keep still or go away! There's going to be a combination of +earthquake and cyclone and avalanche if you keep this thing up." + +I did what I could. I looked at my watch every other minute. At last, +in desperation, I suggested that I retire from the game and let the +visitor have my cue. I suppose I thought this would eliminate an element +of danger. He declined on the ground that he seldom played, and +continued his deadly visit. I have never been in an atmosphere so +fraught with danger. I did not know how the game stood, and I played +mechanically and forgot to count the score. Clemens's face was grim and +set and savage. He no longer ventured even a word. By and by I noticed +that he was getting white, and I said, privately, "Now, this young man's +hour has come." + +It was certainly by the mercy of God just then that the visitor said: + +"I'm sorry, but I've got to go. I'd like to stay longer, but I've got an +engagement for dinner." + +I don't remember how he got out, but I know that tons lifted as the door +closed behind him. Clemens made his shot, then very softly said: + +"If he had stayed another five minutes I should have offered him twenty- +five cents to go." + +But a moment later he glared at me. + +"Why in nation did you offer him your cue?" + +"Wasn't that the courteous thing to do?" I asked. + +"No!" he ripped out. "The courteous and proper thing would have been to +strike him dead. Did you want to saddle that disaster upon us for life?" + +He was blowing off steam, and I knew it and encouraged it. My impulse +was to lie down on the couch and shout with hysterical laughter, but I +suspected that would be indiscreet. He made some further comment on the +propriety of offering a visitor a cue, and suddenly began to sing a +travesty of an old hymn: + + "How tedious are they + Who their sovereign obey," + +and so loudly that I said: + +"Aren't you afraid he'll hear you and come back?" Whereupon he pretended +alarm and sang under his breath, and for the rest of the evening was in +boundless good-humor. + +I have recalled this incident merely as a sample of things that were +likely to happen at any time in his company, and to show the difficulty +one might find in fitting himself to his varying moods. He was not to be +learned in a day, or a week, or a month; some of those who knew him +longest did not learn him at all. + +We celebrated his seventy-first birthday by playing billiards all day. +He invented a new game for the occasion; inventing rules for it with +almost every shot. + +It happened that no member of the family was at home on this birthday. +Ill health had banished every one, even the secretary. Flowers, +telegrams, and congratulations came, and there was a string of callers; +but he saw no one beyond some intimate friends--the Gilders--late in the +afternoon. When they had gone we went down to dinner. We were entirely +alone, and I felt the great honor of being his only guest on such an +occasion. Once between the courses, when he rose, as usual, to walk +about, he wandered into the drawing-room, and seating himself at the +orchestrelle began to play the beautiful flower-song from "Faust." It +was a thing I had not seen him do before, and I never saw him do it +again. When he came back to the table he said: + +"Speaking of companions of the long ago, after fifty years they become +only shadows and might as well be in the grave. Only those whom one has +really loved mean anything at all. Of my playmates I recall John Briggs, +John Garth, and Laura Hawkins--just those three; the rest I buried long +ago, and memory cannot even find their graves." + +He was in his loveliest humor all that day and evening; and that night, +when he stopped playing, he said: + +"I have never had a pleasanter day at this game." + +I answered, "I hope ten years from to-night we shall still be playing +it." + +"Yes," he said, "still playing the best game on earth." + + + + + +CCL + +PHILOSOPHY AND PESSIMISM + +In a letter to MacAlister, written at this time, he said: + + The doctors banished Jean to the country 5 weeks ago; they banished + my secretary to the country for a fortnight last Saturday; they + banished Clara to the country for a fortnight last Monday . . . . + They banished me to Bermuda to sail next Wednesday, but I struck and + sha'n't go. My complaint is permanent bronchitis & is one of the + very best assets I've got, for it excuses me from every public + function this winter--& all other winters that may come. + +If he had bronchitis when this letter was written, it must have been of a +very mild form, for it did not interfere with billiard games, which were +more protracted and strenuous than at almost any other period. I +conclude, therefore, that it was a convenient bronchitis, useful on +occasion. + +For a full ten days we were alone in the big house with the servants. It +was a holiday most of the time. We hurried through the mail in the +morning and the telephone calls; then, while I answered such letters as +required attention, he dictated for an hour or so to Miss Hobby, after +which, billiards for the rest of the day and evening. When callers were +reported by the butler, I went down and got rid of them. Clara Clemens, +before her departure, had pinned up a sign, "NO BILLIARDS AFTER 10 P.M.," +which still hung on the wall, but it was outlawed. Clemens occasionally +planned excursions to Bermuda and other places; but, remembering the +billiard-table, which he could not handily take along, he abandoned these +projects. He was a boy whose parents had been called away, left to his +own devices, and bent on a good time. + +There were likely to be irritations in his morning's mail, and more often +he did not wish to see it until it had been pretty carefully sifted. So +many people wrote who wanted things, so many others who made the claim of +more or less distant acquaintanceship the excuse for long and trivial +letters. + +"I have stirred up three generations," he said; "first the grandparents, +then the children, and now the grandchildren; the great-grandchildren +will begin to arrive soon." + +His mail was always large; but often it did not look interesting. One +could tell from the envelope and the superscription something of the +contents. Going over one assortment he burst out: + +"Look at them! Look how trivial they are! Every envelope looks as if it +contained a trivial human soul." + +Many letters were filled with fulsome praise and compliment, usually of +one pattern. He was sated with such things, and seldom found it possible +to bear more than a line or two of them. Yet a fresh, well-expressed +note of appreciation always pleased him. + +"I can live for two months on a good compliment," he once said. +Certain persistent correspondents, too self-centered to realize their +lack of consideration, or the futility of their purpose, followed him +relentlessly. Of one such he remarked: + +"That woman intends to pursue me to the grave. I wish something could be +done to appease her." + +And again: + +"Everybody in the world who wants something--something of no interest to +me--writes to me to get it." + +These morning sessions were likely to be of great interest. Once a +letter spoke of the desirability of being an optimist. "That word +perfectly disgusts me," he said, and his features materialized the +disgust, "just as that other word, pessimist, does; and the idea that one +can, by any effort of will, be one or the other, any more than he can +change the color of his hair. The reason why a man is a pessimist or an +optimist is not because he wants to be, but because he was born so; and +this man [a minister of the Gospel who was going to explain life to him] +is going to tell me why he isn't a pessimist. Oh, he'll do it, but he +won't tell the truth; he won't make it short enough." + +Yet he was always patient with any one who came with spiritual messages, +theological arguments, and consolations. He might have said to them: +"Oh, dear friends, those things of which you speak are the toys that long +ago I played with and set aside." He could have said it and spoken the +truth; but I believe he did not even think it. He listened to any one +for whom he had respect, and was grateful for any effort in his behalf. +One morning he read aloud a lecture given in London by George Bernard +Shaw on religion, commenting as he read. He said: + +"This letter is a frank breath of expression [and his comments were +equally frank]. There is no such thing as morality; it is not immoral +for the tiger to eat the wolf, or the wolf the cat, or the cat the bird, +and so on down; that is their business. There is always enough for each +one to live on. It is not immoral for one nation to seize another nation +by force of arms, or for one man to seize another man's property or life +if he is strong enough and wants to take it. It is not immoral to create +the human species--with or without ceremony; nature intended exactly +these things." + +At one place in the lecture Shaw had said: "No one of good sense can +accept any creed to-day without reservation." + +"Certainly not," commented Clemens; "the reservation is that he is a d--d +fool to accept it at all." + +He was in one of his somber moods that morning. I had received a print +of a large picture of Thomas Nast--the last one taken. The face had a +pathetic expression which told the tragedy of his last years. Clemens +looked at the picture several moments without speaking. Then he broke +out: + +"Why can't a man die when he's had his tragedy? I ought to have died +long ago." And somewhat later: "Once Twichell heard me cussing the human +race, and he said, 'Why, Mark, you are the last person in the world to do +that--one selected and set apart as you are.' I said 'Joe, you don't +know what you are talking about. I am not cussing altogether about my +own little troubles. Any one can stand his own misfortunes; but when I +read in the papers all about the rascalities and outrages going on I +realize what a creature the human animal is. Don't you care more about +the wretchedness of others than anything that happens to you?' Joe said +he did, and shut up." + +It occurred to me to suggest that he should not read the daily papers. +"No difference," he said. "I read books printed two hundred years ago, +and they hurt just the same." + +"Those people are all dead and gone," I objected. + +"They hurt just the same," he maintained. + +I sometimes thought of his inner consciousness as a pool darkened by his +tragedies, its glassy surface, when calm, reflecting all the joy and +sunlight and merriment of the world, but easily--so easily--troubled and +stirred even to violence. Once following the dictation, when I came to +the billiard-room he was shooting the balls about the table, apparently +much depressed. He said: + +"I have been thinking it out--if I live two years more I will put an end +to it all. I will kill myself." + +"You have much to live for----" + +"But I am so tired of the eternal round," he interrupted; "so tired." +And I knew he meant that he was ill of the great loneliness that had come +to him that day in Florence, and would never pass away. + +I referred to the pressure of social demands in the city, and the relief +he would find in his country home. He shook his head. + +"The country home I need," he said, fiercely, "is a cemetery." + +Yet the mood changed quickly enough when the play began. He was gay and +hilarious presently, full of the humors and complexities of the game. +H. H. Rogers came in with a good deal of frequency, seldom making very +long calls, but never seeming to have that air of being hurried which one +might expect to find in a man whose day was only twenty-four hours long, +and whose interests were so vast and innumerable. He would come in where +we were playing, and sit down and watch the game, or perhaps would pick +up a book and read, exchanging a remark now and then. More often, +however, he sat in the bedroom, for his visits were likely to be in the +morning. They were seldom business calls, or if they were, the business +was quickly settled, and then followed gossip, humorous incident, or +perhaps Clemens would read aloud something he had written. But once, +after greetings, he began: + +"Well, Rogers, I don't know what you think of it, but I think I have had +about enough of this world, and I wish I were out of it." + +Mr. Rogers replied, "I don't say much about it, but that expresses my +view." + +This from the foremost man of letters and one of the foremost financiers +of the time was impressive. Each at the mountain-top of his career, they +agreed that the journey was not worth while--that what the world had +still to give was not attractive enough to tempt them to prevent a desire +to experiment with the next stage. One could remember a thousand poor +and obscure men who were perfectly willing to go on struggling and +starving, postponing the day of settlement as long as possible; but +perhaps, when one has had all the world has to give, when there are no +new worlds in sight to conquer, one has a different feeling. + +Well, the realization lay not so far ahead for either of them, though at +that moment they both seemed full of life and vigor--full of youth. One +could not imagine the day when for them it would all be over. + + + + +CCLI + +A LOBBYING EXPEDITION + +Clara Clemens came home now and then to see how matters were progressing, +and very properly, for Clemens was likely to become involved in social +intricacies which required a directing hand. The daughter inherited no +little of the father's characteristics of thought and phrase, and it was +always a delight to see them together when one could be just out of range +of the crossfire. I remember soon after her return, when she was making +some searching inquiries concerning the billiard-room sign, and other +suggested or instituted reforms, he said: + +"Oh well, never mind, it doesn't matter. I'm boss in this house." + +She replied, quickly: "Oh no, you're not. You're merely owner. I'm the +captain--the commander-in-chief." + +One night at dinner she mentioned the possibility of going abroad that +year. During several previous summers she had planned to visit Vienna to +see her old music-master, Leschetizky, once more before his death. She +said: + +"Leschetizky is getting so old. If I don't go soon I'm afraid I sha'n't +be in time for his funeral." + +"Yes," said her father, thoughtfully, "you keep rushing over to +Leschetizky's funeral, and you'll miss mine." + +He had made one or two social engagements without careful reflection, and +the situation would require some delicacy of adjustment. During a moment +between the courses, when he left the table and was taking his exercise +in the farther room, she made some remark which suggested a doubt of her +father's gift for social management. I said: + +"Oh, well, he is a king, you know, and a king can do no wrong." + +"Yes, I know," she answered. "The king can do no wrong; but he frightens +me almost to death, sometimes, he comes so near it." + +He came back and began to comment rather critically on some recent +performance of Roosevelt's, which had stirred up a good deal of newspaper +amusement--it was the Storer matter and those indiscreet letters which +Roosevelt had written relative to the ambassadorship which Storer so much +desired. Miss Clemens was inclined to defend the President, and spoke +with considerable enthusiasm concerning his elements of popularity, which +had won him such extraordinary admiration. + +"Certainly he is popular," Clemens admitted, "and with the best of +reasons. If the twelve apostles should call at the White House, he would +say, 'Come in, come in! I am delighted to see you. I've been watching +your progress, and I admired it very much.' Then if Satan should come, +he would slap him on the shoulder and say, 'Why, Satan, how do you do? I +am so glad to meet you. I've read all your works and enjoyed every one +of them.' Anybody could be popular with a gift like that." + +It was that evening or the next, perhaps, that he said to her: + +"Ben [one of his pet names for her], now that you are here to run the +ranch, Paine and I are going to Washington on a vacation. You don't seem +to admire our society much, anyhow." + +There were still other reasons for the Washington expedition. There was +an important bill up for the extension of the book royalty period, and +the forces of copyright were going down in a body to use every possible +means to get the measure through. + +Clemens, during Cleveland's first administration, some nineteen years +before, had accompanied such an expedition, and through S. S. ("Sunset") +Cox had obtained the "privileges of the floor" of the House, which had +enabled him to canvass the members individually. Cox assured the +doorkeeper that Clemens had received the thanks of Congress for national +literary service, and was therefore entitled to that privilege. This was +not strictly true; but regulations were not very severe in those days, +and the ruse had been regarded as a good joke, which had yielded +excellent results. Clemens had a similar scheme in mind now, and +believed that his friendship with Speaker Cannon--" Uncle Joe"--would +obtain for him a similar privilege. The Copyright Association working in +its regular way was very well, he said, but he felt he could do more as +an individual than by acting merely as a unit of that body. + +"I canvassed the entire House personally that other time," he said. "Cox +introduced me to the Democrats, and John D. Long, afterward Secretary of +the Navy, introduced me to the Republicans. I had a darling time +converting those members, and I'd like to try the experiment again." + +I should have mentioned earlier, perhaps, that at this time he had begun +to wear white clothing regularly, regardless of the weather and season. +On the return from Dublin he had said: + +"I can't bear to put on black clothes again. I wish I could wear white +all winter. I should prefer, of course, to wear colors, beautiful +rainbow hues, such as the women have monopolized. Their clothing makes a +great opera audience an enchanting spectacle, a delight to the eye and to +the spirit--a garden of Eden for charm and color. + +"The men, clothed in odious black, are scattered here and there over the +garden like so many charred stumps. If we are going to be gay in spirit, +why be clad in funeral garments? I should like to dress in a loose and +flowing costume made all of silks and velvets resplendent with stunning +dyes, and so would every man I have ever known; but none of us dares to +venture it. If I should appear on Fifth Avenue on a Sunday morning +clothed as I would like to be clothed the churches would all be vacant +and the congregation would come tagging after me. They would scoff, of +course, but they would envy me, too. When I put on black it reminds me +of my funerals. I could be satisfied with white all the year round." + +It was not long after this that he said: + +"I have made up my mind not to wear black any more, but white, and let +the critics say what they will." + +So his tailor was sent for, and six creamy flannel and serge suits were +ordered, made with the short coats, which he preferred, with a gray suit +or two for travel, and he did not wear black again, except for evening +dress and on special occasions. It was a gratifying change, and though +the newspapers made much of it, there was no one who was not gladdened by +the beauty of his garments and their general harmony with his person. He +had never worn anything so appropriate or so impressive. + +This departure of costume came along a week or two before the Washington +trip, and when his bags were being packed for the excursion he was +somewhat in doubt as to the propriety of bursting upon Washington in +December in that snowy plumage. I ventured: + +"This is a lobbying expedition of a peculiar kind, and does not seem to +invite any half-way measures. I should vote in favor of the white suit." + +I think Miss Clemens was for it, too. She must have been or the vote +wouldn't have carried, though it was clear he strongly favored the idea. +At all events, the white suits came along. + +We were off the following afternoon: Howells, Robert Underwood Johnson, +one of the Appletons, one of the Putnams, George Bowker, and others were +on the train. On the trip down in the dining-car there was a discussion +concerning the copyrighting of ideas, which finally resolved itself into +the possibility of originating a new one. Clemens said: + +"There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take +a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We +give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on +turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same +old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages." + +We put up at the Willard, and in the morning drove over to the +Congressional Library, where the copyright hearing was in progress. +There was a joint committee of the two Houses seated round a long table +at work, and a number of spectators more or less interested in the bill, +mainly, it would seem, men concerned with the protection of mechanical +music-rolls. The fact that this feature was mixed up with literature was +not viewed with favor by most of the writers. Clemens referred to the +musical contingent as "those hand-organ men who ought to have a bill of +their own." + +I should mention that early that morning Clemens had written this letter +to Speaker Cannon: + +December 7, 1906. + +DEAR UNCLE JOSEPH,--Please get me the thanks of the Congress--not next +week, but right away. It is very necessary. Do accomplish this for your +affectionate old friend right away; by persuasion, if you can; by +violence, if you must, for it is imperatively necessary that I get on the +floor for two or three hours and talk to the members, man by man, in +behalf of the support, encouragement, and protection of one of the +nation's most valuable assets and industries--its literature. I have +arguments with me, also a barrel with liquid in it. + +Give me a chance. Get me the thanks of Congress. Don't wait for others +--there isn't time. I have stayed away and let Congress alone for +seventy-one years and I am entitled to thanks. Congress knows it +perfectly well, and I have long felt hurt that this quite proper and +earned expression of gratitude has been merely felt by the House and +never publicly uttered. Send me an order on the Sergeant-at-Arms quick. +When shall I come? + With love and a benediction; + MARK TWAIN. + + +We went over to the Capitol now to deliver to "Uncle Joe" this +characteristic letter. We had picked up Clemens's nephew, Samuel E. +Moffett, at the Library, and he came along and led the way to the +Speaker's room. Arriving there, Clemens laid off his dark overcoat and +stood there, all in white, certainly a startling figure among those +clerks, newspaper men, and incidental politicians. He had been noticed +as he entered the Capitol, and a number of reporters had followed close +behind. Within less than a minute word was being passed through the +corridors that Mark Twain was at the Capitol in his white suit. The +privileged ones began to gather, and a crowd assembled in the hall +outside. + +Speaker Cannon was not present at the moment; but a little later he +"billowed" in--which seems to be the word to express it--he came with +such a rush and tide of life. After greetings, Clemens produced the +letter and read it to him solemnly, as if he were presenting a petition. +Uncle Joe listened quite seriously, his head bowed a little, as if it +were really a petition, as in fact it was. He smiled, but he said, quite +seriously: + +"That is a request that ought to be granted; but the time has gone by +when I am permitted any such liberties. Tom Reed, when he was Speaker, +inaugurated a strict precedent excluding all outsiders from the use of +the floor of the House." + +"I got in the other time," Clemens insisted. + +"Yes," said Uncle Joe; "but that ain't now. Sunset Cox could let you in, +but I can't. They'd hang me." He reflected a moment, and added: "I'll +tell you what I'll do: I've got a private room down-stairs that I never +use. It's all fitted up with table and desk, stationery, chinaware, and +cutlery; you could keep house there, if you wanted to. I'll let you have +it as long as you want to stay here, and I'll give you my private +servant, Neal, who's been here all his life and knows every official, +every Senator and Representative, and they all know him. He'll bring you +whatever you want, and you can send in messages by him. You can have the +members brought down singly or in bunches, and convert them as much as +you please. I'd give you a key to the room, only I haven't got one +myself. I never can get in when I want to, but Neal can get in, and +he'll unlock it for you. You can have the room, and you can have Neal. +Now, will that do you?" + +Clemens said it would. It was, in fact, an offer without precedent. +Probably never in the history of the country had a Speaker given up his +private room to lobbyists. We went in to see the House open, and then +went down with Neal and took possession of the room. The reporters had +promptly seized upon the letter, and they now got hold of its author, led +him to their own quarters, and, gathering around him, fired questions at +him, and kept their note-books busy. He made a great figure, all in +white there among them, and they didn't fail to realize the value of it +as "copy." He talked about copyright, and about his white clothes, and +about a silk hat which Howells wore. + +Back in the Speaker's room, at last, he began laying out the campaign, +which would begin next day. By and by he said: + +"Look here! I believe I've got to speak over there in that committee- +room to-day or to-morrow. I ought to know just when it is." + +I had not heard of this before, and offered to go over and see about it, +which I did at once. I hurried back faster than I had gone. + +"Mr. Clemens, you are to speak in half an hour, and the room is crowded +full; people waiting to hear you." + +"The devil!" he said. "Well, all right; I'll just lie down here a few +minutes and then we'll go over. Take paper and pencil and make a few +headings." + +There was a couch in the room. He lay down while I sat at the table with +a pencil, making headings now and then, as he suggested, and presently he +rose and, shoving the notes into his pocket, was ready. It was half past +three when we entered the committee-room, which was packed with people +and rather dimly lighted, for it was gloomy outside. Herbert Putnam, the +librarian, led us to seats among the literary group, and Clemens, +removing his overcoat, stood in that dim room clad as in white armor. +There was a perceptible stir. Howells, startled for a moment, whispered: + +"What in the world did he wear that white suit for?" though in his heart +he admired it as much as the others. + +I don't remember who was speaking when we came in, but he was saying +nothing important. Whoever it was, he was followed by Dr. Edward Everett +Hale, whose age always commanded respect, and whose words always invited +interest. Then it was Mark Twain's turn. He did not stand by his chair, +as the others had done, but walked over to the Speaker's table, and, +turning, faced his audience. I have never seen a more impressive sight +than that snow-white figure in that dim-lit, crowded room. He never +touched his notes; he didn't even remember them. He began in that even, +quiet, deliberate voice of his the most even, the most quiet, the most +deliberate voice in the world--and, without a break or a hesitation for a +word, he delivered a copyright argument, full of humor and serious +reasoning, such a speech as no one in that room, I suppose, had ever +heard. Certainly it was a fine and dramatic bit of impromptu pleading. +The weary committee, which had been tortured all day with dull, +statistical arguments made by the mechanical device fiends, and dreary +platitudes unloaded by men whose chief ambition was to shine as copyright +champions, suddenly realized that they were being rewarded for the long +waiting. They began to brighten and freshen, and uplift and smile, like +flowers that have been wilted by a drought when comes the refreshing +shower that means renewed life and vigor. Every listener was as if +standing on tiptoe. When the last sentence was spoken the applause came +like an explosion.--[Howells in his book My Mark Twain speaks of +Clemens's white clothing as "an inspiration which few men would have had +the courage to act upon." He adds: "The first time I saw him wear it +was at the authors' hearing before the Congressional Committee on +Copyright in Washington. Nothing could have been more dramatic than the +gesture with which he flung off his long, loose overcoat and stood forth +in white from his feet to the crown of his silvery head. It was a +magnificent coup, and he dearly loved a coup; but the magnificent speech +which he made, tearing to shreds the venerable farrago of nonsense about +nonproperty in ideas which had formed the basis of all copyright +legislation, made you forget even his spectacularity."] + +There came a universal rush of men and women to get near enough for a +word and to shake his hand. But he was anxious to get away. We drove to +the Willard and talked and smoked, and got ready for dinner. He was +elated, and said the occasion required full-dress. We started down at +last, fronted and frocked like penguins. + +I did not realize then the fullness of his love for theatrical effect. +I supposed he would want to go down with as little ostentation as +possible, so took him by the elevator which enters the dining-room +without passing through the long corridor known as "Peacock Alley," +because of its being a favorite place for handsomely dressed fashionables +of the national capital. When we reached the entrance of the dining-room +he said: + +"Isn't there another entrance to this place?" + +I said there was, but that it was very conspicuous. We should have to go +down the long corridor. + +"Oh, well," he said, "I don't mind that. Let's go back and try it +over." + +So we went back up the elevator, walked to the other end of the hotel, +and came down to the F Street entrance. There is a fine, stately flight +of steps--a really royal stair--leading from this entrance down into +"Peacock Alley." To slowly descend that flight is an impressive thing to +do. It is like descending the steps of a throne-room, or to some royal +landing-place where Cleopatra's barge might lie. I confess that I was +somewhat nervous at the awfulness of the occasion, but I reflected that I +was powerfully protected; so side by side, both in full-dress, white +ties, white-silk waistcoats, and all, we came down that regal flight. + +Of course he was seized upon at once by a lot of feminine admirers, and +the passage along the corridor was a perpetual gantlet. I realize now +that this gave the dramatic finish to his day, and furnished him with +proper appetite for his dinner. I did not again make the mistake of +taking him around to the more secluded elevator. I aided and abetted him +every evening in making that spectacular descent of the royal stairway, +and in running that fair and frivolous gantlet the length of "Peacock +Alley." The dinner was a continuous reception. No sooner was he seated +than this Congressman and that Senator came over to shake hands with Mark +Twain. Governor Francis of Missouri also came. Eventually Howells +drifted in, and Clemens reviewed the day, its humors and successes. Back +in the rooms at last he summed up the progress thus far--smoked, laughed +over "Uncle Joe's" surrender to the "copyright bandits," and turned in +for the night. + +We were at the Capitol headquarters in Speaker Cannon's private room +about eleven o'clock next morning. Clemens was not in the best humor +because I had allowed him to oversleep. He was inclined to be +discouraged at the prospect, and did not believe many of the members +would come down to see him. He expressed a wish for some person of +influence and wide acquaintance, and walked up and down, smoking +gloomily. I slipped out and found the Speaker's colored body-guard, +Neal, and suggested that Mr. Clemens was ready now to receive the +members. + +That was enough. They began to arrive immediately. John Sharp Williams +came first, then Boutell, from Illinois, Littlefield, of Maine, and after +them a perfect procession, including all the leading lights--Dalzell, +Champ Clark, McCall--one hundred and eighty or so in all during the next +three or four hours. + +Neal announced each name at the door, and in turn I announced it to +Clemens when the press was not too great. He had provided boxes of +cigars, and the room was presently blue with smoke, Clemens in his white +suit in the midst of it, surrounded by those darker figures--shaking +hands, dealing out copyright gospel and anecdotes--happy and wonderfully +excited. There were chairs, but usually there was only standing room. +He was on his feet for several hours and talked continually; but when at +last it was over, and Champ Clark, who I believe remained longest and was +most enthusiastic in the movement, had bade him good-by, he declared that +he was not a particle tired, and added: + +"I believe if our bill could be presented now it would pass." + +He was highly elated, and pronounced everything a perfect success. Neal, +who was largely responsible for the triumph, received a ten-dollar bill. + +We drove to the hotel and dined that night with the Dodges, who had been +neighbors at Riverdale. Later, the usual crowd of admirers gathered +around him, among them I remember the minister from Costa Rica, the +Italian minister, and others of the diplomatic service, most of whom he +had known during his European residence. Some one told of traveling in +India and China, and how a certain Hindu "god" who had exchanged +autographs with Mark Twain during his sojourn there was familiar with +only two other American names--George Washington and Chicago; while the +King of Siam had read but three English books--the Bible, Bryce's +American Commonwealth, and The Innocents Abroad. + +We were at Thomas Nelson Page's for dinner next evening--a wonderfully +beautiful home, full of art treasures. A number of guests had been +invited. Clemens naturally led the dinner-talk, which eventually drifted +to reading. He told of Mrs. Clemens's embarrassment when Stepniak had +visited them and talked books, and asked her what her husband thought of +Balzac, Thackeray, and the others. She had been obliged to say that he +had not read them. + +"'How interesting!' said Stepniak. But it wasn't interesting to Mrs. +Clemens. It was torture." + +He was light-spirited and gay; but recalling Mrs. Clemens saddened him, +perhaps, for he was silent as we drove to the hotel, and after he was in +bed he said, with a weary despair which even the words do not convey: + +"If I had been there a minute earlier, it is possible--it is possible +that she might have died in my arms. Sometimes I think that perhaps +there was an instant--a single instant--when she realized that she was +dying and that I was not there." + +In New York I had once brought him a print of the superb "Adams +Memorial," by Saint-Gaudens--the bronze woman who sits in the still court +in the Rock Creek Cemetery at Washington. + +On the morning following the Page dinner at breakfast, he said: + +"Engage a carriage and we will drive out and see the Saint-Gaudens +bronze." + +It was a bleak, dull December day, and as we walked down through the +avenues of the dead there was a presence of realized sorrow that seemed +exactly suited to such a visit. We entered the little inclosure of +cedars where sits the dark figure which is art's supreme expression of +the great human mystery of life and death. Instinctively we removed our +hats, and neither spoke until after we had come away. Then: + +"What does he call it?" he asked. + +I did not know, though I had heard applied to it that great line of +Shakespeare's--"the rest is silence." + +"But that figure is not silent," he said. + +And later, as we were driving home: + +"It is in deep meditation on sorrowful things." + +When we returned to New York he had the little print framed, and kept it +always on his mantelpiece. + + + + +CCLII + +THEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION + +From the Washington trip dates a period of still closer association with +Mark Twain. On the way to New York he suggested that I take up residence +in his house--a privilege which I had no wish to refuse. There was room +going to waste, he said, and it would be handier for the early and late +billiard sessions. So, after that, most of the days and nights I was +there. + +Looking back on that time now, I see pretty vividly three quite distinct +pictures. One of them, the rich, red interior of the billiard-room with +the brilliant, green square in the center, on which the gay balls are +rolling, and bending over it that luminous white figure in the instant of +play. Then there is the long, lighted drawing-room with the same figure +stretched on a couch in the corner, drowsily smoking, while the rich +organ tones fill the place summoning for him scenes and faces which +others do not see. This was the hour between dinner and billiards--the +hour which he found most restful of the day. Sometimes he rose, walking +the length of the parlors, his step timed to the music and his thought. +Of medium height, he gave the impression of being tall-his head thrown +up, and like a lion's, rather large for his body. But oftener he lay +among the cushions, the light flooding his white hair and dress and +heightening his brilliant coloring. + +The third picture is that of the dinner-table--always beautifully laid, +and always a shrine of wisdom when he was there. He did not always talk; +but it was his habit to do so, and memory holds the clearer vision of him +when, with eyes and face alive with interest, he presented some new angle +of thought in fresh picturesqueness of speech. These are the pictures +that have remained to me out of the days spent under his roof, and they +will not fade while memory lasts. + +Of Mark Twain's table philosophies it seems proper to make rather +extended record. They were usually unpremeditated, and they presented +the man as he was, and thought. I preserved as much of them as I could, +and have verified phrase and idea, when possible, from his own notes and +other unprinted writings. + +This dinner-table talk naturally varied in character from that of the +billiard-room. The latter was likely to be anecdotal and personal; the +former was more often philosophical and commentative, ranging through a +great variety of subjects scientific, political, sociological, and +religious. His talk was often of infinity--the forces of creation--and +it was likely to be satire of the orthodox conceptions, intermingled with +heresies of his own devising. + +Once, after a period of general silence, he said: + +"No one who thinks can imagine the universe made by chance. It is too +nicely assembled and regulated. There is, of course, a great Master +Mind, but it cares nothing for our happiness or our unhappiness." + +It was objected, by one of those present, that as the Infinite Mind +suggested perfect harmony, sorrow and suffering were defects which that +Mind must feel and eventually regulate. + +"Yes," he said, "not a sparrow falls but He is noticing, if that is what +you mean; but the human conception of it is that God is sitting up nights +worrying over the individuals of this infinitesimal race." + +Then he recalled a fancy which I have since found among his memoranda. +In this note he had written: + + The suns & planets that form the constellations of a billion billion + solar systems & go pouring, a tossing flood of shining globes, + through the viewless arteries of space are the blood-corpuscles in + the veins of God; & the nations are the microbes that swarm and + wiggle & brag in each, & think God can tell them apart at that + distance & has nothing better to do than try. This--the + entertainment of an eternity. Who so poor in his ambitions as to + consent to be God on those terms? Blasphemy? No, it is not + blasphemy. If God is as vast as that, He is above blasphemy; if He + is as little as that, He is beneath it. + +"The Bible," he said, "reveals the character of its God with minute +exactness. It is a portrait of a man, if one can imagine a man with evil +impulses far beyond the human limit. In the Old Testament He is pictured +as unjust, ungenerous, pitiless, and revengeful, punishing innocent +children for the misdeeds of their parents; punishing unoffending people +for the sins of their rulers, even descending to bloody vengeance upon +harmless calves and sheep as punishment for puny trespasses committed by +their proprietors. It is the most damnatory biography that ever found +its way into print. Its beginning is merely childish. Adam is forbidden +to eat the fruit of a certain tree, and gravely informed that if he +disobeys he shall die. How could that impress Adam? He could have no +idea of what death meant. He had never seen a dead thing. He had never +heard of one. If he had been told that if he ate the apples he would be +turned into a meridian of longitude that threat would have meant just as +much as the other one. The watery intellect that invented that notion +could be depended on to go on and decree that all of Adam's descendants +down to the latest day should be punished for that nursery trespass in +the beginning. + +"There is a curious poverty of invention in Bibles. Most of the great +races each have one, and they all show this striking defect. Each +pretends to originality, without possessing any. Each of them borrows +from the other, confiscates old stage properties, puts them forth as +fresh and new inspirations from on high. We borrowed the Golden Rule +from Confucius, after it had seen service for centuries, and copyrighted +it without a blush. We went back to Babylon for the Deluge, and are as +proud of it and as satisfied with it as if it had been worth the trouble; +whereas we know now that Noah's flood never happened, and couldn't have +happened--not in that way. The flood is a favorite with Bible-makers. +Another favorite with the founders of religions is the Immaculate +Conception. It had been worn threadbare; but we adopted it as a new +idea. It was old in Egypt several thousand years before Christ was born. +The Hindus prized it ages ago. The Egyptians adopted it even for some of +their kings. The Romans borrowed the idea from Greece. We got it +straight from heaven by way of Rome. We are still charmed with it." + +He would continue in this strain, rising occasionally and walking about +the room. Once, considering the character of God--the Bible God-he said: + +"We haven't been satisfied with God's character as it is given in the Old +Testament; we have amended it. We have called Him a God of mercy and +love and morals. He didn't have a single one of those qualities in the +beginning. He didn't hesitate to send the plagues on Egypt, the most +fiendish punishments that could be devised--not for the king, but for his +innocent subjects, the women and the little children, and then only to +exhibit His power just to show off--and He kept hardening Pharaoh's heart +so that He could send some further ingenuity of torture, new rivers of +blood, and swarms of vermin and new pestilences, merely to exhibit +samples of His workmanship. Now and then, during the forty years' +wandering, Moses persuaded Him to be a little more lenient with the +Israelites, which would show that Moses was the better character of the +two. That Old Testament God never had an inspiration of His own." + +He referred to the larger conception of God, that Infinite Mind which had +projected the universe. He said: + +"In some details that Old Bible God is probably a more correct picture +than our conception of that Incomparable One that created the universe +and flung upon its horizonless ocean of space those giant suns, whose +signal-lights are so remote that we only catch their flash when it has +been a myriad of years on its way. For that Supreme One is not a God of +pity or mercy--not as we recognize these qualities. Think of a God of +mercy who would create the typhus germ, or the house-fly, or the +centipede, or the rattlesnake, yet these are all His handiwork. They are +a part of the Infinite plan. The minister is careful to explain that all +these tribulations are sent for a good purpose; but he hires a doctor to +destroy the fever germ, and he kills the rattlesnake when he doesn't run +from it, and he sets paper with molasses on it for the house-fly. + +"Two things are quite certain: one is that God, the limitless God, +manufactured those things, for no man could have done it. The man has +never lived who could create even the humblest of God's creatures. The +other conclusion is that God has no special consideration for man's +welfare or comfort, or He wouldn't have created those things to disturb +and destroy him. The human conception of pity and morality must be +entirely unknown to that Infinite God, as much unknown as the conceptions +of a microbe to man, or at least as little regarded. + +"If God ever contemplates those qualities in man He probably admires +them, as we always admire the thing which we do not possess ourselves; +probably a little grain of pity in a man or a little atom of mercy would +look as big to Him as a constellation. He could create a constellation +with a thought; but He has been all the measureless ages, and He has +never acquired those qualities that we have named--pity and mercy and +morality. He goes on destroying a whole island of people with an +earthquake, or a whole cityful with a plague, when we punish a man in the +electric chair for merely killing the poorest of our race. The human +being needs to revise his ideas again about God. Most of the scientists +have done it already; but most of them don't dare to say so." + +He pointed out that the moral idea was undergoing constant change; that +what was considered justifiable in an earlier day was regarded as highly +immoral now. He pointed out that even the Decalogue made no reference to +lying, except in the matter of bearing false witness against a neighbor. +Also, that there was a commandment against covetousness, though +covetousness to-day was the basis of all commerce: The general conclusion +being that the morals of the Lord had been the morals of the beginning; +the morals of the first-created man, the morals of the troglodyte, the +morals of necessity; and that the morals of mankind had kept pace with +necessity, whereas those of the Lord had remained unchanged. It is +hardly necessary to say that no one ever undertook to contradict any +statements of this sort from him. In the first place, there was no +desire to do so; and in the second place, any one attempting it would +have cut a puny figure with his less substantial arguments and his less +vigorous phrase. It was the part of wisdom and immeasurably the part of +happiness to be silent and listen. + +On another evening he began: + +"The mental evolution of the species proceeds apparently by regular +progress side by side with the physical development until it comes to +man, then there is a long, unexplained gulf. Somewhere man acquired an +asset which sets him immeasurably apart from the other animals--his +imagination. Out of it he created for himself a conscience, and clothes, +and immodesty, and a hereafter, and a soul. I wonder where he got that +asset. It almost makes one agree with Alfred Russel Wallace that the +world and the universe were created just for his benefit, that he is the +chief love and delight of God. Wallace says that the whole universe was +made to take care of and to keep steady this little floating mote in the +center of it, which we call the world. It looks like a good deal of +trouble for such a small result; but it's dangerous to dispute with a +learned astronomer like Wallace. Still, I don't think we ought to decide +too soon about it--not until the returns are all in. There is the +geological evidence, for instance. Even after the universe was created, +it took a long time to prepare the world for man. Some of the +scientists, ciphering out the evidence furnished by geology, have arrived +at the conviction that the world is prodigiously old. Lord Kelvin +doesn't agree with them. He says that it isn't more than a hundred +million years old, and he thinks the human race has inhabited it about +thirty thousand years of that time. Even so, it was 99,970,000 years +getting ready, impatient as the Creator doubtless was to see man and +admire him. That was because God first had to make the oyster. You +can't make an oyster out of nothing, nor you can't do it in a day. +You've got to start with a vast variety of invertebrates, belemnites, +trilobites, jebusites, amalekites, and that sort of fry, and put them +into soak in a primary sea and observe and wait what will happen. Some +of them will turn out a disappointment; the belemnites and the amalekites +and such will be failures, and they will die out and become extinct in +the course of the nineteen million years covered by the experiment; but +all is not lost, for the amalekites will develop gradually into +encrinites and stalactites and blatherskites, and one thing and another, +as the mighty ages creep on and the periods pile their lofty crags in the +primordial seas, and at last the first grand stage in the preparation of +the world for man stands completed; the oyster is done. Now an oyster +has hardly any more reasoning power than a man has, so it is probable +this one jumped to the conclusion that the nineteen million years was a +preparation for him. That would be just like an oyster, and, anyway, +this one could not know at that early date that he was only an incident +in a scheme, and that there was some more to the scheme yet. + +"The oyster being finished, the next step in the preparation of the world +for man was fish. So the old Silurian seas were opened up to breed the +fish in. It took twenty million years to make the fish and to fossilize +him so we'd have the evidence later. + +"Then, the Paleozoic limit having been reached, it was necessary to start +a new age to make the reptiles. Man would have to have some reptiles-- +not to eat, but to develop himself from. Thirty million years were +required for the reptiles, and out of such material as was left were made +those stupendous saurians that used to prowl about the steamy world in +remote ages, with their snaky heads forty feet in the air and their sixty +feet of body and tail racing and thrashing after them. They are all gone +now, every one of them; just a few fossil remnants of them left on this +far-flung fringe of time. + +"It took all those years to get one of those creatures properly +constructed to proceed to the next step. Then came the pterodactyl, who +thought all that preparation all those millions of years had been +intended to produce him, for there wasn't anything too foolish for a, +pterodactyl to imagine. I suppose he did attract a good deal of +attention, for even the least observant could see that there was the +making of a bird in him, also the making of a mammal, in the course of +time. You can't say too much for the picturesqueness of the pterodactyl +--he was the triumph of his period. He wore wings and had teeth, and was +a starchy-looking creature. But the progression went right along. + +"During the next thirty million years the bird arrived, and the kangaroo, +and by and by the mastodon, and the giant sloth, and the Irish elk, and +the old Silurian ass, and some people thought that man was about due. +But that was a mistake, for the next thing they knew there came a great +ice-sheet, and those creatures all escaped across the Bering Strait and +wandered around in Asia and died, all except a few to carry on the +preparation with. There were six of those glacial periods, with two +million years or so between each. They chased those poor orphans up and +down the earth, from weather to weather, from tropic temperature to fifty +degrees below. They never knew what kind of weather was going to turn up +next, and if they settled any place the whole continent suddenly sank +from under them, and they had to make a scramble for dry land. Sometimes +a volcano would turn itself loose just as they got located. They led +that uncertain, strenuous existence for about twenty-five million years, +always wondering what was going to happen next, never suspecting that it +was just a preparation for man, who had to be done just so or there +wouldn't be any proper or harmonious place for him when he arrived, and +then at last the monkey came, and everybody could see at a glance that +man wasn't far off now, and that was true enough. The monkey went on +developing for close upon five million years, and then he turned into a +man--to all appearances. + +"It does look like a lot of fuss and trouble to go through to build +anything, especially a human being, and nowhere along the way is there +any evidence of where he picked up that final asset--his imagination. It +makes him different from the others--not any better, but certainly +different. Those earlier animals didn't have it, and the monkey hasn't +it or he wouldn't be so cheerful." + + [Paine records Twain's thoughts in that magnificent essay: "Was the + World Made for Man" published long after his death in the group of + essays under the title "Letters from the Earth. There are minor + additions in the published version: 'coal' to fry the fish in; and + the remnants of life being chased from pole to pole "without a dry + rag on them,"; and the coat of paint on the top of the bulb on top + of the Eiffel Tower representing man's portion of this world's + history." D.W.] + +He often held forth on the shortcomings of the human race--always a +favorite subject--the incompetencies and imperfections of this final +creation, in spite of, or because of, his great attribute--the +imagination. Once (this was in the billiard-room) I started him by +saying that whatever the conditions in other planets, there seemed no +reason why life should not develop in each, adapted as perfectly to +prevailing conditions as man is suited to conditions here. He said: + +"Is it your idea, then, that man is perfectly adapted to the conditions +of this planet?" + +I began to qualify, rather weakly; but what I said did not matter. He +was off on his favorite theme. + +"Man adapted to the earth?" he said. "Why, he can't sleep out-of-doors +without freezing to death or getting the rheumatism or the malaria; he +can't keep his nose under water over a minute without being drowned; he +can't climb a tree without falling out and breaking his neck. Why, he's +the poorest, clumsiest excuse of all the creatures that inhabit this +earth. He has got to be coddled and housed and swathed and bandaged and +up holstered to be able to live at all. He is a rickety sort of a thing, +anyway you take him, a regular British Museum of infirmities and +inferiorities. He is always under going repairs. A machine that is as +unreliable as he is would have no market. The higher animals get their +teeth without pain or inconvenience. The original cave man, the +troglodyte, may have got his that way. But now they come through months +and months of cruel torture, and at a time of life when he is least able +to bear it. As soon as he gets them they must all be pulled out again, +for they were of no value in the first place, not worth the loss of a +night's rest. The second set will answer for a while; but he will never +get a set that can be depended on until the dentist makes one. The +animals are not much troubled that way. In a wild state, a natural +state, they have few diseases; their main one is old age. But man starts +in as a child and lives on diseases to the end as a regular diet. He has +mumps, measles, whooping-cough, croup, tonsilitis, diphtheria, scarlet- +fever, as a matter of course. Afterward, as he goes along, his life +continues to be threatened at every turn by colds, coughs, asthma, +bronchitis, quinsy, consumption, yellow-fever, blindness, influenza, +carbuncles, pneumonia, softening of the brain, diseases of the heart and +bones, and a thousand other maladies of one sort and another. He's just +a basketful of festering, pestilent corruption, provided for the support +and entertainment of microbes. Look at the workmanship of him in some of +its particulars. What are his tonsils for? They perform no useful +function; they have no value. They are but a trap for tonsilitis and +quinsy. And what is the appendix for? It has no value. Its sole +interest is to lie and wait for stray grape-seeds and breed trouble. +What is his beard for? It is just a nuisance. All nations persecute it +with the razor. Nature, however, always keeps him supplied with it, +instead of putting it on his head, where it ought to be. You seldom see +a man bald-headed on his chin, but on his head. A man wants to keep his +hair. It is a graceful ornament, a comfort, the best of all protections +against weather, and he prizes it above emeralds and rubies, and Nature +half the time puts it on so it won't stay. + +"Man's sight and smell and hearing are all inferior. If he were suited +to the conditions he could smell an enemy; he could hear him; he could +see him, just as the animals can detect their enemies. The robin hears +the earthworm burrowing his course under the ground; the bloodhound +follows a scent that is two days old. Man isn't even handsome, as +compared with the birds; and as for style, look at the Bengal tiger--that +ideal of grace, physical perfection, and majesty. Think of the lion and +the tiger and the leopard, and then think of man--that poor thing!--the +animal of the wig, the ear-trumpet, the glass eye, the porcelain teeth, +the wooden leg, the trepanned skull, the silver wind-pipe--a creature +that is mended and patched all over from top to bottom. If he can't get +renewals of his bric-a-brac in the next world what will he look like? He +has just that one stupendous superiority--his imagination, his intellect. +It makes him supreme--the higher animals can't match him there. It's +very curious." + +A letter which he wrote to J. Howard Moore concerning his book The +Universal Kinship was of this period, and seems to belong here. + + DEAR MR. MOORE, The book has furnished me several days of deep + pleasure & satisfaction; it has compelled my gratitude at the same + time, since it saves me the labor of stating my own long-cherished + opinions & reflections & resentments by doing it lucidly & fervently + & irascibly for me. + + There is one thing that always puzzles me: as inheritors of the + mentality of our reptile ancestors we have improved the inheritance + by a thousand grades; but in the matter of the morals which they + left us we have gone backward as many grades. That evolution is + strange & to me unaccountable & unnatural. Necessarily we started + equipped with their perfect and blemishless morals; now we are + wholly destitute; we have no real morals, but only artificial ones-- + morals created and preserved by the forced suppression of natural & + healthy instincts. Yes, we are a sufficiently comical invention, we + humans. + + Sincerely yours, + S. L. CLEMENS. + + + + +CCLIII + +AN EVENING WITH HELEN KELLER + +I recall two pleasant social events of that winter: one a little party +given at the Clemenses' home on New-Year's Eve, with charades and story- +telling and music. It was the music feature of this party that was +distinctive; it was supplied by wire through an invention known as the +telharmonium which, it was believed, would revolutionize musical +entertainment in such places as hotels, and to some extent in private +houses. The music came over the regular telephone wire, and was +delivered through a series of horns or megaphones--similar to those used +for phonographs--the playing being done, meanwhile, by skilled performers +at the central station. Just why the telharmonium has not made good its +promises of popularity I do not know. Clemens was filled with enthusiasm +over the idea. He made a speech a little before midnight, in which he +told how he had generally been enthusiastic about inventions which had +turned out more or less well in about equal proportions. He did not +dwell on the failures, but he told how he had been the first to use a +typewriter for manuscript work; how he had been one of the earliest users +of the fountain-pen; how he had installed the first telephone ever used +in a private house, and how the audience now would have a demonstration +of the first telharmonium music so employed. It was just about the +stroke of midnight when he finished, and a moment later the horns began +to play chimes and "Auld Lang Syne" and "America." + +The other pleasant evening referred to was a little company given in +honor of Helen Keller. It was fascinating to watch her, and to realize +with what a store of knowledge she had lighted the black silence of her +physical life. To see Mark Twain and Helen Keller together was something +not easily to be forgotten. When Mrs. Macy (who, as Miss Sullivan, had +led her so marvelously out of the shadows) communicated his words to her +with what seemed a lightning touch of the fingers her face radiated every +shade of his meaning-humorous, serious, pathetic. Helen visited the +various objects in the room, and seemed to enjoy them more than the usual +observer of these things, and certainly in greater detail. Her sensitive +fingers spread over articles of bric-a-brac, and the exclamations she +uttered were always fitting, showing that she somehow visualized each +thing in all its particulars. There was a bronze cat of handsome +workmanship and happy expression, and when she had run those all--seeing +fingers of hers over it she said: "It is smiling." + + + + +CCLIV + +BILLIARD-ROOM NOTES + +The billiard games went along pretty steadily that winter. My play +improved, and Clemens found it necessary to eliminate my odds altogether, +and to change the game frequently in order to keep me in subjection. +Frequently there were long and apparently violent arguments over the +legitimacy of some particular shot or play--arguments to us quite as +enjoyable as the rest of the game. Sometimes he would count a shot which +was clearly out of the legal limits, and then it was always a delight to +him to have a mock-serious discussion over the matter of conscience, and +whether or not his conscience was in its usual state of repair. It would +always end by him saying: "I don't wish even to seem to do anything which +can invite suspicion. I refuse to count that shot," or something of like +nature. Sometimes when I had let a questionable play pass without +comment, he would watch anxiously until I had made a similar one and then +insist on my scoring it to square accounts. His conscience was always +repairing itself. + +He had experimented, a great many years before, with what was in the +nature of a trick on some unsuspecting player. It consisted in turning +out twelve pool-balls on the table with one cue ball, and asking his +guest how many caroms he thought he could make with all those twelve +balls to play on. He had learned that the average player would seldom +make more than thirty-one counts, and usually, before this number was +reached, he would miss through some careless play or get himself into a +position where he couldn't play at all. The thing looked absurdly easy. +It looked as if one could go on playing all day long, and the victim was +usually eager to bet that he could make fifty or perhaps a hundred; but +for more than an hour I tried it patiently, and seldom succeeded in +scoring more than fifteen or twenty without missing. Long after the play +itself ceased to be amusing to me, he insisted on my going on and trying +it some more, and he would throw himself back and roar with laughter, the +tears streaming down his cheeks, to see me work and fume and fail. + +It was very soon after that that Peter Dunne ("Mr. Dooley") came down for +luncheon, and after several games of the usual sort, Clemens quietly--as +if the idea had just occurred to him--rolled out the twelve balls and +asked Dunne how, many caroms he thought he could make without a miss. +Dunne said he thought he could make a thousand. Clemens quite +indifferently said that he didn't believe he could make fifty. Dunne +offered to bet five dollars that he could, and the wager was made. Dunne +scored about twenty-five the first time and missed; then he insisted on +betting five dollars again, and his defeats continued until Clemens had +twenty-five dollars of Dunne's money, and Dunne was sweating and +swearing, and Mark Twain rocking with delight. Dunne went away still +unsatisfied, promising that he would come back and try it again. Perhaps +he practised in his absence, for when he returned he had learned +something. He won his twenty-five dollars back, and I think something +more added. Mark Twain was still ahead, for Dunne furnished him with a +good five hundred dollars' worth of amusement. + +Clemens never cared to talk and never wished to be talked to when the +game was actually in progress. If there was anything to be said on +either side, he would stop and rest his cue on the floor, or sit down on +the couch, until the matter was concluded. Such interruptions happened +pretty frequently, and many of the bits of personal comment and incident +scattered along through this work are the result of those brief rests. +Some shot, or situation, or word would strike back through the past and +awaken a note long silent, and I generally kept a pad and pencil on the +window-sill with the score-sheet, and later, during his play, I would +scrawl some reminder that would be precious by and by. + +On one of these I find a memorandum of what he called his three recurrent +dreams. All of us have such things, but his seem worth remembering. + +"There is never a month passes," he said, "that I do not dream of being +in reduced circumstances, and obliged to go back to the river to earn a +living. It is never a pleasant dream, either. I love to think about +those days; but there's always something sickening about the thought that +I have been obliged to go back to them; and usually in my dream I am just +about to start into a black shadow without being able to tell whether it +is Selma bluff, or Hat Island, or only a black wall of night. + +"Another dream that I have of that kind is being compelled to go back to +the lecture platform. I hate that dream worse than the other. In it I +am always getting up before an audience with nothing to say, trying to be +funny; trying to make the audience laugh, realizing that I am only making +silly jokes. Then the audience realizes it, and pretty soon they +commence to get up and leave. That dream always ends by my standing +there in the semidarkness talking to an empty house. + +"My other dream is of being at a brilliant gathering in my night- +garments. People don't seem to notice me there at first, and then pretty +soon somebody points me out, and they all begin to look at me +suspiciously, and I can see that they are wondering who I am and why I am +there in that costume. Then it occurs to me that I can fix it by making +myself known. I take hold of some man and whisper to him, 'I am Mark +Twain'; but that does not improve it, for immediately I can hear him +whispering to the others, 'He says he is Mark Twain,' and they all look +at me a good deal more suspiciously than before, and I can see that they +don't believe it, and that it was a mistake to make that confession. +Sometimes, in that dream, I am dressed like a tramp instead of being in +my night-clothes; but it all ends about the same--they go away and leave +me standing there, ashamed. I generally enjoy my dreams, but not those +three, and they are the ones I have oftenest." + +Quite often some curious episode of the world's history would flash upon +him--something amusing, or coarse, or tragic, and he would bring the game +to a standstill and recount it with wonderful accuracy as to date and +circumstance. He had a natural passion for historic events and a gift +for mentally fixing them, but his memory in other ways was seldom +reliable. He was likely to forget the names even of those he knew best +and saw oftenest, and the small details of life seldom registered at all. + +He had his breakfast served in his room, and once, on a slip of paper, he +wrote, for his own reminder: + +The accuracy of your forgetfulness is absolute--it seems never to fail. +I prepare to pour my coffee so it can cool while I shave--and I always +forget to pour it. + +Yet, very curiously, he would sometimes single out a minute detail, +something every one else had overlooked, and days or even weeks afterward +would recall it vividly, and not always at an opportune moment. Perhaps +this also was a part of his old pilot-training. Once Clara Clemens +remarked: + +"It always amazes me the things that father does and does not remember. +Some little trifle that nobody else would notice, and you are hoping that +he didn't, will suddenly come back to him just when you least expect it +or care for it." + +My note-book contains the entry: + + February 11, 1907. He said to-day: + + "A blindfolded chess-player can remember every play and discuss the + game afterward, while we can't remember from one shot to the next." + + I mentioned his old pilot-memory as an example of what he could do + if he wished. + + "Yes," he answered, "those are special memories; a pilot will tell + you the number of feet in every crossing at any time, but he can't + remember what he had for breakfast." + + "How long did you keep your pilot-memory?" I asked. + + "Not long; it faded out right away, but the training served me, for + when I went to report on a paper a year or two later I never had to + make any notes." + + "I suppose you still remember some of the river?" + + "Not much. Hat Island, Helena and here and there a place; but that + is about all." + + + + +CCLV + +FURTHER PERSONALITIES + +Like every person living, Mark Twain had some peculiar and petty +economies. Such things in great men are noticeable. He lived +extravagantly. His household expenses at the time amounted to more than +fifty dollars a day. In the matter of food, the choicest, and most +expensive the market could furnish was always served in lavish abundance. +He had the best and highest-priced servants, ample as to number. His +clothes he bought generously; he gave without stint to his children; his +gratuities were always liberal. He never questioned pecuniary outgoes-- +seldom worried as to the state of his bank-account so long as there was +plenty. He smoked cheap cigars because he preferred their flavor. Yet +he had his economies. I have seen him, before leaving a room, go around +and carefully lower the gas-jets, to provide against that waste. I have +known him to examine into the cost of a cab, and object to an apparent +overcharge of a few cents. + +It seemed that his idea of economy might be expressed in these words: He +abhorred extortion and visible waste. + +Furthermore, he had exact ideas as to ownership. One evening, while we +were playing billiards, I noticed a five-cent piece on the floor. I +picked it up, saying: + +"Here is five cents; I don't know whose it is." + +He regarded the coin rather seriously, I thought, and said: + +"I don't know, either." + +I laid it on the top of the book-shelves which ran around the room. The +play went on, and I forgot the circumstance. When the game ended that +night I went into his room with him, as usual, for a good-night word. As +he took his change and keys from the pocket of his trousers, he looked +the assortment over and said: + +"That five-cent piece you found was mine." + +I brought it to him at once, and he took it solemnly, laid it with the +rest of his change, and neither of us referred to it again. It may have +been one of his jokes, but I think it more likely that he remembered +having had a five-cent piece, probably reserved for car fare, and that it +was missing. + +More than once, in Washington, he had said: + +"Draw plenty of money for incidental expenses. Don't bother to keep +account of them." + +So it was not miserliness; it was just a peculiarity, a curious attention +to a trifling detail. + +He had a fondness for riding on the then newly completed Subway, which he +called the Underground. Sometimes he would say: + +"I'll pay your fare on the Underground if you want to take a ride with +me." And he always insisted on paying the fare, and once when I rode far +up-town with him to a place where he was going to luncheon, and had taken +him to the door, he turned and said, gravely: + +"Here is five cents to pay your way home." And I took it in the same +spirit in which it had been offered. It was probably this trait which +caused some one occasionally to claim that Mark Twain was close in money +matters. Perhaps there may have been times in his life when he was +parsimonious; but, if so, I must believe that it was when he was sorely +pressed and exercising the natural instinct of self-preservation. He +wished to receive the full value (who does not?) of his labors and +properties. He took a childish delight in piling up money; but it became +greed only when he believed some one with whom he had dealings was trying +to get an unfair division of profits. Then it became something besides +greed. It became an indignation that amounted to malevolence. I was +concerned in a number of dealings with Mark Twain, and at a period in his +life when human traits are supposed to become exaggerated, which is to +say old age, and if he had any natural tendency to be unfair, or small, +or greedy in his money dealings I think I should have seen it. +Personally, I found him liberal to excess, and I never observed in him +anything less than generosity to those who were fair with him. + +Once that winter, when a letter came from Steve Gillis saying that he was +an invalid now, and would have plenty of tune to read Sam's books if he +owned them, Clemens ordered an expensive set from his publishers, and did +what meant to him even more than the cost in money--he autographed each +of those twenty-five volumes. Then he sent them, charges paid, to that +far Californian retreat. It was hardly the act of a stingy man. + +He had the human fondness for a compliment when it was genuine and from +an authoritative source, and I remember how pleased he was that winter +with Prof. William Lyon Phelps's widely published opinion, which ranked +Mark Twain as the greatest American novelist, and declared that his fame +would outlive any American of his time. Phelps had placed him above +Holmes, Howells, James, and even Hawthorne. He had declared him to be +more American than any of these--more American even than Whitman. +Professor Phelps's position in Yale College gave this opinion a certain +official weight; but I think the fact of Phelps himself being a writer of +great force, with an American freshness of style, gave it a still greater +value. + +Among the pleasant things that winter was a meeting with Eugene F. Ware, +of Kansas, with whose penname--"Ironquill"--Clemens had long been +familiar. + +Ware was a breezy Western genius of the finest type. If he had abandoned +law for poetry, there is no telling how far his fame might have reached. +There was in his work that same spirit of Americanism and humor and +humanity that is found in Mark Twain's writings, and he had the added +faculty of rhyme and rhythm, which would have set him in a place apart. +I had known Ware personally during a period of Western residence, and +later, when he was Commissioner of Pensions under Roosevelt. I usually +saw him when he came to New York, and it was a great pleasure now to +bring together the two men whose work I so admired. They met at a small +private luncheon at The Players, and Peter Dunne was there, and Robert +Collier, and it was such an afternoon as Howells has told of when he and +Aldrich and Bret Harte and those others talked until the day faded into +twilight, and twilight deepened into evening. Clemens had put in most of +the day before reading Ware's book of poems, 'The Rhymes of Ironquill', +and had declared his work to rank with the very greatest of American +poetry--I think he called it the most truly American in flavor. I +remember that at the luncheon he noted Ware's big, splendid physique and +his Western liberties of syntax with a curious intentness. I believe he +regarded him as being nearer his own type in mind and expression than any +one he had met before. + +Among Ware's poems he had been especially impressed with the "Fables," +and with some verses entitled "Whist," which, though rather more +optimistic, conformed to his own philosophy. They have a distinctly +"Western" feeling. + + WHIST + Hour after hour the cards were fairly shuffled, + And fairly dealt, and still I got no hand; + The morning came; but I, with mind unruffled, + Did simply say, "I do not understand." + Life is a game of whist. From unseen sources + The cards are shuffled, and the hands are dealt. + Blind are our efforts to control the forces + That, though unseen, are no less strongly felt. + I do not like the way the cards are shuffled, + But still I like the game and want to play; + And through the long, long night will I, unruffled, + Play what I get, until the break of day. + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext MARK TWAIN, BIOGRAPHY, 1900-1907, v5 +by Albert Bigelow Paine + diff --git a/old/mt5bg11.zip b/old/mt5bg11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b8cf401 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mt5bg11.zip |